Category: Religion

If you’re reading this article in 2020, you will notice that many of the specific facts are outdated: Hillary Clinton as Donald Trump’s political opponent, the disgraced Jerry Falwell Jr. as a leader respected among evangelicals, and others. I wrote the article in 2016, but I am re-publishing it because the Christian Right has continued to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump and have continued to be a political force at odds with their stated belief system.

When it’s difficult to see daylight between the alt-right and the Christian right, we’ve wandered into dangerously wrong territory. Today’s Republican Party has made strange bedfellows of some seemingly divergent groups: KKK sympathizers, alt-right thugs, the gun lobby, and others; and in the middle of them all is the “Christian” right, evangelicals whose voices are in unison with philosophies that undermine and threaten to destroy our republic and the values which we have always held inviolable. On the surface, it’s impossible to see what could unite groups that should be at opposite poles.

This strange new coalition which has formed under the umbrella of the Republican Party is not Christian, not conservative, and not Republican. The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and even Ronald Reagan is so far from the party of 2016 that the two shouldn’t be called by the same name.

Republicans have proudly called themselves the Christian party and the family-values party, yet in 2016 they have nominated and are supporting and defending a candidate who has lived his life by the opposite of any definition of Christianity I know. And his campaign CEO, Steve Bannon, has ties to the darkest elements from the underbelly of American civilization. At Breitbart news, he, according to Sarah Posner of Mother Jones, “created an online haven for white nationalists.”

The new Republican Coalition is not conservative. Louis Guenin, in one of my all-time favorite articles called “Why Voters Should Turn from the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession” (Huffington Post, 24 Dec 2012), offers this definition of conservatism:

Conservatism, as eloquently introduced by Edmund Burke (1729–1797), advocates esteem for government and established institutions. It holds that within them lies an accumulated wisdom that citizens and their leaders should respect and consult. Revering the established order, its constitution, and its history, conservatism cultivates a cautious disposition. Legislators should proceed by careful deliberation guided by the counsel of prudence. Policy should change incrementally. When government errs, all citizens should, in Burke’s words, “approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude.”

Has anyone seen any esteem for government at the Republican presidential rallies of 2015 and 2016? I’ve seen angry mobs screaming their rejection of “the established order,” chanting for the opposing party’s candidate to be locked up, rejecting the politics that has made our country what it is. The “accumulated wisdom” which Edmund Burke says leaders “should respect and consult” is derided as “political correctness,” which they see as having too long constrained them from expressing their baser instincts toward their fellow citizens of different race, skin color, religion, gender, or sexuality.

The campaign chief said this week, “What we need to do is bitch-slap” the Republican Party, expressing his anger at the “party elites” who are not falling in line behind the rogue nominee. He went on to add, “Get those guys heeding too, and if we have to, we’ll take it over to make it a true conservative party.” His definition of “conservative” is obviously quite different from Edmund Burke’s definition.

The new Republican Coalition knows nothing of caution, prudence, or respect for traditional American values. The scorched-earth politics that allows low and dirty stunts such as bringing people from an opponent’s past to a debate to bully and intimidate her and a candidate’s declaring himself free from the shackles that have bound him to party principles and now in a position to declare war on the party doesn’t sound conservative by any definition. Other language I’ve heard this week is that Donald Trump wants to burn down the party if it won’t play his way.

The opposite of conservative is not liberal; most liberals better fit the definition of conservatism than today’s “conservatives” do. The opposite of conservative is contemptuous: contempt for the established order, for American politics, for our constitution, for their fellow citizens, for anyone who disagrees with them.

The new Republican Coalition is not conservative, and it’s not Republican. The founding father of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, devoted the last four years of his life to preserving our union when a racist, white supremacist group of states were determined to destroy it. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln eloquently said:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

The coalition at work today under the banner of the Party of Lincoln seeks not to bind up wounds and create peace but to inflict wounds and perpetuate conflict.

