CHRIST-APP by philtierneyblog

by The Reverend Canon Philip J. Tierney

JULY 14, 2020 

The Case AGAINST Christians Supporting Donald Trump

Why would any person of faith, let alone of Christian faith, support or vote for Donald Trump?!

Once upon a time, St. Paul wrote this in a letter to the Christians in the city of Philippi: “(I was) circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness based on the law, faultless.” That sounds a bit egotistical, doesn’t it?  But Paul wrote that brief autobiographical sketch to list his bona fides to lend credibility to his authority, as a Jew, to assure Gentiles that they didn’t have to get circumcised or become Jewish in order to follow Jesus.

Likewise, I feel compelled to list my bona fides to write to conservative Christians about why they should not support Donald Trump. 

Baptized in the Catholic Church when I was eight days old, I was educated by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Catholic elementary school during the 1950’s.  I memorized the Catechism.  I was devout, and went to Mass every morning on my way to school every Lent.  I was confirmed by Cardinal Cushing, and earned the highest Catholic (Ad Alatre Dei) award for the Boy Scouts of America.  

Later, shortly after I began college fifty-odd years ago, I underwent an Evangelical conversion and committed myself to Jesus Christ, accepting Him as my personal Savior and Lord. Within a few weeks, I experienced the “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” accompanied by the “gift of tongues.”  In due course, while I was praying, I heard a voice say, “I want you to minister.”  And so, I transferred to an Evangelical college and changed my major to Biblical and Theological Studies to test whether I had the aptitude for ministry or was deluding myself.  While there, I was elected Student Body Chaplain and then President.  I knew some of the giants of Evangelicalism at that time — Billy Graham, Harold Ockenga, Harold Lindsell, J.I. Packer and Francis Schaeffer. 

I have been a devout Catholic, a committed Evangelical Christian and a Charismatic (when the Charismatic movement was new).  I’ve served in ordained ministry for more than forty years.  Certainly, I have never been perfect and am keenly aware of my shortcomings and my many sins, but I rely upon God’s grace. 

Having said all that, I am convinced that Donald Trump has not been approved by God to be the President of the U.S.  I want to explain to other Christians why I am convinced of that and why they should not support him.

Let’s be clear about something from the start. Jesus did not come to create a cult, a religious ideology, a dogmatic system, a political system, civilization or theocracy.  He came to reconcile humans with God.  He came to provide a vibrant spirituality, a vital relationship between humans and our Creator as well as with other humans, rooted in love.  If He’d come to create a cult, Jesus would have stayed around longer to bask in His admirers’ adulation.  If He’d come to create a religious ideology or dogmatic system, He’d have written at least one book, like Lao Tzu.  If He’d come to establish a political system, He’d have written a library of books and set up a school to train his disciples in leadership, like Confucius.  If He’d come to establish a kingdom on earth, He’d have conquered other governments, like Muhammad.  But He didn’t do any of that. 

Jesus came to provide a way to God and a way of life.  That’s why the very earliest Christians referred to themselves not as Christians, but as followers of the Way.  It was and is Jesus’ Way of faith and life that leads to harmony with God.  It is Jesus’ Way of love.

The spiritual way that Jesus provided has always been based upon three dynamic components:  trusting God, following Jesus, and loving God and others.  Christians throughout time have tried to systematize “Christianity” with all sorts of other detailed beliefs, practices, rules and rituals, but Jesus came to provide people with a new way of life. Jesus came to make up for our failures and to show and tell us how to live differently. Jesus showed people how to live in love of God and others and taught us to follow His lead.  As soon as Christians go beyond trusting God, following Jesus and loving, we get into the weeds and start to get into trouble. 

That’s the basis of my conclusion that Christians should not support Trump. Those, who do support him, have superimposed certain beliefs apart from trusting God, following Jesus and loving others.  Largely, those beliefs are political or economic beliefs, not spiritual ones.  Those beliefs may include outlawing abortion or ending “same sex marriages,” achieving the “prosperity” gospel by means of laissez faire capitalism, promoting public prayer or defending Israel.  Many Christians may fervently believe that such things are what it means to trust God and follow Jesus or love others, but they are political additions.  They’re like the issue of circumcision among the earliest Christians — passionately felt, but additions to trusting God, following Jesus and loving others.  And so, many American Christians contort themselves to try to accomplish what they personally believe they’re supposed to do to impose what they think God wants by political means.  In the process, trusting God, following Jesus and loving others get lost.  Other people see that, and it discredits the Christian witness and mission.

Recently, an American Christian celebrity wrote a book to urge Christians to vote for Trump.    These are the reasons that I urge Christians not to vote for Trump:

1. Trump demands trust, allegiance and honor that belongs only to God, to Jesus.

Jesus always pointed to and honored God.  He never took personal credit, and always redirected people’s praise of Him to God, instead. Scripture and Christian tradition agree that God, the Creator of all that is, is the One in whom we should invest our trust.  Psalm 46 is dedicated to the proposition that all people should trust God for their leadership and protection.  Verse 3 specifically states, “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.” 

Trump’s emphasis is opposite from the message of Scripture and Christian tradition in this regard. Trump always calls attention only to himself and always demands credit.  He calls upon Christians to put their trust in him to provide for and protect them.  He demands personal allegiance.  He tries to destroy and discredit anyone whom he considers to be disloyal to him, personally.  His rallies are virtual worship services, at which he basks in the praise of his supporters.  That’s why he does what no other President ever has done — constantly holding rallies to feed his ego with his followers’ praise.  He craves the worship of the crowds.  

Many Christians may protest that they do not worship Trump.  But the word ‘worship’ literally means to offer worth, value and honor or praise. And that is exactly what happens at the rallies that Trump holds for himself. Indeed, the structure and flow of those rallies is identical to the structure and flow of large praise services. People gather to music. They share fellowship. They sing. They stand when Trump enters.  They raise their arms aloft and cheer him, personally.  The difference between a Christian worship service and a Trump rally is that the center of attention is not God and a sermon about God, but Trump and his speeches about himself.  Each speech Trump gives is filled with praise showered upon himself, contempt for his latest perceived enemies and, of course, assurances that his people can put their trust only in him. But trusting Trump is very different from trusting God.  And Christians should be aware that the way Trump presents himself makes it almost impossible to support him without offering personal devotion and worth to him.  That is worship of a false god, whether intended or not.      

• Many American Christians have come to be more closely identified with Trump than with Jesus, and that creates a spiritual stumbling block for a majority of people.

As I just mentioned, Jesus always pointed to God.  He knew that the nature and focus of His ministry was to call people’s attention to God’s ever-present love and how to live in it.  He did not allow Himself to get distracted by the intensely debated moral, political or religious issues swirling around Him at the time. He never allowed Himself to be drawn into the traps laid for Him by the political or religious parties of the time — Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians and Zealots. Likewise, after His departure, His disciples and the leaders of Jesus’ growing movement worked hard to avoid being drawn into other issues that might not only distract them from pointing to Jesus, but also might actually block the receptivity of others to their message – the good news about Jesus.  That’s what St. Paul meant when he wrote this in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth (6:3): “We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited.”  They stuck to their mission as Jesus stuck to His mission. 

Many contemporary American Christians, specifically white Christian celebrities, have become distracted from that mission and are seriously discrediting the Gospel and their ministry, in the process. Indeed, many have been seduced in the same way that Satan tried to seduce Jesus in the Wilderness.  “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’” (Matthew 4 and Luke 4)

Make no mistake; that was the temptation to use political power to impose God’s ways on others.  Jesus rejected it. He replied, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Matthew 4: 10)  That was not God’s will or God’s way, and it still is not!  The parallel is exact. Satan offered a transactional quid pro quo – political power for devotion.  It was the same transactional quid pro quo that the Christian bishops around the Roman Empire made with the Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D.  They adopted the “divine right of kings” in exchange for what they saw as freedom to worship and minister unimpeded.  And it is the same misguided transactional quid pro quo that many white American Christians have entered into with Donald Trump – offering him their honor for his provision.

