This summer Charlie Kirk hosted another Turning Point USA conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, targeting Christian leaders, especially
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk introduces Brazil’s right wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, at a TPUSA event at Trump National Doral Miami, Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
MAGA pastors. Although, one would be hard pressed to find anything explicitly Christian about this gathering.
Below is the conference mission statement taken from the conference website:
“Turning Point USA empowers citizens of all ages to Rise Up against the radical Left in defense of freedom, free markets, and limited government. Join millions of patriotic supporters to Save America.”
Aside from the fact that Mr. Kirk would undoubtedly categorize me among “the radical left” he is fighting against, even my wildest imaginations cannot conceive of one Biblical argument requiring me to include free markets, limited government and saving America (from what? from myself?) as goals for Christian discipleship in the kingdom of God.
What does any of this have to do with Christian leadership? I’ll give you a hint: Nothing.
One of Kirk’s favorite speakers is Eric Metaxas.
Since writing his biography about the German pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas has doubled down on styling himself as an American prophet following in Bonhoeffer’s footsteps, warning us about the imminent destruction of our nation.
Supposedly, just as Bonhoeffer resisted the Nazis on behalf of Christ, Metaxas (and his followers) are called to combat their political opponents for the sake of God’s kingdom.
In his most recent book, Letter to the American Church (which I reviewed here), Metaxas implicitly encourages Christians to resort to violence, if need be, as they fight to restore a godly America.
Godly, that is, insofar as Eric Metaxas understands godliness.
Furthermore, never in a million years would Bonhoeffer have said that he was resisting Hitler in order to restore a godly Germany. He was far too good a theologian to have deceived himself in that way.
Metaxas tells us that American Christians are now called to engage in spiritual warfare more than ever. Today’s American scene somehow making godliness and truth “many times more important than it was ten years ago.”
Really? Are you telling me that the contemporary relevance of God’s kingdom is determined by the ephemeral phases of human politics?
Are you kidding me?
Below is a clip of Metaxas’ Turning Point address where he exhorts Christians to pick up their weapons for holy war as did Bonhoeffer.
What Metaxas continually fails to tell his listeners, however, is that Bonhoeffer did not die because of his Christian witness.
No. That’s not what caused the Nazis to seal his fate.
Bonhoeffer was arrested and finally executed because he participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer did not die for Christ, though he certainly did live for him — faithfully and unfaithfully, as we all do.
Bonhoeffer died for attempted murder. Something that no Christian should boast about.
Ironically, in valorizing Bonhoeffer as he does; in stirring Christians to “fight” in “spiritual warfare” as he does, Metaxas is encouraging the American church and its MAGA pastors to repeat Bonhoeffer’s final failure.
And I suspect that this is exactly what Metaxas intends to say.
This is leading unthoughtful people to repeat the error of Esau, who gave up his rightful inheritance in exchange for a bowl of soup.
In much the same way, Eric Metaxas is asking us to betray God’s peaceable, eternal kingdom for the inconsequential rumblings of political skulldugery.
Don’t be deceived. Metaxas is a false prophet, a false teacher, who now points people away from the crucified Jesus.
In anticipation of tomorrow’s national elections, Chris Hedges’ most recent post is appropriately titled “Destroyers of Democracy.”
If you know anything about Hedges, then you already have guessed that his critique of our electoral system and the political options given to us includes a condemnation of both political parties.
Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt.
Neither party has the needs or the interests of working people on their lists of political, social priorities.
Though their styles are different, both parties are equally authoritarian. Biden’s recent speech about the preservation of American democracy was nothing more than a blatant attempt at fear-mongering undecided voters into casting their ballots for the do-nothing shills that march in lock-step behind Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer.
Don’t fall for it.
Though I will vote tomorrow, I have no expectation that my vote — nor your vote, nor anyone else’s who doesn’t make enough money to be listed among the Fortune 500 — will make any difference in the state of my country or its future.
Am I too gloomy? No. I am old, experienced and thus realistic.
Thankfully, I know that my true citizenship is in the kingdom of God. I know that God’s kingdom will one day make all things right, as they should be.
I eagerly anticipate that day and pray for its speedy arrival. With all the saints from the past, all Christians can pray, “Come Lord Jesus. Come!”
In the meantime, I do the best I can to live out a kingdom lifestyle pleasing to my Lord; to explain Jesus’ kingdom values to others; to work, agitate, and yes to vote in ways that may help to spread the benefits of Jesus’ kingdom values to others.
But I place no hope in any political party or its candidates.
I have no expectations that any candidate will remain true to his/her campaign promises — unless, of course, those promises offer more money, influence and power to the wealthy.
I am too old to naively imagine that our current, corrupt political system will ever change for the better — though I am certain it will continue to deteriorate and become worse.
Don’t listen to the mindless muttering of the feckless false prophets, the modern-day soothsayers of evangelical idolatry, men and women who have sold their souls to the godless architects of Republican political power.
