Friend,
I have a question for you. I hope our years together in the faith would bring you to honour me with considering this plain question… although it may make you uncomfortable. I am deeply troubled by the diseased state of Christianity right now, I’m hoping that you can illuminate how it got here.
Tell me if there is any validity to this perspective that I hold: radical religiosity is dangerous. It leads to all sorts of harmful events from the Crusades to 9/11. But extremism is only half-fueled by radical/violent belief… the other half comes from moderates standing by and feeding the flames with their silence.
The rise of Donald Trump is particularly on the shoulders of the Christians, and despite scandal after inept scandal, the unshakable support of the church allows him to cling to power. As the impeachment process grinds on via a mountain of evidence, I ask you: Why have you remained silent?
“Trump-Ideology”
Before I continue I need to clarify: the man himself is immaterial, he is a bumbling narcissist who can’t spell.
The true enemy is “Trump-ideology”, the ethos that mainstream Christians have widely embraced: The belief that his sexual immorality is tolerable so long as we get judges who will criminalize abortion, that immigrants and refugees are the problem, and so on…. As a believer, your silence regarding Trump-Ideology is too loud for me tolerate.
Immorality
I’m not going to argue the details of the Ukraine scandal, the evidence is so unbelievably one-sided it’s a waste of my words. Instead, I am asking you to consider this:
Right now there is a waitlist of 19,000 people seeking asylum at our southern border. Trump has cut the number of refugees we accept to the lowest number in US history: 20,000. There are a record number of children, separated from their parents, in concentration camps at our border. It is for these reasons that every bible-believing Christian should demand Trump’s removal from office. There is absolutely no scriptural way one can refute this.
We are so, so specifically called to advocate for the weak, voiceless, “least of these” (Matt 25) that followers of Jesus must unify in one voice and demand an impeachment of Trump-Ideology; the Ukraine scandal is merely the vehicle.
Californian Christian
You implicitly agree with me, but you’re unwilling to speak. You are more forward thinking than the common American Christian, but you are so private about your thoughts I need a damn crowbar to get it out of you. You are willing to perhaps engage me privately on this, but you won’t stick your neck out and publicly denounce Trump-Ideology.
I’ve heard my CA Christian friends tell me they don’t support Trump the candidate, but they entertain the ridiculous attacks against Hillary Clinton, the theory that maybe Russians didn’t attack our elections, that children in cages deserve it because their parents broke the law… in other words CA Christians like you won’t support Trump specifically, but you tolerate Trump-ideology in your churches.
“Your silence as a believer is tacit support.”
Confirm my suspicion
I have made my own assumptions as to why Christians like yourself remain silent on this subject, I’m asking for engagement here to confirm, or enlighten me with what’s really going on.
I believe that beleaguered pastors are desperately trying to keep their churches together, avoiding politics at all costs to keep tithing MAGA Christians in the pews. Rather than boldly speak out against an immoral Trump-Ideology they continue on with benign sermons; and lay people like yourselves have followed suit.
Thus a small cadre of rigid and vitriolic members of your church have forced moderate Christians like yourself into silence. This silence tilts the overall church toward support of Trump-Ideology, making Christians all over the US complicit in keeping this man, and his ideology in power.
Afterall, the impeachment process will almost certainly lead to his acquittal in the senate because there is not enough pressure on moderate republican senators from their constituents. If only Christians could unify their voices, like they have regarding abortion, maybe they could do the right thing as followers of Jesus Christ and impeach this Trump-Ideology, once and for all.
Put on your MAGA hat
I ask you plainly: defend your silence. Despite the attacks on the poor/immigrant/refugee, despite the mountain of Ukraine evidence, despite the sexual immorality, the incompetence, the bullying, justify why you have remained silent.
Is it just because you have been trained to stay out of politics? Well your brothers and sisters in Christ have thrown their weight behind Trump-Ideology, they have entered the political fray and forced the subject upon you. If you do not act as a counterweight your silence supports their cause.
If you agree that there is no defense for silence then join me. Speak with me in one voice and condemn what is antithetical to the commandments of Jesus Christ. And if you disagree, put on your MAGA hat, I will applaud you for at least taking a side.
Respectfully, further silence is an act of cowardice. Didn’t God give you a spirit not of timidity but of power? (1 Tim 1:7) If there was ever a time for that spirit of timidity to die IT IS NOW.
I’m asking you to publicly condemn Trump-ideology, and clearly differentiate it from the Christian Faith. I now identify as postchristian because I believe the church is entirely incapable of standing up to such immorality infecting it from the inside, why don’t you make your voice heard and prove me wrong.
What Side of History Will You Be On?
In 1930s Germany, one may say it wasn’t directly Lutherans and Catholics who supported the rise of the Nazi party, but one can certainly say they had the levers that could have stopped all of the carnage… but they were too cowardly to pull them. History will remember followers of Christ in Germany not as the ones silently supporting the godless atrocities of WW2.
The Christian church, specifically the Evangelical Church in 2019 stands before that same lever. You stand before that lever. What side of history will you be on?
Postchristianity 