Christianity is divided; divided in its opinion on Trump-Era politics, divided in its views on race and justice, divided in how this country should operate. The last time we were this divided was during the Civil Rights Movement. Before that, abolition. In these moments, as history has shown us, one side was right, the other side was clearly in the wrong.
That’ll be true for every moment where we find ourselves so divided.
Currently, whichever side is wrong will never see it, acknowledge it, admit it. We will continue in our error, clinging desperately to the voices and politicians who, for whatever reason and under whatever motivation, will tell us that we’re on the right side.
Fortunately/unfortunately, we can look back on history’s binary moments and mine a few truths about how the wrong side tends to operate. So, following are my reflections on a couple of things that seem to always show up in America’s wrongest moments, especially as they pertain to American Christianity. In addition, I’ll offer an armchair theological thought on how God postures himself towards God-followers who have gotten it wrong.
In Defense of the Status Quo
Anti-abolition antebellum Christianity saw few problems with slavery. Robert E. Lee himself, a devout Christian by our standards, believed that blacks were in need of “painful discipline,” as he put it. He wasn’t a fan of chattel slavery, but believed, ironically, that it was just what the doctor ordered if Blacks were to succeed in America.
In the opinion of many other devout Americans of that era, we were doing just fine, surging ahead; a world power that depended on slavery for future prosperity.
Abolitionists were seen as a threat to all of this, and as such, a threat to our country. So, we went to war, one side fighting for the rights and freedom of Black Americans, the other side defending the status quo.
One side right, one side wrong.
Today, we’re having a similar conversation, one side claiming that there are systems rigged against the same population, the other claiming that there’s not a problem. One side wants drastice change, citing a need for freedom and equity, the other, once again, stands in defense of the status quo.
“We’re fine just the way we are” has been the battle cry of Christians on the wrong side of every significant move towards racial justice in America. Every time that American Christianity has been divided as it is now, the status quo warriors were on the wrong side.
“Faith in God’s revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo.” — Karl Barth
Right Zeal, Wrong Zeal
Jesus was a divisive figure. In one episode, he fashioned a whip and cleared out Jerusalem’s temple; a public arena swarming with people. But he claimed to have a right to this “house,” as it belonged to his father, and he was upset that the leaders of his day had turned it into a place where cheating and stealing had become more important than God himself. You couldn’t enter the temple without paying a tribute, and you couldn’t offer your sacrifice without coughing up even more.
In an Old Testament passage that scholars and theologians have historicaly linked to this episode, it is said that a “zeal” for his father’s house is what drove Jesus’ violent tirade. He loved the temple. He loved the fact that it was a place of worship for anyone and everyone who wanted to enter. When his fellow believers placed barriers in front of the most inclusive religious center the world had ever known, it made him angry.
In this current moment, one side has a similar zeal for all things America. If Jesus can have such a zeal for the temple that he would physically assault people to protect it, can’t we have a similar passion for our country?
Jesus didn’t.
His country was occupied by the Roman Empire. Herod himself, the very king of Israel, was little more than a puppet. Rest assured that Jesus’ country was in worse shape than ours. And as you might imagine, there were devout God-followers who believed that their country was in need of defense, just as we do today.
Jesus invited that crowd to stand down because something much more valuable was “at hand.”
Christendom’s greatest dividers, and her most famous heroes — St. Paul, Jesus, Martin Luther, MLK, et al. — never advocated nationalism or the preservation/protection of their homeland. They rarely spoke against it, but to them, there were bigger fish to fry.
In our current division, one side is decidedly more nationalistic than the other, with a zeal for America that rivals Jesus’ zeal for the Jewish temple. I’m not suggesting that such zeal is a sin — I love my country as much as anyone else —but for some reason it’s always at the core of the wrong side’s agenda, always supplanting the deeper things of scripture.
The non-nationalist side, the one that sees social justice as a bigger problem than America’s prosperity, is seen as a threat to America’s prosperity. That holds true for American Christianity’s other sorely divided moments as well. Christian nationalism always finds itself defending the wrong things.
“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century.” — Arundhati Roy
Losing Your Voice
The New Testament book of Revelation tells the story of a “lampstand,” a metaphor for “voice’ and “influence” that is about to be removed because a group of people have forgotten the primacy of love.
Throughout the Bible it is either implied or strongly stated that Christian influence comes primarily through the will of God, i.e., if you’re a person of faith, and you have a following, God gave it to you.
Implied in the Revelation passage is that this same influence will be removed if it is not used with the right intent.
The Bible also speaks of an “anti” Christ, one who comes to destroy, divide, set up his/her own shop, and lead “the many” astray, solely for his/her own purposes. Us Christians read these passages and translate “the many” as infidels, the unbelievers. We’re Christians. We’re too smart to fall for the devil’s schemes.
When I look at “the many” throughout history who’ve been led astray by “bad” influence, I wonder how God could sit back and let this happen, but I also can’t help but think about a spirit that lives in all of us, one that runs counter to everything that Jesus taught us, one that, sometimes, especially when we’re angry and afraid, only requires a little nudge.
Either way, when I see a very large group of Christians lose their influence faster than a boat with a boat-sized hole in it, especially when that group of people has been commissioned by God with a specific agenda, I see the hand of God being applied against them.
When Trump was elected into office, we weren’t doing well here. By the end of the ordeal, our voice has been all but buried. If you are a Trump-supporting, white, conservative Evangelical, you can’t argue that the only people who want to listen to you are Trump-supporting, white, conservative Evangelicals. You now have nigh unto 0% of a voice with everyone else, the people God has called you to reach with his words of life, hope, and peace. That opportunity is forfeit, especially where I live. If you’re wondering why that is, the book of Revelation has some clarifying instructions on how to turn your game around.
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” — Rev 2:4-5
In all of these facets of right and wrongness, I realize that I’ve placed myself, conveniently, on the “right” side, and how all of this must read if you’re not on the same side I am. It feels good to feel like I’m more right than you are, and it hurts to consider the idea that I might need to rethink my life.
Much easier, and for more entertaining, to point fingers, yeah?
But if I’m right: if our division is a signal that one side is righteous and the other has gotten things horribly wrong, we would do well to study history’s copious examples of large groups of Christians who were on the wrong side. What do we have in common with them? Are we thinking and talking like they did? Are we rallying around the same issues? Are we as frightened and finger-pointy as they were, fighting for a status quo that wasn’t worth fighting for? Have we isolated ourselves politically, ethnically, and technogically from the voices that might challenge us?
More importantly, has God taken away our voice?
All good questions I think, but for those of us, myself included, who struggle to know the difference between rightness and righteousness, those are difficult questions to ask.