You know their names…
These blind guides have betrayed the kingdom of God in exchange for a lukewarm bowl of tasteless political porridge.
Thus they have already earned their only reward: a millisecond of Twitter fame that will one day condemn them as wasteful servants who failed to prepare for eternity.
Their anti-Christ foolishness seems to know no bounds while they feverishly expand the selfish boundaries of their own ministry domains filled to the brim with thoughtless flocks of misguided followers.
No. Instead, do this: Memorize the Sermon on the Mount.
Give great thought to how your political commitments ought to be molded by Jesus’ own ethical priorities and instructions.
Plant yourself on the side of the poor and the needy.
Speak up for the voiceless. Labor for those who lack the resources needed to improve their lives by themselves. Give yourself away to those who have nothing left to give back to you.
Remember that money is not speech, its power.
Remember that power ALWAYS corrupts.
Remember that every government lies.
All politicians, but especially winning politicians, are compromised by their largest donors.
No interest is as powerful as self-interest.
In this world, money will always rule the roost.
Remember the social commentary of Thucydides who lamented the fact that “The rich always do as they choose, while the poor suffer as they must.”
Then decide to spend your life working to overturn the status quo, for the rules of wealth and power are as true today as they were in the days of Thucydides.
Obediently following hard after Jesus is the only way to get this right.
Remember, the ends never justify the means. In fact, corrupted means only lead to corrupted ends. Sure, compromise may win you a seat at the table, but you’ll find yourself dining with the devil rather than serving with Jesus.
Our only hope is found in the Jesus prayer: Father in heaven, cause your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen
And now for an excerpt from Chris Hedges’ prophetic article:
With the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday, Biden and other establishment politicians hope to paper over the rot and pain of the system they created with the same decorum they used to sell the country the con of neoliberalism.
The bipartisan project of dismantling U.S. democracy, which took place over the last few decades on behalf of corporations and the rich, has left only the outward shell of democracy.
The courts, legislative bodies, the executive branch and the media, including public broadcasting, are captive to corporate power. There is no institution left that can be considered authentically democratic. The corporate coup d’état is over. They won. Americans lost.
The wreckage of this neoliberal project is appalling: endless and futile wars to enrich a military-industrial-complex that bleeds the U.S. Treasury of half of all discretionary spending; deindustrialization that has turned U.S. cities into decayed ruins; the slashing and privatization of social programs, including education, utility services and health care — which saw over one million Americans account for one-fifth of global deaths from Covid, although the U.S. has 4 percent of the world’s population; draconian forms of social control embodied in militarized police, functioning as lethal armies of occupation in poor urban areas; the largest prison system in the world; a virtual tax boycott by the richest individuals and corporations; money-saturated elections that perpetuate our system of legalized bribery; and the most intrusive state surveillance of the citizenry in U.S. history. . .
. . . Biden, morally vacuous and of limited intelligence, is responsible for more suffering and death at home and abroad than Donald Trump. But the victims in the U.S. Punch-and-Judy media shows are rendered invisible. And that is why the victims despise the whole superstructure and want to tear it down.
These establishment politicians and their appointed judges promulgated laws that permitted the top 1 percent to loot $54 trillion from the bottom 90 percent, from 1975 to 2022, at a rate of $2.5 trillion a year, according to a study by the RAND corporation.
The fertile ground of our political, economic, cultural and social wreckage spawned an array of neo-fascists, con artists, racists, criminals, charlatans, conspiracy theorists, right-wing militias and demagogues that will soon take power. . .
[This is my second post addressing the problems of political divisions in American churches. You can read the previous post here.]
In the New Testament passages that I cited in the last post, Paul warns his young friend Timothy about the dangers created by church members who believe in mythology, promote mythology, and stir up divisive controversies and squabbles as they spread their favorite mythologies.
Paul’s advice to Timothy is simple: Don’t tolerate any of these things.
In 2 Timothy 2 he says, Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels . . . Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Let’s notice several issues in these letters.
First, what are the “myths” Timothy must combat? We can sidestep the debate over the specific content of the myths confusing Timothy’s churches. For our purposes, it is enough to understand what a myth was and how it functioned for those who believed it.
A myth was an invented story that explained why things are the way they are for those who believed it. Myths ordered a believer’s view of the world, bringing a sense of meaning and purpose to the devout.
For Christians, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom on earth, is to accomplish all of these same things. But, of course, Christians believe that the Gospel is not a “myth,” in the common sense of that word, because we believe that the Gospel message is historical fact.
Second, we see that the contest between fact and fiction in religious debate is an ancient one. It is particularly dangerous to organize one’s view of the world around fancifully invented stories. As a Christian, I’d say that this is the problem with non-Christian religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism, to name only a few.
Third, anyone hoping to share the Gospel effectively with people devoted to mythology would do well to know the myths themselves and have some ability to point out their errors. Share the Gospel and knowledgeably point out the falsehoods of the myth. In other words, from a Christian perspective, replace fiction with facts. Then call for confession, repentance, and conversion.
