Every season has its indicators. Spring has flowers, rainfall, and the activity of renewed life. Summer has swelter, long days, and afternoon storms. Fall has the colorization of foliage, the falling of leaves to the ground, and the increasing chill indicating things to come. Winter gives us short days, cold, and the bareness of plant life. If our meteorological seasons enter and leave without fail like a lion or sometimes like a lamb, our societal seasons likewise ebb and flow. If you haven’t looked outside yet, run to the window quickly. Right now, it’s election season, and its miserable conditions are set in for a while.
It’s a season that’s been seemingly lengthening over the years. Every two years without fail in a presidential cycle, the season opens. It begins with suggestions and denials. When asked if he or she is running, the candidate modestly demurs, “I’m not running. I’m just forming an exploratory committee.” Yeah, right. As if exploring won’t lead to anywhere. A book will be written, some ads will be produced, and if any of it sticks, a big announcement will be made in the next year. It’s a long season, and as the season progresses, the fruits it produces seem more laden with frustration and folly than health and happiness.
This campaign season is no exception. Sure, Vice President Kamala Harris may have only entered the race with a few months to go, but she’s been on the incumbent ticket since 2020. Former President Donald Trump announced his bid back in November 2022 and fought off a slew of other Republican candidates to emerge as the GOP’s nominee. And like previous presidential election cycles, the yield of this season’s fruits has contained enough spoil to outlast any presidential term.
If rotten fruit is the bumper crop of America’s political pastime, then what are Christians to do in such a season? Our fruits, after all, should be exhibitions of the Holy Spirt. As Paul wrote to the Galatians:
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:16–24, ESV).
The contrast between the “works of the flesh,” and the “fruit of the Spirit” couldn’t be starker. And sadly, campaign season almost always aligns more with things like impurity, sensuality, idolatry, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, envy, and things like these more than they do love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Campaigns may try to emulate that latter list, but they seldom achieve it. For example, the month-old Harris-Walz effort quickly latched on to the theme of “joy.” The campaign and its surrogates have invoked the term so often that it’s evident that they may actually believe that a President Kamala Harris might usher in a new era of joy to America. Former President Bill Clinton even went so far as to say in his DNC speech, “Take it from a man who once had the honor to be called in this convention, the man from hope. We need Kamala Harris, the president of joy, to lead us.”
Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s what the Apostle Paul was talking about in his letter to the Galatians. So, what was he talking about? And how do Christians walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh when we’re enmeshed in the culmination of a season that never seems to end? Each week, leading up to Election Day, The Washington Stand will examine each one of these fruits of the Spirit in light of living within a harvest of rotten produce. So, postpone your long winter’s nap a little longer, and settle in for a very fruitful look at how we can display the fruit of the Spirit in season. First up next week: Love.
Jared Bridges is editor-in-chief of The Washington Stand.
