The result of ‘cheap grace’

Two weekends ago I was explaining to someone that the basic problem with the presidency of Donald Trump, thankfully coming to an end tomorrow, wasn’t merely political or ideological — it was theological in nature.

I didn’t appreciate just how true that was until I learned that the riot at the U.S. Capitol building two weeks ago featured “Christian patriots” in full force, believers invoking God and Christian music being played and sung. (And, I might add, alleged Christians using foul language in the process.)

At that, I was horrified.

Numerous Jews who survived the Holocaust have noted that Trump’s racist rhetoric was reminiscent of Hitler, not to mention the large number of supporters that he had. The reason I bring up Nazi Germany is that I’m reminded of the real problem with the church there was with what martyred German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.”

That failure of American evangelicalism, most notably in its “charismatic” wing, which dominates Christian media, is what really drives people away from a true knowledge of the Savior and the reconciliation that He represents. The thinking is, really, in practice that once personal sins are forgiven you can pretty much live the way you want. Sin, of course, runs much deeper than personal sins or those connected to sex, stealing or lying.

Back in January 1984, at the lowest point of my life, I attended a church retreat. During that retreat we held a communion service, and after I took the wine I burst into tears, saying, I killed Jesus, I killed Jesus. You see, as bad as things were, in that moment I was owning my own sin for the first time, not blaming anyone else for my predicament. More to the point, in that moment I recognized just what my internal condition cost God.

If you’re not mourning your sin in that or a similar fashion or at least have never done so, you need to check your heart. Because what that should and will produce is humility, a sense of “there but for the grace of God go I — how did I escape God’s judgment?”

Get that? “Grace” — which Bonhoeffer called “costly grace,” not making light of the things that people did, said or even thought that proved evil in the long run. Of course, Bonhoeffer was specifically referring to the church in Nazi Germany, most of which for the sake of preserving itself allied itself with Hitler. (The church failed in that mission, which is why it has so little authority today.)

The “media” wing of the American evangelical church is in similar danger today — and, indeed, has been for decades because it preaches “salvation” but not a separation, and thus transformation, from the world’s way of thinking. There is simply no way that it could whole-heartedly support such a corrupt, cruel, morally compromised, bullying person if it truly understood the grace of God.

And that is why I would never believe that Trump is a true Christian. He said in an interview some years ago that he couldn’t remember anything he had to repent for. He grew up in a church pastored by Norman Vincent Peale — remember the heretical “The Power of Positive Thinking”? — and applied that concept to his entire life, including some big-time denial specifically about COVID-19. Reports have come out that he actually relished the riot that took place two weeks ago rather than fall to his face and say, “What have I done?”

What I hope happens in light of the wreckage that supporting Trump has caused — leading much of the church to sabotage its own witness — that it would repent of the “cheap grace” that Bonhoeffer talked about. That’s the only way it will not only survive but thrive in what many folks see, falsely in my view, as an inherent hostility to religious faith during a Biden administration.