Tag: Christian Ethics

Critical Race Theory and the Church, Part 3

Trying to Think Biblically About Tribalism, Prejudice, and Discrimination

As with most theories, different people have different evaluations, positive, negative, and in between about the value of Critical Race Theory (CRT).

In my discussions of American racism, prejudice, discrimination, and the place of Critical Race Theory within the Christian church, I will not take the time to define or explain CRT itself.  Many others have already done that work, so I will simply refer my readers to a few brief introductions.

I urge you to read these additional discussions in order to understand where we are going. (For informative and reasonably positive reviews, see here and here. For critical to middling reviews, see here and here. What I happen to think will unfold as we proceed.)

God creates Adam to bear His image, by Michelangelo (Genesis 1)

I begin with two important Christian theological positions: the biblical teachings about (1) how all human beings are created as the Image of God (all good theology begins with Genesis 1 & 2, not Genesis 3), and (2) all human beings are fallen creatures, corrupted by sin (the doctrines of original sin and total depravity).

So, all people are BOTH divine image bearers as well as corrupted image bearers who carry the twisted consequences of sin within us, which causes

The Serpent tempts Eve and then Adam into eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3)

us to commit specific sinful acts.

As a result of our sinfulness, all human beings have a natural (or, from God’s perspective, an Un-natural, post-Fall) inclination towards Tribalism.

Human selfishness, greed, fear, and possessiveness move all people, and the society’s that we create, in the direction of tribalism. We are suspicious, even fearful, of outsiders, The Other. We are protective of our own, most protective of those who are “our own” and of the things we know best.

Our Own are those who are most like us.

The Other, the stranger, aliens, an outsiders are those unlike us; or, at least, they are unfamiliar.

Fallen human nature tells us to be skeptical, fearful, and protective against unfamiliar Outsider. Since they are different from us, we are skeptical as to what we can expect of them. We may even be fearful because in facing the Outsider we face the Unknown.

Again, our sinfulness pushes this fearful distinction between Us vs. Them into the creation of imaginary qualitative distinctions.

Our group is smarter, better, kinder, more civilized. We can place every racist, prejudiced caricature about those who are unlike us and our tribe into this category.

The outsider is regularly measured in qualitative terms as dangerous, irrational, ignorant, criminal, and uncivilized. The Other can even be seen as subhuman.

All of these features of human tribalism have been universally prevalent throughout human history.

It was not uncommon for Native American tribes to identify their own people as “the True Human beings,” or “the Real People.” Meaning, of

About 85% of Rwandans are Hutus but the Tutsi minority has long dominated the country. In 1959, the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and tens of thousands of Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries, including Uganda. Genocide erupted in 1994.

course, that the members of other tribes, which were often enemies to be feared and killed, were not as human as they, the Real Human Beings, were.

When I visited my daughter in Kenya, I was fascinated by the latent hostility that the members of different tribes held for one another. I was told by a number of the Kenyans I met such things as, all Kikuyu were dishonest; all Luo were lazy; and all Masai were violent.

It did not matter that all these people shared the same skin color. It was the tribe that made the difference, allowing for automatic generalizations, prejudice, and discrimination.

Throughout the course of history, in different times and places, human tribalism has appeared in a wide variety of different guises. Tribalism can wear a multitude of different masks, but it is always the same sinful problem.

Tribalism expresses itself through religion (Protestant vs. Catholic), race

Protestant martyrs burned at the stake in Roman Catholic England

(white vs. black, though to call this “racism” is a misnomer that I will return to later), nationalism (Spaniards

vs. Catalonians), and political partisanship (Republicans vs. Democrats). The list goes on and on.

Human beings are terribly creative in finding ways to draw boundaries around themselves, separating their own people (who are typically good) from “the other” people (who are typically bad).

With the coming of the Kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, our Father in heaven has been working towards the goal of eliminating the blight of tribalism that have has ripped and shredded humanity since the Fall in Genesis 3.

As soon as Adam pointed his finger at Eve and said to God, “It wasn’t my idea. SHE made me do it!” the problem of divisiveness has been working to sabotage God’s original desire for all-inclusive, human community.

Here is where I believe we must begin a Christian analysis of the problems at hand.

We will eventually talk about the sins of racism, discrimination, and prejudice. But in order to have an adequate Biblical foundation for grappling with the complexities of those issues, we need to understand that they are merely different dimensions, or expressions, of a single problem: human tribalism.

We must also remember that we all are guilty of tribalism in one way or

Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “The Good Samaritan”

another, to one degree or another, because we are all fallen, sinful images of God.

We ALL share the same basic tendencies, which is why remembering the ethical instruction that Jesus left to us in the four New Testament Gospels is essential for us all.

Combating our own, as well as our society’s, expressions of tribalism is a non-negotiable responsibility of everyone who claims to follow Jesus Christ.

Remember, when Jesus told his listeners to love their neighbor as themselves, the Pharisees in the crowd asked him, “Ok, but who exactly is my neighbor?”

They were searching for some tribal distinctions that would allow them to love those who were like themselves, while ignoring Outsiders.

Of course, Jesus perceived the not-so-hidden motive behind their question. By answering them with the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus makes it clear that all tribalistic distinctions violate God’s intentions.

The Jew in the ditch and the Samaritan who stops to help were from two very different tribes of people that openly despised each other. Except that this particular Samaritan was an exception.

The “despised” Samaritan acted according to God’s intentions for all people — that loving neighborliness knows no bounds.

Members of the kingdom of God understand that there are no insiders or outsiders within the human family. All people qualify equally as worthy of our care and concern.,

Jesus tells us all to repent of our tribalism, no matter what it may look like; to renounce it as sin in our lives; to ask the Spirit for illumination that we may recognize the blindness created by own our tribalistic instincts.

And then to commit ourselves to change, to ACT in whatever specific ways are necessary for us become different people, living as citizens of God’s kingdom on earth.

I will have more to say about this practical application in the days ahead.

(Also, if you disagree or have different thoughts on this issue, send me a note and let me know that you think. Thanks for reading.)

Critical Race Theory and the Church, Part 2

Not long ago I posted a very brief history of how the Republican party devised its famous “Southern Strategy” for its election campaigns as well as its interminable “War on Drugs” model of policing (which quickly gained bipartisan support).

That history is another clear demonstration of the way white privilege and systemic racism continue to influence American society.

Lee Atwater (architect of the Southern Strategy) and John Ehrlichman (domestic policy advisor for Richard Nixon and creator of the War on Drugs policing strategy) were two white men who knew how to manipulate language as well as social systems (political campaigns and police departments) to target the white population’s fears of African Americans.

That fear is as real today as it was then.

By using language that they knew would heighten white folk’s apprehensions about the black community, they deliberately deepened the color  divide between these communities.

The white community implicitly understood that their privileged status was being safeguarded by Atwater and Ehrlichman’s new political strategies.

The result was the establishment of new ways to systematically accomplish racist goals for the benefit of white society – which is exactly what both men had hoped to accomplish, by their own admission (reread that post!).

A person does not need to be a Marxist (a common, specious charge leveled against Critical Race theorists) or a devotee of any particular critical theory to figure these things out.

All it requires is a bit of critical thinking, which everyone should learn to do by the way, and some knowledge about American history and politics.

In fact, I will go so far as to insist that every thoughtful Christian (which should also be an obvious redundancy) needs to understand that white privilege and systemic racism are integral parts of this nation’s story, past AND present.

Coming to grips with these facts is crucial if the Body of Christ is ever to embody the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, harmonious ideal that God’s kingdom intends for us here and now.

In my next post, I will begin to flesh out what I believe a biblical perspective on these sorts of racial issues teaches us.

