Let’s be real-to be a pastor these days is much more than preaching and meals-sharing. The country is so politically politically that some people in the benches show signs that are very similar to the SSPT. You have families who lose sleep for the news, people stood up with each update of politics, and even the most faithful wondering if it is sure to hope.
If you do not believe that politics can spoil your head, ask anyone to lose your health care or live in fear of expulsion, or simply try to keep a roof over its head while the government continues to move the goal posts. These are not only the headlines for some – they are daily realities, and stress accumulates. I watched members of my own church go from anxiety to a square shock after certain political ads. It is as if the line between new politicians and personal trauma had disappeared.
It turns out that therapists also notice it. They find that the body does not care if the threat is a natural disaster or a senator on television – your heart beats, your sleep is turned, your feeling of security comes out of the window. So guess who is on the front line, picking up the parts? Clergy. This is true, the pastors are suddenly partly of the spiritual guide, partly an answering machine of emergency mental health.
There have been a lot of discussions recently on the “midwife” in the circles of the ministry, not because we deliver babies. It is this idea of trauma experts to help someone through political trauma, it’s a bit like helping someone through work: disorderly, painful and worth staying. We are not only supposed to slap a biblical verse on it and move on. Sometimes you have to sit with people in their pain – no authorized “quick solution”. As a pastor said, “we must be present during the work of justice”, echoing the expert in trauma Serene Jones, who first popularized the term “political trauma” in 2018.
Honestly, this is the most difficult part. When someone has a panic attack because of an ice raid in the street, or that an elder cannot stop reliving old trauma thanks to the new laws on the suppression of voters, my intestine says “comfort, comfort, comfort”. But theologians like Delores Williams push us to do better, to “sit with pain”. Thus, real work is slower. It’s about creating spaces – work, prayer, even just a coffee – where people can admit that things are not correct, and it’s normal to say aloud.
So what does it look like? In my church, we have built groups such as auto-Soutien, women Chat & Chew and the Seniors’ Stock Exchange. These are not the biblical studies of your grandmother (well, sometimes they are, but with a twist). These are secure areas where we are talking about everything, micro-aggressions to the numbness that sets in after another series of bad news. Seniors exchange the wisdom of surviving previous fights of civil rights, and young people admit that sometimes looking at the news is enough to ruin their week.
In our senior circles, I saw Elder members open up to how new forms of suppression of voters and disparities in health care lead to ancient memories – exercising new stress over injuries that have never completely healed. Co-facilitating the female group, I repeatedly hear how political stress is based on all the trauma already there. “Sleep disorders, anxiety attacks and the difficulty of concentrating” – they are not only wave complaints. They are real, and they increase whenever the news cycle increases.
And do not come to gas the gas lighting. When the outside world says: “Oh, you exaggerate” or “racism is over, move on”, it can give you the impression that you lose your grip on reality. These circles repel – they say “No, you’re not crazy, it’s real, and we have their backs.” We call it a “dangerous memory” – taking the words of James Cone – with regard to both pain and victories, so that we can really heal.
Sometimes these groups are also like early alert systems. Someone hears about an immigration raid or a new cycle of discrimination at work, and the word comes out quickly. In this way, people are not blind and can prepare, mentally and spiritually.
One thing I love? The power of narration. When someone shares a panic attack after being followed in a store or insomnia after being toasted on their citizenship, the group is not satisfied with sympathy. We connect the points – it’s not just personal, it’s a model. It crosses shame and helps people feel less alone.
Of course, all this support does not mean that we stop dreaming or fighting for better. But these days, the sermons must walk on the rope: yes, call justice, but also recognize how exhausting it is just to continue taking care. Some weeks, the best thing I can do is reminds people to breathe before extinguishing. Walter Brueggemann calls this “prophetic imagination” – people who see a better world, but not to the detriment of their own mental health.
Take the Reverend G. Joe Mitchell, principal pastor of the Baptist Missionary Church in New Hope. He says that the struggle for justice changes all his theology: “It makes us align even more on the biblical Jesus – a Messiah who pleaded for the least, merged with the marginalized – rather than the” American Jesus “and teaches an inclusive and just love for our neighbors.” For its congregation, it resembles the management of a pantry for all those who need it, to organize security meetings, to assume the discrimination of the school district and to lead the unit march after Ferguson. When the trauma strikes, they don’t only pray – they organize themselves, they show up and hang for the long term.
Our activism must also be informed of the trauma. Cornel West calls for “the holy audacity”. But these days, we learn to punctuate ourselves, so we do not break the very people we are trying to help. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of “expensive grace” – justice is not comfortable, but is not reckless either. We learn to make room for combat and healing.
And what do you know? I see signs of hope all the time. The clergy reports that in front of the front political SSPT, people actually get involved. People who once frozen in the past in the face of politics present themselves to functions, organize peaceful demonstrations or simply help a neighbor to cross a difficult patch. These small victories are not only victories – they are proof that healing and action can occur side by side.
Ella Baker said one day: “We are not fighting for the freedom of the black man alone, but for the freedom of the human mind.” Each act of resistance, large or small, is proof that the new life can come out of adversity and that these psychological wounds do not have to last forever.
At the heart of everything, this is an obstinate belief that love and justice are not only ideas – these are the things you do here at the moment. The Reverend Dr. Danie Buhuro says it better: “In today’s political climate – marked by increasing authoritarianism, systemic injustice and moral apathy – a theology of liberating presences insists that God presents himself in the fight, standing in radical solidarity with oppressed resistance and calling us to do the same thing.
This way of thinking changes everything. Instead of waiting for healing coming from above, we come to each other, again and again. The work is slow, sometimes messy, but it’s real. Faith becomes less what you say, and more about who you stand, for whom you have space and what you are ready to change.
Churches cannot just appease people and send them home. We have to dig into the roots – the systems and stories that continue to injure people and we are committed to building something better. This means to question our own complicity and work for transformation at all levels.
In moments like these, neutrality is simply not on the menu. The moment requires that we are holding with those who suffer, provide trauma -oriented care and help people find hope and resilience, even when the chances are stacked. For communities feeling the pain of the political SSPT, the response of the Church could make the difference between lasting damage and a new increase in strength.