Understanding the hopelessly corrupt nature of the world and its vanity we can then (with Paul and the Corinthians) take comfort in being 'the little people', the 'nothings' in the eyes of the world – the types that a reprobate like Trump would call 'losers'. For no one hates Christianity and Christians more than Donald Trump. Obviously the Church doesn't understand this one bit. Led by fools they think he's an ally and an asset to the Church's cause in the world. So misled by the false shepherds and shaped more by the epistemology and values of the Right than by Scripture, they have latched on and in increasing numbers have sold their souls to this charlatan and now his lackeys and imitators.
This message is foolishness to the world and frankly it's foolishness
to most Christians. They have no interest in this call to take up the cross.
They are in every way just like the rich young ruler. They hear the message but
they won't have it. They are unwilling to give up their power, pride, and
mammon. They think they have a 'right' to these things and don't understand
that when we are in Christ – we give up these anthropocentric concepts and
sacrifice all. It is an act of faith to submit to his Providence and this
includes the ordering of the state. The Christian Right is in rebellion against
God and falls under His condemnation. When 'rights' are violated we praise God
for being counted worthy to suffer for His name. The False Church takes up the
sword and the gun and seeks vengeance and yet long before they pick up these
actual weapons they wield their seemingly bloodless substitutes in the realms
of politics and economics.
Confusing America with the Church and Kingdom, post-war
Evangelicals lined up behind Eisenhower and the Cold War narrative. Many
extended this identity to race and took shameful stances in the oppressions of
their neighbours. Embracing the ethics of the Right in terms mammon,
nationalism, and what must be called a modified post-war 'conservatism' which
itself had broken with the values of the past, these Christians went on to
support Nixon in Vietnam, and Reagan in the Cold War. They supported many
brutal wars, and usurious economic policies that led to large-scale suffering
both at home and abroad. Some grew rich to be sure – but on the backs of
others. Their gold is stained with blood.
After the failures of the so-called Moral Majority which had by
the late 1970's succeeded in consolidating the Evangelical vote under the aegis
of the Republican Party, a kind of hysteria set in – especially with the
election of Bill Clinton in 1992. The gloves came off and old notions of
decency began to be replaced an aggressive form of 'in your face' Christianity
and an increasing call for a holistic vision of Christianity which began to
range far beyond the Scriptures – leaving them behind. This rage which was
exacerbated by economic instability and its social consequences, should have actually
been directed toward figures like Reagan and the faction he represented, but
instead found its outlet in outrageous rhetoric and increasingly deranged Right-wing
behaviour exhibited during the Clinton years.
Violence had been on the table in the 1980's as the militia
movement grew out of the anger and frustration of the Vietnam era but it took
an ugly turn in the 1990's. Evangelicals distanced themselves from the violence
surrounding the anti-abortion movement, and the Right-wing survivalist and militia
movements but the space between these groups was rapidly shrinking and by the
2020's has almost disappeared.
9/11 afforded an external outlet for some of the anger and
the Church in order to support its veneration of the decadent American way of
life and its 'right' to have it so. Christians supported multiple wars that (over
the next two decades) left over a million people dead. They believed lies and
lied to support these lies and gloried in the power they thought they possessed
during the tenure of George W Bush.
And yet the social backlash against their movement came soon
enough and with the election of Obama the previous hysteria witnessed during
the Clinton years returned – but at a much higher pitch. The same ridiculous arguments
and false predictions were made that we saw in the early 1990's. 'Our country'
will turn communist and the like – a lie on both counts. For Christians,
America is not 'our' country. We live here as strangers and pilgrims. And just
like the predictions made under Clinton, virtually none of the things they said
came true under Obama. The Capitalist order still dominates. But a real
ugliness was manifest, the proprietary nature of the Evangelical claim on
America was seemingly under threat. Though the vast majority continues to deny
there was a racial element to this, it was pretty clear and in some cases
palpable. I know many soft racists who would deny the label and yet have
deceived themselves regarding their own attitudes and values.