I don’t offer this as a “Christian alternative” to CRT, but as one man’s approach to sifting the wheat from the chaff in any conversation about what should be the church’s approach to racism in America today.

 

Critical Race Theory and the Church, Part 1

(This is the first in a series of posts I will make on the controversy surrounding something called  “Critical Race Theory” within the Christian church and the continuing problem of racism in America. Stay tuned…)

The Southern Baptist Convention’s condemnation of something called Critical Race Theory has made this particular approach to understanding racist behavior (both individually and collectively) a controversial issue in the evangelical world.

All six presidents of the Southern Baptist seminaries have gone  on record

Screengrab from the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting as Danny Akin speaks while other seminary presidents and leaders watch, including Jeff Iorg, Adam Greenway, Al Mohler, and Jamie Dew.

denouncing Critical Race Theory as an expression of “the tide of theological compromise [that Christian’s face in] an increasingly hostile secular culture.”

The heart of this new addition to the SBC declaration of faith says,

In light of current conversations in the Southern Baptist Convention, we stand together on historic Southern Baptist condemnations of racism in any form and we also declare that affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message. (emphasis mine) (For a fuller statement see here).

All six seminary presidents added individual affirmations to the end of the document.

SBC President J.D. Greear speaks on a panel discussion about racial reconciliation during the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at the BJCC, June 11, 2019 in Birmingham, Ala. RNS photo by Butch Dill

What is, sadly, most telling about the new Southern Baptist position paper is the fact that it was formulated by an exclusive group of white men.

No African-American Southern Baptists were included in this body; neither were any consulted as the group made its deliberations.

As an article in the Religion News Service (1/8/2021) puts it,

Southern Baptist Convention officials admitted it would have been better if they’d contacted Black leaders of their denomination before issuing a statement decrying critical race theory, which led to the departure of several Black pastors…

. . . In late November, the leaders of the six SBC seminaries — all of them white men — declared critical race theory, a set of ideas about systemic racism, was not compatible with the statement of faith of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

After the presidents issued their statement, several Black church leaders announced they were leaving the mostly white denomination.

Obviously, these are horrible optics for the SBC.

But even worse is the denominational reality these optics reveal: both white privilege and systemic racism are thriving within the Southern Baptist Convention, including its educational institutions.

The SBC is now Exhibit A proving the urgent relevance of the very observations, about white privilege and systemic racism, that Critical Race Theory is most helpful in uncovering and confronting.

Honestly, I cannot help but wonder if these white, male, Southern Baptist decision-makers (I am hesitant to call them “leaders”) have actually condemned Critical Race Theory because it holds up a mirror to reveal their true selves.

Perhaps we should not forget that the SBC was originally formed by Southern slave-owners in order to protect the institution of slavery.

I am sure that many Southern Baptists are ashamed of that particular piece of their story. But this recent action shows that it continues to cast a very long shadow.

However much the SBC may have renounced its slave-owning origins, this recent episode in church politics has highlighted both the importance and the validity of Critical Race Theory’s analysis of both white privilege and systemic racism within American society.

Given the fact that the SBC finds the concepts of white privilege and systemic racism as particularly offensive ideas in Critical Race Theory, it is almost comical (were it not so atrocious) to see how the SBC doctrinal committee has made itself the newest poster child (poster children?) for the important benefits that Critical Race Theory has to offer.

Life is Only Sacred to Evangelicals as Long as They Are Unborn Americans

CBN News reported on one of president Trump’s final edicts in declaring

Pro-life demonstrators participate in the 47th annual “March for Life” in Washington, DC, on January 24, 2020. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

Friday, January 29 National Sanctity of Human Life Day.

Below is an excerpt of the article, or you can read Trump’s entire statement at CBN:

“The pro-life organization Operation Rescue named the president its pro-life person of the year for 2020, saying:

“The Malachi Award is given by Operation Rescue every year to recognize individuals who sacrificially work to advance the cause of protecting the pre-born. …during President Trump’s administration, he has done more to protect unborn lives than any other president in U.S history.”

NATIONAL SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE DAY, 2021

– A PROCLAMATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA –

– DONALD J. TRUMP –

“Every human life is a gift to the world.  Whether born or unborn, young or old,

(Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

healthy or sick, every person is made in the holy image of God.  The Almighty Creator gives unique talents, beautiful dreams, and a great purpose to every person.  On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, we celebrate the wonder of human existence and renew our resolve to build a culture of life where every person of every age is protected, valued, and cherished. . .

“. . . Since my first day in office, I have taken historic action to protect innocent lives at home and abroad. . .

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 24: People gather for the 47th March For Life rally on the National Mall where U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the crowd. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

“. . . As a Nation, restoring a culture of respect for the sacredness of life is fundamental to solving our country’s most pressing problems.  When each person is treated as a beloved child of God, individuals can reach their full potential, communities will flourish, and America will be a place of even greater hope and freedom.”

The hypocrisy of this statement is glaring, even though the same accusation could be laid at the feet of every presidential administration. After all, hypocrisy is at the heart of American politics.

However, as an American evangelical, I am always troubled by the anti-abortion movement’s hypocrisy in calling itself pro-life. For, as I and many others have said before, groups like Operation Rescue are anti-abortion activists NOT pro-life activists.

It is no small difference. Words matter.

Standing up for the sanctity of all human life everywhere is nowhere to be found on the agenda of evangelical activists. Neither was it a concern of Donald Trump’s.

In fact, Donald Trump’s total disregard for human life — other than his own — has been obvious over the past 4 years. The list of his anti-life actions is too long to cover here, so I will give only a few examples.

I could begin with his cluster of hurried federal death penalty executions in

Lisa Montgomery, the first federal prisoner executed in 67 years. She also suffered acute mental illness.

the final weeks of his presidency.  Trump’s last minute execution spree has killed more federal prisoners (including one mentally ill woman) than any previous president. (Yes, I believe every Christian, every American, must object to the death penalty.)

I could talk about Trump’s anti-life border policies — separating refugee families; losing track of children taken from their parents; keeping children in holding pens; arresting legitimate asylum seekers, labeling them as illegals, and then sending them back to their countries where they will face certain death.

These are not the actions of a pro-life president.

But I want to focus my attention on only one specific humanitarian scandal that has been enormously worsened by Trump’s policies: the war in Yemen.

As Kathy Kelly writes at Common Dreams:

For more than five years, Yemenis have faced near-famine conditions while enduring a naval blockade and routine aerial bombardment. The United Nations estimates the war has already caused 233,000 deaths, including 131,000 deaths from indirect causes such as lack of food, health services and infrastructure.

Systematic destruction of farms, fisheries, roads, sewage and sanitation plants and health-care facilities has wrought further suffering. Yemen is resource-rich, but famine continues to stalk the country, the UN reports. Two-thirds of Yemenis are hungry and fully half do not know when they will eat next. Twenty-five percent of the population suffers from moderate to severe malnutrition. That includes more than two million children.

Her bruised eyes still swollen shut, Buthaina Muhammad Mansour, believed to be four or five, doesn’t yet know that her parents, five siblings and uncle were killed when an air strike flattened their home in Yemen’s capital. The air strike, which killed at least 12 civilians. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah SEARCH “STRIKE MANSOUR” FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH “WIDER IMAGE” FOR ALL STORIES. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY. Matching text: YEMEN-SECURITY/AIRSTRIKE – RC1BFFB8F240

All of this blood is on American hands.

And if American church-goers were genuinely pro-life, we would be emphatically anti-war. We would be marching in the streets, pressuring the president to stop the bloodshed anywhere and everywhere that American power is killing, maiming, and suppressing the Image of God in this world.

