Faith

Betrayal, Insanity, and Destruction

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Historian Niall Ferguson once said “Civilization operates on the edge of chaos”. That truth has made a permanent home in my soul.

When I first heard him say this, I cringed and barely believed him. But I’ve come around. A people group never knows when they will lose their democracy, political autonomy, physical security, or financial security. All empires fall.

A smaller truth is “all movements move”. I suppose we could say if a movement moves far enough, or fast enough, it will topple the empire it occupies. For the purpose of this article, the two movements I’m interested in are American Evangelicalism and American Republicanism. 

Why these two movements? This was me. These were my identities. I was an Evangelical and I was a Republican. This is not a theoretical exercise.

Over the last ~nine years, American Evangelicalism and American Republicanism have betrayed their core values, behaved insanely, and destroyed themselves. 

It’s an understatement to say these movements have moved. 

Betrayal

I feel betrayed by the Evangelical movement and by the Republican party. 

This has been shocking, bewildering, alienating, and disorienting. These were my two major identities. And I don’t know of anything harder than an identity shift.

For the longest time I’ve said: I haven’t changed, the Republican party has. I’m really not that informed on individual political details, so I could be wrong on some details. I remember as a kid noticing that Republicans didn’t seem to control spending any more than Democrats, so I observed hypocrisy on the Republicans’ parts. They always said they were fiscal conservatives! This was part of the reason I never bonded emotionally with the party; I didn’t trust them that much. They were violating their word regularly on a major platform claim. But this is nothing, this is absolute peanuts compared to violating principles of much higher significance, such as embracing lies, authoritarianism, and violence. 

But the way of Jesus is my biggest concern. There has been a respectable force for good in the US for decades, possibly centuries, known as Evangelicalism. Professor Randall Balmer reviews that history of goodness here 1 (minute 7:00) in part to demonstrate how far the movement has fallen. I think it’s beautiful to bask for a minute in the past goodness of this movement or to appreciate it for the first time, if you did not already know. 

In more recent years, Evangelicalism produced the political movement called the “Moral Majority”. But I have to stop there. If the cultural children of the “Moral Majority” have since produced nearly unwavering support (~80%) for the least-moral political leader in living memory (Mr. Trump), then the joke is on them. The joke is on Evangelicals! And thus the joke is on Jesus. 

The “Moral Majority” was a pretty presumptuous name to start with (effectively condemning everyone outside the group), but at least they were publicly pointing themselves to a beautiful thing we call “morality”. Obviously the morality of Evangelicalism is now a laughing stock, which most people aren’t laughing at, because it is not funny. It’s betrayal. And unfortunately all of this is tied to the mission of Jesus. How is a person outside of the way of Jesus supposed to take seriously the faith, when a loud majority of his followers can not be taken seriously?

Losing Our Religion

Leading Evangelical Russel Moore recently published Losing our Religion (a book which Skye Jethani gives quick, helpful insight into in the first few paragraphs of his article). Moore believes Evangelicalism is changing so significantly that we are losing our religion. To me the phrase “losing our religion” is a nice way of saying “betrayal”. 

This short clip from The Mehdi Hasan Show is also a helpful look into Mr. Russel’s book and experiences. Russel Moore says “We have arrived at the point at which, for many people who name the name of Jesus Christ, Christlikeness is compromise.” If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.

Mr. Moore also says “Jesus taught his disciples to ‘count the cost’ of following him. We should know, he said, where we’re going and what we’re leaving behind. We should also count the cost of following Donald Trump… To do so would mean that we’ve decided to join the other side of the culture war, that image and celebrity and money and power and social Darwinist ‘winning’ trump the conservation of moral principles and a just society.” This Evangelical leader believes that we’ve “joined the other side”. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what it is. 

Speaking of sides, which I don’t usually like to do because that tends to require problematic oversimplification, Professor Randall Balmer points out in his talk (minute 41:24) that, when he was a young Evangelical, “we had a very strong sense of ourselves not merely as a subculture but as a counter culture. …We were standing against the larger culture.” Now, as Russel Moore points out, we’ve “joined the other side” and we are no longer countering that culture at all. Looks like betrayal to me. 

“What I can say, regarding white Evangelicals, is, yes, political passion is consuming American Evangelicalism, and yes, the Republican Party platform has become more important than the Gospel for many who identify as Evangelicals.” Marvin Olasky says in The Sixty Years’ War: Evangelical Christianity in the Age of Trump.

In the same article Olasky says: “In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found only 30 percent of Evangelicals saying character didn’t count much in political leaders. In 2016, in a PRRI poll conducted soon after Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape became public, that proportion jumped to 72 percent. Many white Republican Evangelicals faced a quandary: change your view of Trump or change your view of acceptable ethics. Many did the latter.”

Doing the latter is betraying core values. 

And from the same article: “Religious-studies professor Stephen Haynes notes that Trump’s ‘evangelical supporters may have given up on Christianizing Trump; yet no one can dispute that he has succeeded in Trumpifying American Christianity.’”

Marvin Olasky largely closes out his article with “Becoming a Christian in 1976 and then having a pen-pal relationship with World readers let me interact for 40 years with great people, compassionate and self-sacrificing. Since 2016, I’ve seen the slow growth of callous conservatism among some politicized Evangelicals — and since 2020 it’s metastasized. Will Evangelicals who said character didn’t count now also say craziness doesn’t count?”2

He is being much nicer than I am. To me this is betrayal of core values. 

On a personal level, I have two friends, a married couple, who are big MAGA supporters. While I haven’t personally witnessed this (because I don’t hang out with this couple enough), a couple of trusted friends shared with me that this couple has gotten increasingly angry and profane over the last handful of years. In other words, they are changing. These are not the friends we knew. Many of their friends, including me, have been forced to spend less and less time with them due to their angry, profane political outbursts.  

My neighbor across the street has a giant Trump flag in her garage. (Not outside, just inside on the garage wall.) It is huge, looks official, and it says “Trump 2024. Fuck your Feelings”. I don’t really know what that means – it is incomprehensible to me – but she has entirely managed to convey unending anger and tremendous hostility, with room for other potential deeply-negative motivations and feelings.

There’s a cost to “losing our religion” and betraying core values, which I think these two examples above demonstrate.  

Sacred text addresses morality, not policy

I’ve appreciated others who’ve pointed out to me that the sacred text of the Christian faith does not speak to governmental policy, but it does speak to morality. Practically the point of the Old Testament was to show that ancient Israel had no morally-good political leaders. The leaders it did have were always roundly criticized for their immorality. I believe only two were considered morally good. So the one thing our Scriptures talk about with force and clarity is the morality of the political leader. 

And that is the one thing we’ve ignored. 

So I hear betrayal when someone says they support Mr. Trump for “biblical” reasons. The sacred text speaks clearly and forcefully on morality in leaders and says nothing of policy.

A Primary Purpose of the Church within Society

I understand a primary purpose of the church within society is to call it to morality, to call out the immorality of its leaders. This is the idea of “speaking truth to power”. The Evangelical movement has literally done the opposite. 

This is betrayal. 

In case I’m not being clear, I’m referring to the myriad of times Evangelicals could have said “while we continue to support Mr. Trump politically, we condemn X behavior or Y statement” but did not. That is speaking truth to power. 

According to my memory, the only instance in which Evangelicals spoke truth to power was when Mr. Trump bragged about his ability to sexually assault women. This was condemned for a brief time, but that’s it. His myriad of other abusive behaviors were left uncondemned (and ultimately Evangelicals indirectly supported these abusive behaviors by voting him back into office).  

And it’s easy to say words! Condemning should have been the easy part!

This is betraying a basic responsibility. 

We used to think morality and power go together

I haven’t seen the Oppenheimer movie, but I would like to. In experiencing a review of the movie I learned that Mr. Oppenheimer – who was ultimately filled with horrible psychological regret for his help to harness nuclear power – was motivated to spearhead this morally-questionable endeavor because he thought this kind of power should be in the hands of good people before it gets into the hands of bad people, i.e the Nazis. In other words, morality and power go together. In fact, this was our entire view of World War II. It was good to fight because we were the good guys and they were the bad guys. So where has the morality gone? And why? Why is it okay for us to have nuclear codes now? How can we fight a just war without actually being just? Since morality was so important to us at one time, on what basis can we let go of it now?

How is this not betrayal?

If Mr. Trump can’t even be trusted to follow simple rules like “leave classified documents at the White House”, why should he be trusted with anything else? If he can’t even be trusted to work in concert with his own government on a simple and essential matter like who won an election, how can he be trusted with anything?