But in the end it's not just a question of race. That's
merely a component to this larger set of values rooted in rights – right to
power, right to wealth, right to security and respect. But as society was
disintegrating, as the social consensus was imploding – and the reasons for
this are many, a new dangerous ethos began to emerge. It happened under Obama
and has only increased ever since. Within a few short years the combined
Trump-Covid effect has taken the Evangelical movement off a cliff and New
Testament ethics are seemingly no longer on the table. In fact they are increasingly
anathematized which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the larger
movement is now apostate. The Gospel of the New Testament and its larger body
of doctrines related to the Church, Covenant, Kingdom, and the ethics which flow
from these related concepts have been deemed heretical. If that's not a
functional apostasy, I don't know what is. Like Rome, Christ is not denied, but
replaced. The Christ of Scripture is denied and rejected and replaced by an
idol of their own making and design. They claim Christ and come in his name but
they don't know Him and in fact hate Him.
Finding common cause with fascists and mammonists, the
movement is growing violent and this will soon enough become quite evident. Popular
pastors calling for violence to take back 'our' country are growing in
popularity and influence. It's being tolerated and in other cases cheered.
Rights – an ethic rooted in 'mine and thine' as Leonard Verduin
once put it, is pure poison when combined with Christianity. It's not a
question of 'God given rights' versus 'rights' granted by man. Such questions
are not even found within the purview of apostolic thinking and discourse.
These are the wrong questions to ask. Some think Paul asserted his rights in
Acts. I've dealt with these questions elsewhere. That's not what happened in
these episodes. In fact it's easily demonstrated that the very opposite is what
took place. Paul was abdicating his rights. It's right to shame and call out
evil but this is never followed through in terms of law or the judiciary. Paul
shamed corrupt magistrates but walked away. He used the law (and his status) to
keep himself from being beaten and murdered by a Jewish conspiracy but even
these appeals were not rooted in any kind of notion of civic status or duty.
The rest of the New Testament militates against this.
And more importantly Paul's actions near the end of Acts were
rooted in his personal quest (tied to a redemptive-historical narrative)
regarding his need to get to Rome – and not just to go to the capital of the
empire but to enter the great city in chains. This was gospel imagery laden
with meaning that he was concerned to fulfill. It's a completely different set
of concerns and values from the Evangelical arguments that assert that Paul was
being a good citizen and appealing to rights. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
The Church of the New Testament wouldn't dream of going to
the courts and calling upon the pagans to give us justice and to use their
sword to compel others to give us what is our 'right' – whether it be in the form
of satisfaction or remuneration. The very notion is obscene and the Early
(post-apostolic) Church continued this legacy. It was dispensed with in the
post-Constantinian reordering of the Church and Kingdom – an apostasy that
still haunts us today.
But what do we see in our day? We see not only Christians
suing pagans, and shaking down people (via lawyers) for money – which is little
more than a form of extortion. We even see Christians utilising lawyers against
each other and increasingly threatening violence. This is apostasy.
What can be done? The problem is the Church is unfamiliar
with the New Testament – and thus the Old Testament as well, for the Old must
be read in light of the New). And in fact most people in the pews are actually
hostile to New Testament teaching. The legacies of the Magisterial Reformation
and the Evangelical movement have only muddied the waters. These movements need
to be condemned. A new reformation is needed and yet there's no support for it.
It must be brought about through the foolishness of preaching. The American
Church is apostate and under judgment. It's on a road that's going to lead to
self-destruction and evil – an evil no different than what Rome produced in the
past. The worldly compromised spirit that produced the Roman Catholic order is
still alive – it simply manifests itself in a different way in this different
cultural context.
There are a few groups that have some notion of these questions and yet many of them are also in a state of decay and compromise. The hour is now and the situation is dire. Sola Scriptura has become all but meaningless. The answer is not to turn to Confessional documents that arose during a hyper-charged political era and within the context of a revived Protestant scholasticism. The answer is first to fall on our knees and repent and then to revisit the Holy Scriptures and understand what the Bible is and how it is to be read. Then, and only then can we hope for a reformation in terms of ethics. Until then the road ahead is paved with gold and guns – a road leading to Hell. No doubt the leaders of this movement will be asserting their 'rights' amid the flames.