Earlier in his address, Lincoln said, contrasting the state of the nation at the time of his second inaugural address with its state when he gave his first inaugural address: “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” I think we’re seeing that same tension today. None of us want discord and strife, but some would rather accept disunity than compromise to bring about peace and harmony.

We have to recognize, of course, that Donald Trump did not destroy the Party of Lincoln; they destroyed themselves, and Trump is the result, not the cause. A Donald Trump could never have secured the Republican nomination for the presidency until the climate was right for it, and in 2016, it’s perfect.

In David Brooks’s article “The Governing Cancer of Our Time” (26 Feb 2016), Brooks explains that in a “big, diverse society,” there are “essentially two ways to maintain order and to get things done”: “politics or some form of dictatorship,” “compromise or brute force.” Having said that politics involves compromise and deal-making in an effort to please as many within the diverse group of people as possible, Brooks assesses what has led to the state of Lincoln’s party today:

Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a generation of people who are against politics. These groups—best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the Right—want to elect people who have no political experience. They want “outsiders.” They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They’re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision making if it helps them gain power.

That attitude is greatly at odds with Lincoln’s goal to “achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The Republican Party freed the slaves and granted them citizenship; the new Republican Coalition wants to trample the rights of citizens of color. The new coalition has become the home of the alt-right white supremacists and KKK sympathizers who would destroy every bit of progress we have made in racial relations.

The new Republican Coalition is not conservative, it’s not republican, and it’s not Christian. Most shocking and perplexing of all those who now profess allegiance to this wing of the Republican Party are evangelical “Christians.” According to a new PPRI/The Atlantic survey released this week, “Nearly two-thirds (65%) of white evangelical voters remain committed to supporting Trump, while only 16% say they favor Clinton.” Among other Christian groups, the survey says support is more evenly divided.

The fact that two-thirds of the most vocal Christian group rabidly stand behind a candidate whose life and values are the polar opposite of their professed beliefs simply defies logical explanation. That their voices are indistinguishable from those of white supremacists and all manner of bigots is at odds with Christ’s words on Christianity. A group of Pharisees asked Jesus, the founder of the Christian faith, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus’ simple response was

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22: 37-40)

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, it’s that simple. If you get those two things right, you’ve got it. Don’t fret over the details.

Micah 6:8 is powerful in its simplicity:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Joining forces with a coalition that demands justice for only certain citizens, that hates our government and our politics, that seeks to destroy whatever justice for all we’ve managed to achieve does not fulfill the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves or to love justice and kindness.

Often being the nasty voices in social media discussions also fails to demonstrate a love of kindness or love of other people. Presenting themselves as God’s spokespersons to silence anyone who disagrees with their narrow stance only alienates, especially when what they’re saying is filled with scorn and hatred, and is not in the spirit of walking humbly with their God. Memes about jailing Hillary Clinton, virtual high fives every time they hear Trump talking about locking her up—how do these show justice, love, or humility? They’ve adopted what David Brooks calls “the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible.”

Defending lewd, vulgar talk and behavior and condoning sexual assault because it didn’t happen this week shows no love for one’s fellow humans. Claiming that one candidate has been forgiven by God’s grace but that the other cannot be and deserves only punishment is not only theologically screwed up, it’s not loving or kind.

When innocent children are gunned down in their little school desks, these loving, god-fearing people shrug their shoulders and say, “Bummer! But we can’t do anything because Second Amendment.” Ya know, God, guns, glory. Sorry, parents!

I listened to an interview last night with Jerry Falwell Junior, the president of Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the world; he defended Trump, says he still plans to vote for him, and nobody’s perfect. And he cited James Dobson, another prominent evangelical guru, as agreeing with him.

