Tag: Christianity

There’s an Elephant in My Church

by Innermost Being, posted in Man of Lawlessness

When there is an obvious problem that people avoid discussing, you might say that there is an elephant in the room. Everyone can see the elephant. They should know the elephant doesn’t belong in the room. But to acknowledge that there is, in fact, an elephant in the room would make too many people uncomfortable, so everyone pretends it’s not there.

There’s an elephant in my church. It’s in the Sanctuary where we congregate to worship and hear a sermon. It’s in the fellowship hall where people gather to visit. It is even in the classrooms where small groups meet for book studies.

The elephant was also at the church I attended in Colorado. I remember looking around me in 2016 when it first appeared. I wondered, How did it get in here? Where did it come from? I hoped I wouldn’t see an elephant at my new church, too, but the odds were not in my favor.

What is the elephant in my church? The elephant is Christian support for Donald Trump. Why is that a problem? Because Trump is the antithesis of the Christ Christians claim to follow. You can’t serve two masters. As Jesus saud, you will be devoted to one and despise the other.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:24

We don’t talk about the elephant in my church. Once in a while, someone acknowledges that the country is divided politically, but they don’t say why. No one ever mentions the fact that a significant portion of the congregation is okay with treating immigrants inhumanely and with cutting off aid to the sick and the poor. It doesn’t bother them that the leader they chose is morally bankrupt. His self-aggrandizement, his hatred of immigrants and political opponents (really anyone who is not devoted to him), show that he completely disregards God’s greatest commandment.

Even though we don’t talk about the elephant, I know it’s there. Someone wore a MAGA hat to church during the COVID epidemic. One of the elders wears his MAGA hat outside church. The red hat demonstrates devotion to Trump and his antichrist policies.

Another person devoted to Trump, a Christian nationalist, is a member of my Bible study group.

When I told a church friend that my husband won’t go to church because of the current political environment (my way of addressing the issue without directly mentioning the elephant), she told me, “Oh. I’m in seventh heaven.”

Many people are trying to understand how the elephant got into Evangelical churches. I believe that the elephant made its way into the church through the powerful influence of the media and false prophets. It didn’t appear overnight. These influencers have convinced the masses that God needs a bad person to accomplish his purposes. They also minimize or ignore his transgressions while holding others up to biblical standards.

Jesus warned his followers to watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. That is, watch out for the teaching of hypocrites. Just as a small amount of leaven permeates the dough, false teaching corrupts the church.

I don’t know how to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the church. Once in a while, my pastor says something subtle that may or may not get through (like preaching about staying faithful and not bowng down to the king). If I were ever to directly address the problem, I would likely make enemies.

I hope that I will continue to have a positive impact on my church family and to shine a light on the teachings of my Master. But I can’t compete with the influence of the media and the false teachers that have led the people astray.

Dark Days, Restless Nights

by Innermost Being, posted in Man of Lawlessness

Donald Trump said that today, April 2, 2025 is Liberation Day. Today is the day he announced 10% tariffs on many of our global trading partners. In reality, today is just another day in a dystopian nightmare.

For those of us who care about truth, justice, and liberty, these are dark days. So far, the second Trump presidency is far worse than I imagined it would be based on the ineptness and corruption of his first term. But plans for this term were reportedly well laid out in the Project 2025 document. This time, he has enough unscrupulous loyalists to put his unjust and unconstitutional plans into place.

The “shock and awe” and “flood the zone” political strategies are meant to overwhelm us. Instead, they have motivated millions of us to resist. The flood of executive orders may be dizzying, but we’re smart enough to keep up.

I have had many restless nights. I pray the 23rd Psalm when I struggle to fall back asleep. I remind myself that Jesus warned his disciples about dark times. He prepared us for this. He is with us when we go through dark times. He has a purpose for each of us.

I’ve been reading. I read Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. She wrote about “militant masculinity” and the efforts of white Christian men to redefine Christ in their image.

I’ve been listening to YouTube videos. My favorites are Amy Hawk, author of The Judas Effect, Pat Kahnke, author of A Christian Case Against Donald Trump, and Reverand Ed Trevors. It has been encouraging to find a community of like-minded believers.

I am reading a lot of content on Substack, including Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American.

I am cutting back on Facebook. I am cutting many Trump supporters out of my life. It’s hard to do, but I can no longer pretend that there isn’t a huge moral divide between us. Character matters.

I am speaking out. Silence is complicity.

I went to the first reorganizational meeting for the local Indivisible group. It’s been inspiring to see young people organizing protests and posting social media content.

I called my Republican senators and representative, not that I think it will do any good.

