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A Christian Insurrection

A Christian Insurrection

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I recommend an article released this morning written by Emma Green for The Atlantic magazine, entitled A Christian Insurrection.  Ms. Green addresses similar concerns to those I raised yesterday in my blog post, Disturbing Images, namely the  confusion and distortion and degradation of the Christian witness brought about by an unholy alliance with a ungodly demagogue.  Her article begins,

The name of God was everywhere during Wednesday’s insurrection against the American government. The mob carried signs and flag[s] declaring JESUS SAVES! and GOD, GUNS & GUTS MADE AMERICA, LET’S KEEP ALL THREE. Some were participants in the Jericho March, a gathering of Christians to “pray, march, fast, and rally for election integrity.” After calling on God to “save the republic” during rallies at state capitols and in D.C. over the past two months, the marchers returned to Washington with flourish. On the National Mall, one man waved the flag of Israel above a sign begging passersby to SAY YES TO JESUS. “Shout if you love Jesus!” someone yelled, and the crowd cheered. “Shout if you love Trump!” The crowd cheered louder.

Shout if you love Jesus. Shout if you love Trump. As if the two belong on the same dais, merit the same praise, deserve the same allegiance. And notice which of the two received the greater acclaim. This is a dangerous confusion, a toxic conflation of loyalty to Jesus with loyalty to a political leader, a confusion which Mr. Trump has only encouraged. Recall what he said at a campaign rally in October …

A friend of mine said, you know, you’re the most famous man in the world. I said, no, I’m not. No, I’m not. No. He said, no, who’s more famous than you? You are the most famous man in the world. What are you talking about? Who’s more famous? I said, Jesus Christ.

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

And I don’t want to take any chances, so I looked up and I said, and it’s not even close.

Mr. Trump defers to Jesus, but he is the one who dares raise the issue and speak his name and the name of Jesus as if they belong in the same conversation. Mr. Trump has said of himself, “I am the chosen one,” and also drew attention to the remarks of a radio commentator who claimed, “The Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God.” Jesus himself warned his followers not to be fooled by such pretenders …

Watch out, and do not let anyone fool you. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will fool many people.

Ms Green’s article continues,

The group’s name is drawn from the biblical story of Jericho, “a city of false gods and corruption,” the march’s website says. Just as God instructed Joshua to march around Jericho seven times with priests blowing trumpets, Christians gathered in D.C., blowing shofars, the ram’s horn typically used in Jewish worship, to banish the “darkness of election fraud” and ensure that “the walls of corruption crumble.”

The Jericho March is evidence that Trump has bent elements of American Christianity to his will, and that many Christians have obligingly remade their faith in his image. Defiant masses literally broke down the walls of government, some believing they were marching under Jesus’s banner to implement God’s will to keep Trump in the White House.

Christians have remade their faith in his image. Shame! This is nothing more than idolatry. The peoples of this world are watching and it grieves me that when they see the name of Jesus lifted up, this is what they see.

Disturbing images

Disturbing images

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The images I saw yesterday afternoon were jarring, unsettling, disturbing …

An American flag with the name TRUMP superimposed, equating allegiance to the nation to allegiance to one man.

A hybrid flag, half stars and stripes, half southern cross, equating the ideology of these United States with the ideology of the Confederacy, namely the fundamental right of citizens to own human beings of African origin as personal property.

A full Confederate flag paraded through the capitol building, emblematic of a longing for the ascendancy of white supremacy.

Even more upsetting for me were the signs: one sign mounted on the windshield of an automobile reading “Pelosi is Satan,” and a large yellow sign held aloft reading simply “JESUS SAVES.” But this “protest” was billed as a “March for Trump” and a “March to Save America,” meaning that these signs conflate believing in Jesus with believing in Trump, that Trump’s mission is to be America’s “savior,” that the debate, the struggle, is not between Republican and Democrat, between left or right, even between fundamentally different visions of governance, but between darkness and light, between devotees of the devil and the servants of God and their savior, namely Donald J. Trump.

I can believe that Proud Boys and white supremacists and Q-Anon disciples would want to gather at the capitol at the president’s bidding to disrupt the business of our democracy, to promulgate the lie of a stolen election, to foment rebellion, but I had friends there. Forty-year friends, dedicated followers of Jesus, had traveled half a country to be there Wednesday, to be there because …?

This was not a Right to Life March. This was not a march for peace. This was not a march for religious liberty.  This was not a march for any cause, but for a man, a “March for Trump,” a show of solidarity to bolster his claim that he actually won the election.

Why be there? Why be there as a Christian? Why be there for no other reason than that one man, one man alone, testifies that the election result is a lie. There are no “two sides to the argument,” absolutely no evidence at all of a level of fraud that overturned the election, only the word of one man whose ego cannot bear losing. Why be there for him, at his bidding, trusting only his word?

We are called to be there for Jesus, to do his bidding, to trust his word, not to give this kind of unquestioning allegiance to a man.  Jesus saves.  Jesus saves and no man may claim that mantle for himself. May Jesus save us from this time of confusion and cooption and carelessness, when our Christian witness, our witness to the empowering and freeing and healing love of Christ, has been compromised by our readiness to believe the lies of and pledge our allegiance to a self-serving charlatan.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy

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A Wednesday evening tweet from President Trump …

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.

Mr. Trump’s words are not merely justification of a shameful and violent attack on our American democracy, and not merely a shameless lie, but quite simply blasphemy.

It is blasphemous to attribute holiness to something that is entirely profane. Whether or not God may use political leaders to advance God’s purposes (and we do pray that our leaders will advance God’s purposes of justice and righteousness and peace), and whether or not God has a preference in any particular election (and I believe that God cares little about whom we choose to elect, but much about how whomever we do elect chooses to act),  no politician may claim holiness because of their office and no elective “victory” is worthy of being named “holy.”

When this president claims that his (untrue) “election victory” is “sacred,” he is claiming for himself status and honor and glory that belong to God alone. And that is blasphemy.

robin hood in reverse

robin hood in reverse

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President Trump’s first major budget proposal on Tuesday will include massive cuts to Medicaid and call for changes to anti-poverty programs that would give states new power to limit a range of benefits. How does it make us better or stronger to turn our backs on our most vulnerable citizens? One commentator quoted in the article calls it “Robin-Hood-in-reverse” … in other words, stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

Democracy at its best is a social contract, a mutual commitment to take care of each other, to pool resources of wealth and power to ensure that we are together protected from threats, both external and internal. Internal threats include poverty, disease, injustice, exclusion. It is government’s purpose, not merely to create conditions for economic growth and “stay out of the way,” but to make sure none of us are left behind or left out.

This is not about partisanship or politics. It’s about survival … both of our most vulnerable compatriots and of our democratic ideals.

fire with fire?

fire with fire?

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Trump on waterboarding: ‘We have to fight fire with fire’

When you fight fire with fire, that’s what you get: more fire. When you fight fire with fire, you are no different than your enemy. When you counter something immoral with something immoral, you are immoral. This is not a partisan issue. This is a moral issue. Torture is NEVER the right thing to do. Torture is a betrayal of everything we claim as a nation to stand for: justice, certain inalienable human rights, and the rule of law.

If you agree, add your name to the petition: Torture is not an American value.

Torture harms not only those who are tortured; it also damages the souls of those who torture and of those who turn aside and allow people to be tortured.

In 2015, a new law authored by Senators John McCain & Dianne Feinstein and passed by Congress permanently banned the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding and sexual humiliation, that were part of the CIA’s torture program.

We call upon President Trump and his Administration to follow U.S. law and common decency by respecting the dignity and worth of each human being and rejecting torture in every way.