This Political Turmoil and Chaos is Being Promoted in Church

In attempts to try and figure out how it was that there were enough voters in this country to ever elect Trump to the Presidency, even the first time, there were plenty of previous signs.  When Newt Gingrich became the first Republican to be elected Speaker of the House in 40 years, that was a sign that things were about to change, and that the Heritage Foundation and the billionaires club were going to systematically engage in attempts to buy influence over the United States government piece by piece. 

The realization that there were enough Americans who would vote against their own interests, and against politicians who were committed to making the American Republic work and for those politicians who were willing to take it apart, piece by piece did not come to me because of my background as a social studies teacher, or my knowledge of American history and government, or from reading and watching multiple news sources.  I knew there was an element of subversion among the country's electorate because I observed it in church.  

The Seeds For This Political Disaster Were Sown in Conservative American Churches 

I grew up in the household of a union member.  My Dad trained as an air conditioning mechanic in the Navy during the Second World War.  He first put those skills to use after his Navy service in the chemical industry, where the need for mechanical refrigeration in the production process was essential.  And he, like his uncles and cousins who also worked in the chemical plants, joined the union.  He was a Roosevelt Democrat who grew up in West Virginia during the depression who would tell you Jimmy Carter was his favorite President.  

He was raised in church, the Disciples of Christ, but after college, and the Navy, he wasn't attending when he met and married my Mom.  She was raised in a "half time" Methodist church.  When I came along, they decided to be more regular, and joined a small, Southern Baptist church where they felt comfortable among other transplants from the south in the small Arizona town where they settled.  

And that's where I saw, and heard, the kind of abberant politics and ideology that would eventually lead to explaining why there could be enough voters in America to turn against its historic principles, and its own democratic republic by electing a corrupt and incompetent destroyer like Trump.  It was in the ideology being preached and taught in church.  

It wasn't always that way.  This was a small congregation, not more than fifty people gathering on any given Sunday, mostly transplants who moved to this small Arizona town because of their employment.  There were a lot of Virginians because of the presence of a nearby military base, and a lot of Texans and Oklahomans, who worked for the natural gas company, which was based in Texas.  There was a utility construction company there, based in Mississippi, and so those who came from a Southern Baptist background started their own church.  

For the first thirty years of its existence, it had a succession of bi-vocational pastors.  But in the early 70's, they called a retired Army seargeant as their first full time pastor.  And he introduced the strident fundamentalism to the congregation that had, as part of its belief system, the idea that everything in the world around them that did not conform to their specific perception of God, and of what was true, was to be considered as an enemy.  It also introduced what is known among conservative Evangelicals as "Premillinial Dispensationalism," the idea that the evil in the world will eventually trigger a series of events which will usher in the second coming of Christ.  These events are charted on an "Armageddon Calendar," for which the clock is constantly ticking.  As a child, that scared me.  As a college student at a Baptist-affiliated University, I discovered that, while the ideology was widespread in the churches, it had no following at all among Bible scholars.  

Fundamentalism is the breeding ground for Christian Nationalism.  Commonly held beliefs that the Founders of the United States intended to create a "Christian nation" made up of the chosen race of white Europeans who were being given a special blessing from God to populate and develop the resource-rich, virgin continent of North America were infused with the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith.  The enslavement of blacks because of a belief that the Bible taught they were inferior to whites and that servitude was their lot in life, enshrined in the Confederate constitution, was also the basis for which the Southern Baptist Convention  was organized.  

Fundamentalists were moving to take over the Southern Baptist Convention during the late 60's and early 70's.  Claiming that it was "sliding down the slippery slope of liberalism," they organized a poltical campaign within the denomination, claiming to be interested in restoring the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, which they said Southern Baptist leadership and seminary professors had abandoned.  That was one purpose.  The other was to align the denomination with Republican party politics.  Starting with the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Houston, Texas, (held in the Summit, which is now, ironically, Lakewood Church) in 1979, a succession of fundamentalists were elected SBC President, with the power to appoint like minded fundamentalists to trustee boards and the executive committee. 

"The Government is the Enemy of Everything" 

The biggest problem Christian nationalists have with their ideology is that American history doesn't support the contention that America was founded as a Christian nation.  Two of the founders, Madison and Jefferson, made concerted efforts to see that the idea of a state church was removed from consideration with the establishment clause of the first amendment that both of them asserted was separation of church and state.  The Constitution itself cites no biblical reference in support of its ideology.  And the establishment of a Republic as the form of government, is based solely on principles of democratic ideology, as opposed to the existing Christian church at the time, which was not a democracy, but a dictatorial hierarchy.  