Make no mistake. God has not changed in this regard. Jesus has not changed in this regard. The Christian mission has not changed.  That mission is not to make other people act in the ways Christians want them to act.  If God wants people to act in certain ways, it’s God’s job to do it, by the influence of God’s Spirit — from the inside out, not by coercion from the outside. The Christian mission is not to make people more righteous.  That was never the mission. The Christian mission is not to make America a “Christian nation.”  That was never the mission. Jesus never mentioned America, nor did He ever talk about making countries Christian. The Christian mission is not to try to make any geo-political state into God’s kingdom on earth.  That was never the mission.  The Christian mission is not to preserve Western Civilization.  That was never the mission.  Jesus and the Apostles never thought that their job was to preserve the Roman Empire or even Israel, but to proclaim the good news and invite others to follow Jesus’ way, always demonstrating love in the process.  Jesus articulated the mission.  It was simple.  He said, “Go into the entire world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15)  

Certain white Christian celebrities in America, during the past few decades, have become seriously distracted, seriously compromised.  They have misled others, in turn.  It all started just over 40 years ago, when a Southern Baptist Evangelical pastor, Jerry Falwell, was profoundly upset that Southern Baptist Evangelical president, Jimmy Carter, instituted a regulation that would strip religious schools of their tax exempt status if they practiced segregation.  Falwell’s church had a segregated school. Out of fear and anger, Falwell started the “Moral Majority” to fight back.  He was joined by Southern Baptist Charismatic and Christian Broadcasting Network  president, Pat Robertson, and a conservative Catholic and former advisor to the Goldwater campaign’s “Southern Strategy,” Paul Weyrich.  Weyrich convinced Falwell and Robertson that protecting segregated schools would not be sufficiently popular and that abortion would galvanize more widespread support.  That was the birth of the Southern Evangelical and conservative Catholic alliance to create the religious and political movement that used the Republican Party to pursue its political agenda and has become the basis of Trump’s support.   

During the intervening 40 year period, political ideology has become so intertwined with Christian theology that it became imbedded within Evangelical teaching to create the Christian conservative movement in America.  Such Christian celebrities as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., James Dobson, Robert Jeffress, Glen Beck, Ralph Reed and many others have been urging support for Trump based upon that fusion of religion and politics.  Incidentally, notice that they are all white.

The preponderance of American Christians supporting Trump are white Evangelicals and very conservative, white Roman Catholics.  Little more than 1/3 of all Roman Catholics and extremely few Black, Hispanic or Native American Evangelicals support that movement or Donald Trump.  Do you suppose that means that they’re less receptive to the guidance of the Spirit than white Christians or less consumed by political/ideological conservatism?  Do you suppose God withheld some revelation to support Trump from everyone but conservative, white American Christians?

Jesus said, ^“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14: 26)  It is perhaps ironic, then, that those in whom we believe the Spirit of God dwells, namely all Christians, should tend to look for “leaders” to tell them what to think and do.  And yet, that is precisely what many of Jesus’ followers tend to do.  That’s largely because, during their formative times (as children or as new converts) so much emphasis tends to be placed upon obedience.  Young Christians are told to obey – to obey God, to obey the Scriptures, to obey the teachings of the Church, to simply obey.  Perhaps more emphasis might be placed on teaching young Christians to trust God, follow Jesus and love, because obedience can easily be transferred to almost any “leader” who claims God’s authority. 

Don’t get me wrong.  Virtually every Christian leader has gifts granted by God, but, like every other human, also has blind spots and vulnerabilities.  Those compelling vulnerabilities may include temptations like pride, fame, respect, influence, money, power, sex or any of a number of others.  One of the more common ones for Christian celebrities, these days, is the yearning to influence others, which is born of pride.

Permit me an example.  As pastor of a relatively large church in California, I was part of a clergy association. Most communities have one.  This one was made up of pastors from Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist churches.  There was also an Evangelical mega-church in town, the largest Presbyterian Church in California at that time.  I contacted the senior pastor of that church, to invite him to come to the group.  He told me that he didn’t have time for the monthly meetings, but that he’d get together with me for lunch. 

During lunch, he told me all the ways in which their ministries were blessed – how many people were involved and how influential their programs were.  He admitted that they were the best around. He said, “We always knew that our success would benefit other churches, too. And we’ve heard that your church has a program or two that have been successful.” Then he asked me if he could borrow one of my staff members to replicate those programs. Success, and the prestige or influence that it conferred, were very important to him.  Let’s face it; religions often absorb the most potent traits of the culture in which they exist.  Success, power and influence are important in American culture.

This is how it works. Evangelical schools for ministry train their students on how to make churches grow. Growth is meant to indicate God’s blessing and to confirm a pastor’s faithfulness.  Growth is measured by more – more people at church, more programs, more money, more staff, and more influence.  To make their churches grow in those ways, Evangelical pastors are taught how to use contemporary music to draw more people to worship, how to develop small groups to provide fellowship and instruction in the beliefs of that church, how to raise more money and how to gain influence.  The more compelling the products they offer, the more they will help people to embrace the faith and conform to that church’s model of discipleship.  The role of church members is to soak it in and to obey God, as God is presented by the pastor. The pastor has little accountability in many denominations, except perhaps for peer pressure. A conservative political agenda has often come to be added to the mix of discipleship.  It has been taught by the ethos of the seminary and is reinforced by peer pressure. Moreover, that political component has the capacity to engage and energize church members at another level — with a grander mission – to change the nation and the world. 

In the process, many leaders have been tempted to do what Jesus never did – demonize those considered so different that they look like enemies of the faith. They have trained their followers to think of others, including humanists, liberals, environmentalists, homosexuals and non-Christians, as evil enemies.  Jesus never did that and, whenever His disciples tried, He scolded them for it.  This was not behavior to which the previous generation’s Evangelical leaders and celebrities were prone.  It is an aberration, which only serves to alienate onlookers. 

For white American Christians to collectively and publicly support Trump alienates vast numbers of Americans and others around the world.  Imagine the affect Trump has on Latino Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, women and more than half of the American public, let alone people in other nations, who understand that Trump’s way of making America great is done at their expense!  When Christians support Trump it puts a stumbling block between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the very people Jesus came to serve.  It alienates them.  It engenders suspicion and mistrust of the message because of the affiliation of the messengers with someone they perceive to be seriously damaged and untrustworthy. 

Remember what’s written in Zechariah 4:6, “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”  God’s work in this world, Jesus’ mission, is not accomplished by political scheming or power politics to make a nation the way one would prefer it to be.  That does not demonstrate trust in God, following Jesus or Christ-like love.  It is vanity, which sacred Scriptures denounce because it is not rooted in trust or love.  Followers of Jesus’ Way can seek transformation by servant leadership rather than by dominance.

3. Trump violates the Creation Covenant and shows contempt for the Creator.

In the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, as soon as God created Mankind, this is what God said: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’” The most basic covenant, the one integrally connected with the inception of human existence, was that God created humans to work and take care of God’s creation, planet Earth. 

God created humans to care for the planet and its resources. None of the other creatures was given any such mission by the Creator.  In exchange, God gave humans permission within limits to avail themselves of its resources for their livelihood, but not to misuse.  Human use of nature’s resources was never intended to be done at the expense of their reason for being – preserving and caring for Creation. Using up Creation for prosperity is greedy and unfaithful stewardship. It violates the Creator’s prime directive and indicates distrust in God’s provision. It also happens to be shortsighted.  That’s why God gave the Hebrew people so many agricultural instructions.  It informed stewardship. 

Creation does not belong to humans.  It belongs to God.  Creation was not made for us, but we were made for Creation. God cares for all of His creatures, not only for humans.  It was not created for our enrichment, but for our survival.  We were created to help it thrive.  Many Christians seem to believe that God created this unimaginably vast universe only for the dual purpose of providing us with prosperity and as a stage for our eternal salvation.  Many American Christians seem to have been taught that our Creator only concerned to provide us with material prosperity in this life and eternity with Him, hereafter. That seems conspicuously self-serving. 

From the outset of his term of office as President, Trump has done everything he could to undo the previous efforts that have been made to conserve and preserve God’s Creation. In the face of the cumulative effects of human depletion of God’s Creation, Trump is supported by a critical mass of white American Christians in his dismantling of protections for Creation. Even with one million of the species that God has created anticipated to become extinct within the next generation, Trump is presiding over the most significant removal of protections of nature in two generations. Why?  If it is not motivated by contempt for God, it must only be for money. Christians have a responsibility to love God enough to love His Creation and to trust God enough to understand that the stewardship of God’s Creation is more important than short-term material prosperity at its expense. Trump dishonors God by his systematic dismantling of protections of God’s creatures for the sake of mammon.  Christians are seen as complicit with Trump’s degradation of Creation, and that creates a stumbling block for the gospel, especially among young people.

4. Trump violates the core of Jesus’ teachings.

Jesus’ core teaching was this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” If following Jesus is about anything it’s about putting that core principle of love into practice. Jesus always only pointed to God and to the needs of neighbors.  Trump always only points to himself.  He always only tells others to look at him, listen to him, to give him credit and to trust him. Trump consistently divides people.  He turns people against each other for his own purposes.  He disseminates hatred, mistrust, contempt and conflict. Trump’s message is the opposite of Jesus’ message – malice not love.  American Christians supporting him are seen in the same light. How does that reflect on Jesus?

