"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent." Revelation 2:4-5, NRSV
Even during the first generation in the first century of its existence, Christian churches faced problems caused by deviation from the mission and purpose that had been established for them by the Christian gospel, preached by Christ. The author of the book of Revelation, most likely the Apostle John, who had helped start and worked among the seven churches addressed by this vision of Jesus, delivers some dire warnings about practices that had crept into the churches, even at this early stage, in an effort to prevent their extinction, which was the prediction of the warning given by the Spirit of Christ in this vision.
The church at Ephesus, to which this first part of the message was directed, had "lost its first love." They were in a prosperous community and as a result, the church also became comfortably connected to local governing authorities, to the point where the church became more dependent on its position and influence with them than they were on their spiritual connection and faith practice. In the vision that John received from Jesus, the remedy was repentance, or turning away from this practice that was causing it to become separated from God, before the separation caused their existence to cease.
A Modern-Day Comparison to Conservative, American Evangelicals
After growing up in a conservative, Evangelical church, spending four years at a university affiliated with the denomination, earning a minor in Biblical studies, and then two and a half years at an affiliated graduate institution, also with Biblical studies as part of the required coursework, I am absolutely appalled by the support that Trump finds for his candidacy among this particular religious constituency. There's not a single point in the entire Christian gospel where the aims of Trumpism are consistent with any of its values or principles.
I see an awful lot of attempts to distort the biblical narrative to make it fit this gross, misguided aberration of the Christian faith, none of which come close to any justification of support for Trump. Even those Christians who concede that he's evil will resort to making exceptions, claiming that there are biblical examples of places in history where God used evil people to accomplish his purposes.
Not exactly.
There are some Old Testament historical accounts of where evil rulers were successful in war against Israel, as a consequence or judgment for some specific sin, most often rejecting their faith in God. But God never requires his people to give loyalty to any wicked, conquering ruler, or to follow the leadership of some evil person he was using in this way. In fact, the judgment that eventually came down on the Jewish nation in the Old Testament was for their rejection of righteous, Godly rulers and their acceptance and loyalty given to those that the Old Testament accounts in Kings and Chronicles say, "did evil in the sight of the Lord."
And what we're seeing now, in this country, is an abandonment of the doctrine, theology and practice of biblical Christianity in exchange for loyalty to a deceiver, a pathological liar, a psychotic, power-hungry, would-be dictator who embodies the kind of evil from which Christians believe Jesus came to save us.
A New Distinction Between the Fragmented Branches of American Christianity
Christians like to claim that there is "unity" in Christ. But in the United States, where the church was set completely free from any magisterial or government control by the first amendment to the Constitution, it has never been unified in any sense of the word. Each denomination and division built their own fortifications and walls to protect themselves, and from which they could launch attacks upon the others. And what were political and theological divisions between Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, turned into denominational distinctives among Protestants who set themselves behind their own doctrinal walls in order to attack and vilify fellow Christians over nuances of belief.
With the growth of fundamentalism, a movement born out of the ignorance that developed as a result of an anti-education bias and the separation of churches from educated pastors and ministers, a sharp gulf developed between "liberals," represented by mainline Protestant churches, and "conservatives," made up largely of the revivalist Evangelicals and later, the Pentecostal movement, both of which developed as a result of the anti-education bias. Claiming to be the exclusive people of God, as opposed to "godless liberalism," they drip with arrogant self-righteousness.
Ironically, it's the flaming liberals who are becoming, in practice, the genuinely confessing Christian church, as opposed to conservatives who have lost their first love and replaced it with loyalty to an adulterer with three wives, children by all three of them, twice divorced, who is a pathological liar, insurrectionist and rebel against the governing authorities (a big no-no in the Christian gospel, found in the New Testament), whose worldly lifestyle fits the definition of anti-Christ found in 1 and 2 John.
It's the conservatives who, characteristic of the description found in Revelation 2:4-5, have lost their first love.
