Carrie Underwood to perform at Trump inauguration

Carrie Underwood will sing “America the Beautiful” during Donald Trump’s inauguration next Monday. She will be accompanied by the Armed Forces Chorus and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club.

She explained her decision: “I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the Inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event. I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.”

Unfortunately, not everyone responded to her announcement in “the spirit of unity.”

One person wrote on X that they are “blocking her on all apps and boycotting all her music.” Another said, “So gross that you’re supporting Trump! History won’t forget.” This despite the fact that the singer did not endorse any candidate ahead of the 2024 election and is performing at an event that is historically attended by leaders and members of both political parties.

Burning down the Capitol

On this day in 1784, the Continental Congress of the United States ratified the Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence. But this did not mean that there would never again be conflict between the two nations: just twenty-eight years later, the War of 1812 would break out. During the conflict, British forces burned the US Capitol, the president’s house, and other government buildings. It would take a decade for the Capitol to be fully restored.

And yet, the US and the UK are today continuing the “special relationship” Winston Churchill described in a 1946 speech. We fought together in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Gulf War, and the War on Terror.

If the Americans and the British could find a way to work together, perhaps Americans and Americans can do the same.

The key is not to pretend that our partisan differences do not exist. It is not in using the levers of power available to our democracy to force them into silence or submission.

The key is in reframing our differences in a way that transcends them.

“In essentials, unity”

I believe life begins at conception, making elective abortion morally wrong. I believe life is sacred until natural death, making euthanasia wrong. I believe God intends sexual relations only for a man and a woman within the covenant of marriage, making pornography and sex outside of marriage wrong. I believe God intends marriage only for one man and one woman, making same-sex marriage and polygamy wrong.

Millions of Americans obviously disagree with me. However, their disagreement will not change my mind, since I am convinced that my positions are required by God’s holy word. Nor, unless my opponents accept my view of Scripture, do I expect them to change their minds on positions I consider unbiblical.

However, differences of perspective and position are not limited to these “culture war” topics. I believe that baptism should be the immersion of a person who has come to personal faith in Christ, which sets me apart from those who baptize infants and others by sprinkling. I believe that the Bible supports women as pastors, which sets me apart from those who believe that it does not. Neither of these debates rise to the level of heated animosity today, at least in my experience, but both have been enormously divisive at points in history.

Why are they less so now? In large part, because Christians who differ on such issues now recognize that we face larger challenges than these. It is because our culture is embroiled in issues involving life and marriage, two cornerstones of any flourishing society, that we “agree to disagree” on issues of lesser import.

A phrase often attributed to St. Augustine advises, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” Issues that used to be “essentials” become “non-essentials” when even more “essential” issues arise.

“We don’t have enemies, we have opponents”

My suggestion is that Americans take a similar view of each other regarding the cultural issues that divide us today. Not because abortion, euthanasia, and sexual morality are anything less than crucial. But because treating them as “hills to die on” means that we are likely to die on them.

In his now-famous Lyceum Address, Abraham Lincoln said of our nation’s future, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Less than three decades later, we nearly did.

Treating Americans with whom we disagree as enemies makes them into enemies. And enemies go to war with each other in a zero-sum battle in which one side must lose for the other to win. It’s not impossible to imagine a future in which America is only a shell of itself as our culture wars destroy us from within, weakening us to a place where we are no longer able to defend ourselves or our values effectively in the world.

In addition, treating those with whom we disagree as enemies makes it much less likely that we will ever persuade them to change their positions, much less become our friends one day. Ronald Reagan understood this fact, which is why he said regarding pending legislation, “We don’t have enemies, we have opponents.”

Opponents can disagree on some issues but agree on others. They can change their positions and their sides. And like football players at the end of the game, they can decide when the conflict is over to shake hands and do life together.

Enemies typically do none of these things.

Warriors or missionaries?

Here’s the bottom line: we can be culture warriors or cultural missionaries, but we cannot be both.

• Warriors see others as enemies to be defeated; missionaries see others as people who need the same grace they have experienced.
• Warriors see themselves as right and their enemies as wrong; missionaries see themselves as sinners in need of grace just as much as those they seek to reach.
• Warriors define victory by the defeat of their enemies; missionaries define victory by the salvation of those they serve.

Will you be a cultural missionary today?