I Choose Not to Obey in Advance

by | Jan 6, 2025 | Opinions & Commentary

Photo by Clay Banks, Unsplash

I Choose Not to Obey in Advance

by | Jan 6, 2025 | Opinions & Commentary

Photo by Clay Banks, Unsplash

I believe America will be less secure, less diverse, less compassionate, and less decent under his leadership. And so, I proudly declare my future resistance to his grotesque version of American “greatness,” no matter how difficult this becomes.

Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz

I do not obey in advance.

I did all I could over the past year to avoid our nation winding up here in this sad and sickening place, and since we almost inexplicably now have, I refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee or sell my soul, no matter how many already have or will end up doing so.

I refuse to normalize him.

I did not vote for him, he does not represent me, and I do not believe he is at all deserving of being here—and so I grieve his ascension and resist his ugliness.

I object to him in totality: to the ways he humiliates women and vilifies immigrants and threatens critics and devalues people of color and disregards the law.

I declare my fierce repulsion at his tremendous cruelty, his lack of compassion, his contempt for dissension, his absence of simple decency.

As we face an unprecedented assault on the free press and the access to news and liberty to speak freely, I want it documented that I did not look the other way when women accused him of assault, when he engineered an insurrection, when the reality of his Russian alliances came to light, when he weaponized our highest court—though large portions of the American media and its people chose to look the other way.

Let the record show that my faith would not allow me to fall in line behind this godless, joyless, loveless man while so many professed religious people did; that I saw nothing resembling Jesus in him, and that to declare him Christian would have been to toss aside everything I grew up believing faith manifested in a life.

I do not buy into the fear that he perpetuates of those with brown skin or foreign birthplaces or exchanged pronouns and I reject the racism and bigotry and homophobia that characterized his campaign, marks his supporters, and is evident in his assembling Administration.

As he spends countless early morning and middle-of-the-night hours on social media, broadcasting a steady stream of hateful, incoherent, and dangerously irresponsible messages—I am preparing to stand as a steady and sturdy barrier between him and the disparate people of this nation who he will prey upon, regardless of whether they voted for him or not.

As I watch him assemble a kleptocratic Cabinet of billionaires and bigots, of people woefully unqualified to steward our children, our safety, our healthcare, our financial stability—I will be fortifying myself to push back at every turn with the resources at my disposal, meager as they might be on their own.

I promise to join together with other good people to loudly resist and oppose every unscrupulous, dangerous, unjust and dishonest act he and his new Administration engage in, so that we might consolidate our power and magnify our voices.

History has been littered with horrible people who did terrible things with power, because too many good people remained silent. And since my fear is that we are surely entering one of those periods in our story, I wanted to make sure that I was recorded for posterity:

I do not believe he is normal.

I do not believe he is emotionally stable.

I do not believe he cares about the full, beautiful diversity of America.

I do not believe he respects women.

I do not believe he is pro-life other than his own.

I do not believe the sick and the poor and the hurting matter to him in the slightest.

I do not believe he is a man of faith or integrity or nobility.

I do not believe his concern is for anything outside his reflection in the mirror.

I believe he is a danger to our nation, a threat to our safety, careless with our people, and reckless with his power.

I believe America will be less secure, less diverse, less compassionate, and less decent under his leadership.

And so, I proudly declare my future resistance to his grotesque version of American “greatness,” no matter how difficult this becomes.

Right now I am terribly worried for my country, concerned for our planet, scared for the future of my children, and greatly saddened that 77 million Americans seem okay with all of this.

I am profoundly not okay with any of this, and so before he even steps foot back into the Oval Office to further poison this beautiful nation, I defiantly fly a preemptive middle finger that reaffirms my opposition to his criminality and sociopathy.

In advance of all that is coming, I will not obey.

I hope I’m not alone.

John Pavlovitz

John Pavlovitz

John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. When not actively working for a more compassionate planet, John enjoys spending time with his family, exercising, cooking, and having time in nature. He is the author of A Bigger Table, Hope and Other Superpowers, Low, and Stuff That Needs to Be Said.

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