Family,
We must not bow the knee to a political savior. Salvation rests in Christ alone.
Good words below my comments from our friend, John Pavlovitz, who, like us, is in the minority amongst our Evangelical brothers and sisters who are worshipping the golden idol at CPAC.
I am not a “Never Trumper” and I did try to give him a chance. As a trained Lean Six Sigma Black Belt I was trained to view data fairly objectively (not perfectly) and can give him credit where credit is due. He should get credit for things like:
- Calling Pres. Tsai in Taiwan to congratulate her election win
- Signing the FirstStep act
- Moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
- Appointing good quality, independent & impartial justices (note that we do NOT want to label them as conservative)
- Being bold with China even though his tariffs were totally ineffective and stood completely against free-market principles which conservative principles stand for
However…
Truth, rule of law & democracy are fundamental to a republic. Without these, there can be no framework with which to seek justice in any policy – much less the ones we care about like abortion, religious liberty, independent & impartial justices, etc. Justice in those areas can only be had IF we can first:
- be on the side of truth,
- use rule of law to codify right from wrong and
- respect democracy to enact the will of the majority even as we protect the rights of our minority through our beloved Constitution.
There has been NO US president in over 100 years that has disregarded truth, flaunted rule of law and disdained democracy like our 45th president.
We would ask that you pray and think carefully about whether you will bow the knee before the golden idol or not.
“But as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” – Josh 24:15
I’ve seen this movie before.
It doesn’t end well.
As a Christian for most of my life and a pastor for nearly three decades, I’m quite familiar with the story: supposedly faithful people fashioning an idol made of gold and cravenly bowing before it, in complete contempt for the God they claimed to believe in because they had lost their collective minds.
This 2021 reboot is a little on the nose.
It’s also far more tragic.
We’ve had a few thousand years to get it right.
We shouldn’t be here.
Watching the collective soul-selling of my fellow Christians here in America over the past five years has been something that has grieved me more than I can measure or accurately describe. It’s been particularly disheartening to watch ancient religious history repeating, and worse—to realize that nearly every disfiguring ugliness here in America: from the violent parade of white nationalism to the defiant anti-mask pandemic-deniers to the propagators of an abject election fraud lie to the suppressors of the voices and votes of people of color—is coming from professed Christians.
As someone still aspiring to a life of faith and still trying to speak into this religious tradition, it’s sobering to admit that we’re not here as a nation in this brutal battle for disparate humanity and we’re not steeped in this unapologetic supremacy, if not for people claiming to be devoted to the same Jesus I’ve grown up trying to emulate.
As they both literally and figuratively pledge their undying adoration to some golden-veneered, bastardized counterfeit idol of their whiteness, I’m left to wonder what I’m to do now:
do I attempt to redeem this thing I have found such meaning and beauty in, or do I resign myself to the fact that these myopic Caucasian cultists have commandeered it for good and it is beyond repair in the eyes of those outside of it?
do I defect from this polluted homeland and begin down a new spiritual journey, while knowing it will be nearly impossible to differentiate myself from the shimmering-but-hollow-calf-worshippers, because they have permanently co-opted the trappings of my tradition?
And how can I show the world an alternative spirituality that is supposed to leave more compassion, more diversity, and more justice in its wake—while these delusional power-lusting hypocrites eat up market share, because otherwise decent, loving human beings are walking away from organized religion for good because they are fully exhausted?
The questions far outnumber any helpful answers and the prayers seem to slip into the ether without reply.
Having read and studied and preached the story, doesn’t make watching it repeat itself any easier.
I know that religious people ended up abandoning God and mindlessly worshiping a golden calf, so it shouldn’t be surprising that so many today are now bowing down to this orange jackass. It’s just more terrifying seeing it with this proximity.
It was a lot easier to view the story in the distant rear-view mirror of ancient history in a land thousands of miles away—and not in the windshield of the present of the country I call home with the sycophantic cultists so close and prevalent.
While they whirl around the gleaming, empty shell devoted to themselves and their imagined righteousness, shouting ‘God bless America,’ I’ll be here sitting with a mournful truth that makes me sick to my stomach:
God broke America, or at least the God-followers have, and I’m not sure how we fix it.
One thing I know for certain: I will not join them in their mindless, fevered dancing.
I will not bow to this empty, shimmering monstrosity.
I will write a different story.
This content was originally published here.