The lack of “soul care” and grace of God

As I write I’m repeating a Sunday School class on the book “Soul Care,” written by Rob Reimer, a professor of pastoral theology at Alliance Theological Seminary and founder of Renewal Ministries International. The class is being taught by the respective pastors of men’s and women’s ministries at my church.

I bring this up because, as part of the discussion, both have been frank about their struggles with families, their dysfunctions, their own woundedness, especially in childhood. That they had such issues no longer surprises me, although had I heard it decades ago it certainly would have.

I’m not going to go through the contents of the book; that would take way too long. But suffice it to say that I believe that part of the reason that the American evangelical church is ineffective in “reaching the lost” is due to its lack of authenticity — that is to say, its members often aren’t altogether honest, whether with themselves or others, about who they are and what they have to deal with.

Part of that, I would suspect, has do with the emphasis, most notably in the 1980s and ‘90s thanks to media “ministries,” about maintaining an image of a strong family, especially one with a strong father figure. The trouble, of course, was that the image never dealt with the reality of everyone in a family being weak in his or her own way.

To give examples, supposedly a majority of Christian men, even pastors, have problems with pornography. In “complementarian” households — in practice, where men have much more of the power — men are most likely to abuse their wives and children. The divorce rate among evangelicals is even higher than the rest of the world. It’s long accepted that sex outside of covenant marriage is rampant among evangelicals, with not even such pro-chastity programs as “True Love Waits” and the “Silver Ring Thing” having much effect among teens.

I suspect that we’re focusing more on the symptoms because we don’t want to appear weak in a culture that doesn’t agree with what we consider our values. But maybe maintaining “values” is the heart of the problem — in a way, doing so represents a subtle form of idolatry because, if you have “values,” what do you really need Jesus for? (This is why trying to refocus upon getting such values back in the public square can never work.)

One of my favorite books is Philip Yancey’s “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”, and in it he suggested that effective church fellowship should be run like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting — everyone needs what he called “grace on tap.” And when you look at things in that way, you often get rid of the judgmentalism that’s rampant in many church settings.

The pastor of men’s ministry at my church has mentioned that the purpose of the Soul Care class was to deepen “intimacy with God,” and that should lead to a better understanding of His grace. And then that grace can transform lives in a way that edicts and programs simply can’t.

Why the ‘rules’ don’t always apply — one man’s opinion

A few weeks ago I was privileged to counsel a young woman on a Christian singles page on Facebook concerning her love life — she was falling for a fellow member of her church’s worship team whom she always thought of as a brother but simultaneously noted that he was acting strangely and “pulling away” from her. So I asked her a few questions — and discerned that he too was becoming smitten with her. I was frank in telling her that she needed to tell this guy how she was feeling about him.

Of course, she didn’t quite get it at first because she had fallen into the trap of thinking that she should wait for him to make the first move, and frankly, she was scared to death — something to the effect of “what if he rejects me?” She even noted that he was happy being single, was even planning on moving to another country, likely for mission work, and had turned down two other women whose eye he’d caught. Nevertheless, I persisted, telling her that “He may want to take you with him.”

It thus gratified me when she later told me that I had been right all along on all counts. She hasn’t yet mentioned any marriage plans but did hint that for several reasons he was actually afraid in his own right to tell her how he felt about her.

So why do I bring this up? Well, I’m on a couple of other Christian singles pages, and conventional wisdom, at least from women, goes that a Christian man should have the confidence to approach a woman in whom he’s interested and ask her on a date. As a man, I can tell you that it will never work that way.

Why not? Because men who do that are either excellent actors — and, trust me, most of us aren’t — or truly not emotionally invested in having a relationship with a particular woman. In the latter case, asking a woman on a date turns out to be no big deal and he can take or leave her and find another.

I was recently convicted of having done this. Over the past 10 years or so I’ve had a number of short-term relationships that have always fallen apart for one reason or another; though I did and do enjoy dating for its own sake at times, in those cases it was too easy. While I was certainly open to the idea that I had found “the one,” after they collapsed I found that I wasn’t all that heartbroken. Perhaps the amount of time we didn't spend together didn’t lend itself to a more intimate relationship; I can only speculate.

