And if Trump dies ... what then?

Over the past year, since Donald Trump was dethroned as president but has since expressed interest in returning to the White House, one of the questions on the lips of a lot of people, whether supporters or detractors, is “What are his chances of doing so, and what would happen if he succeeds or fails?” Should a run fail, some have suggested that a failed run would result in an incident that would make the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection look like — pardon the pun — a tea party.

But I think we need to consider another possibility: Suppose Trump doesn’t live that long. That isn’t beyond such a realm, since he isn’t a young man, in great physical shape and even, as we saw two years ago, wasn’t even immune to COVID-19, with reports that he was sicker than he let on. (For a while he defiantly refused to wear a mask, insisting that doing so made him look weak.)

And even if these weren’t the case, he’s a mortal like everyone else and his time on this earth is limited. What bothers me about Christians’ worship of Trump is that they almost assume that he is indeed immortal and thus not subject to the normal parameters of life. As I’ve written before, he’s seen quite ominously as a messianic figure who will remove power from the people they hate — that is, “liberals” — and restore things to the way they, shall we say, “used to be.” (Recall that was the misunderstanding of the original prophecy of the Messiah.)

That was the case with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus, recorded in Luke 24, who didn’t recognize Jesus, who by this time was resurrected, as He walked among them, but He opened the Scriptures to them — and then vanished. The travelers understood that they had completely missed the point — that he had come to redeem mankind, not just Israel.

We would be foolish to expect something similar from Trump despite the prayers and singing of Christian songs before the riot of last Jan. 6. After all, we can be sure of this: When he dies, he will not be coming back.

 

Overturning Roe v. Wade — be careful what you wish for

American anti-abortionists are likely giddy over the Supreme Court’s tacit approval of Texas’ recently-passed draconian abortion law, one that banned it when a heartbeat could be detected and that contains the power of citizens’ arrest for anyone who assisted in procuring an abortion. They may be especially excited because of their commemoration later this month of Roe v. Wade, which removed most restrictions on abortion in 1973.

If they’re Christians and thus believe that abortion will simply end because they laid down the law so to speak, they will get a rude awakening.

This is for several reasons.

One, the linchpin of the entire modern conservative movement, especially the “religious right,” will have been eliminated. Republican candidates in states that have outlawed abortion will no longer be able to run against abortion, especially in “swing” states, and as a result, I suspect, a barrage of urban-based liberal political action in a way we’ve never seen before will result.

Because the “sanctity of human life,” despite what they might say, has never been the issue. It’s always been a pretext for bullying.

What most people don’t realize is that the “religious right” didn’t even start because of abortion — it added it only as moral cover for, in essence, segregation. In 1978 the Carter Administration removed tax exemptions for private Christian schools in the South founded to circumvent court-ordered public school desegregation — angering the likes of Jerry Falwell Sr., who founded Moral Majority with the help of secular conservatives. That should give you pause right there, because secular conservatives have never given a rip about God, faith or religion — except, as both Billy Graham and Barry Goldwater suggested, to manipulate religious people for the sake of power.

Another issue is that such secular conservatives subscribe to an anti-biblical worldview in that the second of Jesus’ two Great Commandments — “love your neighbor as yourself” — is at best abridged and at worst totally ignored or trashed. Sometimes doing what’s right means political action, the last thing secular conservatives want because it threatens their power. Oh, sure, they make allowances for a purely anti-abortion stance but only to sell a pro-industry and anti-poor agenda. That’s why they won’t support truly diaconal support for those women who really need help — they just don’t want the money to be spent.

Moreover, evangelicalism has placed an overemphasis on the “spiritual” aspect of abortion, which is never directly mentioned in the Bible. That is to say, many people and organizations have insisted, with no evidence, that once outlawed revival would result. (I do oppose it but did so before becoming a Christian as part of an overall “social justice” ideology.) On top of that, fighting abortion has built many an organization — and thus, what will happen when the money dries up, as it will?

This might be a case where Christians may be isolating themselves — not just from the greater society but even from the very movement that gave them power in the first place. Put another way, we may be winning this battle but ultimately losing the war for hearts and minds — and have nothing to show for it.

‘Let’s [not] go, Brandon!’

The raging bitterness and over last year’s presidential election is continuing to overflow and shows no signs of stopping. And now an apolitical NASCAR driver has become part of that campaign of anger.