Falwell pointed out that Jesus was often criticized for dining with sinners. Yes, Doctor Falwell, you are correct. Jesus dined with whoever came to him, including those scorned by the Pharisees, religious elite and chief hypocrites of the day. But there’s a BIG difference. Jesus hung out with them and broke bread with them, but he didn’t talk like them; and his life and values were clearly distinguishable from theirs. He associated with them without becoming one of them. He didn’t adopt their attitudes or defend their lifestyles. He shut down the hypocrites who were persecuting the woman at the well and sent her on her way with the words “Go and sin no more.” He wouldn’t allow her to be judged, but he encouraged her to adopt a healthier lifestyle. His voice was always distinct from the voices of the people to whom he showed love and compassion by dining with them.

The majority of evangelicals I’ve talked to are single-issue voters. The candidate who says (this week) that he opposes abortion gets their vote, regardless of what else he does or stands for. This is what the Bible they claim to follow calls “straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel.” I’m not saying abortion is a tiny issue; it’s an important issue, but it’s ONE issue. If we elect someone to a powerful office because of his or her stance on this one issue but ignore gross violations on dozens of other issues, that’s not godly. If we love justice, as Micah so eloquently suggests we should, we will seek justice for all.

How did this unlikely coalition come together? What is the unifying element? Matthew McWilliams, who conducted a national poll of 1800 registered voters, says, “I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.” Bingo! This is what the alt-right and the Christian right have in common: the inclination to follow strong leaders (Falwell Sr. and Jr., James Dobson, Joel Osteen). It’s what David Brooks calls the opposite of politics. Yes, politics is messy, Brooks says, but the only alternative is the dictatorial leader; and that alternative has never ended well for any nation. We should be careful what we wish for!

Most deeply frightening is what will happen on November 9, 2016. As Americans, we’ve always prided ourselves on a peaceful transfer of power. Does anyone see Donald J. Trump making a sad but gracious concession speech and promising to get behind President Clinton to keep our country great? He’s already threatened to jail his opponent if he wins, and his supporters are already talking about revolution if he loses.

On November 9, I hope we will all—Republicans, Democrats, and everything in between—remember the words of Abraham Lincoln:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

One of the most baffling, perplexing, even maddening questions of our time is how the “Christian right,” “the far right,” “the evangelicals” have become such a powerful political force and how on earth that movement has thrown its considerable clout behind such an unlikely standard bearer as Donald Trump. I have wrestled with this question, as have many others, for the past several years; and finally I’m ready to offer my answer: The “Christian right” has ceased to be a religious tradition and now exists only as a powerful political movement. In its current expression, evangelicalism bears no resemblance to a faith community except in its use of the Bible and religious dogma as weapons with which to clobber anyone who disagrees with them.

Let’s look at a little history which may shed some light on what has brought us to the place where we now find ourselves. Many of us would have little reason to care about the history of evangelicalism, what evangelicals believe, or whom they will vote for in the next presidential election. That all changed in 2016, when Russia and the evangelicals (the oddest of odd couples) chose our president. Evangelicals were the largest demographic group among Trump supporters in 2016, with 80-81% being the official number compiled from exit polls of self-professed evangelicals who cast their votes for Trump. Evangelicals continue to stand by their man, and a recent Public Opinion Strategies poll reports that 83% of them intend to vote for him again in 2020. Without this group’s overwhelming support, it’s highly unlikely that Donald Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today. Therefore, I think it behooves us all to take a closer look at who these people are who can’t get enough of guns, cruelty toward refugees, and the most unfit person ever to disgrace the office of POTUS.

Two religious groups in the United States which are often conflated are fundamentalists and evangelicals. According to NPR’s Steve Waldman and John Green, these two groups are not the same but do have certain elements in common. Evangelicalism is a broader movement, of which fundamentalism is a stricter, more conservative, far less tolerant subset. So I think it’s accurate to say that all fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. The National Association of Evangelicals’ website quotes historian David Bebbington’s summary of four core distinctives which define evangelical belief: conversion (being “born again”), activism (missionary and reform efforts), biblicism (the Bible as the ultimate authority), and crucicentrism (Jesus’ death as redeeming humanity).

