Not Everyone in "The Christian Right" Has Bowed the Knee to The God of Politics

There he came to a cave and lodged in it.  And behold the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  

He (Elijah) said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.  For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only am left, and they seek my life, to take it away."  ........

Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.  I Kings 19:9-10, 18 ESV

Last week, I wrote a blog following the firing of Dan Darling, Senior Vice President of Communication for the National Religious Broadcasters.  Darling was fired for telling the truth and for expressing convictions consistent with the principles of Christ's gospel.  On two different national media outlets, MSNBC and USA Today, he encouraged people to get vaccinated, stated that he did so because of his Christian faith, the principle of loving your neighbor and a Christ-like attitude of servanthood, looking out for the interests of others.  

Following his firing, NRB CEO Troy Miller tried to walk it back, claiming that Darling had been offered another position which he turned down and was not fired.  But that was a lie, because the record shows that Darling was "fired for willful insubordination."  Apparently, telling the truth, and expressing the conviction that Christians should be setting a good example by loving their neighbor and serving the interests of others above their own is no longer compatible with the way NRB defines "Christian values."  And for an organization that claims to defend the right of Christian broadcasters "to speak their conscience without censorship", this looks really, really bad. 

Here's the link from Religion News Service:  After Dan Darling, Truthful Evangelicals Look Unemployable

Firing someone for what they've said, and more than likely, where it was said, and then lying about it sounds familiar, doesn't it?  

Darling is somewhat of a "refugee" from another Evangelical Christian organization that has collapsed because its executive director spoke the truth and the political right wing didn't like it.  He left the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission about a year ago to take this position at NRB.  The ERLC's executive director, Dr. Russell Moore, had been under fire because he expressed his opposition to Trump's candidacy and stuck with that position, on moral and ethical grounds, through his whole Presidency.  After four years of attacks and efforts to undermine him, defund the ERLC and oust him, Moore left for a position at Christianity Today just prior to the June annual meeting of the SBC. 

In my previous blog, I speculated that at least part of the reason for firing Darling was that he made his remarks on MSNBC.  RNS reports that there was a lot of blowback as a result of this appearance.  Not only did he tell the truth, but he did it on a news outlet that tells the truth to the point where it leaves religious right supporters of Trump--and donors to NRB-- jiggling with rage.  

Jacob Lupfer, the author of the article in RNS, said, "No one, least of all pro-life Christians, should want to see nearly 100,000 of their countrymen die of a disease after safe, effective vaccines become available.  No one should be indifferent to Donald Trump's racism, lies, degredation of public discourse, and open rebellion against the rule of law.  If your donor base is unconcerned about these things, you need to get a better donor base."  

I put that quote there because I could not say it any better myself.  It is not wrong to conclude that giving virtually unqualified support to a political candidate who lied to, humiliated and cheated on three wives, dumping two of them in divorces, cheated in business and on his taxes, glorifies sexual perversion, pays off porn stars whom he slept with while married to someone else, earns money off vices like gambling and strip clubs and planned and conducted an insurrection to subvert the Constitution, is the opposite of support for the Christian morals and values in the Bible.  

I have yet to see, in all the whining, rhetoric, complaining and demands about "freedom" and "tyranny" from those in the religious political right, one single Biblical justification for being against vaccinations and mask wearing.  Just one.  It's not about the Bible or Christian faith, and they've made that clear, it's about politics which they have completely separated from their Christian values and from Biblical principle.  The reason I haven't seen one is that no such justification exists in Christian faith.  No Christian has yet to be asked to deny their faith in Jesus to follow any mandate or executive order issued by a governor in any state, which would be the one justification that exists Biblically for disobedience to the civil government.  Wearing a mask and getting the vaccine are mutually beneficial actions that contribute to the diminishing of this viral pandemic that we all want to get out of.  They are good things.  

And I'd be willing to bet that if the governors of the states that are taking a beating on the mandates were Republicans instead of Democrats, there would not be a peep. 

The Bible verses I cited at the beginning of this post, from the Biblical text in I Kings, are not intended as an analogy.  Following the reign of Solomon, Israel split into a Northern and Southern Kingdom, the Northern tribes, separated from the Temple and the worship of God in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, quickly became corrupt, turning to wicked, evil rulers who led the whole country away from their Jewish faith.  Elijah, who was one of Israel's greatest prophets, drew the ire of monarchs who saw him as a threat, none more than Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, who threatened to kill him for preaching the truth.  

Elijah fled to Judah to escape, where God approaches and asks him, "What are you doing here?"  Elijah tells God what he already knows, and God tells Elijah something he doesn't know, that there are still 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal.  It's a word of encouragement that he is not alone, that there are others who know and respect the truth and to go back, keep telling the truth, and know that God's presence is with him.