Another problem is the fact that the Christian gospel doesn't establish a church with a hierarchy, it establishes the church as a body of those who have become believers in the salvation by grace through faith offered by Jesus.  "The Church," the ecclesia, is a local group, with connections to all Christians everywhere.  And it was intentionally contrasted with the old covenant, which ended with Christ's resurrection, that included the theocratic model of ancient Israel.  Fulfilled by Jesus, according to Matthew 5:17-18, it was replaced by the church, with Christ as its head, and a membership made up of all nations, baptized by the spirit.  It is a spiritual body, and intentionally not a political entity.

A Christian sociologist at Boston University, Nancy Ammerman, outlined the recent history of resolutions passed by the Southern Baptist Convention in recent years.  What she found was that these resolutions reflected the growing influence of Christian nationalism among the churches and members of the Southern Baptist Convention.  In 2021, in spite of biblical teaching found in Romans and in First Peter instructing Christians to be obedient to the laws of the civil government because all governments exist under God's authority, the SBC passed a resolution that states, "God establishes all governing authorities as his avenging servants who should only be obeyed if they are following higher law, not iniquitous decisions."  

So in effect, they are rejecting the biblical teaching that all government falls under the authority of God, because those governing authorities who are not  conservative and fundamentalist are not legitimate.  That contradicts the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Romans 13:1-7, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God."  Yes, even Democrats elected as President or to Congress.  

It also contradicts I Peter 2:13-17, especially the statement that it is doing God's will in accepting the authority of human institutions, because it silences foolish criticism.  These are statements, from the two most significant and prolific early Christian apostles, which deny the very premise of Christian nationalism, and which also condemn, from a Christian perspective, the lawlessness of Trump and his presidency.  

So it is that in the Christian gospel, giving support to a politician who is deliberately standing against this core Christian principle would be a sin.  

But keep in mind, this is a denomination that was founded as a result of a split from the Triennial Baptist organization because it refused to send slave owners as missionaries.  Southern Baptists left their fellow Baptists behind in forming a new denomination because they believed slavery was ordained by God as the lot of black persons because they believed they were created inferior to whites. It took them 150 years to apologize for that, and basically, to refute it.  

So it should not come as a surprise that these people are setting aside the principles, doctrine, theology and practice of the Christian gospel, established by Christ alone, in order to support a lawless politician who has publicly made licentiousness [see Jude v. 4] his trademark.  This is being systematically taught, preached from pulpits, and subverting the Christian gospel for a long time.  Most of those who support it are incapable of seeing it for what it is, and are not likely to change their minds.  Fortunately, they are not anywhere close to having a majority of the vote if Americans take their citizenship responsibilities seriously and show up at the polls.  They can hide their ideology behind their religion, which isn't Christian, and it's protected by the first amendment, but they don't have the ability to force it on the rest of us, if we participate instead of being apathetic bystanders.

I'm Not Painting With a Broad Brush

There are Southern Baptists, and conservative Evangelicals, who will not let the politics of Christian nationalism invade their church.  I found refuge in two different Baptist congregations, where I worshipped for over 25 years, from the influences of fundamentalism and the Christian nationalist, right wing political agenda that comes with it.  I couldn't tell you the political makeup of the membership of either church, though both had plenty of members willing to put Democratic party candidates' bumper stickers on their cars.  Both churches have preserved what is a core Baptist principle, the belief in religious liberty and separation of church and state, evidenced in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, written in  1802.  

The denomination is finally splitting over this issue.  When the first fundamentalists were elected and the takeover began in 1979, the numbers were small.  It took a decade for a new group, known as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, to form, and almost a decade after that for significant influence to become known.  That has eventually resulted in the depature of about  3,500 churches from SBC affiliation, though a formal count isn't being tracked.  But since 2016, when Trump was first elected, the Southern Baptist Convention has lost 25% of its total membership, from a peak of 16.6 million to the most recent count of 12.2 million.  The correlation of the dates is not a coincidence.  While they blame the losses on just about everything else, the evidence shows otherwise. 

We have the first amendment to the Constitution, and that protects freedom of conscience, regardless of where that conscience may take an American citizen.  There's a lot of inhuman, racist bigotry in the world and it always has the potential to erupt into violence and destruction.  But in this country, we have institutions which we must support and encourage in order for them to achieve their purpose which is the preservation of our democracy.  We have schools which have this as their mission and purpose, where we need to improve social studies instruction and raise the level of what is required for graduation in order to make sure each succeeding generation understands they must participate in democracy to make it work.  

And I believe there are churches which are also capable of supporting the kind of values that not only thrive in a democratic society, but which contribute to its security, and which are bulwarks against violence and inhumanity.  Their support should be included.  

But the biggest enemy to democracy in America is the concentrated wealth we have allowed to accumulate in the hands of just a few people who now are using it to destroy the nation and get what they want.  It promotes immorality so it stands against Christian values.  It creates inequality so it is unconstitutional and unpatriotic.  And we need to remind ourselves that if it can buy the Republican party, it can also buy the Democratic party, and apparently, it already has a few of those in its pocket.  It's time for some real reform.