When Jesus was asked who our neighbor is, He told what we call the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Now, Samaritans were despised by His Jewish audience. Jews thought them to be ritually unclean, ethnically impure and religiously heretical. They wouldn’t have anything to do with them. And yet Jesus chose to make a Samaritan the hero of His story, emphasizing that a neighbor is anyone with a need to be met, even strangers different and alien from you.  Jesus calls upon us to focus on others and meet their needs, especially if they are unrelated to us and different from us. Trump always only calls upon his followers to focus on themselves and their own needs.  “You need more money,” he tells them, “and I’m the only one who can get it for you.”  “You need your rights,” he tells them, “and I’m the only one who can protect them for you.”  Trump’s focus is opposite from Jesus’ focus – on ourselves rather than others, on those who are like us rather than different from us, and on himself rather than God.

5.  Trump violates Jesus’ “Golden Rule.”

Jesus also taught what love means.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained what He meant by love.  It’s His rule of thumb or, as we’ve come to call it, the “Golden Rule.”  In King James English, He said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Put more simply: “Treat others as you want to be treated.” 

Many white American Christians have apparently forgotten what it meant for our ancestors to come as refugees and immigrants to this alien land. Trump takes refugee children away from their parents and locks them in cages, more than 2,000 of them. They are refugees from drug cartels, gang violence, sex slavery, destitution, oppressive military regimes, starvation and persecution.  But he calls all of them gangsters, rapists, drug peddlers and criminals, and he locks them up.  Yet, most are simple, devout Christians.

Admittedly, established Americans have always abused immigrants to some extent, whether Africans, Irish, Chinese, Southern Europeans, Catholics, Eastern Europeans, Jews or Latinos.  But Trump not only demonizes refugees, he tortures them on our behalf, saying that they will take what belongs to us. Is that the way you would want to be treated or for your ancestors to have been treated?  Does that sound like Jesus to you?  Trump tempts his Christian supporters to act opposite from the way Jesus taught – with fear and hatred rather than active, need-meeting love.  For Christians to support Trump is to support the violation of the Golden Rule.

6. Trump upholds a model of temperament that contradicts Jesus.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus explained that the humbled, grieved, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaker, and those persecuted for righteousness sake were actually blessed by God because they could discover their support in God and grow in trust of God. Trump abhors weakness, meekness, purity, mercy, losing, vulnerability and humility.  He regards such traits as for what he calls losers. Trump upholds strength, power, wealth, pride, dominance and winning over others.  He models the very opposite values and has contempt for those that Jesus upheld.  That is the example he offers for the young and easily influenced in America.  Christians who urge support of Trump are seen as reinforcing his standards and are regarded as hypocrites, who call themselves Christians but promote the opposite of what Jesus stood for. That, too, is a stumbling block.

7. Trump advocates a counterfeit gospel.

Jesus proclaimed the Good News, the Gospel.  And what was it?  He told people that God is here with you, ready to forgive you and to give you new life, no matter what.  Forgiveness was a cornerstone of what Jesus said and did.  God’s forgiveness was key, and so also was people’s forgiveness of others, in turn. 

Trump has absolutely no use for forgiveness.  He has admitted that he has never felt the need to ask for it. Imagine that! And he has consistently demonstrated that he has absolutely no interest in giving it to others. Trump is opposite from Jesus relative to forgiveness.

Trump’s gospel is an alien gospel.  You never have to ask for forgiveness or to offer it to anyone else. If someone disappoints you, fire them.  If someone hurts you, hurt them more.  If anyone is loyal to you, you don’t owe them anything in return.  If anyone is disloyal, destroy them.  His gospel is this: gain wealth and power any way you can, and then you’ll be free to do whatever you want.  Christians who support him demonstrate that they follow Trump’s gospel rather than Jesus’.

8. Trump belittles others and seeks revenge.

Jesus taught us how to treat other people. He taught us not to call other people names, not to seek revenge and not to mistreat perceived enemies. Do you remember Jesus saying anything about calling another person a “fool?”  Jesus said it’s like murder.  Trump calls people names multiple times every day.  Do you recall Jesus saying anything about turning the other cheek?  Do you remember Jesus saying anything about loving your enemies and doing good to those that hurt you? 

Trump consistently seeks revenge.  He removes American troops from Germany because Chancellor Merkel declined an invitation to the G7 over Corona virus concerns.  He threatens to remove federal funding from cities that don’t do what he tells them to do.  But Trump calls those of a different party, traitors, and implies that they should be imprisoned or even executed for treason.  He told his followers not to worry about Corona virus because it was only hurting people in Democratic states. That fed into certain Evangelicals’ hatred of liberals. They are tempted to see it as God’s judgment of their enemies and nothing to concern themselves with.  Again, do you recall Jesus saying anything about loving your enemies and doing good to those who hurt you?  Trump treats others in ways opposite from the way Jesus taught, and encourages his supporters to do the same. Christians who urge others to support Trump are validating the opposite of how Jesus taught us to treat others.

There has been something odd about this.  It’s not about Trump.  He’s always acted that way.  I’m talking about something having happened to some of the most prominent American Christian leaders and celebrities. Some of them started doing the same thing decades ago. They started to call those who are not Christians or who think different from them evil and under demonic influence.  They began to regard them as enemies, but enemies to be vanquished rather than enemies that Jesus taught us to love. When Evangelicals saw AIDS as merely God’s punishment of Gays, and disregarded the efforts to help the afflicted, either in Africa or in America, something went wrong.  When Pat Robertson, perhaps jokingly, indicated that his audience should pray for Ruth Bader Ginsberg to die, something went wrong. When Falwell and Robertson publicly stated on television, just after 9/11, that God was punishing America for its permissiveness toward homosexuals and abortion, something went wrong.  When Evangelicals said that COVID 19 was God’s “consequential judgment” of homosexuality and liberalism in America something went wrong. 

Something went wrong when the Gospel of Jesus Christ became the “Prosperity gospel” in America.  Something went wrong when the call to Christian loving service became the call to receiving blessings. It turned the Creator of the universe into a personal genie. And that gave rise to a strange view of God.  When white American Christians began to be taught that commitment to Jesus is about material prosperity and that faithfulness is about getting blessings, something went wrong. 

This is what happens: when crisis strikes, when a 9/11 hits or a Great Recession happens or a pandemic spreads and everyone is hurt, it creates a crisis of theology, too.  What are such Christians to think if God is always in control and Christians are promised nothing but prosperity and blessings from God, but white Christians suffer, too?  The “leaders” are compelled to defend their paradigm by claiming that it’s God’s judgment.  Then they find scapegoats to blame for the divine punishment, and those scapegoats just happen to be their perceived enemies – LGBT, humanists, modernists, liberals, and so on.  Something went wrong, because that’s exactly what Medieval European Christians did to Jews in their countries and what the Puritans did in Salem.  They found scapegoats to blame and punish.  That is not Jesus’ Way.

Something also went wrong when the Evangelical center of gravity shifted south.  The Christian message has swerved to the much more judgmental and far less gracious in recent years, and that has too easily linked itself to Trump’s retributive ways.  That was not Jesus’ way.  Something has gone wrong with too many white American Christian celebrities; something mean-spirited has been awakened within them.  

I think I understand what happened.  Back at my Evangelical college, fifty years ago, Billy Graham’s oldest daughter was a classmate.  Her boyfriend was in my dorm, a few rooms down the hall.  He was also from North Carolina.  He chose to live alone.  He had a full-size, Confederate Battle flag on his wall along with a saber and a gun flanking it. Whenever I spoke with him, he called me a Yankee heretic. That was his nickname for me.  I was tolerant and chose to receive it in good humor.  But I suspected that his name-calling was more serious than I wanted to think.

Christians in the South have seemed a bit different.  From late 1700’s, Southern Christians prevented Northern evangelists from preaching in their states during the Great Awakening.  In the 1800’s Southern sheriffs drove Northern evangelists out of their counties or arrested them.  Why?  While slave owners wanted their slaves evangelized because it made them more obedient and harder workers, they did not want them to be encouraged to read the Bible.  They thought it would make them think for themselves.  

One of my Southern friends, also a minister, had a wry sense of humor.  He used to say that Southern Christians were different. Playing backgammon together, he’d say, “You have to remember something, Boy.  We Southern Christians are different. I’d ask him what he meant.  He told me to imagine something.  He told me to imagine what it would do to people’s spirits when they tortured slaves in the basement, while sipping tea in the parlor or singing hymns at church.  He told me that the severe incongruity of that life, during more than 200 years, caused people to twist their minds.  “We cherry-picked verses from the Bible try to justify what’s evil.  We say that slaves are descended from Noah’s son, Ham, and punished for their ancestor’s sin. They deserve to be slaves. So, of course, our refined ladies can sip tea in the parlor, tuning out the screams of slaves being beaten or raped outside.  It’s a mind game, but it twists the soul.”  He told me that it caused Southern Christians to vigorously emphasize personal morality, but to disregard the implications of love on social concerns, altogether. 