Immoral people do immoral things. It seems to me a betrayal of logic to trust someone like Mr. Trump and, as I said earlier, a betrayal of an American belief that only the moral should have great power.3

Family Values

Professor Balmer, during the question and answer part of his talk (minute 56:55) said “The 2016 election allowed the religious right finally to drop the pretense that this was a movement about family values. You can not make that argument and vote for Donald Trump. I mean if somebody wants to make that argument I’ll listen to it but it’s hard for me to imagine how that would be persuasive. And it allowed the religious right finally to circle back to its charter principle which was racism.”4

I wonder. What will the Republican party’s platform be after Mr. Trump leaves? They obviously can’t go back to “family values”. That’s been shattered. Especially with others like Matt Gaetz being part of the Republican club. 

It doesn’t make sense for me to list Mr. Trump’s many violations of family life and love. The whole world knows his violations. And I think his base is tired of hearing it. So, isn’t that a betrayal? The people who once came from the “Moral Majority” and from Jesus (who condemns divorce and supports women) instantly dismiss the entire litany of Mr. Trump’s violations? 

This is betrayal of a core value shared by both Evangelicalism and the Republican party.  

I don’t understand. 

Also, if this isn’t normalizing, I don’t know what is. How can we ask future leaders of our country to be moral if we bent the knee so badly to Mr. Trump? This was the ONE thing the church could do: speak truth to power. And, Evangelicals literally did the opposite. 

The Conventions are Changing, extremely

I watched parts of the DNC (Democratic National Convention) and RNC (Republican National Convention) this past year.

You know what I thought after I finished watching a good chunk of the DNC? “Sanity and goodness.” That’s all. That’s all I want and it sometimes feels like that’s all I can ask for anymore. Isn’t “sanity and goodness” the bare minimum? How did we degrade so far that this is all I can ask for? And yet “sanity and goodness” are beautiful things and I’m grateful they still exist.

I watched part of the RNC and I thought: “deranged”. I don’t even recognize this group anymore. The RNC doesn’t invite or attract former Republican presidents to speak anymore. Mr. Trump largely does not praise former Republican leaders. Forget Republican leaders. He largely never even praises former American leaders. Forget praising. Mr. Trump doesn’t largely even acknowledge the existence of former American leaders. Washington! Jefferson! Lincoln! Roosevelt! Reagan! (He positively mentioned Reagan once in his RNC speech.) Is this lineage nothing to him? Have you noticed he instead praises authortians? How can I do anything other than conclude that Mr. Trump is remaking the RNC in his own authoritarian image? Of course he must oust the memory of all that is democratic. As former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says he’s no conservative, he’s authoritarian.

This is betrayal. 

It was the DNC that invited former Presidents to speak. The DNC that referenced Reagan, positively! The DNC is praising Republican leadership and the RNC largely no longer can?! The RNC barely even acknowledges the existence of former Republican leaders! But the RNC leader, Mr. Trump, is happy to praise authoritarians! It seems there is only one party right now that is still in touch with our democratic past and that is the Democratic party. 

On the other hand, the RNC brought Hulk Hogan, an entertainer in the fake wrestling industry who ripped his shirt off. No former-President George W. Bush. Just Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt.

After watching the DNC I realized the DNC was effectively the traditional Republican party + abortion. And the traditional Republican party? Where is it? Obliterated. The MAGA Republican party has obliterated it and in its place is an unrecognizable group. Well, sadly, they are recognizable: these are the people who stormed the capital, are comfortable with violent language, and don’t get shivers down their spine when Mr. Trump talks about terminating the constitution, using the military against political opponents, terminating media outlets, shooting protesters in the legs, silencing late night hosts, and shooting Liz Cheney in the face.

This is betrayal.

Dissidents Are Not Allowed

I want to be clear about one thing: I stand with the media outlets, I stand with late night hosts, I stand with Liz Cheney, I stand with all of Mr. Trump’s political opponents, and I stand with the Constitution. Not because I agree with a thing they say. But because I agree with their right to freely say it. I’m an American. This is what Americans do. But Mr. Trump is an authoritarian, i.e. someone opposed to historically-American ideals. 

So let me be even more clear: Mr. Trump wants to jail me.  

I will continue doing everything in my power to protect what I was taught from childhood was so beautiful: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, the marketplace of free ideas, the rule of law and thus the value of the court system, dedication to a constitution, NOT to a man. 

I’m only one person, but I will continue giving my money to outlets which support historic American ideals. And I will be marching in the streets with them.  

Because Mr. Trump wants to use the military against his political opponents and wants to jail and silence those who disagree with him, I proudly oppose him, so Mr. Trump wants to jail me. 

As a democrat – meaning a person who supports people being able to freely and safely voice their values and vote for who they want – I am not telling anyone who to vote for. I am instead only trying to paint the picture of corrupted democracy. In a corrupted democracy, dissidents are threatened. Well I am a dissident and I feel the threat.

And I hate it.

I have lived in peace and safety and security, even in happiness, my entire life. 

This is betrayal. 

Navalny is no longer with us, murdered by the dictator Putin, whom Mr. Trump praises. The Navalany documentary is one I haven’t watched but would like to. This was a dissident with real power in a society with less freedoms and safety than ours. He’s dead now. Murdered. I honor men like Navalny over men like Trump. That is how I was raised. 

Rule of Law

A major support to Democracy is the rule of law. Part of this idea is that no person is above the law. It is painfully and unendingly ironic to me that the Republican party, who has been so anti-elitist, is now doing the most elitist-loving thing it can possibly do: let our greatest elite off the hook, the criminal Mr. Trump. He is a criminal whether anyone agrees with section 175.10 of New York state law. He is a felon, whether anyone agrees with section 175.10 of New York state law. I watched this court case unfold every single day. It was conducted professionally and with great deference to Mr. Trump. Any other defendant would have been jailed early on based on his continual violations of court requirements, requirements simply meant to keep all participants safe and the verdict untainted. He violated these orders at least ten times. Most defendants are jailed after the first or second violation, but they never jailed him. 

That our people have elected a criminal and a felon to the highest position of the land is further evidence of the decay of our democracy. Why would we trust an unrepentant law-breaker with upholding the law?

This is crazy.

I really like the law. It keeps us safe. It keeps order.

This is betrayal. 

Abortion

Mr. Trump has flipped on abortion. I wonder how many people have noticed. He overtly supported the pro-life cause earlier. Now, he provides no overt support. He simply says “states can decide”. Leadership is taking a position. He is no longer taking a position. Leaders carry weight. He is not using his weight. Now it’s all about “states can decide”. Does he care? Did he ever care?

I am pro-life. This is a betrayal of a core Republican value. 

Multiple public thinkers have pointed out that there is no pro-life party anymore. Not only does it look like the pro-life value was betrayed, but the pro-life movement got used and is now politically homeless. 

Insanity

“The threat [on January 6] against our republic is different than any we’ve faced before. Unlike the Nazis or Islamic terrorists, the threat is not driven by foreign fanatics. And unlike the Civil War or the Cold War, today’s danger is not led by those with evil, but sincerely held beliefs. We are witnessing a new kind of danger utterly detached from reality, fueled by cynicism, and capable of inciting terrible violence at a stunning speed. Because this fight is between truth and lies, America’s pastors and Christian leaders have a vital part to play—one we dare not neglect because what we witnessed on January 6 wasn’t just an attack on America’s democracy. It was an attack on America’s sanity.” This is how Skye Jethani concludes his article titled America Has Seen Political Violence Before. Here’s Why the MAGA Attack Is More Dangerous.

I recommend that entire article.

In addition to Mr. Trump and his Republican enablers spreading the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, Mr. Trump has overtly lied to our faces over and over again. Just as standard operating procedure.

It feels insane to trust a person like this. 

It feels insane to honor a person like this.

And it feels insane to dishonor the Presidency by putting a man of his character in that role.

He is abusing us. He can do no other. He is an abusive person, most likely because he was abused. (One of his main biographers refers to Mr. Trump’s father as a “monster”.) 

I have no problem with Mr. Trump personally. Our nation is large enough to hold a wide variety of people (i.e. every family has a crazy uncle) and has always valued diversity and freedom. What I have a problem with is a person like this holding power. He is not deserving. Because he is abusive, he will abuse that power. 

And a primary way he has abused that power is by lying to our faces about the most basic of things – an election – and enabling what Mr. Jethani calls insanity. 

God?

Mr. Trump has been showing this clip at his rallies.

If the above video were a joke, it would be terrifying and not very funny. But it’s real. And that makes it insane. 