The falling away from the Christian gospel that has plagued conservative Evangelicals in the United States for quite some time did not originate with Trump. It was Ronald Reagan, running against the openly born-again Jimmy Carter, who invited Evangelicals into the GOP, via several prominent leaders, including Evangelist James Robison, and the now infamous Jerry Falwell. Evangelicals who went along with this traded their first love for worldly, political power which was an admission that they didn't really believe there was anything to the spiritual power upon which they once claimed to rely. God wasn't going to answer their prayers to put Reagan, who had little to do with Christian faith and practice, in the White House over the faithful, born-again Southern Baptist Carter, so they decided to elect him themselves.
The Rhetoric Has Shifted, and the Consequences Are Clear
There was never a doubt in my mind that Trump would be a complete disaster for this country if he ever got into the White House. And he was. Fortunately for us, it was his first time, and his lack of experience, coupled with the wisdom of many of those who wound up risking his wrath to derail his plans, prevented a major disaster. This is a man who was not just corrupt, or of low character, but someone who reveled in worldliness, a term I use to characterize the exact opposite of the Christian gospel. Worldliness is his brand, and his open denial of the need for repentance and forgiveness is defiance of Christ's salvation. It is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
And we saw what he was capable of doing when the people fired him and sent him packing. He refused to go. And he used every possible hook and crook, including committing crimes, lying and attempting to subvert the constitutional authority of the United States Congress, to stay in power and become the first President to resist a peaceful transfer of power. The depth of the crimes he has been willing to commit in order to benefit from his Presidency should have been the last straw for anyone who sincerely believes and practices the Christian gospel, and for any real American patriot. That they came that far with him is an indication of the weakness of their faith. But anyone who has stuck with him, after all he has done, has abandoned their first love. They are as evil as he is, helping enable a battle against the will of the American people, and, according to what the Bible says, against the will of God.
And it just keeps getting worse. The agenda he has laid out is as anti-Christian as it is anti-Patriotic and anti-American. It's fascist, no denying that. And the bigotry that drips from the rhetoric is a denial of the very nature of God and of the gospel message of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Jude wrote, in his short but to-the-point epistle near the end of the New Testament, Trump is an intruder who has stolen in among the church, introducing licentiousness and perverting the grace of Jesus Christ.
"But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct...These are blemishes on your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever." Jude 10, 12-13, NRSV
Though these verses aren't a specific prophecy for our time, they are certainly prophetic in terms of being an accurate description of Trumpism, and of Trump, and should be heeded by any sincere Christian as a warning to stay away and not be associated with this apostasy in any way. It's impossible to reconcile support and loyalty for Trump with the Christian gospel. Voting for Trump is a betrayal of one's profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
A Lampstand is Being Removed
It's fairly clear from the words used by the Apostle in Revelation, in spite of the apocalyptic nature of the literature, that the lampstand was a symbol of the church's existence, and the consequence for its failure to repent would be the loss of the spiritual power that sustains its existence. A church that had its lampstand removed would cease to exist.
Even a casual observer can see that the existence of churches dependent on the merger of right wing politics with their theology and doctrine is in danger. Conservative Evangelicals have declared that the standard of measurement of the sincerity and commitment of a Christian congregation is its numerical growth, pointing to theirs as a sign of God's favor, and to the decline that started among Mainline Protestants in the 1960's as a sign of his withdrawal because of their liberal theology.
But the decline in attendance and membership among conservative Evangelicals in this century has become so severe that they are inventing ways to deny that it is happening. The largest Evangelical denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention, has reported a drop of nearly 4 million members since its peak in 2006, 20% of its total membership. Across the whole spectrum of independent, non-denominational churches that make up the bulk of Evangelicalism in America, 16 million people who attended church in 2008 are no longer on the church rolls. Some of that is just bad book keeping, but most of it is a shift in people looking for churches that are sincerely and distinctively Christian, and not politically distracted.
The Trump agenda cannot be reconciled to the Christian gospel. It denies loyalty to Jesus and the principles and values he preached and lived by example. Leadership which fails to see that this incongruity is resulting in an exodus of people from the pews, and continue to publicly endorse Trump are splitting churches and causing this exodus of membership. And the church that has lost its first love, and has adopted a message that is a different gospel than the one originally preached is, according to the Apostle Paul, anathema, or destroyed.
Get off the bandwagon and repent, before it is too late.
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