Trust is such an integral and yet mostly hidden (at least for me) part of our information processing system. To further complicate things, it doesn’t act by itself—people tend to trust things that fit their view of the world, and tend to be skeptical of things that seem unusual or surprising.

This all makes sense. In everyday life, the last thing I need is to carefully evaluate everything coming in. “Oh, the light is green? I need to double-check what the regulation is on that, just in case it changed since the last traffic light I was at.” That’s silly. We give trust (to borrow a phrase from my friend Jaymes) to the systems we’ve set up to drive around safely.

Further, most of the input we get in everyday life reinforces what we know about the world already. I tripped at the top of the basement stairs recently. True to my expectations, I fell, and it hurt. Everything fit in my worldview. Well, almost everything: I was surprised at my clumsiness. That, naturally, yielded a bunch of questions: am I really that clumsy? is this going to happen more often? am I getting old? I asked questions about the new information that did not fit my existing model. As you might expect, asking questions is a lot of work, so I blithely ignored them and went on with my day.

That’s a lot of talk about trust and worldview. Why does it matter, in a blog about politics?

I go through the same process when reading the news. I quickly accept, without question, news that fits in with my perception of the world. I roll my eyes when it comes from “the other side,” and assume that it must be a propaganda piece. Try it: Imagine a headline that said, “We did ______________ in order to save millions in your taxpayer dollars!” Fill in the “we” with my team and the blank with a cause I support. I accept it without question. But the moment it comes from the “other side”, alarm bells are ringing and I assume it’s just all made-up hogwash.

As I said earlier—our systems are working as intended, the way they work best in everyday life. 

What are we to do, then, in an era where, as my friend Carol said, is full of “24-hour news cycles, infotainment,  sensationalist-driven algorithms, and now AI to tell us all about the world?”

What advice should I give myself?

I’m not sure I know.

I want to remember that my emotions, as much as they are a useful quick-response system, are not reliable in finding what is true.

I want to remember to think the best of others in general, while not forgetting that sober assessments of people’s character often explain their actions well. Bad character produces bad fruit.

I want to remember that my values are not everyone’s values, and they (too often) aren’t even Jesus’ values.

I want to remember that it takes time and effort to think fully through an issue, and to be able to empathize with people who might disagree.

I want to remember to doubt even the things that match my expectations, and to allow my views to change as I learn new things.

I want to remember that my feelings are not truth (though they can be useful!), but that Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

More than anything, I want to see through Jesus’ eyes, with His heart, grace, justice, and compassion.

I recently attended a talk by Ian Barrs about Christians and their involvement in politics. One of his many points was that we cannot ignore Biblical commands in whatever our involvement in politics, from chatting with friends to running for office. He gave a handful of examples of such commands:

1. love other believers (John 13:34-35, John 17:20-21)
2. love your neighbor (Luke 10:25-37)
3. love your enemy (Matthew 5:43-48)
4. pray for those and bless those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44, Romans 12:14)
5. honor and pray for those in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-4)
6. obey the law, generally (1 Peter 2:13-17)
7. do not bear false witness (Deuteronomy 5:20)

While I think one could make an excellent case for many other Biblical commands—this is already a very challenging list.

He also quoted from Francis Schaeffer’s The Mark of the Christian (emphasis mine):

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he or she is not a Christian. Here Jesus is stating something else that is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.

I called my representatives recently—for the first time in over 20 years! Here’s (roughly) what I said:

My name is David Hjelle, and I live in Fargo, North Dakota.

I’m calling today because of I have deep concerns about recent executive orders regarding refugees and immigrants. I don’t have all the answers! However, I would like to hold our country to a high standard, the same standard that I try hold myself and my family to: treat others like you would like to be treated. 

First, for refugees who have already been carefully vetted and approved: we should continue to support them as they transition to a new life. We should continue to accept as many new refugees as possible.

Second, Americans pride ourselves on legal due process and being innocent until proven guilty. Mass deportations of any sort and detaining people on military bases such as Guantanamo do not correspond to those values in any way, and must end immediately. There must be better ways to enforce the law. 

I hope you can help find a way to make American a great neighbor to those who need her the most.

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References for the curious:

• https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/expanding-migrant-operations-center-at-naval-station-guantanamo-bay-to-full-capacity
• https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/realigning-the-united-states-refugee-admissions-program
• https://worldrelief.org/christianstatement/

I’ve been reading The Faithful Spy to my son recently, the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. Hindsight lends a lot of clarity on his moral decision-making. Bonhoeffer had a difficult lesson to learn: was his allegiance to Jesus one and the same as his allegiance to Germany? It seems so obvious in hindsight—but it is not obvious to a fish that they live in water, when it is all they have ever known.

The tension is all over the Bible. Moses, Daniel, Joseph, the prophets, the Apostles, Jesus Himself: would they submit to the government or the religious leaders, or would they pay whatever price had to be paid, and submit to God alone? (For that matter, often the question was whether they would choose to submit to their own desires or submit to the King?)

Tim Keller said (the poor paraphrase is mine) that Jesus’ proclamations did not fit neatly in a right or left political ideology. Jesus doesn’t fit in a box. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life: how can we imagine that any of our systems contain Him? Often, the way of the Kingdom is just plain different from any of the boxes people try put us in. It is the straight and narrow way that can be fallen off, either to the right or the left. (I don’t imagine Jesus had our political stripes in mind when He said that, but it is still surprisingly appropriate.) And, as Russell Moore has often observed: Jesus’ way is always the way of the cross.

Have there ever been a time in which a Jesus follower could, in good conscience, be content with the culture and government around them? I don’t know—though I sincerely doubt it. Whether or no, the necessary direction of a Christian’s life is clear: whatever the cost, holding nothing back, give everything for the sake of following Jesus.

I’ve been struggling with how to process the world around me lately. I’m a Christian, a Jesus-follower, first and foremost—and yet I find a frustrating amount of disagreement about the world around me, even with fellow believers.

I often find I don’t understand.

I’ve been tempted to write lately. For a moment, I thought it might be a way of helping others or even having some influence. In such an opinion-saturated world, that’s pretty ridiculous. I came to realize that perhaps writing would be just for me: how do I know what I am thinking unless I can put it into coherent prose? I don’t mind sharing—perhaps I will, perhaps I won’t—but I’m hoping that it will be a sort of processing that helps me live my life faithfully as a servant to my King Jesus and as someone who wants to do the next right thing.