I am living my life. I have been getting outside and enjoying the beauty around me.

If you agree that Trump is dangerous, how are you coping?

Grieving the Corruption of Christianity

by Innermost Being, posted in Man of Lawlessness

Like many followers of Christ, I was shocked in 2016 to see the overwhelming support Donald Trump received from Christians and people who claim to be Christians. The fact that this group again voted for him in 2020 and 2024 makes it very clear that Christianity has been corrupted.

Trump did not corrupt Christianity on his own. False teachers have been putting their desire for political power above the truths of the gospel for decades. Fox News and other far-right media spread disinformation and the fear of others that is central to the MAGA movement.

Today, as I walk through what feels like the valley of the shadow of death, I grieve the damage done to Christianity. There are four primary reasons for my grief.

1. The Church’s witness to unbelievers has been severely damaged.

This one hits close to home. Although my husband is agnostic, he used to come to church with me on Christmas Eve and Easter. He was beginning to soften his heart towards Christianity. Then, in 2016, 80% of Christians voted for a man who was and is the antithesis of Christ. When I started going to my current church in 2020, I made the mistake of telling my husband that I saw someone in church wearing a MAGA hat. Now, he absolutely refuses to attend services there. (Since then, we have seen one of the church elders wearing a MAGA hat at a local sports lounge).

Even people who do not believe in God know that Trump’s heart is far from God. He does not bear any of the fruits of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. To be fair, he is kind to sycophants.

Christ’s followers are supposed to be a light in this dark world (Matthew 5:13-16). We’re supposed to be the salt of the earth. Sadly, today, we are not.

2.  Christians have been deceived and led astray.

Jesus warned that even the elect (chosen) will be deceived (Mark 16:22 and Matthew 24:24). Jesus warned his followers to watch out for false prophets. “They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.”

Jesus also warned the disciples to “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:6).” Pharisees were legalists, believing that a person can be saved by following the law. Yet, not one of us can obey God’s law perfectly. Legalism is not compatible with the gospel of grace. Ironically, even though Trump is a man of lawlessness, he has won the support of legalists.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul appealed to them to be “perfectly united in mind and thought.” But today, there is a deep division in mind and thought within Christianity that can not be bridged. You are either with Christ or you are against him. And Donald Trump is against everything Christ teaches his followers.

3. Believers are leaving the Church.

Many churches have been so damaged by the politicization of Christianity that faithful believers leave. If you leave your church, you lose your sense of fellowship and community.

Even if your church has not been politicized, chances are, many of the congregants have been discipled by people outside the church who have a political agenda. There may be an unspoken assumption that all Christians support Trump’s agenda. When the people sitting in the pew next to you support Trump and his antichrist agenda, you must keep silent to maintain the peace.

For now, I’ve chosen to stay in church because my pastor preaches the truth of the gospel. He does not get into politics other than to acknowledge the divisions. He tries to shepherd us in the right direction, in the way of Christ.

Before the election, my pastor preached a sermon from the book of Daniel about the Israelites living in exile in Babylon. The sermon was specifically about Daniel’s friends ignoring the sounds of horns, harps, lyres, and other instruments that signaled that it was time to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image. They refused to bow down and were thrown into a fiery furnace. After hearing that sermon, I now think of myself as an exile from American Evangelicalism.

4. The morality of the country has been damaged.

Trump empowers Christian nationalists and white supremacists. Christian nationalism is a perversion of the Christian faith. White supremacy is a perversion of humanity.

Donald Trump reminds me of the man of lawlessness mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. He lies constantly. He is unrepentant. He spreads hate and gives people permission to be vile and mean. He thinks he is above the law, and his supporters agree.

The fruit of Trump’s wickedness includes the dehumanization of immigrants and stripping the LGBTQ+ community of civil rights. His rotten fruit includes defaming his many enemies and seeking revenge against them. His economic policies that put corporations above individuals and the wealthy above the lower classes stink to high heaven. His betrayal of our allies and disregard for the environment are rotten.

He is corrupt to the core and many “Christians” don’t care.

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I remind myself that the Lord is with me. Jesus warned us about dark times so we would be prepared. He has a job for me to do: speak out and stand firm in his truth until the end. Be strong and courageous.

Knowledge of the Holy

by Innermost Being, posted in Diving Deep

While shopping for other books, I bought my second A.W. Tozer classic, The Knowledge of the Holy. This one was published in 1961, a couple of years before his death (and my birth). Tozer was concerned that the Church was losing its appreciation for the majesty of God and that Modern Christianity wasn’t producing the kind of Christian who could experience life in the spirit. He hoped that his short, simple book would help ordinary people like me have a better understanding of the majesty of God.