You may have heard the chant “Let’s Go, Brandon” in certain inappropriate situations as code for “F___ Joe Biden” — even, at times, in churches.

For what it’s worth, Brandon Brown is a NASCAR driver who won his first race a few months ago, and while a sportscaster was interviewing him a group of fans was chanting that vulgar anti-Biden diatribe behind them. Perhaps in a diplomatic way, she said they were saying, “Let’s go, Brandon!”

Wrong. 

Clearly, we have a situation where folks can’t accept defeat graciously and work with opponents to make this country a better place. And since the epithet is “clean,” that will make it acceptable for Biden-hating Christians to express their unwillingness to bow to the inevitable.

But you best believe that God sees the heart, and if the heart is wrong so will the resultant actions be.

And for that matter, Brown, while he did vote for Donald Trump, said in a recent op-ed that he had no intention of being a focal point of the anti-Biden campaign. He said that he was interested only in winning his next race.

So “let’s not go, Brandon.”

Trump: Dividing the church

I’ve been privileged to attend a church for over 20 years that is nationally-renowned for maintaining unity in the midst of diversity, whether racial, cultural or generational. But, perhaps in my naïveté, I didn’t foresee just how much Donald Trump would affect even it.

During our missions emphasis month in 2016, which coincided with the end of the presidential campaign that year, the missions committee adopted the slogan “Welcome the Stranger” — an Old Testament command — and hundreds of white members left the church in protest, believing that the slogan was a shot at then-candidate Donald Trump’s stance on illegal immigration. What’s worse, I later learned, that some of the folks who left were spouting racial slurs on the way out, which tells me that they never fully embraced God’s Gospel of reconciliation.

And this is perhaps why the Christian faith, at least in this country, has been compromised. Frankly, part of me wants to give into despair.

Some months ago I wrote a letter to a church in my immediate area that, I learned through an email, was sponsoring a talk at a school board meeting from a black pastor in opposition of “critical race theory” being taught in district schools. The problem is that the district is racially and culturally diverse, with numerous black students and parents as part of it and likely aware of that history that I see the church as trying to suppress. In my letter I wrote that the church was in danger of causing further division by focusing upon such items but not the injustice that spawned the legal doctrine. (I never got a response.)

The bigger issue, however, is that a lot of “Christians” don’t want or intend to make room for those who don’t agree with the right-wing worldview, which is — indeed, always has been and, frankly, intended to be — offensive to many believers “of color.” You see, because of our unique history, we read the Scripture differently and even look to those books and passages, most notably in the Prophets, that most white evangelicals skip over. And it’s that refusal to understand things from another perspective that has kept believers divided over the decades.

Despite the loss of members and the money that they contributed over the years, my church has embarked on a building campaign to unify all the areas — children’s ministry, adult ministry, sanctuary — on its campus. (Culturally, we have generally refrained from building edifices on our two-acre campus, preferring to put any increase into ministry.)

I see this nation now more than ever as trying to keep “different” people out. I hope to God that the church doesn’t succumb to that temptation.

Someday …

Over the past few decades those studying eschatology — the study of things to come — have focused on the phrase “in the last days” and trying to determine what will happen and when.

I think those folks have missed something significant. One thing not often understood about Middle Eastern society and culture is that those who live there don’t have the same relationship to time that we Westerners do; thus, “in the last days” isn’t referring to some kind of specific timeline.

Rather, it’s probably better understood as “Someday…” and refers to more of a wish, although one with the caveat “By God” (and I mean that literally), “this will happen.”

And if you understand that, you might understand God’s intent.

Remember at the beginning at the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, when one of the disciples asked Jesus, “Are you now going to establish Israel again?” His response, in effect, “None of your business.” Most of Israel, still wanting to be free from Roman rule (because the church at the time was primarily Jewish, its members also had that hope), had misinterpreted the prophecy of the Messiah to mean that he would destroy Rome.

There’s also the Revelation of Jesus Christ, a vision given to the Apostle John, in exile on the Greek island of Patmos and by this time the only Apostle left (the rest, including Paul, had met violent premature deaths). Its purpose was to encourage other Jewish believers undergoing persecution, and his audience would have understood the symbolism chock full of it.

And indeed, the very intent of “prophecy” is only secondarily about telling the future and primarily about declaring the heart, mind and will of God. That’s why we see false prophets get some things right but not others — in their desire to gain an audience, they missed God.

