Tag Archives: Christian Right

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The Alteration of American Altars

An unprecedented number of Americans are declining to participate in organized religion. (See “America’s Changing Religious Landscape”, Pew Research Center, link below.)

Is it any wonder that people are rejecting church attendance, given the last two decades’ convergence of religion and politics in a large sector of American Christianity? Why would people be drawn to religion when what they know about church (and therefore think of God) is what they witness on public platforms? Why would anyone be drawn to God when people who claim to represent him think and behave as they do?

To you who are understandably and rightfully turned off from this growing branch of American Christianity …

I wish you knew that “those people” are nothing like God.

I wish you knew that unrighteous people sometimes affiliate with a religious institution for selfish agendas and personal gain.

I wish you knew unscrupulous people sometimes exploit religion as a way to control others, to shut them down with handpicked, out-of-context scriptures and corrupt theologies.

I wish you knew this usury has gone on since biblical days, and that Jesus had harsh words for people such as these. The sinless, ever-loving son of God wasn’t all sweetness and acceptance — while he gave “sinners” a pass, he boldly confronted hard-hearted, legalistic believers, calling them “you brood of vipers”, “snakes”, and “sons of Satan”.

Many of these religious people own the podium today — they pursued the altar and got what they wanted. Their numbers have swelled, and with it their sense of confidence and correctness. We hear from them regularly that they are right and the rest of the world is wrong.

This segment of Christian leaders has positioned themselves as the door through which everyone else must pass to access God — they have formed a united front to separate others from the love of God.

For those of you observing it all, know this:

All Christians are not the same.

It’s not only non-Christians those pastors and their followers condemn, they also reject Christians who don’t conform to their beliefs.

There are many who are alarmed and appalled at it. It was much different before politics insidiously infiltrated our churches. Services used to be about honoring God. In many churches it has become “us” versus “them”, and “right” versus “left”. Anger- and arrogant-tinged monologues that used to be considered wrong are now applauded.

Congregants have gone from expecting to hear Bible teaching from the pulpit, to expecting to hear conservative political talking points from the pulpit. The harsher the better. The more cruel toward targeted people groups, the better. The uglier the words and tone, the better. The angrier the better, because in their culture, loud, angry, emphatic voices equate to being right.

What used to be expected to be hidden in society, and certainly at church, is now expected to be expressed. Church is for like-minded people to eagerly be enraged together. In the name of Jesus.

Safety in numbers has buried personal accountability, conscience, and awareness of being in conflict with God’s nature.

There are many exceptions, to be sure. Many churches and individuals have not been swept into this trend. They have resisted conforming to a contaminated amalgam of theology, agendas, pride, politics, and appetite for power. I know many, many people who have attended their churches for decades, some for their whole lives; they and their churches have not changed. They are busy living life and making positive, genuine contributions to the world.

Another thing you should know:

God has not changed.  

For those who have run the other way from Christianity, I wish you knew the immeasurable loss of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”. Throw out the contaminated water of fraudulent religion, but don’t throw out God with it.

I wish you knew that God offers to be your lifeline, your air, your shelter, your sustenance.

I wish you knew you don’t have to go through “those people”. Humans are not the gatekeepers to God, regardless their claims, demands, or puffed-up display of authority.

The truth is …

No person or thing can separate anyone from the love of God. 

Romans 8: 31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

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Show Your Work

A defense is making the rounds in the Christian Pro-Trump camp:

We need to understand that God uses ungodly people for His purposes. The Bible has story after story about the unlikeliness of who He chose to lead a people, a nation. I support Pres. Trump for his policies .. not his personality.

I’ve asked people who’ve declared some version of this viewpoint to name those people in the Bible. I’ve yet to get a response, so I am going to try to defend their statement for them:

First, it’s a Biblical claim, so we have to find it as a truth in the Bible. Also, we have to conclude that whoever is in office is put there by God — he wasn’t elected; free will didn’t come into play.

I can’t resolve the “free will” question here, that’s too much. Suffice it to say I lean most heavily to the belief that God gives us free will to do right or do wrong without him forcing us either way, but will assume, for this purpose, that God does control who is in leadership. (I know, the logic bothers me deeply, too, because … Hitler and such. But suspend logic for a few minutes to see if the belief is accurate.) I’m going to eliminate the “free will” debate and proceed with the rest of the statement.

So … to the point of Trump being ungodly, but at the same time, “of God”:

God did use ungodly, even evil leaders and kingdoms to deliver justice to his own people (always leaving a remnant to keep his covenant with Abraham). But look at that … he used evil people to annihilate the evil that his chosen people had become. Like the flood long before Abraham, only with death at the hands of evil soldiers.

We can make it work only if we accept that Trump (good or not) may be in power to deliver justice to us … to deliver judgment to American Christians. If they will allow for that application, we can leave it in, but not if they allow for it to be only true according to their own values and beliefs (ex. to drain the swamp). If you know God, you know you don’t get to tell him what to value and think and do. You have to become less so that he can become more. You have to give up your own values and thoughts to adopt his. Or not. But if you know better yet don’t yield to him … there’s always that judgment thing looming.

Still, I’m going to try to make their argument true:

So where did “chosen” happen in the Bible? King David fits the “chosen by God” argument, because he was … it is documented. But it gets a little gray right away; God didn’t want to do it. There was a whole tug of war over it: God wanted his people to continue to be led by priests; they saw neighboring kingdoms led by kings and pushed to get one. He said no, they said, gimme gimme, and he relented, having Samuel select David when he was still a shepherd boy, to later take Saul’s throne. I still think it can be solidly argued that he was chosen by God.