Allowing a lie to shape the course of one’s life never pleases God.
Fourth, recognize the fact that not everyone will be willing to repent and change. Some people will prefer their mythology to the Truth of Jesus Christ. Here the leader/teacher must have wisdom. Recall, that Timothy was dealing with “church members” who claimed to be Christians.
They probably claimed to have a “new insight” that somehow enhanced or added to their Christian life. It would be tempting for a leader to think, “well they have some odd ideas, but they still confess Christ, so I’ll leave well enough alone.”
Bad idea.
People who cling to mythologies while continuing to profess faith in Christ are usually eager to share with others how much their mythical beliefs had added to their lives. Faith in Jesus is supplemented, and eventually usurped, by the mythology as the all-important elements of faith.
No faithful church leader can tolerate such compromise. No falsehood is EVER compatible with the truth of the Gospel. Controversy is inevitable. Paul judges it all very harshly. He concludes that such people have fallen into the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Division in the Body of Christ, foolish quarreling, replacing the centrality of worship and service to Jesus Christ with other competing priorities, causes, leaders, or belief systems is all the devil’s work. He loves to see it happen. Wise, godly leaders will respond accordingly.
Fifth, the Christian church is not intended to include anyone and everyone. It is, after all, the Body of CHRIST. The church must reach out to everyone, hoping to persuade everyone, but will finally recognize that the Family of God only includes those who surrender their hearts, minds, and wills to the Lord Jesus.
And this family never entertains mythology and lies.
So, when people choose to reject the burdens and responsibilities of Christian discipleship; when they cling to their mythologies and continue to spread contentious lies inside the church; when they decide that pastoral correction infringes upon their freedom to believe what they want, and they eventually decide to leave, the church has not been split. The wheat has been sifted from the chaff.
Remember that Paul also says:
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:10-11)
If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. (2 Thess. 3:14)
The apostle John says about those who leave the church (rather than correct their false teaching) that “they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19)
In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11:19 Paul even goes so far as to say, “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.”
To show which of you have God’s approval…
You may have noticed by now that “church splits” are not what concern me most at this point in America’s post-Trump history.
The greater problem, I believe, is the way in which Trump’s presidency exposed the infantile “spirituality” of American evangelicalism, the widespread failure of evangelical leadership, the lack of deep, meaningful kingdom discipleship among so many who call themselves Christians.
The evangelical wing of American Christianity must take our recent political history as a wake-up call.
Unthoughtful cries for “church unity” are NOT what is most needed in this moment.
Instead, the more necessary cry is It’s Time for the Church to Grow Up?! Evangelicalism’s wholesale devotion to Donald Trump; the continuation of “Stop the Steal” rhetoric within the church (and much more) all demonstrate the failure of meaningful discipleship development inside our churches.
We don’t understand the Lordship of Christ.
We don’t understand the nature and meaning of the kingdom of God.
We don’t understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Seek God’s kingdom first.”
We don’t understand what it means to live as a citizen of God’s kingdom.
We don’t grasp the all-encompassing upside-down, inside-out nature of Jesus’ ethical teaching.
Don’t be distracted by the superficial calls of distress, wailing superciliously about the dreaded dangers of division.
Focus instead on meeting the needs of the hour: It’s Time for the Church to Grow Up!
[In the next post on this subject, I will finally get to the article that initially prompted my thoughts. Thanks for reading.]
His article is interesting, and I will return to it in a future post. As I read this piece, I found myself reflecting on my recent readings in the New Testament letters of 1 and 2 Timothy.
Timothy was a close assistant to the apostle Paul. 2 Timothy was Paul’s final letter to his young co-worker, written shortly before Paul’s brutal execution in Rome.
Both letters overflow with advice on what it takes to be a faithful pastor in an agitated Christian community threatened by internal divisions.
In other words, Paul is coaching Timothy in how to deal with the 21st century American church. For the more things change, the more they stay the same.
In this post I will print what I judge to be the most relevant sections of Paul’s advice to Timothy. It’s also very good advice for anyone calling him/herself a follower of Jesus Christ today.
I will deal more specifically with the relevance of Paul’s advice to the contemporary evangelical church in an upcoming post. For now, I will only draw your attention to Paul’s insistence on the importance of combating myths that challenge the truth of the Gospel.
One of the major problems confronting conservative churches today is the open circulation of destructive myths – political myths about Trump, elections, political parties, government agencies, and secular savior figures.
God’s people are called to remain fearlessly faithful to Truth. Truth is always the enemy of myths, whatever form they take.
1 Timothy 4:1ff
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. . .
If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.
1 Timothy 6:3ff
If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicionsand constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth. . .
2 Timothy 2:16ff
Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. . .
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
2 Timothy 4:3f
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Adam Kinzinger is a genuinely Christian man from the state of Illinois. He was one of the 10 Republican members of the House of Representatives who
Congressman (R. IL) Adam Kinzinger
voted in favor of impeaching Donald Trump.