I believe his campaign is serious in showing this. Or at least they are seriously comfortable abusing God, religion, and the goodness and intelligence of their constituency. Note: more abuse. If there’s one word I would associate with Mr. Trump and MAGA it is abuse. 

Destruction

“After a long and lingering illness, Evangelicalism died on November 8th, 2016. On that day, 81% of white American evangelicals, who for decades claimed to be concerned about family values, registered their vote for a twice-divorced, thrice-married, self-confessed sexual predator whose understanding of the faith is so truncated that he can’t even fake religious literacy.” This is Dartmouth Professor Randall Balmer kicking off a speech at the University of Florida. 

His words make me want to cry. Why would we do this?

Movements move. 

In the 1800s, Republicans were liberal and Democrats were staunch conservatives. Today it’s the opposite.

Movements move. 

But their names don’t always change. 

I believe by betraying core values of Evangelicalism, the leaders of that movement have killed that movement. The name is still here, but we know it’s a different movement now. “…either Trump is one of the greatest proselytizers of the past 2,000 years or the definition of “Evangelical” has changed.” Marvin Olasky says in his article The Sixty Years’ War: Evangelical Christianity in the Age of Trump. His point is Evangelicalism has changed, i.e. moved. And if we believe an authority on Evangelicalism, Professor Balmer, then the movement has not just moved, it has died. In its stead is a different movement of the same name. 

I mourn this death. 

I remember when Mr. Trump was elected the first time. I was dumbfounded. Not because he was elected, but because my people did it. 

I considered it immoral to vote for him! Voting for him was immediately and obviously impossible for me. He was a known quantity! I practically had nothing to think about. Not because I didn’t think, but because the equation was so easy. 

And yet not only did some do so, millions did. 

Betrayal.

Betrayal of core values which has led to the destruction of the Evangelical movement. 

Trump Has Changed What it Means to be Evangelical 

Shadi Hamid at The Washington Post wrote the following in June of 2024. (Bolding and underlining is mine). Because this article is so helpful and also behind a paywall, I’ve included most of it below. It is titled Trump Has Changed what it Means to be Evangelical.

Despite an effort to overthrow an election and a bevy of criminal charges, Donald Trump has managed to solidify and even expand his support among core demographics. It remains the eternal Trump question: Who are his supporters and why are they so devoted to him?

The voters most loyal to the former president are White evangelicals. More than 80 percent backed him in the 2020 elections. And this has long presented a puzzle: How can people who prize moral rectitude and personal witness to Jesus so faithfully support the most secular president in American history, someone who seems by his behavior at best indifferent to Christianity?

Part of the answer is that Trump has been able to change the meaning of “evangelical.” This is no small feat.

…

After evangelicals embraced Trump, something odd happened. As other Christian denominations hemorrhaged members, evangelicals saw their ranks grow; from 2016 to 2020, their share of the White adult population increased to 29 percent, from 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. The catch was many of these new evangelicals didn’t go to church. They became evangelicals because of what it meant politically, most of all because it was a way to signal support for Donald Trump. Among White Trump supporters who were not evangelicals in 2016, 16 percent began to identify as evangelical by 2020, suggesting again that politics rather than religion was the driving factor.

The idea of evangelicals who don’t go to church was once unusual. Now, it is surprisingly common. In 2008, only 16 percent of evangelicals said they never or seldom attended church. By 2020, 27 percent did.

Evangelicalism, in short, has become about shared political convictions. In one survey of Christian attitudes, for example, 43 percent of evangelicals said they did not believe in the divinity of Christ. But it gets even more bizarre. According to the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, 14 percent of Muslims (and 12 percent of Hindus and 5 percent of Jews) described themselves as “born-again” or evangelical Christians. This is not a joke.

If we look more closely at the numbers, what’s happening becomes clearer — and it’s fascinating. About three times more Republican Muslims and Republican Jews identify as “evangelical” than their Democratic counterparts, according to an analysis of the data by political scientist Ryan Burge. In an America that is rapidly secularizing — in just two decades, church membership has plummeted to under 50 percent, from about 70 percent — partisan commitments are replacing religious affiliation as people’s overarching source of identity.

This has unsettling implications for U.S. politics and the presidential campaign to come. It means we will see more intense political polarization around religion. Now that White evangelicals are so disproportionally and unapologetically Trump-supporting, the share of Democrats who view Christianity negatively is likely to remain high or perhaps even increase.

…

Americans are becoming less religious, but more of them are becoming evangelicals — or at least claiming the label as a badge of partisan identity. Trump’s ability to turn out evangelicals, both religious and nonreligious — including the growing ranks of Muslim, Jewish and Hindu “evangelicals” — to the same overwhelming degree that he did in 2020 could very well decide a close race. Religion matters, even when it’s not really about religion.

By betraying core values, Evangelicalism has allowed itself to be redefined and specifically redefined by those whose motivation is not Jesus. Evangelicalism is becoming a cultural religion, which Jesus had a thing or two to say about. This is “God and country” thinking, which Jesus notably was really not into because he didn’t help his own people get their land back, not one iota. He didn’t display a drop of nationalism. In fact, he did the opposite; his message of hope was meant for all countries; the boundaries of the Israeli border he made meaningless.  

Redefinition is a form of destruction.

White Evangelicalism’s New “Lost Cause”

Skye Jethani also sees destruction, but for him it’s a bit more on the horizon rather than something fully realized. In his article White Evangelicalism’s New “Lost Cause”, he makes an interesting comparison between the theologically-warring Christians during the Civil War (Christians in the south and the north who held opposing “biblical” viewpoints on slavery) to the theologically-opposed Christians of today (Christians who hold opposing “biblical” viewpoints on Christian Nationalism). 

Republicanism Gone

Of secondary importance is the destruction of the Republican party. It is a corrupt party. Its core values, norms, and behaviors are gone; I’m thinking of family values, morality in leadership, the ability to hold a leader to task (i.e. Nixon), the desire to uphold elections under all circumstances including loss, treating political opponents with respect, treating dissidents (including internal dissidents) with respect, completely avoiding violence in language, defending NATO, aiding other democracies around the world, valuing bi-partisanship when it serves the people, valuing free trade, being pro-life, etc. I call that destruction. 

Again, movements move. They may keep the same name, but it’s a different movement. 

Making it Real

I want to share a personal story. Last year I worked very hard for my company on a particular project. I went above and beyond. I was praised by everyone who knew about it. This project could have helped reshape part of one of the industries my company is part of. Pretty cool credentials for my company, right? 

Instead, I ran into a person of power and she put a stop to the whole thing. No one will ever know exactly why. 

I very carefully had all the right people involved in the project, and I made the decision making of the project as transparent as possible. It could not have been better documented. I literally did everything right and got praised for it repeatedly.

Then this person of power decided I was threatening her (by including people of a higher rank than herself in the conversation) and she ended my entire project. That’s not so bad, right? It’s really not. What is really bad is what happened when I conversed with my manager’s manager. He made it abundantly clear that pursuing this project further would threaten my career. 

What?! Threaten my career?

By going above and beyond and by doing everything right and by doing something that would have greatly enhanced the reputation of my company, I was threatening my own career? The missing element was that, underneath it all, I was being unjustly threatened by this person of power. 

Here’s the point: she is only a Director within one company. But she’s abusive. Guess what the most powerful person in the world, who is also abusive, can do? (Remember, he wanted to shoot the legs of American protesters. His own people!) 

It’s destructive to give power to abusive people. You never know which direction they’re going to go because they simply abuse what’s in their way. Mike Pence? A good man? He’s gone. He was in the way. 

It vaguely makes me think of two people who risked their careers to say something negative about Mr. Trump: the woman who revealed that Mr. Trump was abusing America’s relationship with Ukraine to find “dirt” on his political competitor Mr. Biden (an act for which Mr. Trump was impeached) and the Director of CISA, Christopher Krebs, who stated in advance that he would lose his job if he said the 2020 election was secure. He went on to say that (in conjunction with many other federal agencies) and then, sure enough, he lost his job.

I don’t have reason to believe Mr. Trump will restrain himself. An abusive person with power is the worst thing, and I’ve experienced it personally. It is impossible to control and it is terrifying. 

My Biggest Concern: wide-scale destruction through the most powerful means possible which is culture

My biggest concern is the cultural change Mr. Trump is producing. I have shared most of that concern in this post: To My Dear Dad: Why I Place Country Over Party. Policies are relatively easy to revert or change. But cultures take years and decades and sometimes centuries to revert or change. There is no greater power than the power of culture. And Mr. Trump is changing culture by normalizing overt lying, normalizing abuse to our democratic systems, sowing doubt in our court system, sowing doubt in our electoral system, and simply normalizing abuse in general; I see a deep and disgusting cynicism underneath his abusiveness. He is changing our culture. Which is exactly what a leader should do. Except we usually elect moral leaders. This one is anything but. 

