The Evangelical Church’s support of a president who counters the life and teachings of Jesus actually makes sense when you take Jesus out of the equation.
Endorsing, pledging one’s allegiance, and putting undue hope and trust in a human leader counts as “worshipping and serving,” and idolatry that must be named and renounced. Jeremiah’s words ring as a highly relevant warning at this moment in America.
I continue to be challenged by the ongoing need for reconstruction, for the building of a society not based on the evils of systemic racism and environmental degradation; it’s big, overdue work. I feel helpless and lost, I am not sure how to help. It’s a lot, and I am discouraged and overwhelmed. Yet, I am singing.
We shouldn’t be grateful for COVID, for the political chaos, for the broken climate, for economic suffering. But we can be grateful through these times, while we are struggling in them.
Wickedness is white supremacy. Wickedness is supporting systems that discard women deemed “unworthy” by the rest of the world. I told her that my speck of dirt on a mustard seed of spirituality either had to believe we had a different higher power, or that hers was one I would never want to worship.
Perhaps this contrast—the real, difficult version of something held up against the cheap and easy imitation—will help us navigate the disaster of American disunity.
Despite President-elect Joe Biden’s clear electoral victory and the complete absence of evidence behind Donald Trump’s lawsuits, multiple prominent evangelical leaders are continuing to enable the outgoing president’s dangerous attacks on the democratic process.
So today, let us celebrate. And tomorrow, let us organize. We are still in a battle for the soul of our nation, and for the soul of our faith. This election is not the finish line. It is the starting line. We now get to create the next chapter of American history together.
Let not our hearts sink into anxiety and dread by the unceasing spin cycle of 24 hour news or the bread and circuses of the imperial intrigue. Instead . . .
I am concerned that, for all our brave talk of the Gospel, there is a part of us that is still tempted to find our own way toward the knowledge of good and evil, knowing better than God what is good for us (see Genesis 3). That there is a prideful instinct within us that assumes that we can, perhaps even have, designed the political system and philosophy that will lead us into the promised land of peace, prosperity, justice, and rest.