(Yes, remember that Trump was impeached while in office. His Senate trial this week is a continuation of an ongoing process, not something newly begun after Trump left office as so many want us to believe. And YES there is precedent for finishing the Congressional impeachment / Senate trial process after an elected official has left office. In fact, it’s happened three times in US history. It’s not common but neither is it an aberration.)
I call Rep. Kinzinger a “genuine Christian” not because he voted to impeach Trump — although this is the way many people will interpret that sentence nowadays when avid partisanship has become more important than rational thinking and honesty — but because of the reasons he offers to explain himself.
He both thinks and acts as a Christian should. No one can ask for better proof than that.
As I read this story two sayings of Jesus kept echoing in my mind:
Matthew 7:13-14, Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Luke 6:26, Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their [the leaders and Pharisees criticizing Jesus] ancestors treated the false prophets.
Family members have now disowned him. Many who voted for him are now calling for his head.
But this is the very predictable fate of faithful people who speak truth to power and stand for what is right while others conspire to spout lies.
One last observation before the article excerpt:
The entire drama of the Trump presidency, its aftermath, and the enthusiastic support (often bleeding into open idolatry) has demonstrated a massive failure of leadership in the American conservative/fundamentalist/ evangelical church.
There are no two ways about it.
If our churches and our leaders had really been fulfilling the Lord Jesus’ “Great Commission” where believers are commanded to “make disciples of every nation [by] teaching them how to obey everything that Jesus has taught us [i.e. concerning how to think, understand, and behave as citizens of the kingdom of God] Donald Trump’s wholesale cooption of US evangelicalism would never have happened.
Yep, that’s right. The truth is that stark.
I know many will insist that equally sincere people can easily come to different positions on such things. My answer is Balderdash!
The issue here concerns spiritual maturity and faithful discipleship. BOTH of which have been in short supply among evangelical leaders these past 4 years.
CT’s article about Rep. Adam Kinzinger make this very, very clear. Read the
Kate Shellnut, Senior News Editor for Christianity Today
entire piece below. It is entitled, “Meet the Republican Congressman Who Says His Faith Led Him to Vote for Impeachment.” The author is Kate Shellnut, Senior News Editor.
From his office in the Capitol, US Rep. Adam Kinzinger could see a little bit of the crowd on the lawn on January 6. He heard the flash-bangs go off on the steps as rioters made their way inside. And he could feel the spiritual weight of what was unfolding.
“I’m not one of these people that senses evil all the time or anything. It’s probably only happened maybe twice in my life,” the Illinois congressman said. “But I just felt a real darkness over this place, like a real evil.”
Kinzinger, a nondenominational Protestant, doesn’t talk much about his faith in public and is wary of conflating the mission of the church with the work of politics. But he saw serious implications for both in the wake of the Capitol breach and felt convicted to speak out.
“Although I’m not great at citing verse and chapter, I know the Bible speaks quite a bit about conspiracies and about allowing that darkness into your heart, about the importance of truth, the importance of being a light in dark places, of being truth,” he said on a call with CT and other news outlets this week.
“I’m not a Christian leader. I’m not a pastor. But I am a person who shares the faith and who looks at what that’s done to the political system in this country, and I decided to speak out.”
In the days after the attack, Kinzinger called on Christian leaders “to lead the flock back into the truth.” He opposed President Donald Trump for continuing to tout claims that the election had been stolen and was one of ten House Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment.
The backlash was swift, coming from Kinzinger’s district in northern Illinois, where a majority of Republicans disagreed, and from his fellow believers, with many white evangelicals continuing to support Trump even as his false claims encouraged rioters at the Capitol.
Franklin Graham condemned Kinzinger and the other Republicans who voted for impeachment for turning their back on the president despite the good he had done on issues like abortion, foreign affairs, and religious freedom. “It makes you wonder what the thirty pieces of silver were that Speaker Pelosi promised for this betrayal,” the evangelist remarked.
A relative sent the congressman a certified letter accusing him of “doing the Devil’s work.”
Kinzinger said that despite the opposition, the stance was the easiest of his career. Political analysts say it will likely cost him politically, though, and will at minimum isolate him from his party ahead of the impeachment trial set to begin the week of February 8.
At 42, Kinzinger has served in Congress for a decade and has been part of the church all his life; he was raised Baptist and now attends Village Christian Church in Minooka, Illinois. He has a conservative voting record and is outspoken in his stance against abortion, recently urging congressional leaders to preserve the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions.
But unlike most Republicans in Congress, Kinzinger has been openly critical about conspiracies spreading baseless claims that the election was stolen from Trump.
Last year, before Marjorie Taylor Greene controversially became the first open QAnon adherent elected to the US House, he said the conspiracy was a “fabrication” and had “no place in Congress.” Prior to the election being called for Joe Biden, Kinzinger urged people to stop using “debunked misinformation” to claim fraud and refused to challenge state results without solid evidence in court.