That’s why it’s important that the Word says, when it comes to Jesus’ bodily return, just to keep an eye peeled. (When He was asked straight-out when that would be He responded, “Only the Father knows” — which meant that He Himself didn’t know.)

For this reason, trying to determine the identity of the Antichrist, the “beast” and the “false prophet” are a fool’s errand distracting from His commands, to, using a football analogy, “play until the whistle blows.” Middle Eastern culture understands that the future will take care of itself — and, as a result, so should we in the West.

‘Get over yourselves’ — the REAL meaning of Romans 13

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 

Over the past few years numerous Christians have tried to discern the meaning of the passage in Romans 13, depending on the party in power. Can we rebel against the powers that be or do we simply accept their authority without question?

Well, one thing to consider is that, at the dawn of the church, the Jewish people (and by extension, the early Christians) harbored a deep resentment toward Rome, which had begun occupying Israel about two centuries earlier. Indeed, the prophecy of the Messiah held, wrongly as things turned out, that he would kick out the Romans; when Jesus, who confessed that He was the true Messiah but only after being prodded, didn’t do so that created some disillusionment.  Even after His resurrection some folks still harbored that hope.

It’s also in that context that Paul wrote Romans 12:2, the passage about “renewing your mind.” Basically, he’s telling people to trust in the LORD regardless of who’s in power.

And I’m not simply saying this to folks who despised Presidents Clinton and Obama — I took the very same tack with more liberal Christian friends after George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, saying to them, in effect, “God’s still in control.”

This is not to say that we can’t say that our government is doing wrong, even though it might be, and in Western democracies we have the power to change our leadership and Christians can be a part of that process. The ultimate point is that God is still on the throne and leaders are raised up and brought down only according to His permissive will. And that should keep our faith in Him, not in political leaders.

The big lie that led to the Big Lie

It’s no secret that supporters of now-former president Donald Trump are subscribing to the nonsensical notion that he lost the 2020 race for president on the grounds that the Democratic Party committed fraud. Given that no solid proof has ever been offered — his campaign filed some 60 lawsuits, all but one dismissed and that one here in Pennsylvania allowed to stand only on a technicality — it may seem like a mystery.

Well, it isn’t a mystery if you go back several decades. You see, this didn’t start with Trump.

It actually goes back to Newt Gingrich’s arrival in Washington in 1978. Gingrich, a congressman from suburban Atlanta, decided not only to promote his Republican Party as fundamentally good but also the Democratic Party as irredeemably evil. The nascent conservative movement that dominated the GOP followed, as did the “religious right” in its Machiavellianism. That means in practice that, no matter what we do, they’re inherently worse.

I suspect that’s the reason that the political right went after Bill Clinton so hard. After all, there was far less on Clinton than on now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was credibly accused of sexual harassment during his hearings in 1990. (Clinton escaped his impeachment, of course, in part because much of the nation knew what was up.) It couldn’t ensnare Barack Obama in any kind of scandal, so beginning in 2011, hopefully in time for his reelection campaign, it decided to institute voter-ID laws to keep minority voters out of the voting booth and thus turn him out of office; fortunately, that failed.

And then you had Trump.

Basically, as I have mentioned earlier, you have an ideology where anything connected to “liberals” is inherently evil; by contrast, any opposition to them has to be inherently good. The trouble is that such a mentality cannot be justified using the Scripture — no, not even with abortion, which in fact is nowhere directly mentioned there. (My opposition to abortion has never had any connection to my faith.) Underhanded tactics simply have no place in the Christian toolbox regardless of the reason; remember that God sees all, including people’s hearts.

And that’s the real big lie that led to the other “big lie” about the election being stolen.

That’s why Christian support of Trump has led to a major braking of spiritual commitment, with younger evangelicals leaving churches in droves —  the trust of their elders always has been in the political process, not in an omnipotent, almighty God Who is willing to move mountains to prove His sovereignty.

We just saw hearings during which police officers endangered by Trump supporters on Jan. 6 offered testimony. What should be insulting, but for some reason isn’t, is that many of the rioters claimed Christ as Savior and LORD, that they were doing, shall we say, “His work.” Thing is, He would never authorize anything like that for any reason.

What we have here is people unfaithful to Jesus Christ, willing to sell Him out for the porridge of power and not looking to Him for spiritual sustenance. It is actually a practical form of atheism that focuses much more on receiving than giving His blessings — and thus making Him, as well as them, look bad.