What kind of mayor will Zohran Mamdani be?

As expected, Democrats Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia won their state’s gubernatorial races last night, while California voters approved a plan to redraw their state’s congressional map in Democrats’ favor.

However, the headline news is that Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City. Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, and he is the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century. On his campaign website, he advocates for freezing rent, fare-free buses, no-cost childcare, city-owned grocery stores, and tripling the City’s production of housing. He says he will pay for all of this by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers.

According to the Times of Israel, he has also refused to support Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, and vowed to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York City (where the United Nations is headquartered). In a 2023 video, he said, “When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF” (Israel Defense Forces).

However, Mr. Mamdani has vowed to fight antisemitism as mayor, and left-wing Jewish groups in the city supported him, though other Jewish voters fear that he “poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community.”

So, what kind of mayor has America’s largest city elected? Is he a radical socialist or a pragmatic reformer? A dangerous antisemite or an inclusive antiracist?

We will have to see what Mayor Mamdani does to determine who he actually is.

Why “the world is not enough”

In the 1976 movie Network, the character Arthur Jensen asserts:

There are no nations. There are no peoples. . . . There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast . . . interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. . . .

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the national order of things today. . . . We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

You can make a biblical argument for his argument:

• Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because it was “good for food” and a “delight to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6).
• Cain murdered Abel after God blessed Abel’s offering over Cain’s (Genesis 4:1–8).
• The Jews worshiped Canaanite gods who were purported to control the weather and thus the economy.
• When Jesus warned, “You cannot serve God and money,” the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money,” heard his words and “ridiculed him” (Luke 16:13–14).
• Among the wicked in Revelation are those who worshiped “idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood” (Revelation 9:20).

In a world of materialism, success is measured by material means. We are what we have, what we do, and what others think of what we have and do. But we can always have and do more and impress more people with what we have and do. We are never done.

As the fictional spy James Bond’s family motto proclaimed, “The world is not enough.”

This changes everything

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

According to economist Adam Smith, whose 1776 book The Wealth of Nations was extremely influential for colonial America, the “invisible hand of the market” guides society through self-interested choices to greater societal outcomes. As consumers want what we want, the free market produces goods and services that benefit not only us but everyone else. The astounding technological and material advances produced by capitalism over the centuries illustrate his thesis.

However, the “pursuit of happiness” our nation was created to secure, unalloyed by unconditional love for ourselves and others, can lead only to a zero-sum competition for materialistic success. And such success cannot meet the deepest hunger of the human heart.

This is why the third part of the Great Commandments we’re discussing this week is so important. As we have noted, Jesus famously taught us to love our Lord and to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39a). Many people overlook the rest of the second command, however: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 39b, my emphasis). The phrase could be translated, “Love your neighbor in the same way and to the same degree as yourself.”

So, we might ask: How do we love ourselves?

If we love ourselves as transactionally and materialistically as the world loves us, we will similarly love our neighbor for what they do and have that is selfishly relevant to us. But if we love ourselves as unconditionally and passionately as God loves us, we will similarly love our neighbor as a beloved fellow child of our Father.

This changes everything.

“Reclaim your primal identity”

Philip Yancey wrote:

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: you become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

Henri Nouwen similarly urged us:

Look in the mirror each day and claim your true identity. Act ahead of your feelings and trust that one day your feelings will match your convictions. Choose now and continue to choose this incredible truth.

Then he added:

“As a spiritual practice, claim and reclaim your primal identity as a beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.”

What is your “primal identity” today?

Quote for the day:

“Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.” —Henri Nouwen

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