You see, men really do have ego issues when it comes to dating. When a guy sees someone he really likes he often does get tongue-tied or otherwise act unusual; in the case I just described, the guy she liked started wearing cologne, which he had never done. (Think of the old Rickie Lee Jones song “Chuck E.’s in Love.”) Whether women realize it or not, a woman saying “no” to a man’s interest — and I wish someone had told me this when I was younger — is absolutely devastating, and after a few times of being shot down, which most every man’s experienced unless he finds the right one very early, he’s almost afraid to try again. An in a case of irony, he often shuts down his heart and becomes “cool” — and gains interest.

I hope you see where I’m going with this. The very expectation that a man will be strong and confident when he approaches a woman actually can mean a lack of authenticity on his part, the very thing that will turn her off down the road.

I had to laugh when I first saw the meme “I don’t need to flirt — I will seduce you with my awkwardness.” Because if a man turns awkward in dealing with a woman, it’s a sure sign that, to borrow the phrase from the movie, she has him at hello.

A lot of ... silence

Anyone notice the “religious right” lately? I haven’t.

Unquestionably the biggest and most fervent supporters of President Donald Trump, who has continued to “lead” this nation from one crisis to the next with no end in sight, it has had nothing at all to say about his absolute incompetence — pulling out of Syria and prematurely declaring victory over ISIS, shutting down the federal government over an ill-conceived and politically-motivated border wall along the border with Mexico and too many other things to mention here.

Why is that? Well, an article in USA Today last week gave a clue: It got what it wanted in a conservative Supreme Court justice that might — might — overturn Roe v. Wade, “religious freedom” (read: cultural dominance and privilege) laws, a move of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As though it cared about nothing else.

That’s just it — it cared about virtually nothing else. Not about kids being separated from their parents at the border. Not about rising income inequality, even though such is affecting its base. Not about the large number of African-Americans leaving their churches because of his overt racism.

What kind of “gospel” does it believe, anyway? Simply being saved personally from sin and to hell, literally, with the world that God created?

I know many people believe in a “top-down,” “strict father” mentality in that if the right laws and cultural values were instituted an increased commitment to faith and cultural stability would result. On the contrary — it actually creates the problem because they do nothing to turn hearts toward God Himself. Indeed, that’s His job and His alone “(No [one] comes to [Jesus] unless the Father draws him”).

That leads to only an empty religion devoid of the Holy Spirit. Basically we have a group of people who want to invoke God but don’t know His heart — and that’s dangerous. Indeed, I would say that He’s being merciful in pulling His Spirit out.

So maybe it’s a good thing that we haven’t heard from the religious right lately. It certainly isn’t speaking for God.

I oppose abortion but didn't vote 'pro-life'

Today is Election Day, with races for all 435 members of Congress; one-third of the U.S. Senate, many governorships, including here in Pennsylvania; and seats in state legislatures up for grabs. We’ll know later who won and lost.

This year, for all the elected offices, I voted a straight Democratic ticket. And, yes, I did so informed by biblical faith.

Huh?

Because, for me, when it comes to such matters, voting from biblical faith has nothing to do with actual positions on the issues — as well as I can discern, I look for character and the temperament and ability to do the job. Making the machinery of government work well should be the first job of any elected official regardless of religion, party or ideology; unless those are the priorities, nothing else really matters.

This might explain why I have never voted for a conservative Republican in my life and don’t anticipate doing so. Indeed, I routinely vote against anyone who represents the GOP right.

It’s not simply that I disagree politically with conservative Republicans, though I do; it’s just that I get the sense that such people feel entitled to my vote without telling me why. And it’s that refusal to engage with those who disagree with them that has fueled, if not caused, the division in this country.