During the antebellum period, white Southern Christians were made to feel morally inferior by the harsh criticism of Northern Evangelicals, who were usually abolitionists.  White Southern Christians were devastated by the Civil War and humiliated with the loss.  White Southern Christians were made to feel bitter in the wake of Northern dominance during Reconstruction.  White Southern Christians were made to feel intellectually inferior and resentful of the intellectualism of the late 19^th and early 20^th century for their lack of education. White Southern “fundamentalists” were made to feel that others were evil because of their acceptance of science. White Southern Christians were made to feel enraged by forced integration. Those feelings convinced white Christians in the South that others were enemies, evil enemies. And that sense that others were evil fueled the Moral Majority. 

That bitterness, that resentment, distrust, anger and frustration, is now also shared among many contemporary Evangelicals outside the South, as well.  Theirs is rooted not in past hurts so much as in profound indignation that their personal convictions are looked down upon.  Their rejection of evolution in defense of the infallibility of the Bible and their moral disapproval of abortion, LGBT lifestyles and, now, even birth control are regarded by many as either intellectually incredible or discriminatory and morally questionable.  That is unbearable for an American tradition that has taken pride in having been the moral compass of nation and that worked so hard and for so long to establish intellectual credibility in the marketplace of ideas. 

Those underlying dynamics have bred an emphasis on a retributive God, who will bring judgment upon those they consider evil, protect the faithful, and vanquish the powers that be. That is one of the reasons that many contemporary, white, American Evangelicals cherry-pick verses or passages from the Old Testament, out of context, to justify their political positions.  Far too many white preachers, in our time, have exchanged the thorough examination of passages of the Bible for chain proof texting of cherry-picked verses to try to prove points, including political ones, that they have come up with to further their own biases.  They do not let scripture speak for itself, but use scripture to advance their own personal ideas, including political ones.  Hence, for example, they have randomly picked a few verses from Isaiah that refer to Cyrus, the king of Persia, and claim that it refers to Trump, very questionable exegesis. 

And so, in this present time, we have a living illustration of the outcome of those dynamics.  It has been demonstrated by numerous white American Christians in relation to the Corona virus pandemic.  On the one hand, Christian celebrities like Jerry Falwell, Jr., have stated that the pandemic is a hoax, perpetrated by Trump’s enemies.  He made every effort to keep his Liberty University open, withheld repayment of students’ tuition when the college did close, and mocked face masks. He demonstrated his trust in Trump, instead of scientific information. Many other white Christian celebrities followed suit in order to support Trump. 

While some rejected its reality, others believed that the punitive God would protect the faithful.  Such Christians wanted to demonstrate their faith by resisting the government’s guidelines for suppressing the virus.  And so, they also made efforts to keep open their religious institutions, churches and schools.  They also resisted the use of masks and social distancing, because they distrust scientific data, the government, and the reality of the disease.  They regard gathering for worship as a sign of faith in the face of pandemic, but overlook the call of Christ-like love to keep others safe by wearing masks and physical distancing. 

As a reminder, when Satan tempted Jesus to throw Himself off the Temple in Jerusalem, he quoted scripture.  Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”  Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” What did Jesus mean by that?  He didn’t mean testing Jesus to do something spectacular.  No. He meant testing God to protect Him by doing something unnecessarily and flagrantly dangerous.  Faith was never meant to be exercised by needlessly putting oneself in danger to test God.  Christians who regard wearing protective face masks as a cultish sign of unfaithfulness and acquiescence to government control are missing the point.  Wearing a face mask is less about protecting oneself than it is about protecting others from a dangerous virus that one might be carrying. Love involves personal responsibility more than personal rights.  Love involves protecting others, not protecting one’s liberties. 

Some Christians, like Ralph Drollinger, see the Corona virus as God’s “consequential judgment” on followers of the “cult of environmentalism” and people “with a proclivity to homosexuality.”  He leads the weekly White House Bible study.  His words sound peculiarly similar to Falwell and Robertson’s view of 9/11 – God’s judgment of America for homosexuality. Such Christian “leaders” try to avoid the problem of theodicy (why bad things happen), altogether, by picking their own favorite enemies and calling catastrophes God’s judgment of their chosen scapegoats.  It even gives them self-proclaimed verification that God is on their side, politically, and a sanctimonious excuse to take satisfaction in the calamity of others by blaming their identified scapegoats for the suffering. 

What are we to say about those attitudes?  If the Corona virus pandemic isn’t real, why have so many people gone to hospital or died from it?  If demonstrating faith by gathering for worship is what God wants, why have so many churchgoers become sick from it?  If not wearing a facemask merely demonstrates personal (religious) liberty, why has it been found to be a major spread of the disease?  If scientists are untrustworthy, why have they been correct in their projections?  If the pandemic is God’s consequential judgment on America, why has it also affected other countries?  If it is God’s judgment of environmentalists and homosexuals, why has it ravaged the residents of senior living facilities, meat processors, correctional facilities and poorer neighborhoods, where fewer such people actually live or work?  If it’s collateral judgment of Democratic states, why is it now raging in Republican states? If Christians want to follow Trump’s guidance rather than physicians’, why not drink bleach and household disinfectants to wash down Hydroxychloraquine pills, instead of following doctors’ orders?

This is why religious-political ideology is not faith, let alone Jesus’ Way.  Conservative, white, American Christian ideology twists, contorts and squeezes information or rejects it to fit into and advance its preexisting dogmas.    Like the medieval Inquisition, that looks like superstitious defensiveness.  That sort of religious-political ideology rejects, out of hand, that the Earth revolves around the Sun and that the force of gravity exists and that God created creatures to adapt in order to survive and that the climate is changing due to human activity and that COVID exists or that it won’t hurt the faithful.  Followers of Trump may need to deny concrete reality, but followers of Jesus do not.  Trusting God, following Jesus and loving others, instead, employs new information, experiences, situations and events and then seeks how better to trust, follow and love in the process.

9. Trump administration policies are cruel and completely lack Jesus’ compassion.   

Jesus consistently demonstrated compassion and taught His disciples to do the same.  He never turned His back on people with needs. Whether it was lepers, large crowds of hungry people, those who were sick and disordered or those who were rejected by others for their sins, Jesus always offered what was needed to demonstrate God’s compassion and how to emulate it. 

By complete contrast, the Trump administration, bolstered by his supporters, enact policies that hurt people.  Consider his legal attempts to end the Affordable Care Act without replacing its provisions with an effective alternative.  At the very time when Americans are battling the COVID 19 pandemic, with more than 40 million workers having lost jobs and many their health insurance, too.  At a time when people need healthcare services more than ever, with fewer covered by employer provided insurance coverage, the Trump administration and its supporters are making every effort to remove all ACA health protections.  Christians supporting Trump should make no mistake; others see them as responsible for Trump’s cruel policies.  That discredits their witness in the minds of others, as heartless, and will discredit Jesus by association.  This is not Jesus’ way.

10.  Donald Trump is an unparalleled deceiver, a compulsive liar.

According to John’s Gospel, truth was very important to Jesus.  Among other things Jesus was the one who said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  He also said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life…”

No matter what your news and information source may be, we all know by now that Trump is an inveterate and compulsive liar. He lies even when it is not in his interest to lie.  He lies and it hurts people.  He deflects truth and distorts it to such an extent that it’s becoming difficult to discern accurate information even about the most verifiable matters. The Corona Virus has been skyrocketing in Southern and Western states, but Trump continues to say that it has virtually disappeared.  People believe him, and so they refuse to wear masks or remain at a safe distance from others. And so the disease spreads even more.  

He lies all the time.  Many estimates indicate that he has lied at least 20,000 times since he became president.  That’s a lot of lies by any reckoning.  Was he briefed about Russia offering bounty for Afghans to hunt American soldiers?  Who know?!  Trusting a liar is unadvisable.  It’s like building a house on sand rather than rock, constantly shifting.  Oh, I think that Jesus said something about that, too.  I think I recall that He advised against it.  Again, Trump is opposite from Jesus in that way.  Christians supporting him are seen as either extremely gullible or as unconcerned with truth at all.  That reflects badly on them, but more importantly, on Jesus.

11.  Trump Uses religion and religious objects for self-interest.

Jesus decried those who tried to profit from religion.  He famously overturned the tables of the temple money-changers.  He expressed great concern over those who liked to make a public display of their religiosity.