Character really is destiny.

Wrapping it Up

Mourning

Kris and Charlie wore black the day after the election. For them that day was a day of mourning. My cousin Rick (the only U.S. diplomat in our family) views Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy and for this reason no longer recognizes America. Mike from Britain (a former British diplomat) tells me every single time I speak with him that he and Europe are so afraid Mr. Trump will be elected5 and he understands Mr. Trump to be a threat to democracy. All of these people see what I see.

I don’t need myself and my former identity groups, Evangelicals and Republicans, to agree on fundamental policy. Forget policy. At this point, we’re just talking about style of government: do we want a democracy or an autocracy? Is Mr. Trump untrustworthy or is he trustworthy? Did Mr. Trump try to steal an election or didn’t he? Is Mr. Trump immoral or is he acceptably moral? Is Mr. Trump above the law? Is the culture of MAGA poisonous or is it acceptably moral? 

From my perspective, Republicans and Evanglicals sold their core values for power, a cheap orange power which will turn on them any time it wants. Do we have reason to think Mr. Trump cares for Republicans? Do we have reason to think Mr. Trump cares for Evangelicals? He was a registered Democrat for 8 years and, I am sure, if a voting block larger than Evangelicals emerged, he would ditch Evangelicals like he ditched Mike Pence.

Republicans and Evangelicals made a deal with the devil, and they’re losing their souls. 

But I’m not writing this to point fingers. I am writing this because I pay a high cost for these groups “losing their soul” because these were my identities. This was my soul.

The corruption of both these groups is proof of what abusers can accomplish with speed. Mr. Trump is abusing the evangelical community like abuse is going out of style; the Trump Bible? Or what about Trump coins? Trump sneakers? Apparently he will sell anything to make a buck. Coins, sneakers, the Bible. It appears to be all the same to him: a way to make money. (I am not aware of any other politician selling things. Shouldn’t a politician have more substantial things to be thinking about and accomplishing?)

And the Republican Party is no more. What we have now is authoritarian leaning and allows no significant internal dissent and is hideous for its refusal to condemn Mr. Trump’s claim that Asians and Africans are poisoning the blood of America, his public fantasy of shooting Liz Cheney in the face, and his desire to use violent force against Americans who disagree with him. 

Yes, we have a Republican Party, but it is MAGA, it is not the traditional Republican Party. And while that party was imperfect, at least it believed in democracy. And a group named “Evangelical” still exists but a significant portion of that group is not motivated by Jesus, but is motivated by “God and country” thinking and, worse, a subset of that group accepts violence. (This makes me think of C.S. Lewis’s observation: “Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst”.)

Home and Hope

I need a home. And what I mean by “home” is a place where I feel safe and where I feel me and my communities are within range of each other ideologically. Not in agreement. Just within range of each other. 

I mourn that we do not mourn the same things. 

We’ve elected a criminal and it breaks my heart that the heart of my former communities isn’t broken.

Like Professor Randall Balmer says at the end of his lecture (minute 30:30), as a believer in Christ I believe in resurrection! I know that a healthy spiritual community could replace Evangelicalism6 and that our country may have two healthy political parties someday, rather than only one. Hope remains. Balmer says “The death of evangelicalism is not irreversible. Evangelicals after all believe in the power of conversion. They also believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.” Hope remains. 

But sadness covers me now. And I mourn.

Footnotes

  1. Donald Trump and the Death of Evangelical Christianity is a talk Professor Randall Balmer gave in 2020 at the University of Florida. He is the son of an Evangelical minister, is either a current/past Evangelical, is a Historian and religion writer, teaches at Dartmouth, and due to his decades of study in the field is an authority on Evangelicalism. The video of the lecture is at the bottom of that page or can be accessed here. His talk starts at minute 6:20. ↩︎
  2. Olasky’s article is excellent. It was published in 2022 by the politically-conservative publication the National Review. He presents support for his above conclusions from interactions with hundreds of readers. That support/evidence is fascinating and revealing. ↩︎
  3. I recognize this is an abusable belief, potentially incredibly self-serving, and worthy of plenty of investigation at how this has played out over time. ↩︎
  4. I hadn’t been aware until the last five or so years of the racist origins of the movement (specifically segregationist academies). This is not a slur. It’s just history. Feel free to listen to the rest of his talk for clarity on the historicity of that claim or to the Holy Post’s explanation of Evangelicalism. Both address this origin. ↩︎
  5. I completed writing most of this before the election (November 2024). Personal circumstances blocked me from publishing this until several months after the election. ↩︎
  6. I say “replace” rather than “revive” because I think the word “Evangelicalism” is damaged beyond repair. Even if the movement contained all the same people, in a revived state, using a different word seems wise and necessary to me. ↩︎

Not Fundamentalist Anymore

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When I was a kiddo I heard my Mom talk about being a 1fundamentalist. This was clearly a good thing. Doesn’t everyone want to get the fundamentals right? As I grew, I also grew uneasy. I could see the other big people around me were using “fundamentalist” negatively, pejoratively. I didn’t know why. And when I became an adult, I realized “fundamentalism” was a nearly 100%-bad thing. How did something which was clearly a good thing become nearly 100% bad? 

It seems to me this is a language problem. Language evolves. Or, really, our thinking evolves and language sometimes does not keep up. 

Anyway, both uses of the term are legit. However, it wasn’t until I heard Skye Jethani say the following that things really clicked: “fundamentalism” (in the way he uses the term) is believing that your highest goal is to maintain the purity of core truths. 

So “fundamentalism” can mean several things. It surely starts out as meaning “1” below and sometimes becomes meaning “2”:

  1. I am committed to core truths.
  2. The most important thing I can do is maintain the purity of core truths. 

Definition one is positive. Who would argue with being committed to core truths? Everyone should do this in every setting.

Definition two contains the hint of a problem. And it is surely an offshoot of definition one! So it begins well. But it does not usually end well. I take definition two and expand it below. (This is all just my opinion. But I hope you find it enjoyable and helpful. It has certainly helped me to process all of this.)

Diving Into Definition Two

“The most important thing I can do” is the key part of this phrase. Surely people agree that maintaining core truths is important. But, is it always the most important thing a person can do? The only way for this to always be the most important thing is if the people who made the list of core truths never made mistakes. That seems unlikely. The reason there’s a “backspace” button on my keyboard is that people make mistakes all the time. (I literally just backspaced.) It seems to me that the major problem with definition two is that it does not make room for human fallibility. To be a bit mean about it, it lacks humility.   

Second, and possibly the most important, “maintain” puts the adherent in the position of defense which is a combat position. This requires that this person’s focus becomes all that is bad, wrong, and untrue. If a person is to keep something pure, that person must be on the lookout for all that is impure! And fight it! Thus this position likely creates a dark, negative, even fearful mindset. This contributes to the “us vs them” mindset of fundamentalists which is their most salient characteristic and, in my mind, the most damaging result of the paradigm.

Third, “purity” is an expression of perfection and the way we usually think of “perfection” is as something static. This results in an unchangeable set of core truths for all time. And while that may be perfectly reasonable for “core truths” the problem is that what is “core” and what is not “core” is not always clear, can be different from person to person, and can change over time. The real problem occurs when “core truths” are expanded to include all sorts of peripheral truths and so now practically everything is unchangeable, producing a rigid, fragile, and urgent culture. Two other thoughts that I think are relevant are 1) “perfect” and “human” don’t usually go together and 2) you should not make the perfect the enemy of the good, i.e. the pursuit of perfection often results in the destruction of not just the desired perfect result but also all good possible results; you are left only with disaster. 

And fourth, fundamentalism inadvertently encourages reductionist, overly-simplistic thinking because how can you defend great complexity? The cosmos must be reduced and made formulaic so we can defend it and maintain its purity. 

Application of Definition Two

Within the context of American Protestant conservative Christianity, I use “fundamentalist” in the “definition two” sense for the rest of this essay. In fundamentalism’s attempt to maintain the purity of its set of core truths, this often means it teaches most of the following: 

  1. Truth can be statically contained in words and even systematized.
  2. The Bible is in all ways 100% reliable, and the Bible should be interpreted literally as much as possible.
  3. There is only one correct way to interpret the first few chapters of Genesis.
  4. Women can not lead over men in church.
  5. The United States of America has a special place in “God’s plan”.
  6. The contemporary state of Israel is God’s chosen people whom we should treat with deference.
  7. The world is out to get you so keep yourself as pure and unstained from them as possible and, if you really want to help the world, fight culture wars (also, fight all the non-fundamentalists).