Which gets to the meat of the issue: I’ve been a Christian for 40 years but won’t vote “pro-life.” For what it’s worth, I was “pro-life” — that is, opposed to legal abortion — before I became a Christian in the first place, so the two have always been separate issues. As such, these days I always the term “pro-life” in a broader sense — access to education and health care, concerned about the environment, racism and all the other ways in which the sanctity of human life can be cheapened.

I do not see doctrinaire conservatives supporting a comprehensive pro-life stance. That’s why I vote against them.

See, the modern anti-abortion movement was intentionally divorced from these other issues back in the late 1970s for the sake of political power; thus, demanding a repeal of Roe v. Wade — which I don’t agree with, by the way — comes across as bullying. “But what about the babies?”, you might ask. That’s not really relevant in such a context; it’s why Joycelyn Elders, surgeon general under President Bill Clinton, complained about their “love affair with the fetus.”

It’s also why you had Operation Rescue cause havoc in a number of cities, including Pittsburgh, in the late 1980s and early 1990s but having no effect and in some extreme cases activists blowing up clinics and shooting doctors who performed abortions. Read: “We’re right, and we don’t care what anyone else says.”

And this is why their support of President Trump, by the standards I’ve listed above by far the worst president we’ve ever had, is problematic. The truth be told, his commitment to ending legal abortion is limited to trying to pack the Supreme Court with conservative justices — and that only for the sake of keeping his worshipers on his side.

That isn’t good enough. Because there’s also a country to run.

No 'coming together'

In the aftermath of last week’s shooting at a local synagogue, a Presbyterian pastor demonstrating against President Trump’s subsequent appearance was caught yelling, “You don’t belong here!” Needless to say, the outburst was regarded as proof positive of the hypocrisy, narrowmindedness and incivility of “liberals.” (Now, I personally agree that the president had no business being in Pittsburgh at that time, as the families requested that he stay away until the funerals had already taken place.)

Anyway, in light of that, some people I know who lean left have said, as they often do, that all sides need to come to the table to talk to each other and find common ground to restore a sense of civility.

Sounds good on the surface. But it’s also extremely naïve because the political right, at least over the past few decades, has never demonstrated any interest in working with anyone else. It takes two to tango, as the saying goes, and I’ve seen no indication that conservatives even want to work things out.

Recently I read a profile on Newt Gingrich, the former congressman from suburban Atlanta who later became Speaker of the House, in The Atlantic magazine. Much of the interview took place in a zoo, and he noted that in the wild animals fight each other rather than cooperate, calling that “natural.” In other words, he believed in the philosophy of “social Darwinism” — you know, “survival of the fittest.” He’s the architect of the divisiveness we see in American politics today, which started with his election in 1978.

And then you have the “religious right,” which started around that time and reacted against anyone, even fellow Christians, who came across as “liberal” and dominated Christian TV and radio. Later in the 1980s you had the rise of right-wing talk radio, most notably Rush Limbaugh.

Going farther, you saw the “vast right-wing conspiracy” against Bill Clinton and simultaneous vilification of his wife Hillary. And today you have the ogre that is Trump, who got elected by trash-talking everyone in sight, even in his own party. (Indeed, the reason folks voted for him is precisely because he’s considered “authentic.”)

Bottom line, I don’t think that liberals really appreciate just how little regard and respect many conservatives have for them. I for one took the gloves off when the right went after Bill Clinton — it dawned on me then just how far it was willing to go to defeat an enemy. And I haven’t put them back on since.

As I said before, the right is now complaining about “incivility” from the left, with Republican politicians being confronted by liberals even in restaurants on their own time. But when you continually insult those you don’t agree with — and, as I said, this has been happening for decades — you invite such. And given conservatives’ own incivility since the late 1970s, I’d say they’re getting a taste of their own medicine.

During the presidential campaign two years ago Hillary Clinton referred to many Trump supporters as “a basket of deplorables,” noting the overt racists, misogynists and anti-Semites who were backing him. More recently, she noted that the time for “civility” with the Republican Party has passed. She took a lot of heat for those comments.

Here’s the problem: She was right.