Trump has sought to use religion from the start, by manipulating certain Christians.  He even made a spectacle of routing peaceful protesters at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, so that he could be photographed holding up a Bible in front of a church. 

What do you suppose Jesus would make of that?  Do you imagine that He would be encouraged by it, like Franklin Graham, as some demonstration of personal faith or do you think He’d be repulsed by it as a show for political profit?  Trump treats religion as a prop and religious people as useful objects. Technically, it’s called sacrilege. But whatever you call it, I think it’s safe to say that Jesus didn’t go for that.  Those who support Trump are not following Jesus’ way in that regard, either.

In fact, Jesus didn’t go for show-off piety, at all. In Matthew 6, Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” Jesus was a big believer in private and small group spirituality.  Trump is, by nature, a show off.  That’s opposite from Jesus, as well. Those who want to show off their piety are not following Jesus. 

12.  Trump’s model of life, his character, his business practices and his treatment of others are the very opposite of what Jesus came to reveal.

Trump epitomizes everything opposite to Christ-like love and godly trust.  Fifteen hundred years ago, Pope Gregory the Great offered a simple list of traits that were the opposite of faith and love.  They were known as the “Seven Deadly Sins.”  They were behaviors that had the capacity to become addictive and to destroy the soul.  They included vanity or pride, greed, lust or inordinate sexual desire, envy, gluttony, wrath or anger and spiritual sloth. Each of them had an opposite, which were meant to characterize trust in God and Christ-like love.  They included seven virtues: humility, charity, chastity, gratitude, temperate appetite, patience, and spiritual diligence. 

Trump is certainly not known for these virtues, but instead, for their opposites.  He is a virtual poster child of the seven deadly sins.  By their ongoing support, Trump’s Christian followers appear to approve of the traits that his life has always demonstrated.  Others recognize that, and dismiss his Christian supporters as hypocrites. It is anything but a good witness, and detracts from the credibility of the Christian message.

Trump’s Christian supporters will say that I am being judgmental.  Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  That is true.  He also called religious leaders hypocrites, white-washed tombs and vipers.  There is a difference between judgment and discernment, between condemnation and description.  My intention is not to judge or to condemn, but to discern and describe.

All of this begs an important question that urgently needs to be examined as elections draw near.  Why would anyone who seeks to follow Jesus support Trump, since he violates virtually everything that Jesus ever stood for?  Several reasons have been identified by the Christian celebrities, who support him.

• Many say that they are not electing a saint, but a president.  Fair enough, but why support such a reprobate?!  We’re all sinners.  Many of us confess it, ask for God’s forgiveness and help to make changes.  Trump does not.  And so, they answer that Christians believe in forgiveness.  Indeed, we do.  We absolutely depend upon it.  But there’s usually one caveat.  We believe in God’s forgiveness when anyone asks for it.  And yet, Trump has testified that he never has.  They say that Jesus calls us to forgive those who offend us, whether they ask for it or not.  That’s true.  But if those same Christians really believe that, why would they apply it to Trump and yet not, in their way of thinking, also apply it to liberals and LGBT people, for example?  It seems selectively applied to serve other purposes.

• Some American Christians support Trump in exchange for his appointment of judges, who, in turn, will overturn rulings that they don’t like.  Let’s consider how Jesus acted regarding laws and moral conduct.  Jesus was a Jew.  He lived in Galilee and often traveled to Jerusalem and throughout Palestine.  It wasn’t a Jewish state, and hadn’t been a sovereign kingdom for a long time.  It was a Roman Province, as it had been a province of the Seleucid Empire and of the Persian Empire and of the Babylonian Empire.  The Romans permitted a Jewish Council, called the Sanhedrin. The Romans allowed it to make decisions about and oversee Jewish theology, religious and moral practices in Palestine.

The Sanhedrin was mostly made up of Sadducees and Pharisees. They were two Jewish religious parties that had fought a bloody civil war with each other, more than a generation earlier, about which one of them would rule over a briefly established Jewish state just before the Romans took possession.  There were other Jewish parties, back then, as well.  Beside the Sadducees and Pharisees, there were the Herodians, Zealots and Essenes.  The latter was not a religious-political party, in fact, but a Jewish eremitic movement, which believed that the end of the world was near and so went into the wilderness near the Dead Sea to devote themselves to prayer, fasting and purification rituals.  The four political parties fiercely disagreed with one another to the point that each considered the other parties as traitors to Judaism.                  

Representatives of each of those parties tried to get Jesus to side with them against the other parties.  Some tried to gain His support to rally the people to rise up against the Romans in order to usher in God’s kingdom on earth.  Jesus resisted all of those attempts to politicize Him.  They reacted by trying to trap and discredit Jesus, but He eluded them. 

This is how Jesus conducted Himself in a highly politicized time. Jesus never took sides. Jesus never tried to manipulate the Sanhedrin to make decisions that He may have wanted.  He did not try to make Palestine a Jewish kingdom.  He did not try to use the Sanhedrin, King Herod, the Roman governor or Caesar, at all.  He never allowed them to politicize Him.  Instead, Jesus practiced His faith and His ministry quite apart from the powers that be, back then.  He did not believe that the Kingdom of God was a political or national entity, but God’s influence within people and among them.  He did not subscribe to the strategy of legislating religion, religious values or moral practices.

American Christians should not be tempted by the allure of using political power to make moral or religious changes.  Jesus never imposed religion or morality.  The current efforts by many white American Christians to use power politics to impose what they believe or to change the American government are not Jesus’ way.  It is misguided, devout perhaps, but prideful and misguided.  Jesus trusted God enough to proclaim the Good News of God’s grace and to let God do the rest in people’s lives.  Altogether too many American Christians have fallen into the beguiling temptation to align with one political party and a man opposite from Jesus in order to impose their religious preferences even though history demonstrates that such alliances always end badly.

• Some Christians support Trump to restore prayer in public schools and in the public domain.  As I mentioned, though, Jesus taught that prayer is personal and private – between the believer and God.  It is not meant as a display for public consumption or even to reinforce people’s faith, except in Christian gatherings and at home.  Raising children in Jesus’ Way is the responsibility of Christian families, supported by their faith communities. 

As one who was raised with prayer and Bible readings at the start of school every morning, it was my experience that most children became inured to it.  As far as I could tell it had little impact on their adult embrace of faith.  Public prayer, unconnected to occasions of great shared joy or sorrow is usually not very edifying and often done as a performance. It’s all too often a recitation to an audience – other people.  That’s what troubled Jesus, prayer directed to others rather than God.  Public prayer is not a policy goal that accords with Jesus’ way.

• Some Christians think that supporting Trump will ensure that churches won’t be taxed.  There has not been a plan or threat to tax churches or other faith communities.  That’s a red herring. Some, as Jerry Falwell did, might feel threatened that church schools could lose tax exempt status for segregation or that the tax exclusion for clergy housing allowances might be removed.  But the former concern has nothing to do with faith in God or following Jesus, and the latter is only a financial concern for clergy.

• Some Christians support Trump in order to stop same-sex marriages. Back in Jesus’ time, there was no shortage of hot button moral and legal issues. Let me pick one of each.

Legally, was it acceptable to pay taxes to a pagan, ungodly and oppressive government, like the Roman government, or not?  Paying Roman taxes was largely seen as supporting hostile occupying forces. That legal issue was presented to Jesus as a pressing matter of Jewish concern, but it was a trap. He was asked, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  If He said, “yes,” He’d disaffect Herodians and Sadducees.  If He said, “No,” He’d disaffect Zealots and Pharisees.

Many didn’t want to be complicit with supporting paganism or living under foreign oppression.  Jesus, rather insightfully, responded by asking them to show Him a coin used for paying taxes.  It was a Roman coin.  Jesus asked them whose profile was inscribed on the coin. It was Caesar’s image. And so, Jesus answered, “Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar and God what belongs to God.”  Oh, no; He compartmentalized faith.  Consistency can, as they say, be the hobgoblin of narrow thinking.  Jesus was disinclined to make more laws for people to break or fight over. 

Another hot issue, back then, was a moral one.  It was prostitution.  There were lots of prostitutes and lots of Jewish men who availed themselves of their services.  The upright moralists were, as you’d suppose, dead against it, at least in the light of day. They’d cross the street rather than brush up against a prostitute and possibly become ritually impure.  Prostitutes were criticized, rebuffed and ostracized by righteous folk.  Pharisees will do that.  But Jesus spent time in their company, and was duly criticized for it. 