Kinzinger said Christians in Congress may, in good faith, take opposite stances, but he also sees them holding a unique responsibility to consider the spiritual implications of their decisions. He’s calling for fellow Republicans to join him to #RestoreOurGOP and had discussed concerns with friends in the party, such as Jaime Herrera Beutler. The Washington Republican, another churchgoing evangelical, joined him in voting for impeachment. “I’m not choosing sides,” she said. “I’m choosing truth.”
Other evangelicals in the party, like Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, voted no on impeachment, saying Trump’s words did not constitute an incitement of violence, but still reckoned with the deeper undercurrents of what happened on January 6. She acknowledged a “complete lack of leadership” and a “crisis of contempt in America” and asked Trump supporters like herself to take responsibility for enabling bullying behavior for the sake of favorable policies.
But Kinzinger said it’s not enough for members of Congress to have these kinds of tough conversations. He wants to see the church take the lead.
Adam Kinzinger ✔@RepKinzinger
I believe there is a huge burden now on Christian leaders, especially those who entertained the conspiracies, to lead the flock back into the truth.
While those who have been convinced of QAnon theories and election fraud may represent a minority in the America church, it’s enough to worry Kinzinger about Christians’ regard for absolute truth and more broadly, their commitment to Christ above all.
A Lifeway Research survey conducted in the fall found half of pastors in the US said they frequently hear members of their congregation sharing conspiracy theories. “I think there are scales on their eyes,” said Kinzinger.
He believes the spread of lies among Christians is part of a much more serious battle than political races, citing Ephesians 6:12’s reminder that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world” (KJV). He said too many Christians have been co-opted into prizing political victories over spiritual ones.
“If you think about the Devil’s ultimate trick for Christianity, really, he doesn’t care what the tax rates are. It doesn’t matter. What he cares about is embarrassing the church, and it feels like it’s been successful,” the congressman said. “But I also think this is an opportunity for the church to have a massive rediscovery of what our mission and our role in this world is.”
During his inauguration, Biden referenced Augustine’s line from City of God about a people being defined by their common loves. What he left outwas Augustine’s teaching that love must be rightly ordered, with love of God above all, scholar Han-luen Kantzer Komline noted.
Kinzinger lamented what he saw as Americans’ disordered priorities—how they’ve allowed allegiances to the country, the economy, the president, or their political identities to distract from their primary identity as citizens of heaven.
“We get wrapped up on thinking that every little political victory we do, which has an impact on an election, is actually fighting for God and the truth. I think to an extent some of that is true. The Supreme Court now is very conservative. I like that. I think that is good for Christianity,” he said. “But I think we need to go a level above that … and say, What is our role as Christians? Truthfully, it’s to make disciples, to love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor.”
For Kinzinger, his faith offers an eternal perspective on his day-to-day work as a congressman. While he aims to fight for life, truth, and freedom, he believes following Christ trumps any political outcome. Right now, it means he can “accept his fate” among the minority of GOP lawmakers backing impeachment.
In the long-run, the debates over policies or political alliances are “not really going to matter,” he said this week. “But what does matter is what we did with this time on earth, how we talked about the Lord, how we stood up for truth.”
The editors at Christianity Today have hopped aboard the mea culpa train with many other conservative, Republican, evangelical news outlets.
However, I don’t know whether to say, “Better late than never,” or “Too little too late.”
On second thought, I think I’ll go with option two. Because it’s all way too little and much too late.
It’s too late because the inevitability of violence, fueled by Right-Wing lies about the election of Joe Biden, was as clear as the nose on your face for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Trump eagerly and persistently fomented it over and over again, every time he opened his foul mouth.
Right-Wing radio and television, a category which includes ostensibly “Christian” broadcasting networks as well, only intensified the already high levels of anger and resentment among Trump’s base over the president’s mythical conspiracy stories.
Yet, I never saw nor heard a single, Christian conservative fact-checker offer even minimal push-back against the bogus election fraud charges cooked up by the Trump-Guliani-Sekulow-Powell-Mitchell cabal of greedy, power-hungry, “legal” opportunists.
Not one.
Yet, now the editorial staff and talking heads at such bastions of Trump- mania as Fox, Newsmax, the Trinity Broadcasting and the Christian Broadcasting Networks (check here, here, and here) have all joined hands to sing kumbaya and condemn the violent assault on our nation’s capitol.
An assault that their reporting had helped to stir up and create.
Christianity Today has now joined this circle of lame repentance at the evangelical campfire.
Yet, it is far too little. In fact, it is grossly inadequate.
Remember, as far back as October 2016, candidate Trump insisted that Hillary Clinton was going to rig the election. He insisted that she could only win if she “stole the election” from him.
Where was this newly discovered evangelical moral fiber then? Trump’s long-term plans were obvious then and there. Why wasn’t he called on it?
