Humility is hard. So is contrition. As is taking responsibility for one’s own unjustified arrogance and undeniable mistakes.

But all of that and more is what America’s political and media establishments owe to the country. They failed ”” we failed, I failed ”” to grasp the extent of the seismic shift that the rise of Donald Trump portended. Trump’s campaign and personal behavior are so offensive to so many things that the members of these establishments take for granted, believe in, and valorize, that the thought that Trump could prevail electorally was close to unthinkable for most.

We can’t blame James Comey. Hillary Clinton’s slide in the polls began before he temporarily reignited his investigation into her State Department emails, and she rebounded from some of that decline over the past week.

The polls were just plain wrong.

Read it all.

What can we do now? We can, first of all, maintain a prophetic clarity that is willing to call to repentance everything that is unjust and anti-Christ, whether that is the abortion culture, the divorce culture, or the racism/nativism culture. We can be the people who tell the truth, whether it helps or hurts our so-called “allies” or our so-called “enemies.”

Moreover, no matter what the racial and ethnic divisions in America, we can be churches that demonstrate and embody the reconciliation of the kingdom of God. After all, we are not just part of a coalition but part of a Body ”” a Body that is white and black and Latino and Asian, male and female, rich and poor. We are party of a Body joined to a Head who is an Aramaic-speaking Middle Easterner.

What affects black and Hispanic and Asian Christians ought to affect white Christians. And the sorts of poverty and social unraveling among the white working class ought to affect black and Hispanic and Asian Christians. We belong to each other because we belong to Christ.

The most important lesson we should learn is that the church must stand against the way politics has become a religion, and religion has become politics.

Read it all.

Prayers following the US election result: pic.twitter.com/G4mSeDAup5

— Justin Welby Ù† (@JustinWelby) November 9, 2016

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, but always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

“Yet even now,” says the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and repents of evil.
Who knows whether he will not turn and repent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a cereal offering and a drink offering
for the Lord, your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber.

Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep
and say, “Spare thy people, O Lord,
and make not thy heritage a reproach,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
”˜Where is their God?’”

Then the Lord became jealous for his land,
and had pity on his people.
The Lord answered and said to his people,
“Behold, I am sending to you
grain, wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied;
and I will no more make you
a reproach among the nations.”

–Joel 2:12-19

Donald Trump Is Elected President in Stunning Repudiation of the Establishment, via @nytimes–mind boggling https://t.co/ALOiAhTLEi

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 9, 2016

Donald J. Trump shocked the world Tuesday, winning election as the 45th president of the United States.

The Republican nominee’s victory came after projections showed him winning the states of Florida and North Carolina, as well as Wisconsin, which a Republican nominee had not won in decades.

Trump, once again, defied all the predictions.

His condemnations of the political establishment and his insistence that he alone can restore American greatness resonated with voters far from the media epicenters of the east and west coast. They came out in huge numbers to lift him to victory in the key battleground states.
……
Polling organizations will face hard questions as to how they misread Trump’s backing so badly, even though aides to the candidate had long insisted that there were “shy” supporters who were not admitting their allegiances.

Read it all and for some analysis of the voting patterns see fivethirtyeight

African-Americans have long been among the country’s most fervent Christians, from the choir to the pulpit to the affirming voices from every “amen corner.”

Their deep faith saw them through the trials of slavery and then a century of Jim Crow repression. Finally, it emboldened them to leave the sanctuary of their churches and join the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a quest, his “dream,” for their full freedom and equality.

Just when and how their ancestors broke with traditional African spirit practices and adopted Christianity has never been fully resolved. Now archaeologists in Maryland have announced the discovery of an intact set of objects that they interpret as religious symbols ”” traditional ones from Africa, mixed with what they believe to be a biblical image: a representation of Ezekiel’s Wheel.

No one had found this combination of religious artifacts before, said Mark P. Leone, a University of Maryland archaeologist who led the discovery team. “Christianity had not erased traditional African spirit practices,” he concluded. ”It had merged with them to form a potent blend that still thrives today.”

Read it all.