What did Jesus do about the moral issue of prostitution?  He never tried to rally His disciples to legislate or enforce laws against prostitution.  He didn’t try to make prostitution illegal.  He didn’t gather townspeople to protest outside their establishments to shame them or their clients.  He didn’t try to prevent merchants from selling to them so as to coerce prostitutes to change their line of work.  He didn’t try to forcefully intervene and impose conversion therapy to make them change.  He didn’t offer to cast out demons of prostitution or promiscuity.  He didn’t teach women not to be prostitutes.  Nope. 

He knew their situation, their economic situation.  He knew that many women were divorced by their husbands or widowed with children.  He knew that they were destitute and had very few other means of support.  He spent time with them.  He talked to them.  He listened to them.  He offered forgiveness to them.  And He taught others, both by word and example, how to treat those with material needs. That was Jesus’ way, a very different way from the Pharisees’ approach.  Likewise, He taught His followers to care for single mothers and their children (widows and orphans).

It is misguided for Christians to devote their energies to leverage politicians to legislate against abortion and to deprive LGBT people of their civil rights.  That’s not how Jesus handled such things. He shared the Gospel and let God do the rest – from the inside of the person out, not by legalism. These are matters that are best left between God and the individual.

• Many American Christians want to outlaw virtually all abortions, and that deserves further attention.  Some Christians liken it to slavery, that the abolition of it is a mandate from God.  Many consider it to be a matter of life and death, murder of the unborn.  Some consider it to be a moral and social justice or civil rights issue – the right of the unborn to live. 

While I appreciate those deeply held convictions, I want to make it clear that abortion is neither a new practice nor was it prohibited in the Bible. Abortion is as old as men from one clan or tribe defeating the men from another clan or tribe and raping their wives and daughters.  What was a girl or woman traumatized by her disgust, grief, shame, pain and fear to do?  Quite apart from that, in societies very concerned about lineage, what about infidelity, incest, or neighbor rape? 

Read the Book of Numbers 5: 11 – 31.                                                                      Then the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure—then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.

“‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— here the priest is to put the woman under this curse — “may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.  May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”  “‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

“‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

Those several passages from the Torah recount God’s instructions to Moses on how to train priests to perform a ritual that was intended to cause miscarriage.  Intentionally induced miscarriage is otherwise known as abortion.  The specific reason for that practice given in Scripture was a husband’s suspicion or jealousy that his wife might have been impregnated by someone else. It was a reason for an abortion ritual.  Is that very different from rape, incest, or the safety of the mother or even unintended impregnation, I wonder?  The Bible says nothing else about abortion. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not trying to make a case for abortion.  I’m simply saying that the only mention of abortion in the Bible is a description of a ritual to accomplish one.

From the Didache on (ca 100 AD), Christian tradition has almost unanimously spoken against abortion with a few notable exceptions.  Mind you, the Didache was written as a catechism to guide converts to Christianity, and was not intended to be instituted as Roman law.  It was intended to guide Christians on how to live distinctively alongside those who were not Christian.  

Earlier Christian teachers, including Augustine and Aquinas, emphasized the customary view of the times that the life of an unborn should not be terminated after the “Quickening.”  That term referred to the moment at which the fetus first moved in the womb. Christian tradition, like its classical forerunners, held that the quickening of the fetus was the moment at which the soul entered the fetus.  It was considered the point at which the unborn became a living human soul, when God breathed the breath of life into it. The quickening usually happens when the fetus is between sixteen and twenty weeks (midway through the second trimester).  Like spontaneous miscarriage, an abortion was permissible prior to the soul entering the body.  It has only been in the modern medical era that the notion of prohibiting abortion has been taken back to conception, let alone to the prohibiting contraception. 

But what about Jesus?  Jesus would have been more concerned with meeting the individual where he/she was.  He would pay attention to the actual needs of the mother (family) to raise a child and addressing them concretely rather than prohibiting abortion.  Again, legislating and enforcing laws to prohibit abortion seems misguided.  Legalism without compassion is not love as Jesus taught love to be. 

Some Christians say that opposition to abortion is intrinsically loving and that it expresses compassionate love for the unborn and tough love for the pregnant woman.  Let’s consider that.  Many Christians claim that they support Trump because they are inspired by love for the unborn child.  Is love for children what actually inspires them to support Trump?  Their support for Trump actually enables his administration to cut food stamps for the poor families. It actually enables his administration to cut the school lunch program for needy school children.  It actually enables the Trump administration to separate refugee children from their parents.  It actually allows them to confine young children with strangers in concentration camps.  It actually permits those children to be separated from their families, forever, since the Trump administration has lost track of or destroyed the records of family connections.   Does that demonstrate Jesus’ kind of love? 

That sort of “pro-life” position may demonstrate theoretical love or emotional reactions to pictures of aborted fetuses.  It might demonstrate passionate concern for unseen embryos and unborn fetuses, but not for children and their parents after birth.  Perhaps theirs is not so much pro-life position as a pro-fetal life position.  Frankly, no president in the past 30 years or so has harmed needy children more than Trump.  He cares far less about life than he cares about securing the votes of those who say they do.  Jesus calls for far more commitment to the lives of children and their parents than merely trying to outlaw abortions.  Jesus’ way of love involves hard work far more than political positioning.

Suppose a family simply cannot afford to support another child.  Would Jesus say to them what Pat Robertson said on his 700 Club show to the octogenarian couple, who couldn’t afford to keep up their tithe?  Robertson said, “Since you’re old, there are things in your garage that you don’t need.  Go into your garage and take whatever ladders and tools you have and sell them on Craig’s List.”  So said a white American Christian celebrity with personal holdings of more than one half billion dollars to 80-somethings who couldn’t afford to keep up their tithe to Christian organizations like his! 

Is that how Jesus would respond to a couple who are pregnant and know that they cannot afford to support another to child?  Wait, I think I remember Jesus having said something related to that, too.  Oh, what was it?  Ah, yes.  He was talking to religious leaders and Pharisees, when He said this: “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God.” (Luke 11: 42)  “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.” (Luke 11:46)

It is not Evangelical celebrities, like Robertson, alone, who do that.  Unmarried clergy in the Catholic Church since the 12^th century have never shared in a, mutually consensual, monogamous relationship of love and have never had to raise children.  Nevertheless, they dictate that spouses should not use birth control and, if a pregnancy results, that they must not consider abortion.  How is that any different from the Pharisees and religious leaders, whom Jesus scolded?  Jesus’ Way concerns itself with the facts and needs of people’s real lives and responds with concrete acts of love.

• One of the reasons some white American Christians support Trump is that they trust in him to protect them.  Their hope is invested in Trump for their protection.  What do white American Christians need protection from? 

Franklin Graham said it all when he responded to the most recent Supreme Court decision, which determined that it is unconstitutional to discriminate against workers on the basis of sexuality or self-identification (LGBT workers).  Graham said, “No question it is going to make it harder to defend our religious freedom, as far as an organization being able to hire people of like mind.  I find this to be a very sad day.  I don’t know how this is going to protect us.”  Consider that last sentence from an American evangelist.  “I don’t know how this is going to protect us.”  Jesus’ Way is clear and simple: trust in God for your protection, not a judge or a court or Trump, but God. 

Graham’s concern was about a court’s protection, the rights of Christians being protected. He expressed no thoughts about how to discern what God might be saying through the ruling, or how to pray about the matter or how better to move forward or how better to be an employer or how better to minister to LGBT people.  His concern was about how Christians’ freedom to treat their employees could be affected.  His concern was about lawsuits and money – fines and civil complaints based on civil rights violations against LGBT workers.

Some devout Christians seem to have become afraid of lawsuits by those who want certain healthcare coverage for women or certain services for same-sex weddings and for terminating LGBT employees.  Some devout business owners believe that providing insurance that covers contraceptives would make them complicit in preventing pregnancies, and have expressed conscientious objections to that.  Other devout Christian business owners believe that homosexual behavior is sin.  They object to same-sex marriage. They want to be able to deny employment to LGBT people.  They want to be able to deny the services of their businesses to same sex couples, whether wedding cakes, marriage licenses, family health insurance coverage, or venues for weddings.  They do not want to be complicit with what they regard as sin and have expressed conscientious objections to it. These issues raise the specter of civil rights lawsuits and/ or government fines.  They regard that as persecution by the government, as denial of their religious freedom.

This raises the always thorny issue of where one person’s civil rights end and another’s begin.  Looking for government protection of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights in a democracy is important.  Looking for Trump to guarantee it is questionable.  In any case, I hasten to draw attention to Jesus.  It goes without saying that Jesus did not teach His disciples, “Your religious freedom comes first. Seek government protection of your rights.”  He never told His followers to think about their rights, at all, or about getting others to protect them.  He always stressed trusting God for protection.  This is what Jesus did say: “Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake…”  According to Jesus, Christians who feel persecuted can see it as a blessing.