We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence.

A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

What comes to mind when you think about God?

According to Tozer, “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” God is “the mightiest thought the mind can entertain.” The way that we think about God predicts our spiritual future. The most significant message of the Church is its message about God.

When I think about God, I don’t have a visual image of Him in my head as I do when I think about anyone else. I don’t know what God looks like. No one does. God is like no one else. He is beyond my powers of imagining.

When I think about God, I think of Him as my loving Father. He is the Father who protects me,  the Father who disciplines me when I do wrong because He loves me, and the Father who shows me the right path in life. I think of God as the One who is always there for me, as the One who knows me inside and out and loves me anyway. He is the Creator of the universe and yet He knows my name!

When I think about God, I think of His attributes – omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, holiness. He is the source of all that is good. God is Spirit and from Him spring the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.

When I think about God, I think about what He wants of me. He wants my obedience, my praise, my faithfulness, my humility. What does He ask of me? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.  

We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.

A.W. Tozer

God is absolutely the mightiest, most magnificent thought the mind can consider. When you consider God’s majesty and glory, it’s incredible that so few people hunger and thirst for Him.

Decadent images of God

Tozer wrote that in the mid-twentieth century, the Christian conception of God was, in a word, decadent. In Tozer’s opinion, people did not rightly revere God and the lack of reverence kept people from humbling themselves before Him. The gospel is powerless unless it leads people to feel the weight of their sins and to see that they fall short of the glory of God. Until you see “a vision of God high and lifted up,” you will not feel the need to repent.

I can’t help but wonder what Tozer would think about the Christian conception of God today. I think he would be horrified. As I have written before, Christianity and evangelism have been corrupted by politics. Today, many people who self-identify as Christian worship a perverted image of God. Their god sits on a throne sharing his glory with the American flag. The one true God has been replaced with gods created by human hands – the gods of democracy, capitalism, nationalism, and guns. These false gods nullify the power of the gospel because those who might otherwise be receptive to the gospel are turned off by the hypocrisy of people who claim to be Christians.

Idolatry

Tozer wrote that idolatry springs from wrong ideas about God. People imagine things about God and act as if they are true. They create God in their own image instead of accepting Him as He is. Oh, how true this is today.

While in Athens (Acts 17:16-33), the Apostle Paul was upset to see that the city was full of idols. He stood up and spoke to the people.

“I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”

 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’’ 

Yesterday, a couple in front of me wore Trump masks to church – one that said Make American Great Again and the other with Trump’s current campaign slogan, Keep America Great. It’s very disturbing to me that Christians today have such a low concept of God that they think that God would support the lies and bigotry of the wicked. I can only pray that God will open their eyes to the truth of who He is.

As the deer pants for streams of water, my soul pants for you, my God. I call out to You in adoring silence. Show me Your glory.

****

 

Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash

 

Taking Christ Back for America

by Innermost Being, posted in Faith and Culture

In my last post, I wrote about The Truth Project’s practice of conflating religion and politics which was most obvious in lesson nine, The State: Whose Law. Next week, I will watch the lesson titled The American Experiment: Stepping Stones. For years, I have watched conservative Christians blur the lines between politics and religion. I’ve read the study outline so I know that Dr. Tackett claims that America was founded as a Christian nation, the nation is now denying our biblically based Christian roots, and “believers who care deeply and passionately about their country” must try to salvage a government based on Christian values. Yet today it is so easy to see the corrupting influence of politics on Christianity.

Around the same time that Focus on the Family published The Truth Project video series (© 2006), an evangelical pastor named Gregory Boyd was feeling pressure from “right-wing political and religious sources” and from people in his congregation to participate in political activities, including distributing political leaflets and encouraging the congregation to vote for “the right candidate.” As he explains in the introduction to his book, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church, he decided to preach a sermon series explaining why his church should not join in promoting right-wing political activity. He also aimed to explain why the Christian faith should not be closely associated with any political point of view.

Boyd said that he received a lot of positive feedback from his sermon series. Some people were grateful because they had always felt like outsiders in the evangelical community for not “toeing the conservative party line.” (I know the feeling all to well.) But he also said he had never received such intense negative feedback. About 20% of his congregation left the church.

Boyd’s thesis is that “a significant segment of American evangelicalism is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry.” In their quest for political power, these evangelicals have exchanged the good news of the gospel for political ideals and agendas. Like Tackett, many of these Christians mistakenly believe that they are “taking America back for God.”