But, then, that behavior would require us first to truly believe in the “sanctity of all human life” — which we obviously do not.

Sadly, few American evangelicals care about places like Yemen because we are a painfully provincial and ignorant people, too distracted by the obnoxious glitterati of commercialized, Christian success stories to look beyond our own self-centered existence.

The Yemeni civil war is another among America’s several proxy wars where we use others to do our bidding and kill our “enemies” (whether or not they have ever done anything to us).

In this case, the real enemy happens to be Iran, even though it’s the Yemeni people who now have the privilege of suffering from American terrorism in their own country.

Our sub-contractor in this horrific proxy war is Saudi Arabia, a long-time enemy of Iran — which makes outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s audacious accusations about Iran now providing safe harbor for Al Qaeda terrorists a laughable, buffoonish statement that should not only have set his pants on fire but left his body an ash heap on the podium.

(Perhaps I should stop being so surprised when infamously dishonest people like Mike Pompeo attend DC Bible studies and offer smiling testimony to their devout, evangelical, Christian faith.)

Even worse, the State Department has recently declared the Houthi/Yemeni group that is fighting against the US/Saudi-backed rebels “a terrorist organization,” opening the flood gates even wider for US military attacks in the future.

This is another long, sad story, because the truth is that the US is now allied with Al Qaeda (remember the 9/11 guys?) in Yemen.

The fact of the matter is that WE, the good old US of A, are the real terrorists who are destroying, not just Yemen, but a host of suffering nations around the globe.

As a radical, Salafist, jihadist, Sunni organization, Al Qaeda originated in Saudi Arabia. They are sworn enemies of the Shia nation, Iran.

So, Al Qaeda now happily works with us (as we happily work with them) in assisting their countrymen, the Saudis, to destroy the people of Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has been slaughtering people in Yemen, largely civilians, since 2015. Its #1 financier and weapons supplier is none other than the USA.

In March 2019 both houses of Congress passed a bill requiring the US to end its financial support and military involvement the Yemen war.

But President Donald J. Trump vetoed that bill as an “unnecessary” and “dangerous” attempt to weaken his powers to make war.

How very pro-life of him…

Thus, the slaughter in Yemen continues with the help of US intelligence services, covert ops, training, money, fighter jets, missiles, bombers, and other US military equipment.

As Ahmed Abdulkareem writes in his recent Mint News article, “Yemen’s Leningrad: The Unforeseen Consequences of the State Department’s Houthi Designation:”

A malnourished Yemeni infant

The war-torn country of Yemen is in the midst of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world thanks in large part to a Saudi-led war fueled by American weapons. Now, as the war nears its six-year anniversary in March, any hopes for a diplomatic resolution have faded faster than the presidency of Donald Trump, whose outgoing administration recently announced plans to designate the Houthi rebels, the principal force battling both the Saudi-led Coalition and al-Qaeda militants in Yemen, as a foreign terrorist organization. The move effectively eliminates any ray of hope for the more than 24 million people struggling for survival amid war, siege, famine, and countless diseases and epidemics, according to the United Nations.  

The largest humanitarian crisis in the world, made possible and sustained by United States of America. (Also see Juan Cole’s article at Informed Comment.)

Yemeni mother and child.

These tragic events illustrate the obscenity which lies at the heart of American politics, our foreign policy, and the evangelical, Christian nationalism that perpetuates the anti-life lies of American exceptionalism.

While purportedly Christian news organizations such as CBN prostitute themselves by offering establishment propaganda about a pro-life president and American evangelicals, here are a few hard, cold, truths to be faced:

  • Evangelicals, by-in-large, are not pro-life people. We may be anti-abortion people. But we then use that pro-life label like an infant’s pacifier to sooth ourselves into a comfortable, conscienceless coma allowing us to ignore the slaughter of foreign innocents.
  • American is not a great, humanitarian nation. Rather, to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The United States is the greatest purveyor of death, violence, and destruction in the world today.” (My favorite line from his anti-Vietnam war speech; a speech that is rarely included in the bastardized memorials touted on MLK Day).
  • No, electing Christians to political office does not improve anything. In fact, it only confirms the doctrine of total depravity. Mike Pompeo is only one of millions of Donald Trump’s loyal, evangelical enablers.

Christian support for Trump was the equivalent of an anti-spiritual hysteria spread like a virus within the church. I pray that the fever will break soon.

For years, the Religious Right insisted that voting Christians into high office was the solution to America’s problems. But Mike Pompeo (and his numerous minions now scattered throughout DC bureaucracy) is only the latest poster-child for how very, very wrong-headed that idea has always been.

  • We may debate when exactly life begins. But we can all agree that a fully human life has entered this world with the delivery of a new baby.

Sadly, however, evangelical pro-lifers behave as if life ends at birth. Why else would anyone care more about the unborn than those who have been born?

Genuine members of the Kingdom of God will honor the sanctity of all human life everywhere; will work to defend those lives globally; and will seek to stop the deliberate destruction of human life anywhere and everywhere.

No. Neither president Trump nor the evangelical church in America have ever been noteworthy defenders of the sanctity of human life.

In fact, American foreign policy relishes trampling upon the Image of God without a second thought.

And that is our shame.

Religious Freedom or Christian Privilege?

Is American religious freedom under threat?

Many religious leaders are convinced that the answer to that question is YES. White evangelicals, for example, have been persuaded that president-elect Biden is a raging socialist who, by definition, is bent on eradicating Christianity from the public square.

Vice President Pence accuses all Democrats of religious intolerance suggesting that a Biden presidency will threaten our Christian liberties.

But, of course, in issuing these warnings Pence and others fail to mention that Joe Biden is a devout Roman Catholic and Kamala Harris grew up attending a Church of God in Oakland, CA. Her mother also took her to visit Hindu temples when she was a child and her husband is Jewish. There is no lack of religion or an appreciation of its free exercise on this ticket.

So, what’s going on?

It’s simple. The real issue here is the implicit redefinition of terms that has occurred through the court cases and propaganda campaigns led by the Religious Right. Nowadays, whenever a white evangelical complains about the loss of religious freedom in America today, he/she is actually complaining about challenges to longstanding traditions of Christian privilege.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

For a Christian in America, the Bible and the First Amendment give direction for the free exercise of Christian faith. Christians are free to gather for worship, to talk and write about their faith, to possess and to study the Bible, and to perform whatever other activities or “sacraments” Christians are directed to perform by scripture.

To the best of my knowledge there are no laws anywhere in this country prohibiting any of these religious activities. Christianity has not been outlawed. Group gatherings are not prohibited (those who think that church buildings housing many people in a confined space are the only legitimate place to worship fail to understand the New Testament; John McArthur ought to be ashamed of himself).

So what’s the problem?

The real issue is that Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, generally don’t want to play by the same rules as everyone else when they step into public space. The traditions of western Christendom have handed the Christian church many benefits that live on in our society today.

The popular face of these benefits appears in the preferential treatment Christian individuals and organizations receive in shaping the public square (i.e. Christian iconography in public buildings) and gaining access to the public purse (i.e. generous tax exemptions). Christian business owners also benefit when their for-profit businesses are given special consideration, exempting them from regulations applied to others.

The development of religious schools, hospitals, adoption agencies, and other public services is a wonderful thing. I am happy they exist, but let’s not get confused. None of them are required for the church to be the church. Neither is it clear why Christian entrepreneurs deserve special considerations not provided to others.

Our Lord’s Great Commission does not say, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Build institutions, service organizations, and businesses wherever you can enjoy tax benefits and profit by special treatment excusing you from the standards required of others.”

As far as I am aware, the persistent warnings about the imminent loss of religious freedom in this country are typically complaints about a perceived loss or reduction of a Christian privilege.

The US Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. that the white evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby should be exempted from providing health insurance coverage to their female employees for certain contraceptives. The owners of Hobby Lobby objected to those particular drugs on the basis of their religious conscience.

The court ruled in their favor, agreeing that the Christian owners could not be asked to violate their religious convictions by being required to include the full range of contraceptive options in their health insurance coverage for female employees (Note: although Viagra for men is always covered).

The recent case of the Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v.

Sister Loraine McGuire with Little Sisters of the Poor speaks to the media after Zubik v. Burwell, an appeal brought by Christian groups demanding full exemption from the requirement to provide insurance covering contraception under the Affordable Care Act, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Pennsylvania is very similar. The Roman Catholic spiritual order of the Little Sisters objects to all contraception, which of course is their right.

They, therefore, also asked for an exemption so that they would not be required to provide that particular piece of health insurance coverage to their employees.  The Little Sisters also won their case on the basis of defending religious freedom.

Evangelicals and Catholics alike rallied around both cases, warned of government attacks on religious freedom, and cheered both decisions as victories for religious liberty in America.

Yet, to my mind the definitional over-reach on display in both cases is startling.

No one was forcing either the owners of Hobby Lobby or the Little Sisters to take any of these contraceptives themselves. Their own religious liberty was not under threat. They not being told how they could or could not worship, pray, gather together, or circumscribe their personal behavior.

Rather, in both cases the Christians wanted permission to enforce their beliefs onto others. They did not want to pay for a full coverage health plan that allowed others access to personal options that they (the employers) did not approve of.

Neither case was about religious freedom, not really.

Both cases fought for the maintenance of Christian privilege in the public square. They both exhibit the modern vestiges of western Christendom and the hold it continues to exercise over Roman Catholic and evangelical thinking in this country.

Both cases were about control and the ability of “religious organizations” to maintain that control through the smoke and mirrors of bogus complaints about government assaults on the freedom of religion.

Remember, Jesus Was Killed by Law Enforcement

Just a few reminders for anyone calling him/herself a Christian:

Jesus of Nazareth brought the kingdom of God into this world.

Authentic Christians understand that living obediently in God’s kingdom takes priority over every other group, party, and allegiance.

Politics can never establish, empower, or extend God’s kingdom.

Jesus was not white. He was a Palestinian Jew with dark skin and (probably) kinky hair.

Jesus’ teaching and personal behavior overturned a great deal of the social and religious status quo normalized in his culture.

Jesus defied conventional legal authority  on numerous occasions and paid the ultimate price. That is what obedience to God commonly looks like.

In this way, Jesus did not “respect” authorities that disrespectfully abused their power and mistreated others.

Jesus taught his followers to show mercy and kindness to everyone without exception.

Jesus taught his followers never to cooperate with wrongdoing, no matter how “official” its proponents.

Jesus taught his followers to stand for justice and righteousness on behalf of those from whom it is withheld.

Jesus insisted that his people give practical assistance to those in need of help.

Jesus rejected violence and taught his followers always to do the same.

Anyone who imagines that a political agenda, especially an agenda that sanctions violence, will somehow help God in accomplishing his work is sorely mistaken and is NOT following Jesus.

Leaders who do not condemn injustice, whether individual or corporate, do not understand what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom.

Neither do they understand their responsibility as leaders.

Jesus never exalts or approves of those who commit violence. He always condemns it.

Jesus always condemns any thought, word, or action (e.g. Tweets and Facebook posts) that demeans or dehumanizes another human being.

Jesus insists that his followers always uphold the truth.

Upholding the truth requires confronting lies whenever possible, confronting lies with truth, and challenging others when they are caught spreading lies among God’s people.

[For example, John MacArthur needs to confess and repent for the lies he has repeated about the Center for Disease Control and his potentially lethal claims from the pulpit (!) that the covid pandemic is a hoax.]

Following Jesus and living in God’s kingdom requires more than faith. Jesus demands faithfulness — a Christian virtue that seems to be in increasingly short supply in the church today.

 

 

 

White Evangelicals Must Think More Deeply and Engage More Practically

Grayson Gilbert, a regular blogger at Patheos, has written another white evangelical “analysis” of the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. He repeats the shallow message of evangelical individualism that I recently criticized here.

As I read more and more examples of this gospel of American individualism (and become increasingly aggravated by their frequency and continuity) posted on Facebook, blogs, and chat boards, I decided to offer a more detailed critique of this white, evangelical gospel, using Mr. Gilbert’s piece to illustrate my points.

Below is an excerpt from his Patheos post to give you an idea of what he says. Or you can read the entire post here, but please come back to digest my criticisms and reflect on what the church needs to do differently.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gilbert expresses many of the theological and practical failures endemic to white evangelicalism in this country.

As a result, he also sadly illustrates why white evangelicalism has so little to offer in the way of practical solutions to many of America’s deepest problems.

A good deal of my thinking on these subjects is also explained in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America. I wish Mr. Gilbert and others would read it. I certainly encourage you to do so, if you haven’t already.

Here is the excerpt:

“…This leads me to perhaps the most important point that I can make: if you want to see what needs to change, take a look in the mirror. It is not a system that needs to repent or be overthrown by human hands. It is not a single people group. It is not a minority or a majority ethnicity that needs to repent. It’s everyone. Every tongue, tribe, and nation is called to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Every individual on the face of the planet needs to bow before their Maker in repentance and call upon Christ as Lord for the forgiveness of their sins and the simple reason for this is that every man is a sinner.

“Until sin is seen for what it truly is and actually dealt with at the cross; until repentance and sanctification ensues, nothing will change in the heart of men at large. They will do what they do best: sin. Yet on that Final Day, God will do what no man can do: bring about complete and utter justice that is consistent with His covenant. If you’re not in Christ, you don’t want that kind of justice because it’s not good news for you. You want the gospel. And yet many professing Christians seem to think the gospel is incapable of doing anything at all to solve the issue, mainly, because they want results now…”

  • Do more research. Mr. Gilbert appears to limit his news exposure to watching the Fox network. He needs to think more deeply about how he is being manipulated by the corporate media, as I mention here.

Yes, looting, property destruction, and violence have occurred in many places. But Gilbert doesn’t seem to be aware of the many protest leaders who have condemned the looting, condemned the instigators exploiting their demonstrations, and turned out with volunteers to clean up and repair the damage done.

Like so many others, Gilbert paints with a crude, broad brush when he condemns the whole for the sins of a few. This is a standard tactic used by demagogues whose knee-jerk reaction is to defend the status quo rather than to honestly confront the social sickness that needs to be cut out of America’s body politic. I also recently wrote about this issue here.

Over the past several days, I have watched many videos showing (a) the police assaulting peaceful, unarmed demonstrators without provocation, sometimes causing serious injury; and (b) massive, peaceful demonstrations with no apparent mayhem anywhere.

To speak only about the looting while ignoring the core message animating the thousands upon thousands of black, brown, and white citizens marching peacefully through our streets, demanding social justice, is reprehensible.

In this way, Mr. Gilbert displays an obtuse disregard for the black experience in America.

Such willful ignorance typifies the majority of white evangelicals that I know. (Check out John Fea’s survey of Twitter comments from leading, evangelical Trump supporters for more examples of this ignorance parading itself as leadership).

  • Become self-critical. Gilbert is utterly unaware of his personal investment in defending the political powers-that-be. In effect, he writes as a stooge for the establishment status quo. But this is not surprising. It is what a majority of white evangelicals normally do.

The first step in healing this particular blindness requires grasping what it means to be a Christian disciple who lives as a citizen of God’s kingdom first, last, and always. (Again, check out my book!) No Christian’s primary allegiance is ever to American law and order.

Our allegiance is to Jesus Christ. And he does NOT teach us to obey the laws of wickedness.

The second step in overcoming such blindness requires an honest reappraisal of oneself. Mr. Gilbert talks about the need to confess our sins if we want society to change. I agree. Let’s all “look in the mirror,” as he suggests, and confess our need for Jesus and his salvation each and every day.

But that is where Mr. Gilbert abandons us, implying that once you’ve come to Christ, your problems with sin are over. Here is where his theological individualism becomes a trap.

As Mr. Gilbert elaborates his interest in sin and confession, he quickly shifts the responsibility for such confession onto the protesters. When, in fact – in this historical moment – confessing our collective failure to confront systemic racism and the habitual police brutality suffered by our African-American brothers and sisters is what white evangelicals ought to be doing.

Pointing fingers at the looters is an immoral, arrogant evasion of the real issue. As Jesus says, “Take the log out of your own eye before picking at the splinter in your neighbor’s.”

Remember, it was the slave masters who condemned slave revolts. It was the white, evangelical elders and deacons who accused their slaves of ingratitude for failing to appreciate the benefits of the white, Christian slave-owner’s “benevolence.”

How is Mr. Gilbert any different?

  • Confusing the world with the church and the church with the world. Gilbert’s very confused discussion of Micah 6:8 slyly insinuates the common evangelical shibboleth of imagining that America is God’s covenant nation.

But there is one covenant now – the New Covenant — established by Christ with his church. Applying covenant language to anyone else (like the crowds of demonstrators) is not only bad theology, it allows Gilbert to deflect attention away from the real problems of racism and police violence.

Gilbert’s cultural misappropriation of God’s covenant with Israel is the unspoken presumption at the root of white American privilege, not only at home but throughout the world. America habitually abuses, exploits, bombs, invades, occupies, and kills people of color without compunction on an international scale.

Slaughtering illiterate brown people around the world is an American right. Or so we are told.

That is the operative assumption underlying US foreign policy. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to see increasingly militarized police departments executing similar, draconian values at home.

Gilbert illustrates how bad theology, combined with a lack of critical thinking (I cannot help but notice that he received his master’s degree from Moody Seminary, a Mecca for American fundamentalism), leads to bad public practice and anemic discipleship.

Such tunnel vision can only see “unruly” protesters in need of reproach, blinding the evangelical critic to the all-pervasive American violence unleashed at home and abroad through our infamous military-police-industrial complex.

Yes, I realize that this is too large a mouth-full for any one instance of protest to address, but Gilbert’s narrow individualism, together with his failure to engage the world as a citizen of God’s kingdom, blinds him to the cultural and political issues at stake.

Don’t follow in his footsteps.

  • You can’t tell God’s people to endorse their government’s injustices. Gilbert trots out the predictable evangelical calls for “law and order” by telling his Christian readers that they must “obey the authorities instituted by God.” (Cue the national anthem and America the Beautiful).

Here Gilbert uses another classic, demagogic argument slung about like a blunt ax by unthoughtful people making religious arguments in defense of deeply entrenched injustice.

Such demagogic rationales – based in flawed interpretation, by the way – are intended to demonize the anti-establishment “enemy” while pacifying God’s “law abiding” church-folk into a drowsy acceptance of the unacceptable. THIS is the true opiate of the masses, as Karl Marx would say.

But, of course, in this instance of obedience to the powers-that-be, what Gilbert and his Christian cronies judge to be acceptable and unacceptable has more to do with the color of one’s skin than it does with whether or not anyone is obeying the law.

It is the classic argument drawn from white privilege. Think about it. When was the last time we saw a video of an unarmed white person being choked to death by the police on a public street in broad daylight while politely pleading for relief?

This is the point being raised by the popular upheaval we are witnessing in our streets. Unjust actors, whether they are cops, lawyers, judges, criminal justice systems, or entire governments, are unjust because they do NOT “protect the innocent while punishing the guilty.”

THAT is the problem my evangelical friends fail to grasp.

[By the way, I exegete these New Testament passages in my book, I Pledge Allegiance, and show (conclusively, in my mind) that allegiance to God’s kingdom requires that Christians not obey governments that impose injustice on its citizens.]

I struggle to understand how people like Mr. Gilbert can continually fail to apprehend this dynamic. When citizens protest against unjust policing and systemic injustice in high places, God’s kingdom citizens should be leading the way as the most vocal critics of the status quo and most vehement defenders of the oppressed.

Misapplying scripture, as Mr. Gilbert does, in order to condemn demonstrations against injustice and oppression is merely a continuation of the scriptural arguments deployed by Christian slave- owners defending their ownership and abuse of other human beings.

  • A failure of empathy and critical thinking. Historically, evangelical foreign missions have been in the forefront of finding creative ways to meet human needs. While I don’t entirely agree with the old saying, “You can’t share the gospel with a starving person,” (personally, I think that this way of thinking was a major shortcoming of Mother Teresa’s), it does contain a kernel of truth.

Western missionaries have made major contributions to developing countries everywhere. Often, the earliest literacy programs, schools, health-care initiatives, hospitals, irrigation systems, and more have been developed by evangelical missionaries whose compassion and empathy inspired them to do much, much more than simply “preach the gospel” to the lost.

So, why does Christian compassion and creativity wither and die on the vine when discussing social disruption at home?

No, I am NOT suggesting that evangelicals need to suit up and put on a colonial savior-complex by resurrecting a domestic version of “the white man’s burden.” But I am struck by the absence of both empathy and critical thinking among my white, evangelical brothers and sisters.

Frankly, we need to sit down, shut up, and listen.

We need to hear the stories of our black brothers and sisters. We need to believe them and take them seriously. We need to ask ourselves, “How would I feel if I were in their shoes?” Then, before offering our thoughts on solutions, we need to ask what they think should be done. And we need to listen some more.

We need to ask the Lord Jesus to forgive us for our persistent indifference to the pain and struggle of African-Americans in this country – pain and struggle often inflicted by a system that criminalizes black people for the color of their skin.

I have never been nervous about the threat of being arresting for the crime of “driving while black.” And neither has Mr. Gilbert. Neither of us knows what that is like.

My mother always told me that the policeman was my friend; that he was there to help me.

African-American mothers must educate their children in how to avoid antagonizing a policeman so they won’t get shot.

That is the American reality, a reality that white evangelicals like Mr. Gilbert appear to know nothing about. And they don’t seem to want to know. But if they really don’t know anything about this version of our racial reality, it can only be because they have plugged their ears and closed their eyes to the plight of their fellow human beings.

Such inexcusable ignorance is testament to the strangulation of sympathy within America’s white evangelical churches. And it is inexcusable.

As I have said before, citizenship in God’s kingdom not only requires that we share the gospel of Jesus Christ as widely as possible, it also requires us to think as deeply as possible about how we can contribute to making this world a better place for everyone, equally.

If our missionaries can build schools for boys and girls in countries that frown on educating little girls, then why can’t we also think, plan, and act in ways that will make our society more just, more fair, and less dangerous for its non-white citizens?

Yes, racism is a sin. And sin is rooted in the human heart. Sin can only be uprooted through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. But suggesting, as Mr. Gilbert does, that mass evangelism is the only solution to racial injustice is the lazy pietist’s way of shirking responsibility.

Sure, people may come to Jesus one at a time, and Christian individuals certainly ought to work for truth and justice wherever they find themselves, but changing systemic evil demands systemic solutions. On this front, too many white evangelicals appear to take pride in their ineptitude.