A political ‘non-political’ act

By now you’ve heard of the Saturday shooting that took the lives of 11 people at Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. (Full disclosure: I live just a short bus ride from there and attended a bar mitzvah of a former schoolmate there in the 1970s.)  Yesterday, President Trump came here to “pay his respects,” visiting the temple and also one of the hospitals where some of the victims who survived the shooting were convalescing.

Given that the president came across that day as somewhat of a mourner, many of his supporters were infuriated that anti-Trump demonstrators filled the streets of Forbes Avenue, the main thoroughfare, that same day. This wasn’t a political visit, they insist.

They’re wrong.

One, he was asked to delay his visit for a couple of weeks, to allow the families to grieve in peace; however, he refused the entreaty and came anyway — and in doing so, he became the issue. After all, there’s an election next Tuesday and he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to be seen in a rare positive light.

Two, upon learning of the shooting he made the insensitive comment that the shooter, identified as a Robert Bowers of the suburb of Baldwin Borough, could have been stopped had the synagogue had armed guards (given his arsenal and that two of the wounded were Pittsburgh police, that seems far-fetched).

And three, the reason Bowers took aim at worshipers that morning in the first place was due to the belief, fairly common in right-wing conspiracy circles, that the Jewish people were financially supporting the “caravan” coming from from Honduras that’s seeking political asylum in his country, falsely claiming that it’s an issue of “immigration.”

See, one of the issues that the demonstrators have with the president was his unwillingness to repudiate “white nationalism” — chilling, given that it’s the same ideology that spurred Adolf Hitler to take control of Germany. Given the context that 30 percent of Squirrel Hill is Jewish, that's pretty potent.

Once again, you have Trump supporters complaining about a lack of “civility” in American politics. But they should understand that Trump has never been civil in his own right — even at a rally that he held before coming here he blasted the media, a staple of his grievance. That’s why his visit here should never be seen as one of someone who cares.

Because, really, he doesn’t.

A cautionary tale

In 1984, the later Easter Sunday service at the socially-prominent Presbyterian congregation where I had been received as a new member just a month before got some, shall we say, unwelcome visitors — a lay activist group comprising unemployed steelworkers and a group of pastors who shepherded the churches they attended. They complained that upper management of the steel companies who were members of our congregation were disrupting their lives by closing plants and thus throwing them out of work. Over the next year or two the groups deposited dead fish in safe deposit boxes in branches of one of the local banks and threw balloons filled with skunk oil at members after a Christmas program later that year, among other things.

Most people probably would have dismissed these people as a bunch of hotheads wanting attention or money. But leaders of the congregation did something different: They listened.

I’m not privy to any specific things that my congregation did, but I do know that some back channels were opened with folks in the valley areas where the closed plants were located. Because the church responded properly to what many would have considered a violation of its sacred space, the demonstrations eventually ceased due to losing popular support. In the 14 years I attended that church, it proved to be its finest hour.

I bring that up in reference to such Republican figures as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, press secretary to President Trump; and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell being accosted by demonstrators. Many conservatives have complained that they’re being targeted simply because they, in the words of some, “think differently,” and that the demonstrators are simply hooligans engaging in temper tantrums and being paid by George Soros to troll them.

It’s not that at all, because if that were the case and they were truly interested in moving the process forward they would talk to their political opponents. The thing is, Trump’s base is not, and in fact never has been, interested in talking with anyone who disagrees, even dismissing its opponents out of hand and displaying its arrogance in the process. And it’s that arrogance, not the positions, to which they react.

Many, many people have talked about restoring a sense of “civility” to American civic and political life, but when one side regards the other as a disease to be eradicated that would be tough, if not impossible, to pull off. I can tell you that, because I personally know some of its adherents, the political left these days won’t be mollified (read: “know its place”) and that, if attitudes don’t soften on the other side, such demonstrations and disruptions will not only continue but get even worse.

There’s a biblical principle here: “You reap what you sow.”

Sorry, but I won't "walk away"

Earlier this week I was invited to participate in the #WalkAway campaign. I declined.

If you don’t know what that is, not that you should care, it’s another attempt from the political right to demonstrate just how powerful and “right” it is when it comes to the African-American community, the folks most likely to resist its power plays and even get in its face. Its supposed most recent “feather in the cap” was rapper Kanye West, who recently visited the White House (and, most people outside the conservative movement believe, made a total fool of himself in the process during a speech he made).

But let’s be straight as to what this campaign really entails: Another attempt to de-legitimize any group that not only disagrees with the right but even comes against it.

And it isn’t the first time, either.

I learned in the 1990s that the movement was willing to pay African-Americans handsomely, whether in cash or exposure (likely both), to turn their backs on their own people, which is why the pejorative “sellout” was actually quite accurate in this case; in fact, in 1998 the movement reached out to me.  Most, however, didn’t, nor did or would I.

The bottom line is that it simply wants people on its side without examining which of its own policies are harmful or divisive in their own right, which also speaks to its arrogance and lack of humility. It simply doesn’t relate to anyone who doesn’t agree, preferring name-calling to reasoned debate, therefore debasing the discourse and causing the rift that we see today.

I’ve heard that 200,000 people have actually left testimonies with the #WalkAway movement, but that’s not even a drop in the bucket given the 40 million African-Americans in this country. And while we’re at it, let me drop the names of some folks who have “walked away” from the conservative movement/Republican Party over the years, some since Donald Trump became president: Max Boot, George Will, David Brock, David Brooks, Rob Schenck, J.C. Watts, Jeff Flake, John Boehner.

We can do better than this — but do Trump supporters want to?

The 'miracle' of Trump's election

I understand that a movie called “The Trump Prophecy” will be or has been released insisting that the election of Donald Trump to the presidency was “an act of God.” I might agree with that — but for a far different reason than his worshipers might.

One of the reasons why they feel that God raised him up was to reveal, and root out, corruption in the Federal government. Well, God has done some revealing of corruption, all right — but, in this case not with just Trump himself but, more importantly, in the hearts of many of his Christian supporters.

That’s not, shall we say, politically correct, but it is Biblically correct. The trouble is that Trump has in fact become an idol who is leading much of the church away from God, and that’s what He’s exposing right now. In an excellent essay “So Now You Want Civility?”, John Pavlovitz, in listing Trump’s long list of insults and bad behavior, exposed the ruse of his bringing forth the righteousness his Christian supporters say they want. Of course by “righteousness” they really mean ending legal abortion, driving gays back into the closet and worshiping America.

And because much of the evangelical church has sold out its prophetic witness for the sake of maintaining its privilege, it will be removed from its lampstand. Indeed, that process has already begun, with the millennial generation as a whole leaving their parents’ evangelical hypocrisy.

One thing about the devil is that he will often speak things that are technically true but only to seduce people away from Ultimate Truth. Just think about what he promised Eve after he encouraged her to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We all know what happened then.

I generally don’t make political posts on Facebook, but I did recall the adage “Be careful what you pray for — you just might get it.” We need to understand that God is under no obligation to answer prayers in the way we want Him to; He does things only to glorify Himself.

So yes, God may have indeed elevated Trump to the presidency — but to show us our sin. LORD, have mercy …

The Kavanaugh nomination: A country as divided as ever

Yesterday’s U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings with Christine Blasey Ford, the psychologist who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s and Kavanaugh’s response — the latter, probably even more so — should be instructive. President Donald Trump’s response to Kavanaugh’s outburst, which primarily accused the Democrats of trying to railroad him, was, “[That’s] exactly why I nominated him.”

That is to say, Trump got elected in the first place largely by badmouthing everyone who dared to stand up to or, at the very least, disagree with him. It’s very likely that Kavanaugh’s response was thus a calculated political ploy to remind the base of its collective resentment of some “other” that’s trying to take away its power.

Over the past few months prominent Republicans have often found themselves accosted by critics, generally at restaurants, where they’ve been as a result told to leave. Trump’s supporters have tried to paint those incidents as the work of unhinged liberals trying to disrupt civil discourse — they’re deadly wrong, however, because Trump has never, ever been civil in the first place. In other words, it’s a matter of fighting fire with fire.

Moreover, this is nothing new; it’s been happening for decades (I first noticed this in 1980). If you subscribe to Christian media, which I rarely do these days, notice how often they refer to “liberals,” “gays,” Muslims or, the latest pejorative, “social justice warriors.” That kind of language is only inflammatory and does nothing to bring the country together over common goals. And when folks refuse to be confronted over their divisive speech, you have what you saw yesterday.

We’re ultimately looking at a collective failure to take responsibility for one’s attitudes and actions as well as a failure to see others as human beings rather than categories, and that’s not good for either the country in general or the Church in particular. I’m reminded of the old song, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” — that is, everyone doing his part to build a just and peaceful society.

But — what about “them”? Never mind that — “let it begin with me.”

A 'good man'?

A fair number of conservatives have taken to social media to defend Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh amidst charges that he sexually abused women in his teens and 20s, claiming that he’s the victim of what they consider persecution because he’s a conservative and, thus, a “good man.” Sorry, but, especially given his denials of such, I’m not convinced.

Now, I would be if he said something like, “Yes, I did do some of these things, but I was young and stupid then and I now know them to be wrong.” But when it comes to the political right, humility has always been in short supply.

Lately, former President Bill Clinton has been in the news as these same conservatives have been dredging up the old — and false — allegations of rape against him. But even though he’s apologized for his actions with Monica Lewinsky, which did happen but were blown out of proportion, he’s still being hammered.

It seems that such “redemption” is available only to conservative Republicans even without any shred of remorse.

And let’s be honest: The real reason Trump wants Kavanaugh on that court is because he’s said, on the record, that he believes that sitting presidents shouldn’t be prosecuted or even indicted for crimes he or she may have committed.

In other words, the president should be above the law. Let that sink in for a moment.

These are the words of a hardened political operative, not a “good man” who seeks “liberty and justice for all,” after the Pledge of Allegiance. Good people do what’s right regardless of consequences or who benefits.

This is yet another reason why many Americans, most notably those 30 and younger, are turning away from the Christian faith; they see the hypocrisy that we refuse to, such is our addiction to political power. More to the point, by focusing on political battles we’re sure to lose the spiritual war.

Bitterness: The religious right's bugaboo

I’ve long been a critic of the “religious right” and believed that through its attitude especially toward those who disagree with it has damaged its own cause.
 

This weekend, however, the former worship pastor of my church spoke at its men’s retreat, which I attended, with the general theme being “identity.” At one point he referred to nine specific characteristics of bitter people, and after he recited them it hit me why the revival the religious right says it wants can and will never come to pass.
 

I don’t remember all of what the pastor said, so I decided to look them up online. According to a George Simon, the signs of bitterness, most of which the pastor mentioned, are listed below; for my purposes, they typify the religious right in general and many supporters of Donald Trump in particular:

● Verbal and Emotional Cruelty
● Hatred
● Implacability
● Self-Pity
● Antagonism
● Vindictiveness
● Pathological Pride
● Animosity and Resentment
● Infantile Narcissism
 

Clearly, these go against the teachings of Christ and the outworking of the Holy Spirit; I’ve mentioned on other blog entries the specifics, so I won’t do so here. If you’re wondering why so many white evangelical Christians support Trump, this is the reason: They share the same bitterness.
 

Now, before anyone tries to accuse me of same, as in some cases has already happened, I myself must plead guilty in my own right to most of these, especially in the 1980s. And precisely because I’ve dealt with my own issues, I see them clearly in others today.
 

On top of that, I stand ready to reconcile with people who may have hurt me or whom I may have hurt. Nothing means more to me personally than mending fences with those from whom I’ve been separated, which I’ve been privileged to have experienced — after all, that’s the very heart of the Gospel.
 

Sadly, however, the religious right has never truly internalized that belief in reconciliation, which is why it’s often angry, vindictive, complaining about persecution and picking fights. Its focus on the “culture war” (which is, in essence, nothing but a turf war) demonstrates a lack of trust in God to effect change, and its demand that everyone else change to suit itself causes people, even fellow Christians who agree with them on moral issues, to pass.
 

Recently I saw a Facebook post that mentioned that President Trump was trying to reestablish “righteousness,” and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; his attitude of “Screw you” not only doesn’t do it but even sabotages such efforts. Because — and I know this from experience — no one wants to deal with bitter people.

Donald Trump: Hitting close to home

Many of you who read my blog know that I have never held any love for President Donald Trump.

A few weeks ago, while talking with my mother, who similarly loathes him, I realized why: He reminded us too much of my father, a narcissistic bully whom she divorced in 1985; after 25 years of his tyranny, she finally moved out in August 1983 and I followed a few weeks later. The list of similarities between them is too long to mention here, so I’ll mention just a few instances.

Mom found Dad overly possessive, accusing her of sleeping with other men, among other things. He recognized himself as the only authority in his life, as well as ours. Even in private conversations his sentences were often peppered with "I" and "me."

Here’s the thing: He also disparaged my religious faith, threatening on three occasions to kick me out of the house for expressing it.

But because I realized that I had become in my own right as toxic as Dad was, in 1984 I asked God, in effect, “Please change me no matter what you have to do.” He did, although the process was painful, as I suspected it would be. That "cleaning up my life" drove us even farther apart, leading to my breaking with him, permanently as it turned out, in 1988. (He died five years later.)

I bring that up because Christians are making excuses for Trump's behavior, calling him “a baby Christian,” which, absent any changed behavior, I won’t believe for a second due to his constant prevarication, abuse of women and overt racism, among other things. I'm seeing absolutely no humility on his part, that he ever does anything wrong that needs to change, and blaming his troubles on the media, the "deep state" and even people in his own administration.

That leads to what I call spiritual sludge. A lot of Christians, under the delusion that Trump has a “Cyrus anointing,” believe without reason that he will kick off some big revival that they believe will simply sweep people into the church. (In fact, revival can start only with confession of one's own sin and a desire to have it removed by any means God deems necessary, something his apologists don't consider.)

Anyway, you simply can't lead a family with an iron fist the way my dad tried to do, nor can you run a country the same way. What these Christians apparently want is to push people around; all they're doing, however, is alienating people from not only them but, even worse, God. And He isn't glorified in the process.

When Jesus said in Matthew 10:37 that “Anyone who loves [his or her] father or mother more than me is not worthy of me," I had to take that literally. At some point Christian Trump supporters will have to make a similar choice:

Either Jesus or Trump.

Political power, not "godly values"

I‘ve said from the moment that Donald Trump was elected president of the United States that the over 80 percent of evangelical Christians who supported him sold out God for the promise of political power. The recent trial of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on 18 charges of financial fraud (yesterday, he was found guilty on eight) and a guilty plea from his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who bribed two women with whom the president had affairs to maintain their silence, should leave no doubt about Trump’s character — or lack thereof.

And I’ll bet you any money that it won’t matter in the least to his Christian apologists, who would complain about the “fake news media” and the “deep state,” among others, out to get him rather than admit to what he’s done. The reality remains, however, that had any Democrat done even a 10^th of what Trump has been involved with they would have tried to run him or her out on a rail. (They’re probably still calling for the head of Hillary Clinton, saying, “Lock her up!” On what charge?)

At this point, we’re talking about denial based on delusion, and that does the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ absolutely no good. We come across as hypocrites to a younger generation and an embarrassment to much of the rest of the world because of the lack of trust in God to keep his people.

Time to pay the piper …

No joy in Trumpville

In light of the recent rally by President Trump held in Tampa, Fla. earlier this week and the abuse that CNN reporter Jim Acosta endured just for being there, blogger John Pavlovitz made the observation that many of his supporters were “miserable.”

