Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread # 120
What the Hell?
Part 5 of 5
Reformation Time

1/ We have millions and millions of adult Trumpsters among us. Trumpism is a sort of cult in which greed is celebrated, white males are to be lifted over all others, might makes right, debt is just fine,...

2/.. climate change is nothing, and minorities need to stop whining. The White Evangelical Church ran off with the GOP, and together they spawned Trumpism. I’m not a fan.

3/ Over the previous 3 threads, I’ve explored how recent dynamics within White Evangelical Churches-the Prosperity Gospel, the crusade against abortion, & the willful denial of much basic science-prepared millions to follow the greedy, misogynist & willfully ignorant Mr. Trump.

4/ It should be said, too, that the GOP, since the first Obama campaign, has become an increasingly racist group, its honor declining as its greed and self-righteousness accelerate.

5/ There’s one more common trope amongst White Evangelical Christians that fosters Trumpism -- the constant lament about how corrupt the world is. By “the world” they usually mean human culture that doesn’t belong to their church.

6/ Soon, I pray,--a year from November--we the people will deliver a second and crushing blow to the nascent autocracy so deliriously desired by both this corrupt administration and the equally corrupted version of the Gospel that supports it....

7/.. Paul’s great cry, “For freedom Christ has set you free”, apparently means nothing to Trump's cult.

8/ Here’s a teeny tiny hint about how corrupt this version of Evangelicalism is: right from the get go of the Trump campaign, Trump claimed to be “a great counter-puncher.”...

9/.. Breaking News: Jesus demands that we turn the other cheek!! You cannot simultaneously boast of your commitment to being a powerful counter-puncher and declare yourself “such a strong Christian”.

10/ In time, this is what will be revealed: the White Evangelical Church, far more than any other single force, lifted into the most powerful office on earth a man who is a criminal money launderer for organized crime...

11/... That means Trump has committed his life to empowering violent men to impose vast suffering in order that both they and he could become fabulously rich.

12/ Our President’s style that he uses to persuade his followers is a Rococo Fake Authenticity. I recommend the church folks following him pray for the gift of discernment.

13/ Here’s a second hint: champions of the common man do not descend from their penthouse on a golden escalator.

14/ Like most mob bosses, Trump is culturally stupid, murderous towards rivals, and cruel to women. Putting him in charge of nuclear weapons was not a fabulous idea.

15/ Meanwhile our actual situation is this: humankind is on the verge of making earth herself uninhabitable.

16/ That is to say, those who deny the damage we are wreaking on the atmosphere, the seas, and the land, those who insist that we all must stuff more! more! more! into our already cluttered lives, have placed themselves at enmity with both the Creator and creation itself.

17/ Trump’s downfall will present a chance for repentance and renewal. Here are some changes that we who desire a healthy missional church can hope for in that reformation:

18/ The recovery of the Biblical values of justice, mercy and compassion; the development of an ethic of non-violence that embraces all of life; the recovery of such Benedictine values as simplicity and humility and modesty;...

19/.. the end to the appalling apartheid of church life; respect for settled science; and, above all, the insistence on the full equality of women, both in the world and in the church.

20/ Reformations and revivals always come as people sense a profound need for change:

21/ In the 1500’s, there was something creepy about the sale of those indulgences. In the great revival of the mid 1700’s, people knew that faith could be far more individually personal than just belonging to some institution, which helped prepare us for our Revolution.

22/ During the great awakening of the 19th century, the end of slavery became the theme of the great evangelists like Finney, because the people could sense that those being oppressed were the children of God.

23/ In our time, we can all sense--some dimly and some acutely--that our consumerist culture is wrecking our souls and threatening our planet...

24/..We need two major changes. One is well underway as women gain strength and men wake up to the reality of women’s full humanity. When we can also pray with conviction to God our mother, we’ll have taken a big step.

25/ The second change has to do with personal wealth accumulation. We need both a floor and a ceiling on personal wealth, so that we free up adequate public money to address our mounting ecological crises.

26/ Our problem, dear evangelicals, does not reside out in the sinful secular world. The problem is in our own refusal to see what Trump idolatry reveals about the corruption of Evangelical Christian faith.

27/ Reform in the church always produces a furious response from the self-righteous profiteers within the church. But those who place themselves in God’s way leave a legacy of shame.

28/ A few years ago I did a funeral for a person who had been in the HItler youth. As I listened to the son tell me that story I could see that had I been a young person in that time and place, I could easily have done what his parents as teenagers did...

29/.. Even so, the shame of the son was intense. That was a shame that had lingered in that family system for 75 years.

30/ Years from now as we continue to overcome the disaster that is Trumpism, those pastors and church members who lifted this lout into the most powerful position on earth will be remembered in similar shame. Do not let that be your legacy. Resist.