The 2016 Presidential Election was underway, and results coming in on the TV. I was with my family while the results started to come in. I just assumed that Trump wasn’t going to win and Hillary would. I had been in the evangelical world for a while and voted that day. It was the first year since voting that my dilemma between the American Church and its not-so-unspoken voting requirements had positioned me to seriously consider voting against party lines.
I had decided long before that America as a Christian nation was a myth (like you Greg Boyd) and I couldn’t believe that Christians were so casually ok with Trump. Libertarian had been my party preference for a while, something I still lean toward if I’m forced into a political label. Republicanism had lost me then with its inconsistent and, honestly, selfish fear-based mongering (something that doesn’t sound a lot like Jesus to me). I remember being torn on single issues the Church had made an issue of my gospel salvation, as voting for anything other than Republican was letting down God. I ended up swallowing that thought and voted Trump.
As time, it was Trump might be able to win, then that he actually could, and then he did. I was dismayed at America, but especially the Church. How could enough American evangelicals be fooled by this man that they would abandon so much of their faith for peace of mind when filling out a ballot? As a leader, he wasn’t qualified period. Character, reputation, and speech only attest to this fact further. If this man, Trump, had been accused and investigated for just one of the scandals eight years ago as a pastor, he would have been sacrificed on our altar of “Truth”.
Trump Tower = Tower of Babel
I didn’t vote for Trump in the next election – I purposely voted against him. By then, more of his character, his past choices, and most importantly everything he had said about everything was out. There was more information to see the man with. He constantly lied and manipulated, he twisted others’ words, he dodged the truth and avoided any remorse, his pride rivals the Tower of Babel, his treatment of women was sexually demeaning, and his idiotic arrogance is clearly on display now. I was baffled, again, that the American Evangelical was being led astray when it was so proud of its claim on Truth and God. How could they not see it? They were making fools of themselves and of the Church, Jesus, and God.
That was all pre-sobriety. As the last couple of years have played out, I have found myself again shaking my head, saying, “No way, not again.” There is no way, now with everything out, Evangelicals could be fooled. Trump was so obviously not Gospel. He clearly didn’t care about the Bible and was only using Christians for his kingdom. Churches wouldn’t do that again. All the evidence was there, people just had to look at it. At least, that’s how I thought.
Then Trump kept scamming Christians for money, lying, boasting about himself, degrading others, and barely managing his image – a tyrannical, immature boy with an unresolved mommy and hero complex, so out of touch with himself that he led a church who has no idea what it is along with him. You are the people and yours is the message Jesus’ Gospel was meant to fix. Instead, you’ve assumed your eternal security so you can havoc people’s insecurities. Did you forget that the Son of Man did not come into the world to condemn it but to save it? How we have lost ourselves.
This last year has made it clear that Evangelicals care more about Trump than their faith, or rather this year is clearly showing what Christians’ faith is – it’s about your America. You fly your American flag above and next to your crosses. There’s no way around it. Hands are red and still in the jar. It’s been in this way for a lot longer than 2016. Everyone knows it but no one wants to speak first against the bully. It’s time for a wake-up call, an intervention, Church. We’ve lost our way and until we are honest with ourselves, and our God, we have no voice, no power, and no Jesus.
An Intervention
Your “god” isn’t what you spout – it’s your church name, comfort, and control. Your Jesus is Pilate and Nebuchadnezzar – You chose Barrabas and killed God. You ignore the prophetic warnings from God to His people about this that are for you so you can preach what you want to others. Hypocrisy, one-sided expectations, and an ornate and intricate manmade system have replaced Jesus’ Gospel. Your systematic theologies are born from men and what is on God’s mind. You force right answers into wrong questions. You are the abuser and the people abused. You’re Trump expecting God to be chill with you putting words in His mouth. He isn’t. Trump will fall, just like Nero.
The same faith, hope, love, and holiness you paint and preach with now demands of you. It’s been a long time coming. Your sins have been found out and weighed, your shame for all to see. How have you loved your enemies well? How have you lived at peace with all men? How have you served your neighbor? Is your Church known for the fruit of the spirit or are you just immature assholes? How much of your budget helps people? Is your church making the kind of disciples Jesus wanted to? If not, you’re making “disciples of hell” and working against God…He has words about that. Wake up, hear and listen to Jesus’ words crying from within the Gospel spoken for you today. Today, prepare the way. Today, if you hear His voice, don’t harden your heart.
We are Gideon leading the nation into “adultery” with an ephod. We are Moses worthy of rebuke for striking the rock. We are Cain killing his human siblings. We are David forgetting his calling. We are the unfruitful fig tree. We are the corrupt religious systems of Jesus’ days. We are Pharaoh and Herod and Caesar and Babylon. Boy, do we ironically love our crosses. We are not what the Gospel wanted for us. We too would kill the prophets sent to warn us. If Jesus were to appear today, it would play out the same way. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” We would kill him, at least as we have others.
Look in The Mirror
Republicanism has taken your church over, your gospel, your god, and your Jesus. You are a part of the problem – we all are. You’ve allowed Caesar to take the pulpit. The very way you hold and breathe your Scripture is double-sided, meant to suppress and control, to elevate the shame of Genesis 3 rather than address it as in John 1 and 1 John 1. You tie burdens on the backs of people, telling them of the “Kingdom of God” but refusing entry unless they match your set of boxes, forgetting the Church is so much bigger than the circle you, oh human, drew around “God’s Church.”
How you so casually sacrifice your Gospel and recrucify your Savior for another gospel, to support your kingdom with Rome’s tools, on a message so lost you know longer see or hear it. There is no voice; just complaints and grumblings, anger and selfishness, fear and mongering. Sunday mornings you preach of a salvation you know not and peace is promised in exchange for subjection to our human organization. You hook, bait, and switch. Monday mornings, you pray to your God that your slaves come back to remind you that you matter. The human matters of sin, love, redemption, salvation, peace, and justice you lost in your “theology” of tithes and cumin.
Your Gospel is an emotional manipulation of people rather than “Come to me, all you who are weary.” You’re not even sure how to preach it anymore. It’s so laden with If-then clauses and your own egos that you have to make God’s Word work for you in ways It never wanted to. Even now, you assume I’m criticizing THE Gospel – No, I’m criticizing our view of Scripture, our view of the Gospel, and our view of Jesus. It’s more about you and me, not our “doctrines” and “church practices.” Your fear of asking, of not knowing. You’ve ignored Jesus came to God’s People already to address these problems. You’ve willfully ignored Jesus’ words on love, peace-making, forgiveness, service and ministry, peace, good works, and your entire theological system to support your dysfunction. Your insecurity has turned into your god – your view isn’t accurate, your voice is misguided, and your message is from man. You sit on the throne. Jesus would like it back rather than Trump.
The Neo-Reformation is Here
A Reformation is already here. Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Hebrews 11 are looking at us right now, wondering what’s going to happen next. Our “gospel” is dead and needs to die. Our church bodies are manikin shells, white-washed tombs. We’ve held on to our control for a long time. It took today’s world to be able to call us out on our sins. It’s not our message. It never was. It’s not your Church. Here’s the thing, it is already happening. God has always been working and is doing something about this now. You are not at the reigns, Christians. Let go already.
In the plain terms the Church loves to use against its enemies, it’s a heretic, a hypocrite living in sin while it selfishly, short-sightedly ruins people’s lives with a gospel it has kept twisting for 2000 years to fit whatever will work for the current times. Confession, repentance, and redemption – the Church needs to take its own medicine.
