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 Master and Lord, Jesus Christ...These are blemishes on your love-feasts, white 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, v. 4, 12,13 NRSV
As a child, I was actually attracted to the church, in addition to my West Virginia born and raised parents requiring my attendance every week. I had a Sunday School teacher who made a huge impression on me when I first started school, and the Southern Baptist church in which I was raised, though small, was keenly interested in keeping its youth engaged and focused on reaching the point of having a conversion experience, and then finding ways to keep them involved, deepening their faith.
Over time, I grew to understand that churches were not made up of perfect people, and that there would be problems and issues that would arise, leading to the need for its leadership to practice wisdom and discernment in keeping unity of mission and purpose and directing the congregation in the faithful practice of the Christian gospel. As I grew older, I learned how to handle relationships with people who let their sense of power and authority in the congregation get the better of them, including a couple of pastors who wound up losing the trust of the congregation because they got a little too heavy handed and intrusive.
What has become intolerable is the intrusion, as the Apostle Jude mentions in the passage I quoted, of an ungodly element that has found its way into and through a good percentage of American Evangelicalism. It has come in through the window of right wing politics. I never heard a pastor, or church members for that matter, mention politics from the pulpit until I had almost graduated from college. It was 1979, Jimmy Carter was running for re-election and the "Moral Majority" and religious right were just getting their start by supporting Reagan. The battle lines were on abortion rights and in spite of the fact that President Carter was one of the best examples of how to balance a fervent and sincere Christian faith against service of all of the people as President, the extremists on the right could not tolerate the idea that people who didn't share their religious convictions should have rights with which they disagreed.
Does Character Count? Yes, It Does, According to a Prominent, Evangelical Pastor
Politics, especially on the Republican side of things, really ramped up during Reagan's two terms, but it was quite prolific, along with being characteristically vitriolic and hostile toward President Clinton, who was himself a member of a Southern Baptist church, along with Vice President Al Gore. Toward the end of President Clinton's term, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor and denominational leader, Dr. Adrian Rogers, of Memphis' Bellevue Baptist Church, one of the largest Baptist churches in the country, preached a rousing sermon declaring that while political issues were of importance, sometimes they didn't always align with religious values, so in choosing who to vote for, Christians must sacrifice support for potential political benefits to themselves, such as lower taxes, or affordable child care, or the ability to afford health insurance, in order to vote for candidates who demonstrated a high standard of Christian character.
That, according to Dr. Rogers, was really all that mattered, and of course, he added that choosing such candidates was a necessity for the nation to "avoid the judgment of God." That latter statement is actually contradictory to the Christian gospel itself, and I'm sure Dr. Rogers knew that, but it plays well in the pews. The sermon was entitled, "Does Character Count?" and it was aimed at discrediting President Clinton as a professing Christian, based on a judgment of his behavior that included several alleged affairs and the incident with Monica Lewinsky, which prompted the sermon. Dr. Rogers concluded that Christians were obligated to support leaders whose character demonstrated divine transformation, bridging Christian nationalism and Old Testament Jewish theocracy.
I don't hear very many Christian leaders citing Dr. Rogers' sermon now. Insofar as it was a condemnation of President Clinton's behavior being a disqualifying factor for getting the votes of Christians, it likewise does exactly the same thing to Donald Trump. It's not difficult to apply Rogers' admonitions and warnings in exactly the same way, with exactly the same result. Following Dr. Rogers' conclusion, Christians who vote for, and support someone as immoral and worldly as Donald Trump are subjecting this country to the possible judgment of God.
"Righteousness exalteth a nation," declared Dr. Rogers. According to him, given the freedom and the choice that Christians have to choose political leaders in this country, Christians need to elevate character to the top of the voting list, and avoid choosing immoral, worldly leaders because that makes them subject to their immorality and worldliness. There are passages from the Apostles in the New Testament that instruct Christians to respect the authority of the civil government, and when the freedom exists for Christians to choose leaders, it becomes easier to respect leaders who share the same values and beliefs, than to respect an immoral pagan, according to Dr. Rogers.
There's no turning this around or walking it back. Dr. Adrian Rogers, former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church of Memphis, and former President of the Southern Baptist Convention has openly told Christians that voting for Trump would be against their Christian convictions and could lead to God's judgment on the United States. Certainly a man who is civilly liable for rape, who is a convicted felon on 34 counts of business fraud, who is a pathological liar, a worldly adulterer who has bragged about his sexual conquests in humiliating each of his three wives, and who led a rebellious insurrection against the United States government would be completely unqualified to serve in office by this Christian standard. Add to that his open rejection of Christian conviction and conversion, and I think it is safe to conclude that Dr. Rogers is instructing Christians not to cast their ballots for Donald Trump.
Dr. Rogers passed away before Trump came on the scene. Whether he would have reversed this position, like almost all of his Evangelical colleagues have done, abandoning principle and shedding their credibility to support a pagan despot, is difficult to say. A lot of effort has gone into ignoring this sermon, an amazing development given that his sermons are still replayed and broadcast and his ministry still collects money. But Dr. Adrian Rogers laid out the best argument against Christian support for an unrepentant, adulterous, grifting scam artist like Donald Trump that exists among the Evangelical political right wing.