God’s people are called to be “salt and light” to the surrounding society, to exemplify the righteousness, mercy, justice, and equality of God’s kingdom come. We do this, first, among ourselves, as living, breathing examples of God’s new, multi-racial creation here and now.

Then we simultaneously engage our society, working practically to create a reflection, the semblance, an approximation of God’s kingdom in the broken society we now live in.

But that, my friends, is the cross-cultural component of Christian discipleship that white, individualistic, American evangelicalism rarely seems to grasp.

Whose Law, Whose Order?

The predictable mantra has begun – “we have to maintain law and order.”

Calls for law and order in the midst of nation-wide demonstrations against police brutality and in favor of racial justice are as predictable as the sunset.  It always happens.

Well timed calls for law and order always served the purposes of the powerful who pretend to care.

Keith Childress, shot for carrying a cell phone

It is always the great “BUT” working to obscure the issue at hand; to distract from the problems of racial injustice and police violence.

Law and order is the subversive language deployed by people who are not at risk as they feign comradeship with those who are. It allows the bogus compatriot to say, in fact, “I am with you as long as you keep your objections within my boundaries of safety.”

When members of the establishment say things like, “I believe in peaceful protest, BUT…I believe in racial equality, BUT…I support the protests, BUT I condemn the looting…BUT we need to maintain law and order,” they merely repeat the establishment code for defending the status quo.

Defending law and order has always been the message of the establishment,

Bettie Jones, shot and killed for helping a neighbor and opening the door to police

allowing it to maintain its mask of humanity while tacitly supporting acts of inhumanity.

We have seen it all before.

Law and order was the message of pro-segregationist governors and mayors in the deep south who believed that ANY expression of civil disobedience, no matter how peaceful, especially when committed by black people and other civil rights advocates, was a dangerous act of lawlessness demanding brutal, police suppression.

Lester Maddox, the racist, segregationist governor of Georgia, always insisted that he accepted black people as equals. He just didn’t want them living next door. And he would gladly sic the police on any black person who tried to move into his neighborhood. (Watch his racist confessions with Jim Brown on the Dick Cavett show here. I recall watching a different Cavett show where Maddox walked off the set).

It was also Richard Nixon’s Republican party code for keeping black people

Jamar Clark, witnesses say he was shot and killed while handcuffed and unarmed

in their place at the height of the civil rights movement in 1968. It was also a very successful code language that spoke volumes to conservative America and led to his presidential victory that year.

But every reactionary plea for “law and order” must first answer the question, “Whose law, and whose order?”

Because the fact is that, in America today, there are two difference types of law and order, one for white, middle/upper-class communities, and another for (poor) communities of color.

As the repeated, public murders of African-Americans demonstrate, law and order for black people in America is unlike law and order for white people. For African-Americans, law and order means (1) people of color are born guilty; they are always suspect, which means that (2) the police are free to treat them as they wish.

Law and order for black people in America includes breaking down their doors for no good reason; shooting them dead inside their own homes, even when police are at the wrong address; planting evidence while making

Michael Marshall, suffered from mental illness; died after being “restrained” into a coma

illegal arrests; and the list goes on.

That is the “law and order” enforced in America’s black neighborhoods today.

So, whose law and order are the public pearl-clutchers advocating and defending when they condemn protesters for violating the norms of “law and order”?

Where were these easy-street advocates of public order when black neighborhoods were being patrolled by cops who viewed community residents as the enemy to be controlled rather than as citizens to be protected and served?

Where were the white marches launched in defense of black communities when they needed defending against a local, militarized police force eagerly searching for excuses to deploy their new body armor, armored vehicles, stun guns, rubber bullets, 4-foot batons, rubber bullets and tear gas?

George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, and Ahmaud Arbery are only the tip of the iceberg.

Unarmed black people are 5x more likely to be shot and killed by police than

Ahmaud Arbery, shot and killed for jogging in a white neighborhood

are white people in America. That shocking statistic alone tells us that murdering unarmed black people (although possessing a weapon is not a significant distinguishing factor) is completely acceptable and well within the bounds of American law and order.

Concerning the present protests, an overwhelming amount of video evidence proves that the police themselves regularly instigate violence where protesters were behaving peacefully.

The police are masters at escalating violence needlessly as an expression of their own presumption of authoritarian privilege. (Watch this compilation video of cops attacking peaceful demonstrators with impunity).  I have personally experienced how the police use excessive force to instigate violence during an anti-war protest in Chicago in 2012. I then watched as the establishment media turned the facts upside down to accuse the demonstrators  of attacking the police!

By condemning these calls for law and order, I am not condoning violence.

Sandra Bland, arrested during a routine traffic stop; supposedly (and unbelievably) committed suicide in jail

Rather, I am highlighting the fact that we must learn to insist and to resist.

First, we must insist that the public spot light remain focused on the central issues: racism and police brutality. We cannot be distracted.

Second, we must resist the power of corporate media to socialize us into (a) complacency and (b) collaboration. The problem being exposed by protesters right now is not some tendency for peaceful rallies to be exploited by chaotic troublemakers. Don’t allow the media to suggest otherwise.

The problem is white America’s sleepy indifference to the daily mistreatment of our black brothers and sisters – an evil with which God’s people can never collaborate or become complacent.

The problem is white America’s indifference to the fact that a separate code of law and order is applied to communities of color every single day.

The problem is not the disintegration of law and order but the historic

Eric Garner, choked to death by police while pleading, “I can’t breathe.”

application of arbitrary, dehumanizing law and order at the whim of our dehumanized police force.

Here is a basic Christian principle: God’s people must always stand with the oppressed and the disadvantaged, just as we must always stand up for equality and justice. This is God’s way, and it must always be ours.

Thus, the ethics of God’s kingdom demand both pacifism and civil disobedience whenever cultures work to shape kingdom people, both black and white, into ungodly configurations.

Resistance is difficult but essential if we hope to become more like Jesus. Which means that the church cannot lazily mimic cultural mantras, whatever they may be.

Instead, God’s people are obligated to INSIST on justice and to RESIST falling in line.

What Does an Impotent Church Look Like?

I believe that political engagement is an important task for the Christian church. I don’t buy the rationale that says secular politics is a distraction from gospel priorities. On the contrary. Political engagement is demanded by gospel priorities when properly understood.

If believers in Jesus Christ take his Lordship seriously, then submission to our Savior King requires us to behave as citizens of God’s kingdom in every element of our earthly citizenship. Politics in the public square is unavoidable.

The question is, what does that mean in practice?

I know that I am not alone in believing that the church needs to be

Rev. Jerry Falwell

politically active. The African-American church has always understood this fact. Jerry Falwell helped American fundamentalists and evangelicals finally  come to grips with this, too. Obviously, maintaining this conviction makes for strange bed-fellows nowadays.

So, is Christian political activism nothing more than the public expression of privately held religious preferences; preferences created by the kind of neighborhood you grew up in and whether it was on the right or the wrong side of the tracks?

Answering this question is crucial in the present era of “Christians for Trump.”

I am firmly convinced, and quite happy to debate anyone who cares to

MIAMI, UNITED STATES – JANUARY 03, 2020: Evangelical supporters of Donald Trump are being led in prayers inside the El Rey Jesus church. – PHOTOGRAPH BY Adam DelGiudice / Echoes Wire/ Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read Adam DelGiudice / Echoes Wire / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

disagree, that the evangelical church’s uniform support for Donald Trump, the Republican party, and their policy agenda, has exposed the thorough-going secularization of American Christianity.

It is symptomatic of the wholesale debasement of genuine Christian faith into unabashed, nationalistic civil religion. And that is the definition of American apostasy.

