https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgBOsGFc5h4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJVMoe7OY0
I don't doubt this testimony for one moment and one need not be a fan or supporter of Global News (Canada) or the New York Times to benefit from this reporting. The testimonies and images all but speak for themselves.
The witnesses and videos testify to something we've been seeing for some time - a blending of ideologies. Christianity has been blended with Libertarianism, Nationalism, and a host of other Enlightenment-rooted 'isms' in the realms of economics, civil liberties, property, and the like. There are also dangerous tribalist trends at work and anti-tax ideology that flies directly in the face of Scripture.
What we're witnessing is chaos and confusion and a lot of the blame must be placed on the pulpits. Church leaders are stoking these fires and in many cases feeding the chaos. Ignorant of the Scriptures, corrupt in many cases, and more given to power, fame, security, and fortune than any concept of Biblical shepherding, they have fostered these movements within the Church or at the very least have looked the other way. I don't doubt many are afraid to challenge these views within the Church as to do so would mean risking half (or more) of their congregations - and thus ultimately their positions.
We have multiple epistemologies at work. Ironically the now decades-long call for 'Biblical Worldview' has actually proved to be an assembly line of non-Biblical thinking. A misnomer, the 'Christian Worldview' being promoted is actually a hybrid, a syncretism of the world's ideas and some basic Christian principles. Interestingly, (but perhaps unsurprisingly) more often than not the world's ideologies seem to win out. Rather than submit to the Scriptures and the call to a cross-bearing pilgrim life, the Evangelical movement has sought power, respectability, and influence. Seeking a unified theory or worldview in order to create a Christian social order (itself an oxymoron) they have instead laid the groundwork for the corruption of the Church and large-scale apostasy.
It shouldn't surprise us that the world's ideas about power and wealth run contrary to New Testament teaching but for many of these worldly-minded folks the Biblical teaching regarding mortification, martyrdom, witness, and Kingdom ethics are simply unacceptable and totally unthinkable. In fact they're offensive to them. These doctrines and the calling they entail involves social consequences and requires moral stands that will extract a price - a price they're not willing to pay or make. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
Consequently they have embraced the world's categories and this heresy (for that's what it is in the end) has reached an extreme, a breaking point. Many profess to follow the Scriptures and submit to their authority but instead their epistemology is revealed to be something we could call BibleFOX. There are dozens of variations on this but the Bible is (at best) blended with the epistemology and ideology being pumped out of FOX and other outlets - in some cases more extreme and Right-wing.
Several of these heretics were in our congregation and were present at the January 6th event. To my knowledge they were not among those that stormed the Capitol but they were part of the overall movement and have promoted its confused (and evil) ideology on social media. They are un-reflective and un-repentant.
The elders did nothing to address this or the others in the Church who on the basis of Trumpite-Libertarian ethics derided anti-Covid measures and treated with contempt anyone who took them seriously. They tore down taped off areas, rolled their eyes at attempts to space out, forced their way into pews among other people (they often showed up late) and visibly mocked any attempt to respect either protocols or other people. It was disgusting, a vile display of anti-Christian Libertarian individualism and yet the church leaders did nothing.
Our so-called pastor turned out to be a child and bailed out on the congregation as the outbreak hit. He didn't really like leading a small town congregation. He wanted to be involved in Christian education 'ministry'. He wants to play basketball with young people and travel around. A New Calvinist, his anesthesiology was revealed to be not just shallow but effectively non-existent.
A string of largely unqualified men filled the pulpit until finally a longer-term (an informal interim) was found - a full-blown Trumpite. He even came with the bumper stickers.
That was the final straw. It was time to go and all the more after January 6th. I will not sit in a congregation with these people and have my name on lists where their names are also found.
I wondered how many other congregations were going through such chaotic episodes? How many others were tolerating and promoting sin?
In keeping with the 'hands off' approach of many Evangelical leaders, our departure wasn't even addressed. I was fully prepared to meet with the elders and go over our concerns and reasons. There was no need. They never pursued us, never even bothered to call. It's not like they didn't have our number. We're in the congregational directory and on the mailing list.
In my opinion, they just don't want to deal with it and I think their non-response was fairly typical.
I know many of these Right-wing BibleFOX Christians seem to think the ugly side of Trumpism is somehow separate from them or that they're divorced from it. On the contrary they have allied themselves with an ever-widening spectrum. The commentators and political leaders they look up to are the nexus - they are bringing these divergent forces together and every day they're finding occasions to overlap. Churches seem to be either letting it happen or encouraging it.
For some time I've been sounding the warning. We're moving toward a situation in which our choices are narrowing. We can attend Evangelical churches which every day are becoming more compromised and world-affirming. They pay lip service to the Bible but its teachings are drowned out by (in addition to the guitars and drums) the middle class values, economics, pop-psychology, feminism, and consumerism they've embraced. These groups are worldly and becoming more so by the day.