Fundamentalist evangelicals also believe these four distinctives but add to them. Whereas all evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamentalists also believe in a literal reading of the Bible; not only, in their view, is the Bible the final source of truth, but they believe every story, metaphor, and poem are literal historic records. Fundamentalists are also, among other things, far more isolationist than other evangelicals. They take literally the New Testament command to “ come out from among them and be ye separate” (II Corinthians 6:17). “Them,” by the way, fundamentalists interpret to mean “the world”–which incorporates everyone who does not share their worldview. They cannot recognize the legitimacy of Catholicism as a Christian faith because it is so different in theology and practice from their own narrow view of what constitutes Christianity. An overriding attitude of judgment against even other evangelicals who take a broader view of certain subjects further isolates fundamentalists into a tight-knit community whose primary goal in life is to avoid being “defiled” by anything which contradicts their beliefs.

The term “evangelicalism” has defied precise definition or agreement on its origin, but many see its roots in early 17^th-century changes in the church. Fundamentalism is generally seen as a late 19^th-, early 20^th-century offshoot that arose in response to social and academic developments such as Darwinism, liberalism, and modernism. Leaders’ attempts to articulate and define the non-negotiable core Christian beliefs resulted in the 1910 publication of a multi-volume set of essays, edited by Reuben Torrey, titled The Fundamentals. Those who accepted this distillation of Christian theology came to be known as fundamentalists.

This little history is greatly over-simplified but serves to provide a general framework for the rise of the movement which has now given us a reality TV show presidency. It’s important to add that not all who call themselves Christians fall into either of these two camps, evangelicalism and fundamentalism. These two just seem to comprise the vocal, disruptive element that has co-opted the modern Republican Party.

Fundamentalists have earned the reputation of being anti-intellectual because of their rejecting  Darwin’s findings and other scientific information which doesn’t coincide with their literal reading of the Genesis creation account and the great flood story among others. Witness their current denial of climate science, and no more needs to be said.

Fundamentalist thought has been widely influenced by leaders such as Dwight Moody, Bob Jones Sr., Jerry Falwell, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham. What all of these men have in common is their belief in a literal, inerrant Bible; their disdain for anyone who deviates from their narrow view and their dismissal of such people as  not “real Christians”; and their view that the United States is a Christian nation and should therefore be ruled by Biblical precepts–or should I say, their interpretation of Biblical precepts.

When asked how a group, which professes to believe in the literal interpretation and inerrancy of the Bible and labels themselves the sole upholders and defenders of Biblical conduct and morality, can so enthusiastically embrace and defend the likes of DT–who violates every moral principle they claim to hold dear–their only answer is that “God often used imperfect instruments in events recorded in the Bible.” No argument there. The Old Testament gives us King David, who lusted after another man’s wife while she bathed on the rooftop, sent his servants to fetch her, had sex with her, impregnated her with his son, sent her military husband off to the front lines where he was sure to be killed, and then married her. In the New Testament, we learn that David was an ancestor of Christ and “a man after God’s own heart.”

David alone would make it pretty clear that, if all accounts are accurate, God’s not looking for perfection. But just to strengthen the case, we have Noah who celebrated safely landing the ark by getting passed-out drunk; Abraham who–impatient with waiting for God to fulfill the promise of giving him an heir–took the matter into his own hands and had sex with the maid; Rahab the prostitute, also in Jesus’ bloodline; Jonah who ran from God’s command to warn the people of Nineveh because they were wicked and, in his opinion, unworthy of God’s mercy; Matthew the tax collector, a profession generally thought to employ the scum of the earth; and Saul the persecutor of Christians who became Paul, the greatest missionary of his day for spreading the Christian faith. I think we get the picture.

Yet if the only thing that can be said in defense of electing a person to the office of president is that he’s no worse than a few people in the Bible, that’s some very thin ice.

