Pastor Robert Jeffress, an evangelical supporter of Trump, was interviewed for an opinion essay in the Washington Post. He provided us with his (and many Evangelicals) main reason for supporting Trump. He tells us “that regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., that the general trajectory of evangelicalism is going to be downward until Christ returns.” He explains that, as he understands Scripture, things “get worse and more hostile as the culture does.” Things get less and less “evangelical-friendly or Christian-friendly.” He sees “the election of Donald Trump as maybe a respite, a pause in that. Perhaps to give Christians the ability and freedom more to share the gospel of Christ with people before the ultimate end occurs and the Lord returns.”
This is an amazing statement from someone who purports to be a Christian leader. Why is he focused on a downward trajectory for evangelicalism rather than a downward trajectory for the world (given the state of the world)? At the heart of Christian good news is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Jesus says that he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to liberate it, and he trains his followers for the work of deliverance and healing.
And Jesus does not look for respite from the emperor or provincial leaders. When he is told that King Herod is out to kill him, he says, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” In effect, Jesus is saying that he does not have time to pay attention to King Herod, much less cozy up to him. He has a God-given mission that concludes, as it often does for prophets, in being killed. His focus is on the world, on hurting and broken lives. He is about healing and deliverance directed outward to others. He tells his followers it has to be the same way for them: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the good news, will save it.”
Jesus does not entertain a “Christian-friendly” environment. Rather, Jesus tells his followers to expect persecution and that, therefore, they must “deny themselves, take up their cross (their suffering and death) and follow him daily.” They are not to seek to secure their lives (their Father in heaven will do that); they are to lose their lives for the sake of others receiving the good news. When they get anxious, they are reminded that their Father in heaven cares for them, and they are directed to seek first God’s reign and purpose and leave to God the kinds of things that they tend to get anxious about. They are set free to focus outward to the needs of others, even unto death.
Pastor Jeffress gives an alternate vision in which Christians, astonishingly, have to count on someone like Donald Trump to give them a respite, while Trump’s actions and that of our government, cause great hurt and death to others. This view eliminates the true mission and witness of Jesus’s followers. And an alternate “gospel of Christ” gets promulgated.
So, what is this alternate gospel? What kind of gospel seeks a “respite” for ourselves while putting up with degrading, demeaning language directed to others, often to the most vulnerable among us? What kind of gospel provides personal respite while allowing children to be separated from their parents at the border? What kind of gospel makes room for the consistent demeaning of people fleeing from great danger to seek asylum? What kind of gospel has nothing to say to the racist actions of a president who sets a tone for the country? What kind of gospel provides respite for white followers of Jesus while making room for demeaning, dangerous language directed to black and brown people? What kind of gospel has us so absorbed with our own condition that we minimize the impact of the rhetoric and actions of this president on others, or simply do not care enough to pay attention to the effects of his actions on others? What kind of gospel does not call us to confront the lies and deceit and injustices?
A “gospel” that puts up with so much pain and hurt at the expense of others while providing “respite” for Christians, has hidden idolatries that “accepting Christ” apparently does little to disclose. This “gospel,” rather than calling for repentance, carves out a place for the idolatry of nation and race, as well as other idols our culture worships such as our comfort, pleasure, possessions, and power. It allows for a form of “Christianity” whose message, in many aspects, is nationalist and often implicitly white nationalist. It is idolatrous. Oblivious to the idols that enslave us, we enjoy our worship and our thoughts about God’s grace toward ourselves while maintaining all manner of self-righteous and destructive attitudes toward others. We may even disregard repentance altogether. This “gospel” may leave us “unaware that the kindness of God would lead [us] to repentance.”(St. Paul) We may go around saying, “I accept Christ. I accept Christ,” as if that were the end of the matter.
The truly good news that Jesus proclaims is that the reign of God is near and is a gift and is available to all. Therefore, Jesus tells us to turn (repent) from our idols (our allegiances that are false to our true selves) and enter into God’s reign. Under God’s reign, we receive the freedom of the children of God—the kind of freedom we see in Jesus, the child of God. In Jesus, we see freedom from being directed by fears, including the fear of others; we see freedom to show mercy, to do justice, to love others. When we begin to experience God’s reign, we discover a very different kind of governing from that of the nations of the world, and we become witnesses in word and action to God’s ways of governing. We are witnesses by our compassion and mercy toward others, our welcome of those different from us, our work for justice, and our being instruments of God’s healing in the world.