This damning secularization of Christian thought and action is, perhaps, the most influential legacy of the Religious Right. Anyone who takes his/her

Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition

marching orders from partisan political strategists (like Ralph Reed, for example) has abandoned the Lordship of Christ. The ethics and righteousness of God’s kingdom do not align with any of the Republican or Democratic party agendas given to us.

Obviously, many religious conservatives think otherwise. I don’t doubt the sincerity of their convictions, but sincerity alone doesn’t manufacture truth. Aristotle and Ptolemy sincerely believed that the sun orbited around the earth, and they were sincerely wrong.

The question becomes: Which partner is leading in the evangelical dance with politics?

Is your partisan, political commitment leading your life of discipleship?

Or is your citizenship in the kingdom of God leading your political commitments?

We all know what the correct answer is. And, of course, members of the Religious Right insist that they are living out that answer, for example, in their support of the “pro-life” movement, their fight for staff-led prayer in public schools, and their hostility against equal rights legislation for LGBT human beings.

All of this begs the question. How should the Christian’s citizenship in God’s kingdom transform the way we live out our American citizenship? If Jesus’ teaching about kingdom righteousness becomes our benchmark for public engagement, then what elements of our partisanship (whether to the right or the left) must be thrown away and replaced with Jesus’ new kingdom ethic?

Here is an historical example:

Members of the Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer is in the 2nd row at the far left

When the “Confessing Church” (composed of German, Protestant leaders who opposed Hitler’s attempts to control their churches) began its resistance against Nazi religious policies, debating these questions eventually led to a deep divide in their movement.

Everyone agreed that resistance to Nazi attempts at manipulating Christian worship services and determining church membership was every leader’s duty before God. But where should they draw the boundaries? The leaders often disagreed over which acts of resistance were (a) necessary expressions of Christian faith (so everyone could support it) and which actions were (b) merely an expression of personal political preferences. Seldom was there unanimity on this question. In fact, bitter arguments sometimes erupted threatening the organization’s future.

Of course, those accused of being “too political” or “unspiritual” in their

A Nazi German “Christian” flag

proposals responded by pointing out that it was impossible to separate the gospel’s ethical requirements from one’s evaluation of a patently immoral government policy. (I will ignore the ghastly role played by Martin Luther’s “two kingdoms” theology in the German church’s submission to Hitler).

The angry differences that erupted among these sincere, committed

churchmen exposed the differing horizons of their moral universes. After all, isn’t immorality in the eye of the beholder? Well, it shouldn’t be if everyone claiming to be a disciple of Jesus actually “fixes their eyes on Jesus,” as the writer to the Hebrews insists we should  (12:2).

Every Christian’s moral universe ought to align with Jesus’ example of living as a righteous citizen in the kingdom of God.

Among all the members of the German Confessing Church, the leaders most remembered and applauded today are those who traced out the most expansive moral universes, with boundaries unconstrained by partisan politics or subservience to government authority.

After the war, surviving members of the Confessing Church sometimes admitted that, for all the risks they had taken (and some were imprisoned and/or executed), they had not gone far enough. Their ethical boundaries had been too narrow. They had not always acted as faithful citizens of God’s kingdom.

Martin Niemöller (who was imprisoned) became one of the most outspoken in lamenting the fact that the Confessing Church had never publicly

Karl Barth’s statement on the failure of the Confessing Church to defend Jews throughout Europe

condemned Hitler’s policies of anti-Semitism. They had never publicly defended their Jewish neighbors. Nor had a single church leader publicly opposed the Nazi eugenics program that took thousands from their medical asylums and sent them off to die.

This is our challenge today.

Every Christian’s lifetime goal must be the conformation of one’s own moral universe to the righteousness of God’s kingdom as taught and modeled for us by Jesus of Nazareth. As our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the Father’s kingdom and his righteousness, and everything else will follow” (my paraphrase, Matt. 6:33).

I once preached a message on those words of Jesus in a white, middle-class, Protestant church where the elders nearly banned me from the pulpit. [There were two services. An elder walked out of the first service in protest. I was summoned to a meeting with the others before the second service. At least one of them believed that I ought not to preach again).

The goal of my message was to pose this challenge: How should our commitment to live as righteous citizens of God’s kingdom here and now shape the ways we think and behave as earthly citizens of an imperialist nation with a massive military budget that loves to make war?

IF we want to take Jesus’ words seriously, that we seek God’s kingdom righteousness first, then we MUST grapple with these kinds of questions. And change our behavior accordingly.

Tragically, those church elders were spiritually crippled, straight-jacketed inside a minuscule moral universe grossly deformed by their American first, nationalistic, Republican party world-view. They were not interested in seeking the Father’s kingdom and righteousness FIRST in EVERY area of life. They were not thorough-going disciples of Jesus Christ.

We are currently facing a spiritual pandemic that is killing evangelicalism and its public witness.

An American “Christian” flag

The church is infected with a deadly political virus called partisanship. That partisanship is an ugly symptom of our deeply rooted secularism. In pursuing the cause of militaristic nationalism, we have taken our eyes off Jesus.

Huge swaths of the church have been coopted by the commercialized, smoothly marketed messaging created by high-paid political operatives who began courting evangelicals during the Reagan presidency. Rather than seeking God’s kingdom, we seek victory for their side, predominantly Republican, in the next political campaign.

This brand of herd loyalty is easy to implement. Whereas, conforming our lives to the pattern given to us by the suffering, crucified Jesus of Nazareth is far more difficult and costly.

Following a crucified Savior entails suffering, but it also demands carefully focused, consistent thinking, from top to bottom.  How must Jesus’ kingdom-directed life and teaching transform the way we address our contemporary problems? There is no political playbook from any party providing easy answers to that question.

Take for instance the “pro-life” movement. The label itself is an example of a very self-conscious political framing. The words pro-life do not honestly describe the movement. As many others have pointed out, the pro-life movement is not actually pro-life. It is anti-abortion and pro-birth, but the movement’s pro-life interests vanish quickly once a baby is delivered.

For example, it is a demonstrable fact that publicly funded preschool programs, the WIC nutrition program and Head Start, to name only a few, make significant improvements in the future prospects, health and well-being of young children, especially those growing up in poor communities.

Yet, conservative “pro-life” voters typically back policies intended to defund these sorts of community assistance programs that give a leg up to our most vulnerable citizens. In this regard, supposedly pro-life conservatives most often vote anti-life.

Worse yet, these faux pro-lifers support politicians who want to slash the budgets of social benefits programs and in order to channel those funds to

A US bomber over Afghanistan

the ballooning budgets for military contractors and our wasteful Pentagon. Instead of helping to enrich the lives of America’s most vulnerable, our tax dollars are spent on expanding assassination programs, and devising new weaponry intended for the efficient slaughter and impoverishment of hungry people around the world who happen to stand in the way of American empire.

That is the opposite of pro-life. It is pro-death, pain, exploitation, and suffering.

But what about the Supreme Court?! (I hear certain readers ask). This is the new clarion call among today’s pro-lifers. Overturning Roe vs. Wade is the end-all-and-be-all of to a pro-life political victory.

It’s true. Adding anti-abortion advocates like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the court may eventually lead to that result. But in the meantime, America’s highest court is now stacked with justices who regularly act to strengthen corporate power against the interests of the working class.

For example, Justice Kavanaugh only appeared on the president’s list of nominees after his decision as an appeals court judge to support a trucking company’s decision to fire one of their drivers.  The driver violated

Brett Kavanaugh at his Senate confirmation hearing

company policy by leaving his truck unattended in order to walk to a nearby convenience store. The truck had broken down in a blizzard. After calling for help and waiting, the driver soon found that he could no longer feel his legs. He feared that he might die of hypothermia as he waited. Should he stay with his truck? Or should he walk to a nearby convenience store to warm up?