What makes evangelicals tick? How can they be won over to a cause or a candidate? For one thing, they have long been conditioned to follow the rules out of fear: fear of hell (real flames here), fear of shame, fear of disapproval by bigger-than-life leaders, fear of ostracization. Donald Trump tapped into that fear in his very first speech, when he broad-brushed all Mexicans as murderers and rapists and continues to stir up fear to persuade supporters to go along with his cruel policies. Never mind that most mass shooters in this country have been white male citizens and we’ve done nothing to curtail gun violence, let’s build a giant wall to keep all of those Mexicans out because a few have committed horrible crimes. Fear is a powerful motivator.

Evangelicals have also been conditioned to accept their literal reading of the Bible over the hard evidence of science. The flood really happened, and the earth really was created in six days, just 6000 years ago–science be damned. Anything not specifically covered in the Bible can easily be  “proven” with a cherry-picked verse or two. Thus, the exclusion of LGBTQ people because . . . Leviticus. And some have validated their prejudice against black Americans with the story about the black race being descended from Noah’s son Ham, who was cursed for some not altogether clear reason and his descendants supposedly doomed to a life of servitude–to the end of time. Yeah, that really was taught.

With so much credence given to faith over fact, revelation over reason, is it such a stretch to understand why those same people would take the word of the person they’ve been told was sent by God over the word of fact finders, scientists, psychologists, journalists, and other smart people? Is it any wonder that they view all intellectuals with suspicion? With their conditioned response of separatism and superiority to those who see the world differently, of believing they’re the ones with the inside track to God, their blind loyalty to a criminal “president” shouldn’t be the least bit surprising.

Another characteristic of the modern evangelical and fundamentalist movements is their adulation of rock-star leaders. Although many outside those circles may know the names of only the most notorious–the Grahams, the Falwells, maybe the Joneses–ask any fundamentalist about Bill Hybels, Jack Hyles, Tony Perkins, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, and there will be instant recognition. Different groups will give more or less respect to different names, but the names are known and revered by at least some subgroups. These are the gurus whose word is truth, whose pronouncements set policy, and whose approval is oxygen to  their followers.

Should it then come as any surprise at all when one of those esteemed celebrities puts his arm around a man who in no way represents their stated beliefs or anything they ever learned in Sunday school and says “This person is sent by God to protect and preserve our nation,” the masses accept that pronouncement as divine truth and follow that man as fervently as they follow the leaders who anointed him? Sadly, the leader who gets lost in the process is the one they profess to believe above all others: Jesus, who never endorsed any of this baloney.

Donald Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, gave the clearest statement of his Christian faith I’ve ever heard from a sitting president. And he backed up his words with a moral and scandal-free life, a ready knowledge of Christian belief, and even a spontaneous rendering of the hymn “Amazing Grace” at a funeral. Contrast that with Donald Trump’s mention of “Two Corinthians” as the only evidence of biblical knowledge he could muster on the spot. Yet President Obama is reviled by evangelicals as a non-citizen Muslim, and Donald Trump is hailed by “a significant portion of his supporters [as] literally . . . an answer to their prayers. He is regarded as something of a messiah, sent by God to protect a Christian nation” (Bobby Azarian, Ph.D., in Psychology Today).

The so-called “Christian Right” has ceased to be Christian. Although they claim unquestioned allegiance to the Bible, I’m going to venture a guess that most have not read much of the Bible; and the parts they have read are twisted to support preconceived beliefs. If they bothered to read the book they claim to follow, they would have run across a few passages which define what the Christian faith actually is. When your only reason for reading the Bible is to find support for what you already believe, you’re missing a lot.

If one wanted to know what the Christian faith is really all about, Micah 6:8 is a one-verse primer: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think locking children in filthy cages with no access to hygiene supplies, adequate food, human touch, or even a real blanket qualifies as justice, kindness, or a humble walk with God. Then again, these children are brown, so perhaps they’re excluded from the general rules? Somehow I can’t imagine those same fine Christian people looking the other way or sending their attorneys to court to defend such treatment of white children.