If Christians honestly believe that a cause is righteous, they do well to stand by that cause and endure the consequences.  That involves taking personal responsibility for one’s convictions, without regard for the consequences.  It may be Blacks eating at White only restaurants or sitting in the White section of a bus, during the 1960’s.  It may be conscientious objection to participation in war or to paying taxes to support warfare. It may be conscientious objection to providing funding for birth control or abortion or services for same-sex weddings.  American Christians are free to take any of those conscience-inspired actions.  It’s called civil disobedience, and the consequences may be part of “taking up the cross and following (Jesus).”  But supporting someone like Trump to skew the judicial system to impose one’s conscience on others or to protect themselves from lawsuits is an extremely dubious way of trusting God, following Christ or putting love into action. 

• Another reason that Christians give for supporting Trump is that they rely on him to support the state of Israel unconditionally.  Christians do well to support Jewish people.  It’s part of Jesus’ emphasis on love and of what it means to follow Him, full stop.

As pastor of a several thousand member church in the South, I invited the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem to speak. He was Palestinian. After his talk, one, dear, old Southern lady asked him, “How long have your people been Christians?”  With a twinkle in his eye, he replied, “Just a bit more than 1900 years.”  Many American Christians are clueless about Palestinians, except for what their pastor may happen to tell them.

I’ve had occasion to visit the Holy Land many times, beginning about 60 years ago. The Christians who lived and ministered there, back then, had great respect and affection for the Palestinian people.  Palestinian Christians and Muslims lived peacefully, side by side, in and around Jerusalem since the crusades ended, for more than 700 years.

Christian clergy in Jerusalem of all denominations and ethnicities not only cared about the Palestinian people, but expressed concern about the Diaspora Jewish incursion into the Holy Land and about the new state of Israel’s aggressive expansion into Palestinian towns and neighborhoods.  Those clergy included Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic Christians, Alexandrian Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, members of the Ecumenical Church of Constantinople, Anglicans and Lutherans.  They were all very concerned for the Palestinian people and for the standing of their own members in the new state of Israel. Eighty percent of the Palestinian people were Christians until about fifty years ago. All but fifteen percent of those Palestinian Christians have been driven out during the past five decades.

It has only been during the past 40 years or so that white American Evangelicals have expressed any concern for the Jewish people or the state of Israel. That concern has coincided with the rise of apocalyptic theology. The primary concern of newly engaged white Evangelical Christians, dubbed “Christian Zionism,” is Christ’s return.  Apocalypticism and biblical prophecies about it figure prominently in the white American Evangelical support for the state of Israel. Concern for the Holy Land is a wonderful thing to see, regardless of its inspiration, but American Evangelical support is decidedly one-sided, without regard for the Palestinian people.

The Jewish return to Palestine, after 1900 years of Diaspora (Roman removal of the Jews from the Holy Land and their dispersal throughout the Roman Empire), has been a return to a homeland.  The problem is that it has been and continues to be a homeland to two peoples – the Jewish people and the Palestinian people.  The Jewish people lived there for the better part of 1500 years, alongside the Palestinian people (ca. 1500 BC to 70 AD).  The Palestinian people have lived there during the past 1900 years of the Diaspora (70 to 1948 AD).  That posed competing claims for the same homeland.  The displacement of Palestinians by the state of Israel has created an irreconcilable difference, as it would for any displaced people from their homes.  

For the past seventy years, the United States has made every effort to serve as an honest and neutral broker of peace and justice in that territorial dispute.  Every administration has tried to serve both parties. Jesus’ teachings to love the neighbor and to treat others the way one wants to be treated have implications in this dispute.  Love involves compassionate justice.  Christians in America, who want to follow Christ, are compelled to promote love-based justice.

But many American Christians seem to be far less concerned about the love that Jesus called for and the justice that love entails than about His return.  They seem more concerned with re-enforcing God’s promises to Abraham, prophecies of the End Times and trying to prompt Christ’s return.  Some white American Evangelicals, including such groups as Cry for Zion, Christian Zionists, and CBN are even urging Israel to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.  Are they inspired by love for the Jewish people or support for the state of Israel or concern for Palestinians?  No.  They want to instigate the rapture, to set the stage and prompt their understanding of Jesus’ return.

Israel is less inclined in that direction, since Orthodox Jews dare not enter the Temple precincts and inadvertently set foot on holy ground during a rebuilding program.  Likewise, Israel realizes that rebuilding the Temple would threaten to remove second holiest site of Islam (the Dome of the Rock) and incite a universal jihad. Those American Christians wanting to see the Temple rebuilt seem only concerned to fulfill prophecy and perhaps force a conflict that might induce Christ’s return.  Somehow that smacks of self-interest rather than love.  That is not Jesus’ way, even if it seems to promote the desire to hasten His return to fulfill the eschatological Christian hope.  That is self-interest, not faith.  Jesus said that even He did not know, and didn’t seem particularly concerned with, the timing of His return.  And so, such white American Christians support for Trump as a quid pro quo to get him to support Israel over against the Palestinians seems not to embody Jesus’ kind of love. 

Following Jesus would better be expressed by two different American positions.  One would be the inviolable commitment to defend Israel from any other nations’ attacks on the Jewish state.  The other would be to require that Israel provide the Palestinians with a homeland sufficient to their needs instead of a virtual reservation.  Once again, the support of Trump is misdirected and inspired by self-interested intentions.  Onlookers see a very serious lack of concern for the needs of Palestinians, and wonder why.

• Some American Christians support Trump because they are eager to establish God’s kingdom in America or to make America a Christian nation.  But God’s Kingdom has never been established by humans, no matter how devout and sincere their intentions may have been.  In historical point of fact, the wedding of religion and politics has inevitably led to disastrous outcomes. Politics has corrupted religion, and religion has created fanatical politics.  Instead, Jesus’ stressed that those who follow Him trust God, instead of forcing political events. God will establish His own Kingdom in His own ways and in His own good time. Trust that.

Throughout history, people of ardent faith have tried to establish God’s kingdom for Him, but it has always failed miserably. Moses tried, and the Hebrews worshipped a golden calf.  Then they bellyached for the next forty years as they trudged through the Sinai wilderness.  Once they reached the Promised Land, the judges tried to enforce God’s rule, but, like Sampson, failed.  The kings of Israel tried, but it all fell apart into two rival political kingdoms.  And so, the Jewish people were overrun by a series of empires – the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans.  After the Seleucid Empire (the Greeks) lost control of Palestine, the devout Sadducees and Pharisees tried to establish God’s kingdom.  And so, inspired by their ardent faith, they went to war against each other. About one hundred years before Jesus, six thousand Jews were slaughtered by other Jews in the Temple.  Eight hundred rabbis were crucified in the aftermath of that massacre. That was a failure. Rome took over. 

Christian bishops under Constantine tried, but it immediately fell into four hundred years of heresy trials. The Holy Roman Empire tried, but soon devoted its energies to launch 5 crusades, in which between 3 and 9 million people were killed.  It melted down from internal corruption over time.  That’s why the Reformation happened.  Wars raged between Protestants and Catholics in Europe for almost 125 years, from 1525bto 1648.  Between eight and seventeen million Christians killed each other in the process. Each side devoutly believed that it was fighting against evil. The Reformers, especially Jean Calvin, tried, but it fell into infighting and greed.  Inspired by Calvin, the Puritans tried it in America but wound up hanging Baptists and Quakers on Boston Common and burning witches in Salem.  The Afrikaners tried it in South Africa, but wound up imposing apartheid against “coloreds.” Great Awakening revivalists in America tried it in the 19^th century by means of the Civil War.  More than 600,000 were killed.  That gave rise to the Jim Crowe and segregationist South.  Revivalists tried it, again, by means of prohibition and then the war on drugs.  And so, America has more prisoners than any other nation in the world and more gun violence.  Efforts to establish God’s kingdom on earth have always failed miserably and discredited God, Jesus, in the process. 

Now, white American Christians are trying it again.  Protestant Dominionists and arch-conservative Catholics, Trump cabinet members like Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson and others hope to make America into God’s Kingdom, each in his own way.  They hope that they can use Trump to do it.  But human power still cannot create God’s Kingdom or even a Christian nation.  Trying is futile, often ugly, bloody and filled with myopic pride.  Trying to make America the way you think God wants it to be, God’s Kingdom, through a man like Trump, is, indeed, a deal made with the devil from which only an antichrist can emerge.

These are just a few of the many reasons that I believe Christians should not support Trump in any way.  But there’s just one more thing.  It’s not so much for God’s sake, for Jesus’ sake.  It’s for America’s sake, for the sake of country. 