Early on in this more recent presidential campaign, Trump was replaying the same old tune warning that “the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged.”
The remarks below were made in August.
Trump was clearly previewing his strategy for contesting the outcome of the election should he lose.
Figuring this out was not rocket science.
So, where was the Christian wisdom and warning about these obvious presidential shenanigans last fall, when it might have made a difference?
Where were the serious Christian warnings about the dangers of conspiracy theories, and the irrational behavior they can cause, when Trump first initiated his ultimate conspiracy theory that is now tearing the country apart?
I don’t have time to run through the litany of impeachable offenses committed by this president over the past four years, but they began in the first week he sat down in the Oval Office when he refused to divest himself of his business interests.
Where were the evangelical voices then, ready to condemn his refusal to abide by the Constitution?
Trump’s habitual violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses were only the beginning of his presidential criminality. And, believe it or not, we see that it his theft has never stopped as his staff now steals — yes, steals — historical artifacts from the White House (see below)!
Where was this evangelical moral concern in January of 2017?
Or. how about the Muller Report’s thoroughly documents claims that Trump had committed obstruction of justice at least 10-12 times in the aftermath of his phone call with the Ukrainian president?
Where was the evangelical worry about telling the truth then? Who was calling out William Barr’s lies for Trump then?
No, “humoring” this president is THE LAST thing his conservative, Republican, evangelical base has been doing.
Rather, they have been enablers, sycophants, co-conspirators, and mindless cheerleaders for the most incompetent, criminal, and psychologically dangerous president in American history.
So, finally I get to it. Below is Christianity Today’s wholly inadequate editorial. It’s facile references to the Bible offer only a veneer of seriousness to an otherwise shallow attempt at self-criticism:
The administration officials and members of Congress who enabled President Trump’s attempts to delegitimize the presidential election did not truly believe he won. They chose to coddle the president’s deception (and, I suspect, self-deception) because they thought it would endear them to his most loyal voters, and they assumed no one would get hurt.
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” an unnamed senior Republican official told The Washington Post in November. “He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
I think Trump will indeed leave, as he finally said he would in a brief video Thursday. But that doesn’t mean there was no downside. It doesn’t mean no one got hurt. In Washington on Wednesday, we witnessed a “failed insurrection,” to use the phrase of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in which pro-Trump demonstrators, some armed with guns, stormed the Capitol and rioted inside. The chaos claimed multiple lives as it made credible all but the direst warnings about what Trump’s elevation to the highest office in our country could bring.
Humoring him was not harmless.
For Christians, this should be no surprise. Scripture warns us that small patterns and habits grow to shape our lives in large ways. This is true of both faithfulness and sin, virtue and vice. “Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?” Paul asked the Corinthian church, incredulous at their acceptance of open, incestuous adultery in their congregation (1 Cor. 5:6). . .
. . . What we saw in Washington last Wednesday is what happens when the president insists he won an election he lost and, instead of telling him and the American people the truth, his allies go along with it. It is what happens when they file lawsuit after lawsuit without a whit of merit, pushing legal claims so bad they are dismissed in court after court, by judge after judge—including judges nominated by Trump himself.
It is what happens when they prioritize power over honesty and cosset mass delusion, even in Jesus’ name. It is what happens after two months of the president and his associates telling millions of disappointed, frightened, angry people that they were cheated, that the foundation of our representative government was undermined, that they really ought to do something about it, that maybe that something should be violent, and that they should “never concede.”
Well, some of them did do something. This is what the dough looks like leavened. This is where dishonesty in the little things leads.
In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s events, I’ve seen defensiveness over assignment of responsibility to white evangelicals because of our unusually high support for Trump at the ballot box. Is it fair, some have asked, to blame all evangelicals for actions (storming the Capitol) many would never condone, or for the election of a president many backed for policy reasons if at all?
Many people are pointing out the gross disparities between the way DC police handled the “Stop the Steal” mob that attacked Congress and looted Congressional chambers this week, and the way police responded to Black Lives Matter demonstrations this past summer.
Of course, the Right-Wing media bubble will never talk about this disparity. They are too busy inventing stories about mythical “bus loads” of antifa infiltrators invading DC in order to give violent Trump supporters a bad name.
NowThisNews has compiled video clips illustrating the very different responses mustered by the DC authorities last summer and this week.
The Daily Poster has another good article by investigative journalist, David Sirota.
His piece, “The Insurrection Was Predictable,” makes the case for what any informed citizen should have known: the Right-Wing violence that occurred in the nation’s capitol this week was entirely predictable. In fact, it was a foregone conclusion.
And we can expect to see more of this violent behavior from The Right in the future.
I have excerpted Sirota’s article below. Or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the link above.
Two months ago, The Daily Poster published a series of reports on the growing threat of a coup attempt, wondering why it wasn’t being taken more seriously by Democrats and the media. We were scoffed at and eye-rolled, as if such things could never happen in America.
