"You ain't got to believe me. God saw it."

Governor Walz said something during the Vice-Presidential debate that should cause deep reflection in people calling ourselves Christian

Photo by Jenny Marvin on Unsplash

My Uncle John was larger than life to me. The men on both sides of my family are all very tall, but he stood with giants because he could tell stories. His tales were funny, engaging, sometimes so fantastic that somebody may try to question a piece of the yarn he was spinning. Without missing a beat, he would respond:

“You ain’t got to believe me. God saw it.”

A defense for those times, but a truth for all times.

Religion has been exploited as a weapon to facilitate power grabs since history was born. People can twist and turn themselves into pretzels justifying anything, and will call God’s name in the doing of abject evil. But I wonder if people calling themselves Christians, yet acting like anything but, think maybe God can’t see them.

Because of this, religion was tricky for me growing up. I was raised Catholic, but the teachings of my church did not resonate with my leanings toward justice, fairness, and liberation. Instead, like the Dendi and Fon and Isha and Nupe and Yoruba and Bante Sylviane Diouf talks about in her book Dreams of Africa in Alabama—men and women from various ethnic groups and religions spanning the west coast of Africa—I felt like “somebody built the sky.” No matter what we called Him/Her/They/Them, there was something out there, yet also, something in me. In fact, my mama’s morning affirmations went as follows: “The same God that created the sun and the sky and the sea created me.” Whoever God was, to be of His/Her/Their creation felt empowering, inspiring, and like I had a duty to do something with my time here on earth. It took a long time to find a theology that spoke to this sense of duty and my desire for community, but I finally found a home in the AME church, where we are not only encouraged to, “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with the Lord,” but to fight for liberation, question bad theology, and use our gifts for the betterment of mankind.

Today, folks are abuzz about who won last night’s Vice-Presidential debate. People are asking whether Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—visibly nervous yet prepared—effectively pressed the case for a Harris/Walz administration against a slickly dressed, slick talking Senator JD Vance, who was obviously prepared to serve the American people lie after lie about the disaster that was the Trump presidency and the intentions they have if provided a second chance. People are talking about cut mics, facial expressions, eye contact, fact-checking (which, as an aside, when did fact-checking become a political issue because what is the alternative?), all wrapped up in the context of two Midwestern men going toe-to-toe about the future of our country.

Yet in the midst of this debate, Governor Walz spoke a whole word to anybody calling themselves a Christian. At minute 27:08, Governor Walz said:

“Look, I don’t talk about my faith a lot. But Matthew 25:40 talks about, ‘To the least amongst us, you do unto me.’”

This idea speaks to a number of different faiths, but Christianity is purportedly at the root of some of the most heartless and cruel policy proposals in the Republican platform. As such, this part of the debate stuck out to me as something spoken directly to the heart of what Christians should believe and act upon. To put this into context, he was referring to a passage from Matthew 25:31-45, which reads:

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. And the nations wll be gathered before Him, and He will separate them from one another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My bretheren, you did it to me.

Like I said: Walz spoke a word to Christians. What he was talking about was our duty to our fellow mankind, helping when someone is in need and doing no harm. Some do this through advocacy; others do it by buying an unhoused person outside the grocery store something to eat. We are all sacred in our own way, and in our way, we have a responsibility to recognize the sacredness in others. That’s not to say we have to agree or be best friends. But it is to say that we should not actively try to visit harm upon one another.

But harm is a necessary device to those who believe that the only true religion is power. Too many people calling themselves Christians worship at the altar of idols, liars, bullies, bigots, racists, sexual predators, creeps, wanna-be dictators, and countless fashions of n’er-do-wells who are comfortably in bed with the devil. People who believe service is for “losers” and “suckers,” that the hungry should get no school lunch, and that the naked should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” But Christians should have also taken note of the next part of the chapter. The indictment. The part about the left hand.

Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

“Then they will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them saying, ‘Assuredly as I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. But some folks calling themselves Christians write policy and engage in intentional behavior that demonizes and exploits our most vulnerable. It makes me wonder if such folks who call themselves Christians think God cannot see. Makes me wonder if they serve a different God than me.

Last night was a debate between an honest, principled man and a lawyer trained to throw a rock then hide his hand. I may not agree with all of Harris/Walz’s platform, or have questions about the same. But a slick suit and slick ways provide a poor mask for what lies beneath the surface. As governor, Tim Walz made sure children had school lunch and women had access to healthcare. Vance continues to demonize Black and Brown people and refuses to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election. I’m not going to call a winner or a loser because I know what I saw. And trust and believe, my fellow Christians, God sees it all, too.