James 1:27 echoes Micah’s summary: ^“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” “Care for the orphans and widows in their distress.” Yet allowing Puerto Rican Americans to languish in distress after a hurricane, desperate for the bare essentials of life, isn’t given a place on the “conservative” agenda. Nor are the children in the concentration camps or the families without health insurance or the minimum-wage workers who can barely exist on their paychecks and who would be wiped out by one unanticipated expense.

Then there’s Jesus’ own quick summary of what faith is meant to be. Asked by a Pharisee, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest,” Jesus responded: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40). “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, the whole Old Testament is summed up in 28 words, further reduced to “Love God and love your fellow humans.”

Jesus reiterates those points a few chapters further on, in Matthew 25. There he gives a metaphorical description of a judgment of the nations, in which the nations will be divided into two groups: sheep and goats. The sole criterion for the division is the way in which the nations have treated the disadvantaged, “the least of these.” The sheep are those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoner. The goats are the ones who have not done any of that. Those examples illustrate what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Notice the pattern here? What do all of these passages have in common? Each one defines faith as the acknowledgment of God and the loving treatment of one’s fellow humans. Nothing else. Nada. Not abortion, LGBTQ people, public bathrooms, right to bear arms. Nothing but loving God and loving each other. Anything added to those two distinctives is politics, not faith. It’s the attempt to weaponize faith as a means to gain power and control.

When fundamentalists formed not only their own churches but their own schools–pre-K through college–they made it possible to immerse a large enough population in their so-called theology to gain the numbers needed for the political clout they strove for. Today their information network has expanded to include news outlets, mainly one: Fox News. It’s like a virtual commune in which it’s possible to live and die without ever being exposed to any other ideas than those spouted by their powerful leaders. And just recently came this announcement:

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed legislation permitting Briarwood Presbyterian Church to establish its own police force for its church and school campuses. The law approved two weeks ago allows the Birmingham-based church to set-up a private law enforcement department to make arrests when crimes are committed on its properties. (Patheos.com)

Legitimate concerns about this move include the strong possibility that such a police force would lead to further cover-up of crimes like sexual assault, since the enforcers would be guided more by their loyalty to the church than by their loyalty to the law of the land.

It should be clear by now that the modern evangelical movement has divorced itself from every religious principle on which it was established and has devoted itself to the accumulation of political power. This phenomenon is nothing new. Theologian Richard Rohr says this:

“Christianity is a lifestyle–a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a ‘religion’ (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s ‘personal Lord and Savior’ . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

The Christian church has often stood on the wrong side of history. The church did not act to oppose either slavery or the many years of violence against the freed slaves and their descendants. Martin Luther King Jr., in a section of his well-known “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” delivers a strong rebuke against the white church in 1960s America:

I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel who loves the church, who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its Spiritual blessings, and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen. I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows. In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and with deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother.

Abuses of power in the name of religion are not new, but we must never cease to call them what they are. Today’s evangelical movement is built not on faith but on white supremacy and white nationalism. Why else would a grifting, immoral, cruel, ignorant white con man be revered while an intelligent, honest, morally upright, kind, generous black man is reviled? Why else would a pious Senate Majority Leader be allowed to get away with violating the Constitution in whatever way is necessary to continue promoting the “conservative” agenda of discrediting and destroying the legacy of our only black president?

Frank Schaeffer Jr., former evangelical leader turned reasonable person, author of numerous books and articles, offers this history of the modern evangelical-political movement:

The 1970s Evangelical anti-abortion movement that Dad (Evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer), C. Everett Koop (who would be Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general) and I helped create seduced the Republican Party. We turned it into an extremist far-right party that is fundamentally anti-American. There would have been no Tea Party without the foundation we built.

The difference between now and then is that back then we were religious fanatics knocking on the doors of normal political leaders. Today the fanatics are the political leaders.