Comparison/Responses to the Seven Positions Listed Above

  1. Philosophy of Theology and Knowledge
    1. Two Views of Theology
  2. Inerrancy of the Bible
    1. Response
  3. Origins of the Universe
    1. Origins Today: Genesis through Ancient Eyes with John Walton
    2. The Bible For Normal People, Episode 17: Denis Lamoureux – The Bible, Evolution, & Christian Faith
  4. Women in Church Leadership
    1. Women in Ministry: A Biblical Basis for Equal Partnership
  5. Christian Nationalism
    1. Statement from Christians Against Christian Nationalism
    2. Thoughts On “The Light and The Glory”
  6. Christian Zionism
    1. What is Christian Zionism?
    2. What are our problems with Christian Zionism?
    3. Munther Isaac: Christian Zionism as Imperial Theology
    4. The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, it’s Theological Basis and Political Agenda
  7. View of Culture: Us vs Them
    1. If You’re Fighting the Culture War, You’re Losing
    2. The Voting Booth

The resources I link to are not necessarily the best (although they’re very good) but instead are simply ones I’ve found and appreciated in my journey. (I will likely amend these resources over time. If you’ve got one, send it my way!)

Explanation of Order of Items

The order of the above list is mostly conceptual. A particular position on number one – a static view of theology – leads directly to number two. And number two leads to numbers three and four. 

The rest do not necessarily flow from number one. But the rigidity that number one creates reinforces the rigidity and militancy with which many hold numbers five, six, and seven.

Primacy of Number Seven

While conceptually number one is the most important – i.e. most things flow from it – most of us are not even aware of these ideas let alone the domino effect from one idea to the next. So, for those operating more at a cultural level and less at the level of intellectual investigation, number seven is the most important. Many conservative Protestants hold to many ideas within numbers one through six, but they do not hold to seven. Item seven most strongly marks an individual or group as fundamentalist. It is combat mentality, which is often paired with doomsday thinking. 

Conclusion

I really love the “definition one” sense of “fundamentalism”, which is positive and all people would agree with. I mean, it’s so simple it’s practically a tautology. But language is not under my control and the vast majority of people use “fundamentalism” in a pejorative way, so I must use it that way too. Since I’ve never heard anyone be as precise as Skye Jethani in defining a pejorative use of this term, I’m going with his use, i.e. I’m going with “definition two” above. 

Using “definition two”, I imagine it’s obvious that I choose to keep human fallibility ever before my eyes, don’t ever want to occupy a combat position towards my fellow human beings – I choose to pursue peace, and I don’t want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Last, due to the fact that I’m a blasted intellectual, I usually do not fall into the ditch of over-simplifying; instead, my likely mistake is over-complicating matters or forgetting to take breaks as I try to process something very complicated. So, on this one count, I make for a pretty bad fundamentalist, and I feel good about that.  

Regarding the seven topics which I chose to highlight as fundamentalist, I truly support all those (and myself!) who, in good faith, pursue persuasions which are opposite from our own in order to test our own persuasions and increase the chance of getting closer to the truth and closer to health. 

Footnotes

  1. This is within the realm of American Protestant Christianity and culture. Obviously you could be a fundamentalist about knitting or being a political conservative/liberal or anything else. Maybe I  should do a knitting post after this… But it’s worth noting that “fundamentalism” is most frequently used within religion and that, according to what I read online, its most well-known expression (perhaps even the place it originates from) is, well, this one: American Protestant Christianity. ↩︎

Why I am Not Evangelical and What I am Instead

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Evangelical is a bad word in American society right now. People associate it with Trump. And people associate immorality, corruption, and abuse with Trump. 

Not too long ago, I remember a young American woman sitting at my table, at a resort on a tropical island, sharing with us what she knew about “evangelics”. After a while, I realized she meant “Evangelicals”. She had read in the news about an “evanglic” pastor who had millions of dollars; presumably he obtained these funds immorally. 

More recently, a 30-year male who I went on a date with shared with me his understanding of an Evangelical: it was purely political. He had zero theological, religious, or spiritual connotation for the term. He also shared with me that he hated the Republican Party and the Democratic Party equally. So, I imagine he had significant distaste for Evangelicals. 

Probably the best description I’ve found of “Evangelical” is this 30-minute entertaining and dense info-video produced by the Holy Post. 

So, “Evangelical” means different things to different people, as it should, because there is no governing body for this movement. It is more grass roots. This makes conversing about such an amorphous reality challenging. I once heard Skye Jethani say, when you attempt to understand a group of people, keep in mind that implied beliefs carry more weight than stated beliefs. Which is great! Because this movement has no stated beliefs! At least no stated beliefs stored in a central location that spiritual communities adhere to. The closest thing is Bebbington’s Quadrilateral (with an enjoyable rejoinder here). 

But implied beliefs are not much better than non-existent stated beliefs to help us understand a group of people. This is because, by definition, implied beliefs are never written down. Instead, they are in the air. They are in the water people “swim in”. It’s like looking through a window to see the tree. You never notice the window, although it may color your view and it will both frame and limit your view. So who is qualified to do the inherently difficult and imprecise work of finding out what is “in the air”? 

I think I am, as would anyone with my experience. For the first ~35 years of my life, I often attended (Evangelical) church more than once per week, but always at least once a week. And I attended an Evangelical college. My beloved Grandpa was a Grace Brethren (Evangelical) church planter and lover of Jesus (and all humans he met!). And never in a million years would I have imagined I would write something like this; I was among the most dedicated. Worth noting is that this ~35 years included my formative years. So there is a sense in which I will always be Evangelical because no one can fully escape the culture of their formative years. A residue remains, for better or for worse. 

So I will present implied beliefs of Evangelicalism, based on my experience, which I no longer find justified in order to explain why it would be completely inaccurate to call me an Evangelical now. Perhaps if we both tried to define Evangelicalism by listing implied beliefs, my list would not match yours, but at least you’ll know exactly what I am referring to when I say “I’m not an Evangelical”.  

But, why now? I am writing this now due to a confluence of three factors 1) Mr. Trump was recently elected a second time to our highest office 2) I understand Mr. Trump’s political reality to be a great stain on American history, and both a threat to American democracy and to the stability of the world, and 3) there would be no President Trump without Evangelicals. I think they form the largest cohesive voting block in the country, and their support of him has amazingly and alarmingly waned only slightly. To slightly oversimplify and yet speak accurately, Evanglicals gave us Mr. Trump. 

And yet, even with the above disaster, it is for primarily theological reasons that I am not Evangelical. The political reasons were secondary to me and remain secondary to me. But I include this brief aside so you know the fuller context for my thinking, and so we both do not forget an important new reality: Evangelicalism is no longer purely a spiritual movement, it is also and/or primarily a political movement.

But, back to how it used to be, when this movement was primarily spiritual. 

Here are the implied beliefs of Evangelicalism which are now wholly unpersuasive to me. 

1. Our sacred text, the Bible, is easy to interpret

My Grandpa used to say “God said it! I believe it!”. This well-known phrase, within the conservative/Evangelical end of the Protestant spectrum, both expresses faithfulness and implies that knowing what God said through the sacred text is relatively straightforward. 

In fact, not only is the sacred text easy to interpret, but everyone knows there’s only one legitimate way to interpret the sacred text and we, Evangelicals, know what that way is. Further, because the sacred text is easy to interpret, we also kinda know that everyone who doesn’t interpret it the way we do is sinful and rebellious; they just want to make the sacred text mean whatever they want (cue some evil music). The best example of this? Liberal Christians. 

I do not believe this. I am not sure I ever believed it, but I certainly felt pressure to be clear about my understanding of the sacred text (which in turn implies that that is possible) and, because I was never significantly exposed to alternate views on the sacred text in a good-faith way, I had no way of knowing that the sacred text is actually very hard to interpret. 

If you are only given one side of an issue, of course you think the issue is obvious!

My current understanding would more match the Eastern Orthodox, the Catholic Church, and those awful no-good “worst-group-ever!” Liberal Christians. All three of those groups view the sacred text as hard to interpret. In fact, the first group has a term for this: perspicuity (just a fancy word for “clarity”). The sacred text lacks “perspicuity”. The first two groups partially solve this problem by creating an official body which interprets the sacred text to everyone else. The last group enables people to authentically explore and ask questions and also values orthopraxy over orthodoxy (so, your exact interpretation doesn’t matter that much) which leads directly to my next point. 

