Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread # 120
What the Hell?
(part 1 of 5)

1/ Here comes a 5-part series, triggered by Brian K’s great question, “What the hell has happened to Christianity?”

2/ After today’s introduction will come one on sex, one on money and one on science. Each will argue that recently screwed-up Evangelical teaching prepared church members to fall for Trump’s con. Then I’ll do a concluding piece on hope.

3/ Brian shares that he is Jewish. Yet he knows the New Testament well enough to know that Jesus would never support Trump’s lies and crimes; Jesus would be ministering to the victims of this cruel administration.

4/ Brian’s question arises from the role White American Evangelical Christians have played in lifting Donald Trump to power and sustaining him there. Without the full-throated support of 80% of White Evangelicals, there would be no Trumpism.

5/ Even those Rs who can actually see that Trump is a dire threat to life and freedom don’t dare incur the wrath of their White Evangelical Christian constituents, lest they be sent packing from their positions of power.

6/ Christian Trumpism, to anyone who actually reads the New Testament, is nuts. It’s an over the top oxymoron. Donald Trump has lived and now lives in defiance of the laws of God and of the person and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

7/ There were other, non-religious forces as well that lifted Trump to power. I am discovering how powerful and mischievous was the mafia-driven Russian interference into our election...

8/.. The Russians are defeating American Democracy; their aggression is intolerable. Fox News has also pumped out propaganda. But both of these forces were dwarfed by the White Evangelical church.

9/ I remain a Jesus follower, and gratefully so. I remain a lover of the church, and gratefully so. I’m also an old white guy, struggling to shed the unconscious prejudices that come with that territory. I speak from and to the White Evangelical Church.

10/ Why do I keep using the term “White Evangelical Christians?” Look at his crowds.

11/ Thank God American Evangelicalism includes African, Asian, and Latino-American Evangelical churches that did not fall for Trump’s obvious con. The future of the Evangelical mission on this continent lies with them.

12/ Meantime, God, I believe, wants folks like me to examine ourselves in the light of this wanton apostasy.

13/ From the viewpoint of actual evangelism -- helping our brothers and sisters come to faith -- here’s the problem: unless we can deal with the toxicity our support for Trump reveals, the result in less than a decade will be empty pews and closing churches.

14/ No healthy person would want to join a church dedicated to following the Donald. It will be the Trumpsters within the church who will be rightly blamed.

15/ Jesus, sensing the immense convulsion that will occur as the Empire responds to Him, says, “And then if anyone says to you, “Look, here is the Christ!” or “Look! There he is!” do not believe it. False Christs and false prophets will arise.” (Mark 13: 21 - 22)

16/ Sure enough,Trump, the mobbed-up champion of greed and lust, arose to say, “I and I alone can fix it!” It must have been the case that this part--my part--of the church had been rotting from within for some time.

17/ There is blind love, and there is clear-eyed love. Time to wake up and clear our eyes.