You can’t understand why the GOP was so successful in winning back both houses of congress in 2014, and wrecking most of what Obama has tried to do, unless you understand what we did back then.

You see, in the late 1960s Dad published the first of many best-selling evangelical books. When Dad toured evangelical colleges and churches all over North America, I often accompanied him while Mom and Dad — unbeknownst to them at the time — were gradually being elevated to Evangelical Protestant sainthood. This meant that a few years later when Dad took a “stand” on the issue of abortion, a powerful movement formed almost instantly, inspired by his leadership, and the evangelical-led “pro-life” movement (and the religious right) was born.

(My Horrible Right-Wing Past: Confessions of a One-Time Religious Right Icon, published in Salon)

Opposition to abortion became the rallying cry for a group also described by Schaeffer: “Evangelical Christianity was now [in the 1980s] more about winning elections than about winning souls.”

Saving unborn babies sounded much more Christian and noble than barring black students from universities such as Bob Jones University and forbidding interracial dating. Make no mistake, though: it’s always been about white male supremacy and the fear of losing that advantage to the influx of other races. Underlying all of the noble-sounding rhetoric, the one-issue litmus tests, and the religious veneer is the belief that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville tragedy and the claim that the Civil War was not really about slavery.

People who follow the simple precepts of loving God and loving each other don’t defend the “right” to own arsenals of deadly weapons; don’t shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing we can do when the owner of one of those arsenals goes on a rampage and commits mass murder; don’t condone locking children in concentration camps; don’t laugh and applaud when an orange-haired cretin mocks war heroes, women who accuse him of sexual assault, handicapped people, the press, and anyone else who gets under his very thin skin; and they sure as hell don’t vote to elect that person to yet another four-year term as president. People looking for political power and the perpetuation of white nationalism do all of those things.

Let’s call it what it is.

Listening to the current national conversation, one might believe our only two options for managing a public health crisis are either to follow the advice of medical experts or to “pray about it.” Aside from the latter choice being misguided and possibly deadly, it also suggests that prayer must be done in isolation from other action. I would suggest that those who believe in praying can offer their heavenly petitions while keeping their distance from others, wearing their masks, and washing their hands. It doesn’t have to be an either-or.

Most of the atheists I’ve known have at some point made a statement similar to this one: “I just don’t believe in some great fairy in the sky.” Well, I am a theist, not an atheist, and I also do not believe in some great fairy who rules the universe with a magic wand. The space here does not allow a theological treatise on God’s nature; and even if it did, I’d be ill equipped to lead that study. However, since one’s approach to prayer is determined by one’s concept of God, it might be helpful to look at the source which many of those who have opted to “just pray about it” claim as their inspiration: the Christian Bible.

I’m a writer and retired English professor, not a theologian, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m launching into a sermon. But since “thoughts and prayers” is one of our current cultural clichés, I decided to do a bit of digging to see what prayer really is and how it’s recorded in religious texts, the Bible in particular. Here are a few of the things I learned.

Prayer is mentioned hundreds of times, and hundreds of individual prayers are recorded in the Bible. Prayers fall into several categories: worship, peace and comfort, confession/repentance, forgiveness, and petition. (Remember, I’m not a theologian, so I don’t claim my lists are exhaustive.)

I’m as confused as anyone else by some of the prayers and the concept of God recorded in the Old Testament. Asking God to destroy whole civilizations, including every man, woman, child, animal, and cockroach evokes a concept of God which is a bit scary; so if it’s okay with you, I’ll stick mostly to the New Testament.

What I find in the New Testament prayers is not humans abdicating their own responsibility but humans asking God to empower them with the strength, boldness, endurance, and wisdom to carry out those responsibilities. Those who pray for God to end a deadly virus while they continue on in their normal routines are abdicating their own responsibilities and evoking the “great fairy” image of a God who might, with a wave of the magic wand, rid the world of a disease. Those who choose praying about gun violence, while stockpiling munitions and voting for lawmakers who allow such stockpiling, abdicate their human responsibility to guard the social welfare and expect God to save people’s lives. Those who admonish us to pray for our “president” while they vote for those who enable his corruption abdicate their human responsibility to elect responsible lawmakers and expect God to change someone who doesn’t want to be changed. It doesn’t work that way.