I once had an old Jewish friend.  He told me that whenever two or three Jews get together, they’ll probably disagree about almost everything.  But the one thing they’ll agree about is that they are all Jews.  With the rise of Jewish fundamentalism, I don’t know if that’s still true. Fundamentalism will do that, whatever the version.

That may also once have been true for Americans.  Oh, I know, Americans haven’t ever really done the hard work of becoming a united people.  We’ve used warfare to create a temporary sense of unity against shared enemies – natives, the French, the British, the Spanish, each other (North and South), more natives, Germans, more Germans and Japanese, Communists and Jihadists.  And we’ve taken that unity through enmity with us into our internal politics, too.   Nevertheless, most of the time, Americans have agreed that we’re all Americans and that America should be a democracy.  Americans may have been liberals or conservatives or moderates.  They may have been Democrats or Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Socialists or Greens.  They may have been different genders, races, ethnicities or religions.  And they may have differed vociferously about their philosophies.  But they all believed that America was, is and should be a democracy with majority rule.  That’s changed.  It changed before Trump came along. 

The current president, Trump, has demonstrated by his words and his deeds that he is predisposed to govern as a tyrant.  He rules by fiat, exclusively by executive order.  He undermines authority that has historically been delegated to other branches of government and government institutions.  He sabotages the independence of the Judiciary, Inspectors General, the Intelligence Community, the Justice Department, the sovereign authority of states (when it suits him) and the rights of citizens to protest.  He orders unidentified “police” into the streets of cities like Portland, Oregon, to sweep protestors into unmarked vans.  He has said, “I have the bikers, the police and the military – all the tough guys.”  That is not American democracy.  That is creeping tyranny.  He seems to aspire to be an autocrat, like Putin in Russia. 

The founding of the United States of America was specifically fashioned to resist tyrants, like that.  It was set up in the ways it was to prevent dictatorship or monarchy.  Of course, there have always been Americans more inclined to authoritarianism, but usually not many.  Some were sympathetic toward Fascism in Europe, but not many. I suspect it has to do with the amygdale and hyper-vigilance.  It seems that there are numerically more in our time.

Some of those Americans, perhaps many, are white Christians of one stripe or another.  The “Dominion” movement, the “Seven Mountains” movement, the “Theonomist” movement, the “Reconstructionist” movement, the Chalcedon Foundation and others, all advocate that Christians are called by God to take over America and establish God’s Law for God’s sake.  One of the most influential theologians for these political-theological movements is a man, named, R. J. Rushdoony.  He has articulated contemporary American Fundamentalist principles of government in his magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law, this way:  

“Democracy is a heresy.  The heresy of democracy has worked havoc in church and state . . . Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.”

“The only true order (of government) must be founded on Biblical Law. All law is religious in nature, and every non-Biblical order of laws represents an anti-Christian religion.”

“If men are not regenerated by Christ, and if they will not submit to His cultural mandate, they will be crushed by His power.”

”The state must become Christian and apply Biblical law to every area of life, apply the full measure of God’s law.”

“The permissive family must give way to the Christian family.”

“The goal is the developed Kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem, a world order under God’s law.”

There used to be a cult in England.  It was called “British Israelitism.”  Its adherents believed that the lost tribes of Israel migrated to the British Isles, and that most Brits were actually descendants of Abraham.  They believed that they were the heirs of God’s promises to Abraham and entitled to God’s special blessings, that England was entitled to God’s special blessings because they were God’s chosen people.  Great Britain was ordained by God to rule the world for God’s sake.  Does that sound crazy?  It should.

There are many white American Christians, especially celebrities who embrace and are working tirelessly to actualize a similar belief.  I will call them American Israelitists. They firmly believe that America is exceptional as the heir of God’s promises to Israel. Even though the Bible never mentions America, they teach that God’s promises set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures apply as much to America as to Israel. That’s why you will hear them so often quote random, cherry-picked verses from the Old Testament more than the New Testament to justify their ideological perspectives. They argue that America was created by God to be a Christian nation, and that all of God’s promises apply to America. They believe that God wants America to be taken over by “right thinking Christians,” who should create a council of Spirit-filled leaders to administer God’s laws in America.  But Christians, perhaps especially even self-appointed Christian leaders, are not immune to the corruption that power causes and to the absolute corruption that absolute power creates. It always has.

Though I am keenly aware of how conspiratorial this sounds, that council of “right thinking Christians” may already be in place.  It is composed of Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Betsy DeVos, and Ben Carson, all of whom are politically conservative Evangelicals. It is also composed of Bill Barr and Kellyanne Conway, who are conservative Roman Catholics. They share the same vision with Evangelical activists, like Ralph Reed, and arch-conservative Catholics, like Steve Bannon.  That vision sees Western Civilization as having morphed into something different from Christendom and America morphing into something other than a Christian nation.  They see it as the urgent Christian mission to not simply pray that God’s “kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but to make it happen.  This they seek to do from their respective positions of authority in government, by undermining policies and systems they disagree with and installing like-minded government workers to implement those that they prefer – always using the Bible to determine what God wants.  It’s a compelling vision for American Christians, as it was for all the passionately faithful people throughout history mentioned earlier, but is it Jesus’ vision?

How would that vision for America be any different from Iran?  They reply that they follow the true God, not a false god, and the true Word of God and not a false one.  But that’s precisely what Iranian Ayatollahs say, too. 

Be that as it may, they see Trump as a useful tool to accomplish the vision.  They advocate for Trump in order to get him to advance their own policies in the short term. But there a longer term vision, which includes undermining American democracy and the stable system of the U.S. government in order to “reconstruct” it.  Their vision is to install a more authoritarian pattern of government under the rule of the Bible.  They are using an immoral man to make what they consider to be a moral, a godly, Christian republic. I don’t recall that Jesus ever subscribed to the end justifying the means, though.  I was under the impression that, to Jesus, the means are the end – trusting God, following Jesus and loving others.

Toward that end, they saw the need to counterbalance Trump’s obvious crass immorality.  They needed to convince rank and file white Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians to support Trump.  And so they came up with so-called prophecies to convince them. 

One is called The Trump Prophecy, a prophecy about a Christian firefighter with PTSD, who had a vision while watching TV that God would make Trump President.  It was embraced by Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Richard Land and Jerry Falwell, Jr., all Southern Baptists.  Falwell had his college make a film about it and widely distributed it to Evangelical and Pentecostal churches. 

Simultaneously, Pentecostal “prophet” and leadership guru, Lance Wallnau, claimed to have had a revelation from God that Trump was something of an incarnation of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia (Iran) 2,500 years ago.  Wallnau explained that God brought the number 45 to his mind (for the 45^th president of the U.S.), and so he looked up the 45^th chapter of Isaiah.  In that chapter, he read about a pagan king, Cyrus, who was a messiah to the Jewish people because he set them (and Palestinians) free from the Babylonian Captivity.  Wallnau claimed that God has appointed and anointed Trump to set God’s people free, like Cyrus, as something of a messiah. He claimed that he had dreams that God would use Trump to break down the walls of politically correct government.  Deconstruction of government must take place before biblical reconstruction can take place. 

But why did Wallnau assume God wanted him to look up Isaiah 45, instead of, oh say, Jeremiah 45 or any other biblical book with 45 chapters?  Jeremiah 45 does not speak of a pagan messiah, but of something entirely different.  This is what it says in verses 2 through 5: ^“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you: You said, ‘Woe to me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am worn out with groaning and find no rest.’ But the Lord has told me to say to you, ‘This is what the Lord says: I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted, throughout the earth. Should you then seek great things for yourself again? Do not seek them.  For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the Lord, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.’”

Which of those seems more “prophetic” at this time of pandemic, economic depression and climate change?  Frankly, both of those biblical texts were arbitrarily chosen.  They are conveniently cherry-picked and are not necessarily the Word of God applied to America in this current timeframe.  Neither is necessarily currently prophetic or applicable.  And white American Christians supporting Trump should not be deceived to take randomly selected words about events 2,500 years ago to apply them to contemporary America in order to justify their support for such a man as Trump.  It makes Christians look ridiculously superstitious, and discredits Jesus by association. 

American Christians, who follow the advice of self-appointed false prophets, betray what God did make of America – a democracy to stand against despotism and authoritarianism.  Support for Trump does not advance Christianity.  It discredits it.  Support for Trump does not advance democracy. It threatens to destroy it. It threatens to make it into little more than a dictatorship.

For Christians in America to support Trump is to distrust God, turn away from Jesus, abandon love, and sabotage American democracy!  Please repent of it, lest what you may wish to call consequential judgment follow.  The name of that judgment will be Donald Trump and the complete loss of your credibility to communicate Jesus’ message or to serve His mission!