What would you have done?

Judge Kavanaugh, the latest pro-life darling, determined that the company was justified in firing an employee who refused to lay down his life for their sixteen-wheeler.  That ruling won Kavanaugh his contentious nomination. And the vast majority of evangelicals stood to cheer. (I won’t even begin to comment on the vile conservative abuse spewed out against the women who accused Kavanaugh of sexual abuse).

Was Kavanaugh really a pro-life nominee?

America’s broken, corrupted “justice” system serves the political purposes of bi-partisan mass incarceration laws filling our jails and prisons with people of color who are slapped down by onerous convictions, while white people – especially wealthy white people – receive a slap on the wrist for committing identical offenses. This country’s “injustice system” has become a calcified showcase for the most racist, Jim Crow artifacts in a nation where all people are not equal before the law.

Why did the NYC police department implement its “stop and frisk” policy in black neighborhoods but never on Wall Street? I suspect they would have collected more cocaine stashed comfortably in the sleek suit pockets of hedge fund managers than they ever discovered in the hands of African-Americans walking to the market.

Yet, American evangelicals regularly rally around the bi-partisan flag demanding that officials get “tough on crime” – excepting, of course, the white-collar crime flagrantly committed by men like Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and their corporate donors.

Tell me again. What, exactly, is pro-life about any of this behavior?

America’s population is now separated by the greatest economic divide between the haves and the have-nots since the Great Depression. That divide expands and deepens year by year as a result of government, economic boondoggles ensuring that wealth redistribution is always moving upwards to further enrich the already rich. All the while, most evangelicals link arms with the wealthy, corporate interests who exploit the poor and the working class.

There simply is no excuse for any Christian supporting the policies of either party which perpetuate national behaviors so cravenly antithetical to Jesus’ teaching about the righteousness of God’s kingdom.

Let’s call such public behavior for what it really is, especially when it is endorsed by a majority of evangelicals: grotesque displays of hypocrisy, partisan blindness, and anti-Christian thinking.

Such misguided thinking is an investment in the work of the anti-Christ. The resulting behaviors reveal the overt repudiation of Jesus’ Lordship over his church.

Genuinely pro-life behavior begins among the citizens of Christ’s kingdom who live it out in the streets by enhancing the lives of those who most need help. That includes influencing the culture around us, our society, our leaders, and our nation, by working to enact consistent pro-life policies for all people everywhere.

To further stretch our moral boundaries, evangelicals should be in the forefront of calling for the US to abandon its budget-breaking quest for global supremacy, a quest that tramples other nations underfoot like discarded human refuse left behind for global scavengers to devour.

Now that would be pro-life.

Jesus is clear. His kingdom’s pro-life values declare:

  • The first will be last, and the last will be first
  • Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your reward
  • Woe to those who neglect to do justice
  • Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry

Our Lord welcomes every immigrant and asylum seeker with open arms.

Our Lord prioritizes the poor. He picks them up and cares for them. He does not ridicule them as lazy creators of their own hardships.

How can any society be positively influenced by a secularized church that long ago exchanged the mind of Christ for the distorted thinking of this evil age?

How can the church show others the importance of thorough-going pro-life policies when we are incapable of implementing them among ourselves?

American evangelicalism has become the useless salt described by Jesus: You are [supposed to be] the salt of the earth, but once that salt loses its saltiness, it becomes useless, good for nothing. It can only be thrown out onto the dirt (my paraphrase, Matthew 5:13).

Jesus’ words address the American church today.

No, Donald Trump is not the church’s greatest friend. He is another in a long line of anti-Christs. He is a parasite who has attached himself to the Religious Right in order to exploit their evangelical base for his own political benefit.

Evangelicals are president Trump’s useful idiots.

I am sorry, but any purported “Christian” who cannot perceive these facts about our president, American politics, and our nation’s behavior throughout the world has become a spiritual alien who knows little if anything about God’s kingdom.

Such people are spiritually malnourished, perhaps even dead, after suckling at the swollen teats of American civil religion, that secular, bastardized gospel which subverts Jesus’ kingdom values while substituting the depraved values of this fallen world.

God’s kingdom is what truly matters. The church is its citizenry. All of which entails much, much more than simply “getting people saved.”

Saved for what?

Jesus calls us to love indiscriminately. To prioritize people in need, no matter who they are. Yes, personal acts of benefaction are crucial, but that is not enough. The scale of America’s social problems is so vast that our government must play a major role in rectifying our problems. Only true citizens of the kingdom of God possess the vision necessary for developing the required solutions.

Will a mass movement of the Christian church stand up to demand that our government take greater and greater steps towards mercy and justice for all?

I hope. But, personally, I don’t see it.

Did Jesus Die and Rise Again to Save Us or to Rule Us?

My title for this post is an attempt at summarizing a current online debate, involving Greg Gilbert, Scott McKight and others, about the nature of the Gospel message in the New Testament.

Honestly, I don’t follow “theological debates” online for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here, so I confess that I am only responding to a good post I read today at Patheos from Michael Bird. (This is a very old, very tired debate.)

Michael is an excellent New Testament scholar, and I recommend that you read his new post, especially if you have been following the debate online. Michael is spot on in his conclusions.

(As a side-note, I originally tried to hook my blog up with the Patheos blog site, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it. Given the site’s  drift towards right-wing craziness, it was probably for the best.)

Michael’s post is entitled The Gospel of the King. Click on the title to read it all.

Or you can read an excerpt below:

“Gilbert wants to make the cross and a transaction within the atonement the centre of the gospel with kingdom and kingship as a kind of back story. McKnight and Bates emphasize Jesus’s kingship, Israel’s story, fulfilment of Scripture with justification and forgiveness as benefits of the gospel. Gilbert is not entirely absent of kingdom/kingship, but neither are McKnight and Bates arguing for ‘mere kingship.’

“Truth be told, I think that Bates and McKnight have the better end of the argument in terms of what the NT emphasizes. If one surveys Acts 2:29-36, 13:32-33, Rom 1:3-4, 1 Cor 15:3-4, and 2 Tim 2:8 then it is pretty hard to deny the fact that the gospel is a king Jesus gospel – it is a bit of slam dunk for my mind. The gospel is a royal summons to believe and obey Jesus as God’s messianic king, a king who has shown his might and power by laying down his life for his people to make them right, forgiven, and reconciled, etc. Or, as I define the gospel in my Evangelical Theology: ‘The gospel is the announcement that God’s kingdom has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Messiah, in fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures. The gospel evokes faith, repentance, and discipleship; its accompanying effects include salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”

Further on in his post, Michael addresses the New Testament passages that explain “justification by faith,” the touchstone for evangelical orthodoxy in many people’s minds.

I would only add to Michael’s argument by pointing out something that is widely overlooked: the apostle Paul only talks about “justification by faith” in those letters where he is combating some sort of Judaizing influence within the church. “Judaizers” were the folks who insisted that Gentiles must become good Jews in order to become real disciples of Jesus. This meant circumcision and adherence to the Torah.

So, Paul’s argument for “justification by faith alone apart from works (signifying works of the law)” always (maybe I should say only) arose in a very specific polemical environment. That does not offer much of a basis for insisting on its “centrality.”

To my mind the conclusion is pretty obvious.

Justification by faith was not the irreducible, central component to Paul’s way of understanding the work of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

It was one important aspect of the gospel. But not its essence.

For both the root and the branch of the Good News, we must turn to Jesus of Nazareth. What was essential to him?

Read the New Testament Gospels and the answer becomes obvious: the Kingdom of God and the Lordship of Jesus over God’s kingdom.

I just happen to have written a book about it.