Falter Call

Many Christians are 'almost in despair' over what Trump has done to their faith: evangelical leaderhttps://t.co/CZpmwrgcg2

— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 25, 2023

 "I’m hearing every day from evangelical Christians who are exhausted and almost in despair over the state of American Christianity," he told the publication. "They know something has gone terribly wrong but they are losing hope that anything could be different."

Moore went on to add that he believes "Trump to be a unique threat, both to American institutions and to the church’s witness."

Speaking as a former pastor, let me just say:  Trump is not the problem with American Christianity.

It's the people in the pews, stupid.

Well, yeah, and people like Robert Jeffress at First Baptist in Dallas.  But Jeffress only reflects the views of his constituents congregation.

There is, to begin with, a rich irony in blaming Trump for all the ills that beset American Christianity.  NPR ran a story about a small (50 member) Methodist Church in Fountain Valley, CA, which wants to "dissociate" from the UMC because it's not stern enough on the subject of LGBTQ+ Christians.  Who, you know, need to repent of their sin of being...themselves...before they can be fully acceptable.  I'm not sure Russell Moore would despair over the attitude of that church, which rests its ecclesiology on a line from a hymn ("Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing") but clearly wants "blessings" restricted to people in their group, and not showered on people unacceptable to their group.

Which I grew up being taught was a very Pharasaical way of looking at Christianity.  So little has changed.

The Southern Baptists in my hometown dominated the culture, and were quite sure the rest of us who were not Baptists (especially the Catholics and the Jews; we had a chapel and a synagogue in town.  The chapel is now a cathedral, so....) were going to hell (and they weren't too sure about the Baptists who didn't go to "their" church, either).  I buried a friend, who late in her short life came out as a lesbian.  She and her parents, life-long members of one of the largest Baptist churches in town, were shunned after that revelation.  I did her funeral in part because the Baptist ministers of her childhood church, wouldn't.

Don't tell me Trump is the primary problem.  Trump didn't invent this evil; he just took advantage of it, and how many people were happy to dance to that piper's tune?

"While the witness of the church before a watching world is diminished beyond recognition, congregations are torn apart over Donald Trump, Christian nationalism, racial injustice, sexual predation, disgraced leaders, and covered-up scandals," reads the book's description. "Left behind are millions of believers who counted on the church to be a place of belonging and hope."

I'm guessing Russell Moore doesn't remember the '60's, when churches literally divided over racial issues and Dr. King wrote an open letter to them all, a letter which shamed them so badly they simply ignored it.  And by "they" I mean the congregations, the individual church members.  Granted, that missed the "evangelicals" by and large, who were happy to repeat the lies about "happy slaves" and "the war between the states" being about "state's rights" rather than owning and selling human beings like chattel and treating them worse than one would the proverbial rented mule.  Then they sailed on to glory in the days of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and cable TV evangelists who happily fleeced viewers (The Bakkers, Oral and Richard Roberts, just to name a few.  They were legion, there were so many of them.).  Yeah, that wasn't a problem for American Christianity, right, Russ?  There was a lot of sexual predation and disgraced church leaders in the '80's and '90's and right on into the 21st century, but NOW it's a problem because of Donald Trump alone?

How convenient that narrative is.  How easily it absolves the rest of us of responsibility.  Donald Trump is the author of a multitude of sins, many of which he will face terrestrial judgment for.  But he is not the scapegoat who bears away the sins of we, the people in the pews.

So [John] would say to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You spawn of Satan! Who warned you to flee from the impending doom?  Well then, start producing fruits suitable for a change of heart, and don't even start saying to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' Let me tell you, God can raise up children for Abraham right out of these rocks.  Even now the axe is aimed at the root of the trees.  So every tree not producing choice fruit gets cut down and tossed into the fire."

The crowds would ask him, "What should we do?"

And he would answer them, "Whoever has two shirts should share with someone who has none; whoever has food shouild do the same."  Toll collectors came to be baptized, and they would ask him, "Teacher, what should we do?"  He told them, "Charge nothing above the official rates." Soldiers also asked him, "And what about us?" And he said to them, "No more shakedowns!  No more frame-ups either! And be satisfied with your pay."

Luke 3: 7-14, SV

There's your altar call, Dr. Moore; and your sermon.  And nary one reference in John's words to the problems caused by Herod.  It's almost as if the blame lies, well...closer to home?

To the extent American Christianity has abandoned that foundation, I don't think you can blame it all on one man.