David also fits the “unlikely” and “sinner” comparison, due to knowingly setting up a death (Bathsheba’s husband) for his own agenda. But here the comparison ends. Since there is so much in the Bible about him, we get to see who David was: contrite … utterly contrite. Repentant. Sackcloth and ashes remorseful. Determined, before and after his terrible sin, that his life and his reign be pleasing to God.

And there is the Biblical “you will know them by their fruit” truth… and “out of the abundance of the heart a mouth speaks” concept that is to help know who people are … David was godly, we can read it, and God called him so. If Trump were handed a quill pen to write psalms, we already know what he would write. Copy and paste his tweets, and … he “ain’t no King David”. And the U.S., frankly, “ain’t no Biblical Israel” either.

Long before David … Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob after, although they were leaders due to a covenant), and Joseph, and Moses were also leaders selected by God to lead God’s chosen nation, but again … to consider Trump as advancing God’s plan as they did is to say Trump is an Abraham; he is a Joseph – or we have to diminish them to the same level as Trump.

On a side but I think important note: to presume God views the U.S. as his chosen people is something I am unwilling to do. Individuals all over the world are “his”, yes. America chosen as a nation as “his”, no. Biblically, the chosen nation scattered. It wasn’t until post WWII that Israel had a land again to call theirs. Should we be certain that we can insert “the U.S.A” in place of “Israel” in order to claim the Biblical principles that politicalized Christians do? I don’t think we can.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David … Those men were willing (or in Jacob’s case, wrestled) to yield their lives to God to the extent that they gave the majority of their lives to be trained and equipped to lead according to God’s standards. They didn’t get the place of power until God called them ready. They were trained in deserts and wildernesses, in slavery and as servants, and on the run from powerful, evil people determined to take their lives. They were faithful regardless God’s terms of development. They feared God.

To claim that Trump is “of God” then, is to claim that he was equipped and trained by God for the presidency. He doesn’t hold up to Abraham, Joseph, Moses, etc. To alter God’s ways is to be braver than I am. I shutter every time politicalized Christians/ Trump loyalists elevate Trump, America, and our flag above the world. Above God, even. To them, it’s not, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son …”, it is “God so loved the USA and its values as we say that he gave his only son …”

It is daring (and I believe uber-foolish) to tell God what his intentions and standards are. It is audacious to presume Trump was chosen by him, or that Trump is pleasing in God’s sight. If they know God, as they say, why do they not fear him? He alone is God, not me and not you and not Trump and not America. To start with our political beliefs, then to stretch them to encompass God, and to declare God chose and is carrying out his will according to our beliefs … is a boldness I’m too scared to have.

I took a re-look at the Chronicles, 1st and 2nd Kings, and 1st and 2nd Samuel, where we see the leaders of God’s people (even if we stretch we Americans to be called God’s people). There, in the chronological stories of the kings, is a conclusion of each leader’s life. Only a handful (looks like 5) were pleasing to God. The majority of 50- ish kings of Israel/ Judah (I did a quick count only) did not please God. He simply called them evil. The leaders of the Children of God’s kingdoms … he called them evil.

To breezily presume Trump was chosen by God and is doing God’s will …. again, I can’t do it.

We can view it as a math teacher wanting to see how a student drew their conclusion. We hear the conclusion all the time, but we have yet to “see their work”. I just attempted it, above, and couldn’t draw the same conclusion.

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The Pendulum

 

I can’t count how many times I have read or heard some version of the following rationalization since Trump took office:

“We need to understand that God uses ungodly people for His purposes. The Bible has story after story about the unlikeliness of who He chose to lead a people, a nation. I support President Trump for his policies .. not his personality.”

I have yet to hear an example so that we can look at a story together and consider the person, the context, and the lessons God intended.

There are centuries of reigns by kings documented in the Bible, their lives distilled to one of these two statements:

1.) He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left, or …

2.) He did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord his God.

As for the status of those kingdoms of God? — Each went the way of their king. The pendulum swung back and forth over the centuries. The whole kingdom swung to good. The whole kingdom swung to bad.

In the book of Samuel, we learn that God never wanted kings. His will was that his chosen priests continue to lead. During the time of the priest Samuel, the people of God’s kingdom rejected God’s will and demanded a king. All the other kingdoms had kings, they wanted one, too. God ultimately relented and they chose Saul. David, meanwhile, was handpicked by God (via Samuel) to later take Saul’s place as their first God-approved king.

Not because it was God’s will. Because it was the people’s will.

Still, David was a man after God’s own heart. He was not sinless, but repentant and intensely recommitted to God after, for an overall lifetime yielded to service of God. Most kings after David, however, were not “pleasing to God”. They did what was evil in His eyes. Read Kings 1 and 2, and 1st and 2nd Samuel, and the Chronicles, and the lesson over and over is that God allowed free will and the rise to power of evil kings as well as good.

Just because a president is elected, does not equate to “he is who God chose”.

Just because a president claims to be a Christian, does not equate to being pleasing in the eyes of God.

Just because a party claims that God endorses that party, does not make it so.

Just because a president tackles single issues, such as abortion, that line up with a specific religion’s stances, does not equate to “God chose Trump (or anyone else)”.

To someone who claims, “Trump is accomplishing God’s will”, I ask:

Is he? How did you land on that conclusion? – because people told you so?

Or because God told you so?

What about the other stances important to God, like caring for the most vulnerable people in society? More is written in the Bible about that, yet those directives are alright to ignore? Policies against those people are alright?

When political stances and figures are weighted with “God endorses him”, we’d better be hearing it from God himself, not people. To do otherwise is to prioritize people over God.

To oblige a person or group instead of God … does not end well.

Take a look again at God’s kingdoms of old.

Job 28:28 And he said to the human race, “The fear of the Lord–that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”

Proverbs 8:13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.