But the other options are no less so - just different. We have other groups, some Evangelical, some Confessional, that through fatally flawed and Judaized hermeneutics and philosophical syncretism use the Scriptures as a justification for nationalism, violence, gun culture, usury, avarice, libertarianism and the like. They're not altogether different than the first group, but more zealous. They take some issues more seriously than the first group and they're worldliness is manifest in different ways. I'm convinced based on my interactions with these folks that many of them just don't know the Scriptures or are so-committed to a larger set of ideals that they will do whatever is required - they will contort, twist, and explain away verses and whole passages that do not fit their views. And they will impose narratives and distorted frameworks on the text in order to extract the teachings they need. They too have fallen prey to a species of worldliness and syncretism but in their case it's becoming much more dangerous.
The first group's errors are playing a large part in bringing judgment on the Church in terms of family breakdown, sexuality, and the like. The latter is (in a most spectacular) fashion decimating the testimony of the Church, leading it to be associated with evil, and is on the verge of bringing down great judgment - but not for the sake of the gospel.
Both groups have substituted the Scriptures for ear-tickling. One group is dominated by entertainment and personalised therapy. The other feeds fleshly intuitions and somehow every text becomes about power and money, and smashing anyone who dares even look your way.
The Evangelical Christian Right (a term which to some degree encompasses these groups) doesn't want to hear about Christianity being confused with Trumpist and fascistic violence - which is what the January 6th event was. It was a fascist uprising pure and simple. Reviewing the video only confirms this. Christian leaders don't want to address what's happening. And many of the voices that have dared to decry it are apparently blind to the role they played in bringing things to this point.
I would further point to an error that I've talked about on many occasions - the heresy (born of the Magisterial Reformation) known as the Lesser Magistrate doctrine. Few can elaborate it its meaning and import but it has been perniciously used in confluence with Enlightenment narratives about the American Revolution, resistance to tyranny, and a host of Libertarian narratives about individual freedom and tax resistance - in direct contradiction to the Scriptures, many Christians have fallen into the sinful 'taxation is theft' narrative. If that's being preached in your pulpit, it might be time to go. It's one thing to rail against socialism or some made up straw man version of it, but it's something else when Right-wing ideology and in some instances Christo-fascism is being promoted. That's crossing a heretical red line.
As a consequence of all this, the Right-wing movement has demonised the federal government and there are many who believe they can righteously rage against, hate and plot against the government in Washington even while considering themselves to be patriots. Further they believe there is a type of piety to be found in this resistance - which in fact is in direct and explicit violation of Romans 13. This is why many of these people believe they can engage in violence against federal law enforcement even while they proclaim that they 'back the blue' and the like.
In Christian circles I do believe there's been a kind of trickle-down and diluted version of the Lesser Magistrate doctrine at work - and I believe January 6th is one of its fruits. The many deceived Christians in the crowds have been one way or another directly or indirectly shaped by and affected by this doctrine.
As New Testament Christians we cannot be patriotic - we're pilgrims. But additionally we do not resist the powers that be. We condemn them and the systems they produce. Our very presence is a harbinger and proclamation of their doom. We live as second-class citizens under their regimes and as such we will not flourish in terms of society which will always hate us and persecute us. The prevailing narratives found in both sections of the Evangelical movement are completely at odds with the New Testament, its teaching and ethics. And yet these fascist groups in particular have crossed dangerous lines and we cannot be part of them - or be in any way associated with them.
It's bad enough to succumb to worldliness and the ethos of the middle class. But when the worldliness becomes violent and aligns itself to elements that are clearly on a road to violence and civil war - the faithful Christian must cut ties and look elsewhere for fellowship and communion.
The time is now. We had to leave our congregation and we're struggling to find something - I'm not talking about solid, just something we can tolerate and sit through. Things are taking a very bad turn. If you have a decent congregation then be thankful but don't close your eyes to what's happening. Don't be deceived.
The Evangelical option is no real option. But if your congregation is infected with or being transformed by Trumpism. Then it's time to go.
I know one thing. I want to look back and be able to say I understood the moment, what was happening. Fascism has been sowing its seeds in the American Church for decades. It's now bearing fruit and it's spreading its doctrines around this nation and the rest of the world. One of the great deceptions is the fact that a myriad of Right-wing charlatans and false teachers and theologians have played a bait-and-switch game and have convinced their followers that fascism is something else, something it's not - something from the Left. They lie about the ideology and its spectrum and they twist the history which is no great feat as few Americans are familiar with it - especially when it comes to history outside the Anglo-sphere.
We need not get misty eyed or in any way fall for the rhetoric concerning the American republic or democracy. These too are lies and deceptions, veritable white-washings of evil. The US has its own pernicious myths, and some are quite old. And though sad but true, the Evangelical movement has its own permutations, variants, and derivative narratives -all of which are equally false but more (and spiritually) dangerous as they're combined with Christian doctrine.
The crisis is here. Many would acknowledge that but few seem able to understand its nature. In many cases they're focus is out in left field, engaged in the wrong struggles, focused on the wrong issues. The discernment so badly needed is absent. It leaves one to wonder just what kind of judgment is falling on the American Church. One need only read the letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor and to reflect on the judgments and warnings they faced.