2. Orthodoxy is more important than orthopraxy

Orthodoxy means “right beliefs”. Orthopraxy means “right living”.

That orthodoxy is more important than orthopraxy is absolutely undoubted and central. And it’s held with great urgency. No good Evangelical would say “well, understanding the Bible doesn’t matter as much as living like Jesus”. And, yet, that’s exactly what I believe. So, this is another reason why I don’t qualify anymore as an Evangelical. 

A prime example of Evangelicals’ emphasis on Orthodoxy is their statements of belief. Each church has one. They are frequently detailed, very specific, and sometimes long. And, most importantly, it’s how you know you’re a good Christian: getting all those beliefs and details right. Right living – caring for the poor, the oppressed, the widow, and helping to reform society – is secondary. 

Arguing about said beliefs is a natural outflow of this emphasis on ideology. Interestingly, because I am so intellectual, it took me decades to realize this emphasis on Orthodoxy was out of whack. Arguing is one of the things I do best! And that made me a good Christian! Or, at least it made me a good Evangelical Christian. (And, keep in mind, we knew all the other Christians were doing it wrong, so there was no chance I could be rescued from our poor thinking because, well, we had to stay away from bad Christians and their bad theology.) 

3. The sacred text is inerrant

This one is practically the litmus test of whether you are Evangelical, or more broadly conservative. No one knows exactly what inerrancy means (except for a few eggheads in an academic institution, and they don’t even agree with each other), but everyone has to say this. You have to say these exact words. (Well, maybe “infallibity” too – no one really knows the difference). I spent a year and a half studying this issue and wrote a carefully-researched 27-page paper explaining why the idea of inerrancy is well intentioned, deeply flawed, and damaging.  

So, yeah, I ain’t no Evangelical. 

4. The sacred text is primary and acts as a trump card

This is an awfully complicated topic. But it’s one of my favorites. It’s what I refer to as the “epistemology of theology”. Epistemology simply asks “how do we know what we know?”. And “theology” is sometimes called “God talk” or if you prefer “talking about God”. 

So, how can a creature bound by space and time talk with any authority or credibility on God, assuming God exists? Yeah, that’s way too broad of a topic. Not sure why I brought that up. Let’s move onto the next topic. Assuming that a finite creature can credibly speak about God, on what basis would that creature do so?

Protestant Christianity historically says “sola scriptura”, which actually does not mean “Scripture alone” but instead means “Scripture primarily”. Catholic Christianity says: tradition (i.e. oral tradition) + church + Scripture, with the Church acting as the trump card. One branch of Christian Protestantism has more recently said Scripture + church + experience + reason, with no trump card at all. This is the famous Wesleyan Quadrilateral. There are other formulations. Alarmingly, only the Eastern Orthodox tradition includes the Spirit of God.

I call these “the pillars of decision making”. How many pillars a tradition has and which pillars trump others, if any do at all, is what distinguishes more than anything else these traditions from each other.  

Evangelicals are “sola scriptura” people which, in my experience usually means “Scripture alone” (which is historically incorrect), which plays out as “whatever the leaders of my movement say is the correct interpretation of the sacred text”. I first began to feel how severe and unusual the Evangelical persuasion was when I ran into some Christians on the internet. They described the Evangelical/conservative view as making the sacred text into “the fourth member of the trinity”. More recently a variant I’ve heard is that Evangelicals believe in Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures (i.e. the Holy Spirit has been deleted). In either case, we get the point: the emphasis on the sacred text is so high as to redefine God himself, which is blasphemy.

For me, there are five pillars and there is no trump card: Scriptures + church + experience + reason + the Spirit. Given I am persuaded to have 5 pillars, and persuaded that one no pillar is greater than the other, this means I am not Evangelical.    

(Note: “church” includes “tradition”, i.e. wisdom passed down.)

5. Not only is certainty about ultimate reality possible but it is required

This is a deeply complex topic with unending importance. And this gets into psychology. I mean what doesn’t get into psychology? But, this topic noticeably does more than others.

In my head, there’s a spectrum with certainty on the right and mystery on the left, and of course a whole healthy gradation in the middle. The Evangelical movement, surely with other spiritual communities, is on the certainty-end of the spectrum. For Evangelicals, not only is certainty possible but it is required! It is a sign of faith that you are certain! It is proof of your dedication and commitment that you are certain. (Note: this is certainty about ultimate reality only. Obviously being certain about day-to-day reality is healthy and good. This section is not about day-to-day reality.)

I have only one question about this: how can someone be certain about ultimate reality? On this question, I was born on the left end of this spectrum. I don’t know how not to ask questions. And I’m perfectly happy to ask them about the most foundational things: God, reality, the nature of knowledge, morality, Jesus, religion and philosophy. Absolutely nothing is off limits. I start hyperventilating inside if someone tells me to stop asking questions. The long and short of it is if you ask enough questions in the Evangelical/conservative world, many important ideas fall apart. (Inerrancy is one. The Scriptures being easy to interpret is another. Reference this article for more.) I was saved by the Catholic church. That movement embraces mystery and has a love for mystery. I remember reading about one Catholic idea called “the hiddenness of God”. You know what no Evangelical would even be able to comfortably admit: that God might sometimes be hidden. That’s because we’re all too busy being certain! Or at least being told* that you must be certain. (*Perhaps not directly, but indirectly – again, these are implied beliefs). 

Large amounts of certainty means there is no room for mystery. Is it not unfaithful to be unsure? 

Interestingly, many people of faith believe the opposite. For many, doubt is an integral part of the faith journey! But not so in Evangelical-land. Certainty is almost the greatest virtue.

It was the push for certainty that nearly killed me. Literally. I’ll write about that another time. 

Many have written about the problems of pushing for certainty. I’ve read The Myth of Certainty, and many recommend The Sin of Certainty. I couldn’t possibly recommend Lesslie Newbigin’s book Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship enough. This also makes me think of Ann Lamott’s statement: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” And finally it makes me think of Paul Tillich’s comment: “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith”.

For me, faith very recently has been redefined (yet again). It is now “risk with a direction” (source) but I feel sure that a previous version of me would have defined faith as “certainty with a direction” because that’s what Evangelicalism told me. These things are opposites. One must be false.

A tremendous resource which traces the development of and interrelationships between certainty, inerrancy, foundationalism, and the Enlightenment (among other things) is this four-part podcast series titled “The Making of the Modern Mindset”: Part 1, Part 2 (episode starts at 10:47), Part 3, Part 4.

Certainty unfortunately also frequently involves staticness, meaning, things never change! Do NOT move a muscle! Which leads us directly to the next topic.

6. Belief is static and does not exist on a spectrum

This is a truly fascinating belief. And as I’ve already implied it is best friends with certainty. If you’re certain, there can be no change, right? To change something certain and/or inerrant is to choose something uncertain or wrong, and who would ever want that?

As a child, I heard the big people around me talk about “belief” a lot. A lot lot lot. But, over time, I realized no one was taking the time to define “belief”. And it wasn’t until I was well into my adulthood that I realized all of us were assuming that belief was static when, I saw, it must be dynamic. 

This vaguely makes me think of newer parts of the sacred text which says “the Spirit will lead you into all truth”. It doesn’t say only once, and it doesn’t say “all truth for all time”. I get the feeling that this is instead progressive, continuous, ongoing. And this definitely makes me think of a powerful phrase coming out of the Protestant Reformation: they wanted to be “reformed and always reforming”. I am guessing we lost the second part of that phrase a long time ago and rather quickly. This reminds me of what the historian Hannah Arendt says: “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution”.

During what will hopefully be the only time in my life when I experience a church split (which was largely over inerrancy), I realized the two groups broke neatly across one line. One group would happily and unhesitatingly say “my theology is in flux” while the other group would never utter such words. And which group would never say their theology was in flux? The inerrantists. Those whose faith has been shaped by the requirement for certainty. 

It’s a fundamentally different mindset. I realized during this time that the faith I had been given in my childhood felt static because, well, it was; we were not invited to change anything or to engage in a meaningful way. Instead, because all truth related to ultimate reality and related to becoming right with God had already been determined in a certain way and from an inerrant sacred text, to budge any muscle was to “do it wrong”. This meant that our job was to be parrots; the authorities tell us the truth, and we parrot it back. And unfortunately that results in a lack of love and life. How can you love something which is lifelessly inflexible and invites no engagement, and more than that, directly repels engagement?