Nobody is scoffing or eye-rolling anymore after today’s events at the U.S. Capitol. There, insurrectionists stormed the building and halted the certification of the national election, as security forces allowed them to breach the Senate chamber and shut down the proceedings. There was a notable difference in the way federal security forces met last year’s Black Lives Matter protests with a show of force, and the way they allowed the Capitol to be overrun by right-wing authoritarians that they knew were coming.
About a decade ago, I wrote a book called “The Uprising,” which described how we were entering an era of chaos where right-wing groups would try to seize power under the guise of populism. Clearly, that has been happening — we saw it speed up during the Tea Party backlash and it was further accelerated by Donald Trump, who is a unique president in his willingness to use the White House megaphone to foment and destabilize.
Today’s events were the result of all that incitement. It was a culmination that happened inside a culture of total impunity — and it is worth considering five points of context to understand what we’re really dealing with here, because it will likely continue after Trump leaves the White House.
1. We have long known that the far-right — and specifically many Trump supporters — are hostile to democracy. 2019 polling data from Monmouth University found about a third of the strongest supporters of Trump scored in the highest ratings for authoritarian tendencies. In all, Democracy Fund data show that roughly a third of Americans “say that an authoritarian alternative to democracy would be favorable.” That’s what was on display today.
2. While Trump has tried to blame violence on the left, his administration has been trying to downplay the threat of right-wing authoritarianism and white supremacy. In a whistleblower complaint, a former top Homeland Security official alleged that Trump officials ordered him to modify an agency report’s section “on white supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe.” Politico reported earlier this year that Homeland Security officials have “waged a yearslong internal struggle to get the White House to pay attention to the threat of violent domestic extremists” — but they gave up because Trump wasn’t interested. Instead, federal security forces were focusing on deporting immigrants and investigating environmental activists.
3. The Capitol Police have a $460 million budget and 2,300 personnel to guard the U.S. Capitol complex. For comparison, that is twice the size of the budget of my own city’s police department, which is used to secure an entire metropolis. Somehow, this army of Capitol security forces was unable — or unwilling — to stop insurrectionists from breaching the building and taking over the floor of the U.S. Senate. And it’s not like they were caught by surprise — they had advance warning of the potential for unrest. So it’s almost as if they weren’t trying to stop the mayhem.
4. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request to send National Guard reinforcements to the Capitol was initially rejected by the Defense Department — the same department whose leadership was recently purged and then replaced with Trump loyalists. That doesn’t seem like a coincidence, considering Trump initially refused to call for the insurrectionists to disperse.
5. The insurrection clearly fed off months of misinformation by Republican Party officials who continued to push the lie that the national election was plagued by fraud. Those lies spread: A survey last month found that three quarters of Republican voters believe the election was fraudulent. Even though nobody has produced evidence of systemic fraud, Republican lawmakers in Washington continued to fuel the conspiracy theories, ultimately pressing Congress to overturn the national election. One photo caught Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley raising a fist to the oncoming insurrectionists as he headed to the Capitol to try to halt the certification of the election.
As I wrote earlier this week, the Republican Party officials who fueled and abetted this insurrection did so because they assume they will feel no political, social or legal consequences for their behavior. On the contrary, they will likely be rewarded with higher approval ratings and support from many Republican voters. And if the Look Forward Not Backward™ crowd gets its way and makes sure there are no legal consequences for any of Trump’s many crimes, then these Republicans will know they have a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card for their own extremist behavior.
After all of this, if nothing changes, then I tend to agree with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s aide Dan Riffle, who today said that “it always — even in moments like this — can get worse. If recent history is any guide, it almost certainly will.”
But things can still change — and they must.
In “The Uprising,” I argued that the best way to counter the rise of right-wing populism and to prevent it from proliferating is for an opposition movement and party to not just issue vague paeans to democracy and the soul of the nation. The opposition must also deliver tangible, material gains for working people — rather than continuing to be an elite and effete caretaker of a let-them-eat-cake establishment that right-wing provocateurs can forever burn in effigy.
The New Deal delivering such gains to the working class helped tamp down the outbreak of right-wing fascism in America. Nearly a century later, the Georgia elections this week proved the same point. There, two right-wing Republican authoritarians were defeated by the Black reverend who runs Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s church and by a Jewish guy — and the Democratic duo won by relentlessly campaigning on a simple promise to deliver $2,000 checks to millions of people in their state facing eviction, starvation and bankruptcy.
Of course, no matter what Democrats might deliver — survival checks, a higher minimum wage, guaranteed medical care, massive investments in job creation, a crackdown on abusive corporations, etc. — there will always be a right-wing authoritarian movement in America willing to weaponize racism and illiberalism for its cause.
So it’s not simple: there is not a straightforward 1-to-1 relationship between enacting policies that improve people’s lives and instantly snuffing out the kind of fascism that reared its head at the Capitol today. But delivering for millions of people who’ve been economically pulverized for generations is the best and probably only way to try to halt fascism’s wider spread to more of the general population over the long haul.
In previous posts I have mentioned that whenever I take a road trip I view it as an opportunity to imagine myself a social anthropologist conducting
Rush Limbaugh
primary research on what people are listening to out in the hinterlands.
Thus, when I am not listening to a favorite CD, I am tuned in to either conservative talk radio or local Christian programming (not for the music but the news, commentary, sermons, or call-in Bible answer man shows).
My most recent trip confirmed not just the close similarities, but the near
Shaun Hannity
identity of political-social views on secular and Christian broadcasting. There is no difference whatsoever. And that should send a chill down every disciples’ spiritual spine.
Of course, every talk show was a monolithic barrage of “Stop the Steal” nonstop — usually, asserted with ranting, anger, and fear-mongering, not to mention the repeated threats of looming violence if “the radical, leftist cabal” that stole the election from Trump didn’t move over and get out of the way.
I could not find a single instance of rational, evidence-based conversation or
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 24: Jay Sekulow, personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference during the Senate impeachment trial against President Donald Trump. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
debate, much less analysis, about the presidential election, the recounts, the court challenges, or the future of this country on a secular radio station.
Worse yet, the Christian broadcasts were no different.
Whether the programming was syndicated or regional, Christian commentators were reading from the same hyper-partisan play book: anger, fear, threats of armed uprisings, calling hell fire onto the leftists, socialists, Marxists, antifa-ists, critical race theorists, and Black Lives Matters communists who are determined to destroy America by turning it into a totalitarian, anti-Christian nation.
The ignorance and misinformation spewed like sewage from a fire hose.
Pat Robertson
The Christians had no more interest in honest conversation, or an examination of the facts available, than the did the Rush Limbaugh crowd. I doubt if a single one of them had even a rudimentary understanding of what socialism really is or that the United States is already highly “socialist” in many ways – highly unjust ways that favor the rich and corporations almost exclusively.
Everyone is convinced that Joe and Kamala are raging socialists chomping at the bit to outlaw private property and confiscate everyone’s guns. Obviously, not a one of these people (broadcasters and callers both) knew the first thing about Biden’s or Harris’ careers.
The truth of the matter is that both Biden and Harris are dyed in the wool crony-capitalists, corporatists, center-right party stalwarts so heavily indebted to Wall Street that I’m surprised either of them has an independent thought in their head.
Jan Crouch, founder of the Trinity Broadcast Network, with Oral Roberts
Their souls are owned by the same brand of neoliberal economics that continues to fuel the gaping chasm of income inequality that curses sick Americans – especially people of color – to wait in bread lines longer than anything seen in this country since the Great Depression, and to die of covid19 at higher rates than any other country in the civilized world.
The American evangelical church has become nothing more than cheap, shallow reflection of the cultivated ignorance, narrow mindedness, and xenophobia that has always marked American conservatism.
That ghoulish political contortion has become the face of the Republican party AND the Religious Right (read: evangelicalism).
This post is my brief introduction to short series I will write in the next few weeks.
David Brody, political reporter for CBN, author of the book, “The Faith of Donald Trump”
In this series I will have a great deal more to say about the incestuous mánage à tois that has developed between evangelicalism, the Republican party, and American anti-intellectualism.
I will begin by focusing on the role that virulent, Republican racism has to play in both (1) the Republican demonization of the Black Lives Matter movement and (2) Donald Trump’s campaign to persuade his base that this election was stolen.
I recently posted about Trump’s efforts to interfere in the Michigan state presidential election results. I credited state officials for having more integrity than their national counterparts.
Now, it turns out that I spoke too soon.
I am grateful to my friend, Suzanne McDonald, professor at Western Theological Seminary, for sending me more accurate information and the ongoing shenanigans in Michigan.
Sadly, it turns out that the state Republican officials are NOT showing the integrity that I originally thought. Yep, they are playing Trump’s overturn-the-election games as well.
The story in The Detroit News, by Craig Mauger, is entitled, “Michigan House Speaker Floats Possibility of ‘Constitutional Crisis.'” Below is an excerpt, or you can read the entire article here:
Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield referenced the possibility of a “constitutional crisis” during an interview on Fox News Sunday morning, two days after he huddled with President Donald Trump at the White House.
The board features two Republicans and two Democrats. Many legal experts believe the panel has a duty, under Michigan law, to certify the results Monday. .
“The Board of State Canvassers participates in a very straightforward and perfunctory process,” John Pirich, a longtime elections attorney in Michigan, said in the groups’ press release.” Auditing the election is not within its scope of duties; the board is only responsible for reviewing the vote calculations and signing them.
By the way. Michigan state law requires the vote to be certified before an investigation into possible irregularities can begin. But, of course, since when has breaking the law ever deterred Donald Trump?
post is appropriately titled “
final letter to his young co-worker, written shortly before Paul’s brutal execution in Rome.