How do conservative Christians aim to take America back for God? They vote for Christian candidates, oppose abortion, oppose gay marriage, fight to keep the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, fight to keep prayer in public schools and to display the Ten Commandments in public places, and make a really big deal about their right to say Merry Christmas.

Anyone who has been around the past couple of decades has observed Christians try to transform the kingdom of God to their own desired design for the kingdom of this world. The result is a quasi-religion that no longer resembles Christ.

It is heartening to find a pastor these days who is not afraid to say how idolatrous and dangerous it is to fuse religion and politics. Anything that takes the place of God in a believer’s heart is an idol. A Christian’s identity should come from Christ and not from their nation or political party. Believers who fuse their religious and political identities are easily led astray by false teachers who bring the way of truth into disrepute, twisting and distorting biblical truths to serve their own purposes. And sadly, when nonbelievers see that Christians are no different from anyone else, they are turned off by the hypocrisy.

The Myth of a Christian Nation

Why is there no such thing as a Christian nation? As J.D. Walt observed, “the only entity that can actually be Christian is a human being.” Many individuals claim to be a Christian without really understanding what it means to follow Christ. Christianity is not a cultural identity. Christianity is not a political identity. You don’t become a Christian by going to church or being baptized. You become a Christian by confessing your sins and making a very personal and life-transforming decision to follow Christ.

The Truth Project feeds the myth of a Christian nation in part by claiming that God has a specific design and purpose for government. Contrary to Tackett’s assertion, God doesn’t design worldly governments. As Boyd notes, God uses governments as they are, “in all their ungodly rebellious ways,” to serve his divine purposes. In other words, God doesn’t mandate one form of government over another. However, if governments preserve law and order in the right way (with justice and mercy), they serve God’s purpose (Romans 13).

The Truth Project believes that even though not all of America’s early leaders were Christians, they all agreed that the success of America’s republican form of government is “directly dependent upon the virtue and morality of her people, and that virtue and morality are necessarily founded upon religion – by which all meant the Christian religion.”

But the truth is, all worldly governments are flawed, even governments that proclaim “in God we trust.” Boyd points out that the god of this age is Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan inserts himself in earthly affairs and deceives the nations (Revelations 9:11, 20:3, 8, 13:14). The ways of the world are influenced by “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2).

As Boyd reminds us, the history of the world is a history of violent conflicts. Boyd used Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as brilliant illustrations of fallen humans driven by passions they cannot control – desires for possessions, power, etc. These desires and passions lead to conflicts with other humans because other people feel just as strongly about their wants and desires. And while humans fight it out, Zeus sits on the mountain amused by it all.

When a worldly ruler elevates himself above all others, tears other people down, spreads lies, sows discord, seeks vengeance against his enemies, and treats others inhumanely, I imagine Satan laughing and saying, “well done, bad and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few dastardly things; I will put you in charge of many more.” And when Christians exchange the truth of the gospel for the seductive lure of political power, I imagine that Satan is overjoyed.

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Jesus – John 8:44

Power corrupts…

Boyd says that whenever you see a person or group exercising power over other people, you are seeing a version of the kingdom of the world. Boyd calls power over other people the “power of the sword.” Humans use power over people to bend other people to their will and to inflict pain and suffering on those who defy or threaten their authority. The power of the sword is exercised in many ways – physical violence, restraint, coercion, threats, and denial of rights or access to resources.

Laws, enforced by the sword, control behavior but cannot change hearts.

Gregory A. Boyd

There is a saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power can be used for good but sometimes power changes people. As Chris Benderev wrote in the article When power goes to your head, it may shut out your heart, having power over people reduces our ability to empathize with them.

The kingdom of the world is nothing like the kingdom of God. It is a tribal “us versus them” kingdom – my race versus yours, my country versus yours, my religion versus yours, my political party versus yours. The world’s way is all about winning and having the upper hand. The world’s kingdom is a tit for tat kingdom. No insult or injury goes unanswered or unpunished.

The kingdom of God is radically different from the kingdom of this world. In the kingdom of God, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers. God’s kingdom is based on the power of the cross, that is, the power of redemption, the power of sacrificial living. Followers of Christ are to express power under people, humbly serving others. Followers of Christ are to love their enemies and to leave vengeance to God.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Philippians 2:3-5

I am among a growing chorus of believers who care so deeply and passionately about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we feel called to reclaim the name and share the real message of Christ. The hope of a nation does not depend on having a government based on biblical values. The hope of a nation lies in the redeeming power of Christ. He has the power to change people from the inside out! For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

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Father, may I not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of my mind and my heart so that I can be more like Christ, loving others as I love myself.

Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy

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Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash