To Conservative, Evangelical Christian Supporters of Trump:
"Consider the absurdity of your choice to lead our country. Trump is a twice-impeached former President who has never received the votes of a majority of voters, an indicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, a prodigious liar, a chronic business failure, a self-confessed sexual assailant, a fawning admirer of autocrats, an unapologetic racist, a serial philanderer who has cheated on all of his many wives, a draft-dodging coward and particularly loathsome in appearance and demeanor. I could go on but you get the idea. He has no redeeming qualities other than a rapidly approaching expiration date. Any of his myriad faults should be disqualifying for the highest office in the land and yet he is the overwhelming choice of most Republicans."--Thanks to FightingIrish from Democratic Underground for this wonderful paragraph, "My response to a friend asking me about 2024," December 11, 2023
An Anti-Christ, By Definition
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heart that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. I John 4:2-3, NRSV
The only recognizable confession of faith in conservative, Evangelical Christianity is the confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. At the time this was written, the individual making this confession is stating that Jesus of Nazareth, the itinerant rabbi who is identified and whose teachings are recorded in the four gospel accounts of the New Testament, is the long anticipated Messiah of the Old Testament. So Jesus, and all of his teachings, constitute the full Christian gospel. For believers, this is redemption, salvation from and forgiveness of sin and the values and principles reflected in Jesus' message define the practice of the Christian faith.
Since linking up with some Evangelical leaders and embracing their politics, Trump has never acknowledged any of this. In fact, within his political movement, he has his own "disciples" who preach and teach practices and principles that are the diametric opposite of everything Jesus taught. Trump's own son, Don, Junior, publicly rejected one of the central teachings of Christianity, Jesus' statement about turning the other cheek, found in Matthew 5:38-39.
"We've been playing t-ball for half a century while they're playing hardball and cheating. Right? We've turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference--I understand the mentality--but it's gotten us nothing! Okay? It's gotten us nothing while we've ceded ground in every major institution in our country," said Trump Jr., addressing a gathering at a Turning Point rally in Arizona last year.
So the core teachings of Jesus "have gotten us nothing," according to Donald Trump, Jr., spokesperson for Trump's presidential campaign.
...and this is the spirit of the antichrist...
There's too much narcissism and too much ego in Trump's way for him to even say what some self-appointed Evangelical leaders want him to say about his alleged Christian faith. The problem is that conversion to Christianity requires a personal act of humility, the admission that one is a sinner, and needs the forgiveness that cannot be earned by personal effort, but which must be received as an act of God's grace. Trump's repeated response, unable to be humble, is to claim that he has never done anything requiring forgiveness, and that he has his own idea of who God is.
So by any Evangelical Christian's definition of Jesus as the Christ, whether it's Mike Johnson or Billy Graham, or Robert Jeffress, Trump's denial of this core teaching of the Christian gospel fits the definition found in I John 4 of the term "antichrist". Perhaps that's why he prefers to hang out with prosperity gospel heretics, like Paula White, when he's feeling he needs to play his Evangelical audience, instead of some of the more mainstream so-called "leaders", who call her a heretic and a money grubber.
Biblical Text Provides Food for Thought For Conservative, Bible-believing Evangelicals
For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Jude, Verse 4
Jude, one of Jesus' apostles and perhaps his half-brother as well, was certainly prophetic when he penned these words of warning to the early church. It's as if he were given a vision right into the twenty-first century and saw what was happening in the United States, and how American Christians were being beguiled, fooled and flattered into supporting someone whose character, lifestyle, worldview and lustful thirst for revenge against his enemies is as opposite of the Christian character Christ taught in the gospels as one can get.
Apparently, even in the first century, there was a risk that Christians could be easily beguiled and fooled into following an evil leader instead of the Christian gospel. While some were capable of keeping things straight, and preserving the integrity and doctrine of their churches, there were others who were deliberately deceitful and others who were easily duped by slick talking enemies of the church. Twenty-one centuries later, the risk of heresy and deceit in the church is still a big one, in spite of having a whole Bible to warn us. And it has come, not surprisingly, in an unorthodox blending of right wing politics with right wing Evangelicalism and Christian mysticism.
I've heard the argument from some Christians that God used David, who wasn't perfect either. And that's true, he did. But David was a follower of God, a believer in who he was, not in his own made-up version of who he thought God was. And of course, God used evil men to accomplish his purposes. If you consider the judgment of Israel over the course of their history, because of their continuous drifting into paganism, then yes, I suppose he did use a few Assyrian and Egyptian and Babylonian rulers to chastise his chosen people. But he never required them to give their loyalty to these evil men, not one time. And you should not be doing that now.
Is American Christianity an Enemy of Democracy?
David Gushee, a Baptist professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, has authored a book which identifies the heresy of Christian authoritarianism and calls out its attack on American democracy. Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies Personally, from my own convictional point of view, this is such an aberration of Christian theology and doctrine as to render congregations who are duped by it apostate. And while it may be a good thing that we are now seeing the wolves in the church in sheep's clothing, we must still vanquish the wolves before they destroy the republic.
While American Christianity, in the broadest sense of the term, is not an enemy of American Democracy, the parts of it that have fallen victim to the heresy of Christian nationalism, and in which the values of the Christian gospel have been turned upside down and emptied out in favor of a sensual worldliness, are an enemy to democracy, to the rest of the church, and to American society as a whole. So to those Christians caught up in this who value their faith, this should be a warning that your support for Trump is also separating you from biblical, orthodox Christianity. You must make a choice. Trump or biblical Christianity. You can't have both.
No comments:
Post a Comment