What this belief in the static nature of belief results in, among many things, is a denial of the ebbs and flows of life and of being human. There are days where I more believe in God and days where I less believe. No one in the Evangelical world could say that without getting pulled into the pastor’s office “for help”. But are we really to parrot beliefs? Must we be silent about our internal worlds which are largely outside of our control, which are organic, which grow and change over time? A person can not “flip a switch” and suddenly believe everything in the Nicene creed. That is nonsense! And yet that is what Evangelicalism effectively demands. Because belief is static. Belief is a 0 or a 1 (i.e. binary). You believe or you don’t. But, that’s nonsense. Belief exists on a spectrum. Wouldn’t it make a whole lot of sense for an authentically honest person to wake up one day and say “I’m not so sure about this resurrection business”? And yet, for sure!, you won’t hear anyone say that in Evangelical/conservative land. It’s not allowed. Believe or go to hell. 

I am grateful to have realized belief does exist on a spectrum and to realize that God’s primary characteristic in the sacred text is mercy. His most embodied characteristic is empathy. How could there be greater empathy than to become the creature you made? I know that if the Christian story is true that this God is not only good but they have mercy and empathy and love for my journey, patience as I become, and even delight in me. 

7. Emotion is the enemy

A friend of mine, also raised in the Evangelical world, once shared that he was told “emotion is the enemy”. I experienced the same thing. I was told that the sacred text was true and that it didn’t matter what I felt. From our inerrant sacred text we got inerrant theology (surely!) and, well, you know what would mess that up? Your feelings. 

It wasn’t until I read Rachel Held Evans’ thoughts on this that my thoughts became crystal clear. Out of her Evangelical upbringing and the pain it brought, she realized she was being told to disintegrate herself. Only your intellect and will are welcome when you theologize. Emotions? Leave them at home. They are not reliable. They are not true. (And doesn’t this all sound like thinking coming straight out of the Enlightenment, a period which gave us good things but also bad, as all periods do? Again, the four-part series I linked to above on how reason/rationalism has affected particularly the Fundamentalist Evangelical church is brilliant.) 

The fact is we live out of our emotions far more than our intellect. So Evangelicalism has constructed a false world for themselves, one very disconnected from reality. 

I am certain that God wants all of me, not part of me. And they want me, doubts, questions, uncertainty, emotions, lament and all! God wants me authentically. And I authentically want this God back. 

I am becoming. All people are becoming. This “continuous-change” factor is what modernity/rationalism is too overly-simplistic to handle. My theology should change because I am learning. And, given that emotion is “a signal of something important” then you bet I better bring my emotions to the table. I bring all of me to God and to this world. And it feels better that way. 

8. Defend the Fortress!

Items 1-7 contribute to what I call “fortress mentality”. This is the belief that, when I “got saved”, I entered a fortress and now I must defend it. There is a specific and precarious stack of ideas which we call “our theology”; it is reflected in the church’s statement of faith and even more than that in the implied beliefs. This structure, or fortress, about which we are certain, must be defended. And, guess what you’re largely not doing if you’re defending? Questioning or engaging deeply. 

“Journey mentality” is the opposite. There is no fortress to defend. We are not certain of everything, or sometimes even of that much. God is merciful, so seasons of conviction are expected to ebb and flow and seasons of growth often require digging up old understandings and replacing them with new. Belief is not static; and it does exist on a spectrum. Change is expected and even desired. The Spirit moves. And we move with the Spirit. 

I left the fortress a long time ago, primarily because it crumbled around me – there was no fortress left – I’ll write about that another time – and have become a pilgrim on a journey, somewhat scared, somewhat excited. 

9. Hell is a central part of the good news

This gets back to the reality that my Evangelical upbringing did not expose us to alternate interpretations of the sacred text in a good faith way. What am I saying? I had no idea until I was in my late 30s that the idea of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT) hell actually has no explicit support in our sacred text. When I found out, I felt misled! Lied to! Important information was withheld. Or, maybe, no one knew? Could an entire movement deceive itself so badly out of bias? (The answer to that is “yes”. Any and all movements can do this to themselves. It’s hard being human. Fascinatingly, I believe the Catholic Church also holds to ECT hell, so I think it’s entirely possible that part of the Protestant movement is more Catholic than it realizes.) It was a set of devotionals that exposed me to a more-supported view. I must say, there are few things I am more grateful for than this gentle, carefully-reasoned, and thorough set of devotionals.

Not only do I no longer find ECT hell a likelihood, but the Good News has changed. For the first time in my life, the good news is actually good! Because, let’s be clear, it’s not good news to tell someone “God loves you, and if you don’t love him back you’re going to hell for all eternity”. I literally laughed out loud one day in my kitchen when I realized the ludicrousness of this. Yet, it is this massive and, I would say damaging, cognitive dissonance that Evangelicals live and breathe every day (and never talk about!) that I do not anymore! I am free. Praise God! The good news is actually good! 

In the devotional above, Skye Jethani points out that in the most Evangelical book of the Bible, the book of Acts, hell is never mentioned. Not once. Instead, evangelizers speak of heaven and earth being joined together. This is the good news! Heaven, the domain of God, being joined to earth, the domain of men. Not only did God start to be a little bit loveable to me, but the entirety of the world gained a brighter hugh! Colors were more vivid. Life was better. And, again, the good news was, for the first time ever, good news. 

10. Emphasize push over pull

It wasn’t until I experienced other traditions that I felt this difference. In the Evangelical/conservative world, you believe because you should. It’s duty. Good people are Christians. Bad people are not. It is literally the right thing to do. But what if you actually do not believe? Doesn’t matter. It is the right thing to do. Thus participating in this tradition is frequently the result of being “pushed” in.

What does “pull” look like? I am still learning. But, I am moved by this passage from Desiring the Kingdom. In this book, philosopher and theologian James K. A. Smith says: 

“Our ultimate love moves and motivates us because we are lured by this picture of human flourishing. Rather than being pushed by beliefs, we are pulled by a telos that we desire. It’s not so much that we’re intellectually convinced and then muster the willpower to pursue what we ought; rather, at a precognitive level, we are attracted to a vision of the good life that has been painted for us in stories and myths, images and icons. It is not primarily our minds that are captivated, but rather our imaginations that are captured, and when our imaginations are hooked, we’re hooked (and sometimes our imaginations can be hooked by very different visions than what we’re feeding into our minds).” 

An ongoing and old political question asks, what is a greater motivator: fear or love? For long-term motivation and for true buy-in (i.e. deeper motivation), it is love. And Jesus acted in gentleness and love. I am not Evangelical in the sense that I am fully convinced the good news should be presented in a “pull” manner, not a “push” manner.

11. Emphasize triumph over lament

The Evangelicalism I experienced was American Evangelicalism. And that is a different beast than what exists in most other countries. (Example: in most other countries “Evangelical” means nothing more than “Protestant”, i.e. “not Catholic”.) And what else is wholly unique to America? We are the undoubted world’s superpower. 

“Superpower” is a term only somewhat-recently coined by historians. It required that a power existed that was so far beyond any other power on earth that, well, there’s really only one game in town. The first country to qualify for this was the United Kingdom, back when it was Earth’s largest empire. Since WWII, the United States has taken over that mantle. (There’s a fascinating history here which I’m stopping myself from sharing. I’m also stopping myself from making a tennis analogy involving Roger Federer.)

All this to say that any people-group with this kind of power and security, and even glory, is going to have a very unique psychological state. While I’m no psychologist and while I haven’t conducted research to allow me to conclude as I’m about to, I think a simple thought experiment will be convincing to both of us. What do all people want? Security. (And certainty! Certainty is a form of security.) Power. (Because power is a way to get that security.) And what else might all people want? Happiness. Undoubtedly. Do we need to conduct research to know this? No. So, we are biased towards happiness and away from sadness, and security and certainty and power act as drugs for us. We love them; they intoxicate us. Guess what being the world’s superpower gets you? The last three things I listed. And guess what we are powerfully biased towards? Happiness! 

Out of this psychological mix, I believe the American Evangelical community has come to emphasize triumph over lament. No one wants to lament. Isn’t it just more fun to pretend there are no problems? Doesn’t a perfect (i.e. inerrant) text call for a perfect people? Doesn’t a perfect God desire a perfect people? So, we pretend to be perfect and happy. We wallow in our triumph, no matter how forced and farcical it is. “God’s got it.” “It will all work out.” “God has a plan for your life, for good.”

My life hurts like hell. For the most part, I would wish it on no one. I have suffered. And I continue to suffer. Where is there a home and healing for me in Evangelical land? There is none. Because, generally speaking, Evangalicals don’t lament. 