Although Philippians 4:13 is not a prayer, it seems a good place to start: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I start here because I think this verse suggests a divine-human partnership in which the human is committed to right actions and the divine is the source which enables the human to carry out those actions when they are in accordance with divine principles. Such requests as “help our team win” may not exactly meet the requirement of aligning with divine principles. Just saying.

Romans 8:26–“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought . . .”–reinforces the idea that God strengthens humans to do good works but does not promise to clean up the damage when humans act in their own selfish interests.

Borrowing just one example from the Old Testament, remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the book of Genesis, Abraham negotiates with God to spare Sodom from destruction brought on by the corruption that has engulfed the city. God’s response is that God will spare the city if Abraham can find a particular number of righteous people. The number continues to decrease until God finally says, “Okay, warn your nephew Lot to take his family and leave, and then I’ll do the job.” The story gets a lot creepier after that, but the point I’d like to make here is that God is unwilling to take action without some human cooperation. God is not our fixer.

The Lord’s Prayer, sometimes called the Model Prayer, suggests the same spirit of human-divine cooperation: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” There are no freebies here; those who want God to do God’s part must first be willing to do their own part.

In Jesus’ well-known prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before his arrest, Jesus prays: “My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39). Even Jesus knows it’s not all about him and his freedom to do as he wishes while God takes care of the business of running the world. Jesus makes himself a willing participant, knowing the grave suffering he is about to face.  

Some people today seem to view God as the Michael Cohen in the sky, the fixer who will clean up human messes without our having any responsibility to help. I don’t believe it works that way. I believe if prayer is to have any effect at all, it must be active, not passive. Prayers recorded in the Bible are answered or unanswered depending on the degree to which they align with what is already known of God and God’s plan. The person praying is asking to be equipped for his/her personal mission. I agree with the adage, “Put feet under your prayers.” To put it another way, pray on your feet, not your butt.

Sending “thoughts and prayers” to families torn apart by gun violence or police overreach, while opposing any action that might reduce further incidents of carnage, is an insult to those families and makes a mockery of human communication with the divine. I’ve read numerous comments from finger- waggers on social media admonishing those who oppose the current corruption in our government to just shut up and pray about it. “Pray for our ‘president’; don’t point out his incompetence and criminality.” Am I allowed to do both?

Those who believe in prayer should by all means keep praying. Our nation needs all the help it can get to climb out of this mess, and seeking guidance and strength from the Almighty seems a good place to start but not to end. My mother often told me “God helps those who help themselves.” It’s our job to make this nation what it should be: your job and my job. Some may believe God has a part in it; I believe that. But I don’t believe God will take the wreck we’ve made and put all the pieces back together while we continue to do the same things which caused the problem. We have to help ourselves if we expect God to help us.

Here’s my prayer for the day. (Just to be clear, I don’t own a hunting rifle.)

Now I kneel me down to pray,

A bottle of hand sanitizer a few inches away.

A mask is nearby, on demand

In case a non-family member is close at hand.

My hunting rifle is locked away in its case

And an assault rifle would be out of place.

I’ve written my senators and my rep

Encouraging them to stay in step.

I’ve done what Jesus said to do:

Love my God and love all of you.

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump

Because I’m not a big dumb lump.

My mail-in ballot is ready to go,

With votes for all of the candidates who show

Integrity and an ounce of wit,

Who know how to get us out of this shit.

I’ve tried my best to do my part.

Now I ask you, God, to strengthen my heart

To continue the fight for right and good,

And to keep doing all I should.

Our country’s in a great big mess,

So we ask you all of our hearts to bless.

Amen