Bad theology

Yesterday’s print edition of The New York Times carried an op-ed “Why Trump Reigns as King Cyrus” by a Katherine Stewart, who, according to the newspaper, writes regularly about the political activities of evangelicals and other religious groups and is the author of “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.”

The analogy linking the first king of Persia and current President Trump is that the king allowed ancient Israel to rebuild itself to what it saw as its former splendor, and numerous evangelicals see Trump as the same.

So what does this come down to? Bad theology. And by that, I mean that much of the Bible has been twisted to justify his perfidy, constant falsehoods, overt racism and xenophobia for the sake of regaining or maintaining total political power. In essence, what they believe that anyone who believes differently from them isn’t fit to rule.

Ironically, it’s such arrogance that disqualifies Trump’s worshipers — and yes, they do worship him, whether they want to admit it or not — from a legitimate voice not only in society but also in speaking for God Himself, primarily because they blaspheme Him as a despot rather than as the loving Father that He is. It’s a direct rejection of the First Commandment that “You will have no other gods before Me.”

The thing is that the “religious right” isn’t, and in fact never truly was, interested in governing according to the spirit of the Scriptures; according to Stewart, “The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. [It isn’t] fighting a culture war. [It’s] making a direct attack on democracy itself.” In other words, it loves Trump because it subscribes to dictatorial norms in its desire to push people around.

In another bit of irony, however, many of your millennials are emptying out of evangelical churches because they’re not willing to put up with that garbage.

Which leads to another issue: Israel was sent into exile for disobedience, including its mistreatment of foreigners and exploitation of workers, both of which are expressly prohibited in even the Old Testament but that Trump has repeatedly committed, the latter for decades. Indeed, God created Israel to live by His standards and, in the process, be a blessing to the world — but Israel forgot that, ultimately turning inward and focusing on its own survival. As does the “religious right,” Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, asking in 2016, according to the article, “When are they going to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians?”

If that’s what’s required to make Christians more penitent, perhaps we should be hauled off in boxcars, just as Israel was. And it had, at least temporarily, the desired result.

Remember one thing: God will not be mocked and doesn’t take lightly anyone trading on His name. As my pastor has said, “He may not settle his accounts right away, but He does settle his accounts.”