That struck me as, frankly, disappointing but also enlightening because I’ve never seen from his evangelical supporters — and for that matter, those of the “religious right” generally over the years — the “joy of the LORD.” I’m witnessing not a lot of trust in Him and love for others, especially not like themselves; rather, I detect a lot of anger, bitterness and resentment toward specific targets — Muslims, gays, racial minorities, foreigners, “liberals” et al.

Indeed, if you replace “love” in I Corinthians 13 with “evangelical Trump supporters,” they honestly don’t often fit. Nor do I see them exhibiting the “fruit of the [Holy] Spirit,” mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23: “[L]ove, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

I thus find it ironic that many evangelicals believe with all fervency that Trump would start a major revival by re-instituting “Christian values.” (Of course, by that they mean such things as outlawing legal abortion and driving gays back into the closet.) Some will insist that evangelical Christians are being pushed around by secular forces — not only is that factually wrong but, even if that were true, it might be, and I suspect would be, a direct result of their contempt for those who don’t agree with them.

See, revival can happen only when we realize in humility that we’ve strayed from the path, and you best believe that much of the rest of the world sees just that.  And we won’t need political power to cause cultural change — just a basic trust in God and a willingness to open our hearts.

In the movie “Cry Freedom” South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko, played by Denzel Washington, made this remark in reference to overthrowing the system: “Conflict if [the white man] likes — but with an open hand, too.” That is to say, he was encouraging people under the sound of his voice to reconcile with their oppressors if and when that time would come.

I’m not hearing that from either Trump or the majority of his Christian supporters — and that’s a problem because the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is reconciliation. We’re dealing with extremely hard hearts through which He simply cannot work.

That’s why there’s no joy in Trumpville.

No, we don't 'hate Trump'

I couldn’t care less about a leader’s temperament or his tone of his vocabulary. Frankly, I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find. And I think that’s the feeling of a lot of evangelicals. They don’t want Caspar Milquetoast as the leader of the free world. 

— The Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas and supporter of President Donald Trump, as quoted in The Atlantic magazine 

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 

— Jesus, recorded in Matthew 20:25-27

Some weeks ago a blogger named Mario Murillo complained about "Christians Who Hate Trump," as if opposing him was tantamount to opposing God. The screed, as many do, highlighted Trump's focus on "religious liberty" (read: maintenance of Christian privilege) and naming of a Supreme Court justice to overturn Roe v. Wade. Reading the piece, I could see his exasperation: In essence, "Don't you realize just how important these issues are?"

If these are the rewards for selling out Jesus Christ and His Gospel, no, nothing is that important, nor could it be. In fact, I would say that the 81 percent of white evangelical Christians who supported Trump for "religious" reasons have done more to damage Christian witness than anything their hated secularists could ever do.

And many of us who actually know the Bible in context understand this, which is why we highlight his adultery, lying and insulting of others who don't support his agenda as directly counter to Christian practice. We're supposed to "accept" these things from someone we support when, were they applied to someone we oppose, we would use the vilest epithets against them? Oh, heck, no.

I know what you might be saying: "Would you rather have Hillary Clinton as president?" Me personally, yes, as I did vote for her because I wanted someone who could actually do the job.

We don't hate Trump — really, we don’t. What we hate is having Jesus' Name dragged through the mud because of Christians' association with him, and it's driving away a large number of "millennial" folks out of the church who find the hypocrisy distasteful. And that more than anything else hurts the cause of Christ down the road.

That's why I posted the two quotes above, one from a political power-broker more concerned with saving his own authority and one from our LORD Himself, Who wasn't concerned with public morality as we understand it. Besides, such "revival," if that's what the religious right wants, comes from not top-down political campaigns but service to a dead and dying world.

Basically, Murillo and Jeffress miss the point of the Good News of Jesus Christ; in supporting such a divisive person, they stand guilty of a lack of trust in the God they say they worship. 

And I make no apologies for saying that. Nor should anyone else.