Perhaps you have already heard about the latest brouhaha generated by Jerry Falwell Jr.’s interview with the Washington Post. Aside from the
political hypocrisy strewn throughout the entire piece, two points, in particular, have gained significant public attention.
If you have been following this controversy, you may want to skip down and begin reading at part two of this post. Otherwise, beginning with part one will catch you up on the issues involved.
Part. One:
First, when asked, “Is there anything President Trump could do that would endanger that support from you or other evangelical leaders?” Falwell flatly answered, “No.”
Falwell’s response unveils his cult-follower mentality when it comes to all things Trump. Ruth Graham at Slate Magazine explains the ridiculous, idolatrous illogic of Falwell’s answer:
“His explanation was a textbook piece of circular reasoning: Trump wants what’s best for the country, therefore anything he does is good for the country. There’s
something almost sad about seeing this kind of idolatry articulated so clearly. In a kind of backhanded insult to his supporters, Trump himself once said that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing his base. It’s rare to see a prominent supporter essentially admit that this was true.”
I will go one step further and suggest that not even Jesus Christ himself demands such blind, a-moral loyalty. At least, the apostle Paul admitted that he stopped short of offering that brand of devil-may-care devotion to Jesus Christ himself!
In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, Paul seems to suggest that there is at least one thing the man from Nazareth could have done that would have caused Paul not to believe in him.
Jesus could have stayed dead.
For Paul insists:
“…if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile…”
Not even the Lord and Savior of the universe demands the type of undiscerning, a-moral devotion that Falwell has placed in Donald Trump.
Folks, Falwell expresses a truly idolatrous brand of politics.
Yes, I realize that sorting out this issue requires a conversation about the 
relationship between faith and historical evidence, but we don’t have time for that discussion here. I suggestion that you take a look at my book, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture and then follow up on its bibliography.
The second point of controversy was Falwell’s defense of his position by referring to his “two kingdoms” theology. He explained:
“There’s two kingdoms. There’s the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. In the heavenly kingdom the responsibility is to treat others as you’d like to be treated. In the earthly kingdom, the responsibility is to choose leaders who will do what’s best for your country.”
I won’t bother to address the problems created by Falwell’s two kingdoms theology – though I have serious doubts about Falwell’s ability to express an informed opinion on Lutheran theology — since I have critiqued
Luther’s own application of his two kingdoms theology, its dangerous uses in 20th century history, and explained what I understand to be the New Testament’s teaching about God’s kingdom in my book, I Pledge Allegiance.
Part Two:
So…this brings me to the thoughts motivating me to add something further to the conversation surrounding Falwell’s interview. Others, like Professor John Fea (here and here), have covered the issues well, but I suspect there may be another suggestion yet to be explored: the possible influence of dispensational theology in the age of Trump. If this term is new to you, start with this Wikipedia page and Google on from there.
Not long ago I came across a separate interview with Jerry Falwell Jr. where he said that he “did not look to Jesus” for guidance in his politics, but was directed instead by his concerns for “a law and order candidate.” (Unfortunately, I have not been able to relocate the source for that interview. Any help out there???).
Here are the two interesting puzzle pieces that got me thinking.
One, Jesus’ life and teaching, items such as Jesus’ own pacifism, the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of our Lord’s ethical instruction, have no role in forming Falwell’s view of Christian politics.
Two, he believes that Christian values in this “earthly kingdom” are separate and distinct from God’s values in the heavenly kingdom.
Well, it just so happens that those two positions were (are?) identifying characteristics of the earliest, die-hard advocates of American dispensational theology — a stream in which I suspect Liberty University is squarely planted. Though I can’t cite a scientific poll to prove it, I am reasonably certain that dispensationalism (in one or another of its various forms) is the most commonly embraced “theology” in North America, especially among those who are theologically unaware.
American dispensationalism is the fuel that feeds the raging fire of U.S. Christian Zionism. That alone is enough to make it highly suspect, as far as I am concerned. It is also one of the several reasons I abandoned my youthful dispensationalism long ago.
Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952), the founding president of Dallas Theological Seminary, which remains the Mecca of dispensational thinking
to this day, was the first American systematician of dispensational thought. His 8-volume work of Systematic Theology, first printed in 1947, remains in print today. (My father gave me a complete set as a college graduation present. Yes, I was, and probably still am, a nerd).
An important feature of Chafer’s dispensationalism was his emphasis on the postponement of Jesus’ ethics. He taught that when Jesus said the kinds of “irrational” things we find in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, he was speaking solely to the Jewish people who were supposed to receive him as their messiah.
But since the majority of Jesus’ contemporaries rejected his messiahship, the implementation of that ethical teaching was deferred, postponed until the future arrival of the “millennial kingdom” when all of Israel will finally recognized Jesus as the One they have been awaiting. (For more detail, check out this page published by someone called The GospelPedlar. It has a good summary with citations explaining Chafer’s theology of “Postponed Ethics.”
So, for old-time dispensationalists like Chafer and his modern devotees, Jerry Falwell Jr. is reflecting sound dispensational, theological conviction when he ignores Jesus’ ethics while deciding his politics. For this frame of mind, the church does not now inhabit the proper kingdom age for the application of Jesus’ teaching to the Christian life, certainly not to a Christian’s politics.
This earthly kingdom is not the correct kingdom for Jesus’ ethics to be 
seriously applied, across the board, to all of Christian living. Although Chafer’s dispensationalism has nothing to do with Martin Luther’s two kingdoms theology, we can see an important convergence of ideas at this point.
Arriving at the same place by different routes, both groups (Lutherans and dispensationalists) endorse the idea of different kingdoms in different spheres with different behavioral expectations for God’s people.
I admit that I have not called Jerry Falwell Jr. and asked him whether his political thinking has been self-consciously shaped by Chaferian dispensationalism. After all, he is a lawyer with a B.A. in religious studies from, you guessed it, Liberty University. Are my prejudices showing?
Maybe I should give him a call someday, but he probably wouldn’t talk to me. (See his refusal to talk with people like Shane Clairbone here, here, here and here.)
What I DO know is that ideas matter. They matter a great deal. Theological ideas matter supremely to God’s church. (Any believer who is anti-theology doesn’t understand what he/she is saying.) We don’t have to know their source or history. We don’t even have to be able to articulate them clearly, much less expound upon their ramifications, whether intellectual or behavioral.
We simple breath in the lingering aroma of influential ideas, assimilating
them unwittingly from our (church) environment. And the American church offers an environment seeped in the aroma of old-time dispensationalism.
As I continue to ponder the damning conundrum of America’s conservative/ evangelical/fundamentalist church offering up its overwhelming support to Donald Trump, I can’t help but wonder if this is another part of the dispensational legacy fallen like poisoned fruit from the American tree of unbiblical theology.