I have learned to lament. Our sacred text is full of lament. And it brings healing. And other traditions have brought me healing by embracing lament and suffering. (One of which was also technically Evangelical but it was the weirdest Evangelical church I ever attended because it was also Anglican, liturgical, and charismatic. I will forever be grateful to this church for its health in this one way, an embrace of lament.) 

So this is the final way in which I am not Evangelical: lament and openness about my suffering is a central and public part of my life and faith. 

Can’t you say anything good at all about Evangelicalism?

Yes, I most certainly can and it would be my delight. I feel the need to highlight why I have not so far. The purpose of this piece is to explain why I am not an Evangelical (and what I am instead). My purpose is not to provide a comprehensive view of Evangelicalism; I am not trying to portray all the goods and all the bads of Evangelicalism. Instead I am only trying to list its implied beliefs which are no longer persuasive to me, so I can share why I no longer identify as part of this group. 

So, what is beautiful about this group?

Fervor is the number one thing I associate with this movement. People care so much! People care so badly! This is dedication. This is commitment. And that is loved in any movement! I see emotional integrity! I honor this in the Evangelical movement.

In turn, that’s why I think of this movement as the Peter of contemporary Christian traditions: loud (it is the largest voting block in the country!), well-intentioned, and not always so wise. But certainly loveable. We know Peter’s heart. It is good.  

One of my dear friends who was raised in Evangelicalism pointed out to me that items 5 (certainty) and 10 (push vs pull) were not always as I described. He is right. In defense of the spiritual communities who identify as Evangelical and who support growth and doubt and who present the Good News in a “pull” way, yes, I also experienced this on rare occasions. Exceptions to a rule almost always exist and should be called out! 

Last, what I love most about this tradition is its love for the sacred text. While I recognize that that love may be partially unjustly founded (by believing that each word of the sacred text came directly from the “mouth” of God), this love is a model for all other traditions. Again, this is Peter-like! So much passion!

I am certain that if the Christian story is true, God loves all his children.  

What I am Instead

I am on a journey. And where that goes, I don’t know in detail. I do know the direction: I am mimicking Jesus. That’s what a Christian is, right? A little Christ? A little Jesus. 

The sacred text is hard to interpret. Its origins are unclear. God is mysterious. Deeply, deeply mysterious. We aren’t given one picture of him/them. We are given many, and they contradict sometimes. Put more simply: both the sacred text and God are mysterious. I feel God’s goodness in the sense that I’ve been invited to explore, ask questions, and be unendingly authentic. If that involves me leaving the faith, then that is good. That is how free I am. While freedom is one of the most terrifying things, it’s also one of the most loving and beautiful. I know at my current church if I were to walk in a Buddhist tomorrow they wouldn’t blink an eye and they would love me just as much. That’s how God loves me. I am free. I am growing. I am becoming. My own perspective and development matter. And I am safe. No one is tortured for all eternity in hell. The sacred text is significantly human and that is good. I don’t need certainty which is awesome ‘cause certainty ain’t possible! I can contribute to theology because it is actually changing and it should change; this thing is alive! And most cosmic-level truth lives in poetry, not prose, anyway. I hope my life is a poem reflecting the gentle, self-sacrificial, power-rejecting, and beautiful Jesus.

Eternally Young and Energetic

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That’s a description I just heard of God. And it blew my mind. God is old. Possibly somewhat decrepit. Ok, all powerful. But at bare minimum, He’s old, right?

I have never in my LIFE heard anyone describe God as young, let alone eternally young.

The ramifications are many. Endless, like God?

Source: http://pray-as-you-go.org/home/ (listen to Wed, Dec. 9)

Text: Isaiah 40:25-31

Goodness and Pain

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What does it mean for God to be good and for excruciating and endless pain to exist? Should I change my view of pain? Should I change my view of good? Or, last but not least, I could change my view of God.

Good = desiring the health of the other.
Pain = not health.
God = good?

I recognize complexity plays a role. So when I talk about “the other” I am talking about 7 billion + humans. They can be  thought of individually or collectively. Both creates new problems.

Had my quiet time this morning, audio version, and the speaker encouraged the listener to rest in God’s goodness. Rest isn’t possible in the middle of pain. Pain forces the sufferer to do everything within its power to remove the pain – i.e. it forces action.

But what to do, what to believe, when nothing removes the pain?

Ethics, Bonhoeffer, and Bifurcation

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I’ve always found ethics to be the least interesting part of philosophy. Metaphysics – seems to be pretty foundational so it’s eternally interesting. Epistemology – how you know what you know – you just don’t get more foundational than that, so again, inherently interesting. (If something foundational changes, your entire world changes. Hence, the interesting bit.) But ethics. Ethics? I’m bored to tears. Maybe I’m just not very moral.

But real quick, let me define terms. I use “ethics” and “morality” interchangeably and the meaning is “a standard of behavior”. Now it gets interesting. Before recently, my view of these concepts was very fuzzy since no one around me ever seemed to take the time to define them, and I apparently didn’t either.

So what is my standard of behavior? My behavior has always been determined by what I feel at the moment (digestion/whimsy/a stream of consciousness which I can’t fully divine), fear (social repercussion, physical repercussion, or really repercussion of any sort), pleasure (does this need defined?), and my faith (Christian). And, until recently, I never paid a speck of attention to my own morality. I have simplistically thought of it as something shared by all humans, at a base level. Thanks C.S. Lewis. And I have been satisfied to allow many of my behaviors to be driven by my faith. After all, most faith systems are all-encompassing and all-demanding. The Christian faith certainly is. So, I’ve felt right before God by following the injunctions of the Bible and, to some extent, of Christian tradition. Beyond that my need to please my parents and other important folk of my life has been entirely motivating. My need for people to like me is probably equally motivating. And last, sometimes that second half the of the Nutella jar is simply shrieking my name through the closet door. That’s always a voice I can hear. And heed.

Bonhoeffer is a book I’ve been reading, and he has been challenging my thought. It’s been perfect taking an Ethics class at the same time as reading this. Bonhoeffer was a German scholar/pastor, born into the highest and most powerful level of society, during the rise and dominance of Hitler. He ultimately chose to actively try to kill Hitler, by joining a movement which nearly succeeded. Right before the war ended, he was killed by the Nazis for this choice. Bonhoeffer wrote a work entitled “Ethics” and he is nearly painfully thought out, superbly German and demanding, like Kant, so when he both writes “Ethics” and chooses to try to kill his own head of state, you have to take this seriously.  Bonhoeffer is very good at making controversial statements. In fact, he states at least once, that he does this intentionally. Sometimes I find it too much and ridiculous. But here is one quote I will end on.

“Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand-from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: ‘How can I be good?’ and ‘How can I do something good?’ Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: ‘What is the will of God?”

I hope to read “Ethics”, or at least a summary. In the meantime, I have been very piqued/disturbed by Bonhoeffer’s bifurcation between God and good. Not the newest problem in the world, but it’s not one I’m convinced I can accept. Does this not facilitate extreme/dangerous and completely unpredictable religious behavior?

A Burden of Beauty

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A burden of beauty. This phrase came to me while being overwhelmed at a friend’s dedication to Jesus Christ, and more largely at God’s supreme dedication to man. I sometimes hate reading/knowing these things because they are so costly emotionally. I feel the deepest part of myself being invaded, but is it not also beautiful? I’ll be more specific. When I see my sweet friend speak freely, lovingly, truthfully, and out of true and natural conviction about the best thing in life (God’s love for man), I am forced to look at this blinding beauty. Why does God love me? Why does God love anyone? Why God? A universe without Him is a bit easier, but also unbearably meaningless. So, when someone who commands my respect speaks of the paragon of what it means to be human – to know the source of life, God Himself – my heart is invariably pointed in that direction, my face is pointed towards the sun. And God is not easy. He is demanding. He is perfect. He is partially unknown and thus invariably scary. I prefer to think about cleaning out a vase I just emptied, doing the dishes, warming up the pot roast for dinner, cleaning out my email inbox, reading some Sherlock Holmes, and going to bed. Anything other than God Himself. I guess He wears me out sometimes. A silly thing given that Jesus wanted the “little children to come unto him” and drives His point home by saying that we can only know Him if we can be a child. Well, I can do that! I excel at needing guidance, at requiring another nap (or break), at having 10,000 questions and not always knowing the full ramifications of my own questions or even retaining the ability/energy to wait for the answer. My mother tells me we are all children. Whether or not we know it. I suppose in the Christian ideal, you simply know, and this creates humility.

The Weight of Glory. This is the title of one of C.S. Lewis’ books, and it’s another way of saying what I was saying: a burden of beauty, something which is both “exactly what we would want” but also costly. Why do the best things in life have to be costly?