Sincerity is No Substitute for Truth in Practice
Evangelical doctrine and theology rests on two primary core points. One is belief that the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are without human error "in their original autographs," in other words, in the original text written by the Apostles. The other is what most Christians would call conversion, or confirmation of a "salvation" experience which involves one being "convicted" of their sin by the presence of God's Holy Spirit, using words of the text to show individuals that they are, by definition, sinners and that they can only be saved from this sin, and restored to God, by repentance, or turning away from a sinful life, and trusting the crucifixion of Jesus to satisfy the sacrifice demanded by God for living sinfully. This experience is symbolized in baptism, which, in Evangelical churches is administered by dunking, or immersing, the convert completely under water.
The Apostle John, in his first epistle to the church, makes this notation:
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 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 heard that it is coming; and now already in the world." I John 4:1-3, NRSV
Most Evangelical doctrine defines the term "Christian," and says that being "Christian" requires this confession, basically that Jesus is the "Christ," or the promised savior or "Messiah," addressed in the prophets of the Old Testament, as part of the repentance from sin, and the forgiveness and restoration to God. It is this experience that makes one a "Christian," as opposed to the only other option, according to the words of this apostle, which is antichrist, a spirit that does not confess Christ.
It's inconsistent and incongruent for conservative Christians who lean heavily into Christian nationalism, which advocates for establishing a Christian nation along the lines of the theocratic nation of Israel of the Old Testament, to accept and support a politician and a national leader with their votes, who is antichrist by his own confession. Although many Evangelical leaders have tried to publicly pin him down on this point, and get him to say he has confessed his sins, repented, and turned to Jesus as his savior, Trump himself, on multiple occasions, declares his belief in God to be his own "private matter," and proclaim that he has never done anything for which he needed God's forgiveness.
This is a repeated theme of his when this subject comes up. Most Evangelical leaders are aware of it, but are deceptively taking great pains to prevent this from becoming common knowledge. By saying that his adulterous affairs through three marriages, including the highly publicized affair with Stormy Daniels that he tried to cover up, his pathological, provable lies, his fraud, his rape of E. Jean Carroll, his dishonest business practices and his attempt to overthrow the government by inciting an insurrection do not require God's forgiveness, Trump is defining himself as antichrist [not "The Antichrist," a terms frequently interchanged with that of "The Beast" in the Book of Revelation].
He has led a large contingent of politically influenced Evangelical church members, pastors and leaders, churches, and even denominations into doctrinal and theological apostasy. He is, by definition, one of the kind of "intruders" that the Apostle Jude warned the early church to expect, infiltrating with licentiousness and subverting the mission and purpose of the church for political gain. Trump himself will not share loyalty with anyone else, including Jesus Christ, and some of his surrogates and followers have gotten around to branding the teachings of Christ as being "woke" or "liberal talking points."
Don Junior has even declared that Christians need to abandon the idea of turning the other cheek, "because it hasn't gotten us anywhere," he said. When a politician and a political campaign deny the effectiveness of the gospel preached by Jesus Christ, they are apostate. This is the point to which Trump and Trumpism has brought those American Evangelicals who follow him.
This Political Subversion of American Evangelicalism is Behind Project 2025
What's happened here is a "deal with the devil." While most Evangelicals are as blissfully unaware that Trump is, by their own definition "antichrist," many of their leaders are aware but don't care. Trump is useful in that he is willing to make deals in order to get votes. Whatever he might have to give up in exchange for political support from this constituency, he will do, because he needs their votes to have any chance at all of winning elections.
Their interest has nothing to do with Trump's behavior or morality. They have abandoned the convictions and the doctrine Dr. Rogers used when he preached against voting for Clinton based on his moral character. They have brought an agenda which is essentially an establishment of a particular brand of Christian nationalism, known as dominionism, which he has agreed to implement if he wins the election. It's called Project 2025, authored, published and financed by the Heritage Foundation, and in spite of some scattered objections from corners of the GOP, it has replaced what they would typically call their party "platform," as their intended party goals.
I suggest readers make themselves as keenly aware of this over 900 page document as they possibly can. It will be one of the best defenses Democrats have for beating Republicans in the coming election. And it must be defeated, or Americans will lose freedoms and rights we have had established in this country since it was founded. Their rhetoric indicates that they are willing to push this using violence, especially against those identified as being un-American by their definition. Europeans endured several centuries of bloody violence and war caused by draconian enforcement of religious dogma. That will be the result of pushing this.
There is nothing in Project 2025 that bears any resemblance to the Christian gospel. And I guess, from my own perspective, one of the good things about the politics of our time is that it is separating out the goats from the sheep, the true believers in the Christian gospel from the false prophets. This must be defeated, along with every politician who supports it, or who is deceptively trying to downplay its prominence in the Republican party platform. It is the party platform, plain and simple, the blueprint of what they will do if Trump is elected.
If this happens, it will not be because God has brought his judgment on America. It will be because we failed to learn the lessons of history.
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