From 93 to 1:27

Some of us see the 2024 election as another Flight 93 election. I see it as a Genesis 1:27.

“Flight 93” the metaphor, created by Michael Anton in 2016, grew from the saga of hijacked Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, when passengers stormed the cockpit. Aware of the risks inherent in a midair battle with terrorists, they all died when the plane crashed, but they did not give their lives in vain.

That do-or-die-anyway is what the 2016 and 2020 elections looked like to some Donald Trump supporters, including those who rushed not the cockpit but the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Of course, Trump lost in 2020 and the plane hasn’t crashed, but never mind. My question: Can Genesis 1:27—”God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”—help us think differently?

Some depict John Calvin as unkind, but almost five centuries ago he stressed imago dei, created in God’s image, when he emphasized welcoming refugees and others: “Though he were the furthest stranger in the world, let a Moor or a Barbarian come among us… he is our brother and neighbor.”

That biblical concept of has been important in American history.  Two centuries ago, crockery and snuffboxes imported from England and used by abolitionists showed a slave pleading, “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” A little over a century ago, God’s creation of both male and female in His own image was a powerful reason for passage of the 19^th amendment that gave all women a right to vote.

Today, we should not lie about refugees in Ohio, as both Trump and J.D. Vance have done. Today, we should not try to suppress voting by those who don’t support our favored candidates. We should not call some voters deplorable or refuse to accept election results if we lose. Republican Richard Nixon in 1960 and Democrat Al Gore in 2000 had reason to complain about possibly stolen elections, but Nixon accepted the results immediately, and Gore accepted the results after five weeks,

Neither suggested to followers that they storm the Capitol.

Genesis 1:27, not Flight 93. ###