Evangelicals Face a Reckoning

It is the Sunday following an attempted coup upon the lawful government of my country.

I have to be honest. I am really angry.

My anger is primarily directed against Christian nationalists who are still claiming there were significant irregularities in our recent election that warranted a handful of US Senators and over a hundred Members of the House of Representatives to file spurious and unlawful objections to the certification of former Vice President Biden and former Senator Harris as our new President and Vice President.

You have blood on your hands, and it isn’t the blood of Jesus. You are part of an unholy choir of purveyors of Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories. And all for what?

Come on now! If there is evidence to support fraud or irregularities that could have changed the outcome of the election, bring it on! More than six dozen courts have looked at this “evidence” and seen nothing.

The lawyers who brought these actions should be disciplined or disbarred.

And so called Christians who sing hymns of praise, pray fervently and read their Bibles every day, while still echoing or supporting Trump’s lies, conspiracy theories and white supremacy agenda, they need to either repent or start a new faith tradition: the conservative, white supremacist, church of this world. I pray they wake up and choose the former path.

An old friend of mine, with whom my first wife and I worked to plant twin churches in Erie, PA many years ago, just published a piece that really encouraged me. At times it felt like my blog posts alerting followers of Jesus to the risks posed by Trump were like spitting into a strong headwind.

But perhaps I was not alone. Thanks, Ed. Thanks for having the courage and the faith to speak truth to power. After all, we shall know the truth and it will set us free.

I am honored to fold your article into this issue of the Bristol Epistle.

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Evangelicals face a reckoning: Donald Trump and the future of our faith

Ed Stetzer, Opinion contributor

No one likes to admit they were fooled. It's tough to admit we were wrong. Now, many evangelicals are seeing President Donald Trump for who he is, but more need to see what he has done to us.

It’s time for an evangelical reckoning.

I’m an evangelical, like about a quarter of the United States population. Evangelicals believe in the good news of the Gospel — that Jesus died on the cross, for our sins, and in our place — and we need to tell the world about that.

But, that’s not what most people are talking about today. You see, white evangelicals embraced the president, some begrudgingly and some enthusiastically, because he addressed many of their concerns.

Many evangelicals and leaders invested money, time, and conviction towards the promise of MAGA. In turn, Donald Trump made good on these investments from an evangelical perspective. Most evangelicals (me included) are grateful for the Supreme Court justices he appointed and for some of the religious liberty concerns he addressed. His anti-abortion stances surprised many (again, me included), and for that I was thankful.

But, most of that is in jeopardy now because Trump is who many of us warned other evangelicals that he was.

We reap what Trump has sown.

He’s burned down the Republican party, emboldened white supremacists, mainstreamed conspiracy theorists, and more.

Yet of greater concern for me is the trail of destruction he has left within the evangelical movement. Tempted by power and trapped within a culture war theology, too many evangelicals tied their fate to a man who embodied neither their faith nor their vision of political character.

Social media isn't always true: Evangelicals need to address the QAnoners in our midst

And as a result, we are finally witnessing an evangelical reckoning.

For years we’ve been talking about a coming evangelical reckoning. A flood of books, articles, and conferences — many of which I wrote and participated in — have warned of the approaching storm clouds for the evangelical movement.

This reckoning is here.

Americans (and the world) have the right to ask us some hard questions.

Some of us were vocal, often and early, about the dangers of Trumpism. It was costly.

So as we sort through the coming months and years, we must be clear on three reasons why we have arrived at this point:

► First, far too many tolerated egregious behavior.

The past half decade has offered near daily examples of people co-opting the gospel for sinful ends. Racism, nationalism, sexism, and host of other sins have found purchase within the evangelical movement in both overt and subtle expressions. Many have been able to dismiss these examples as outliers that did not truly represent the evangelical movement. We have long since exhausted this excuse.

As evangelicals, we have to stop saying this isn't who we are. This is who we are; these are our besetting sins.

However, this isn't who we have to be.

► Second, far too few failed to live up to their promise of speaking truth to power.

During the 2016 election, and at many points since, many evangelicals justified their full-throated support by promising to be a check on Trump’s character. What has become apparent is that this promise was hollow.

Too few were willing to speak out regularly and often couched their criticism so much it lacked any weight. When evangelicals finally had access to the White House, they seemed unable or unwilling to use their prophetic voice to speak truth to power.

Watergate figure, and later evangelical leader, Chuck Colson once said:

"When I served under President Nixon, one of my jobs was to work with special-interest groups, including religious leaders. We would invite them to the White House, wine and dine them, take them on cruises aboard the presidential yacht … Ironically, few were more easily impressed than religious leaders. The very people who should have been immune to the worldly pomp seemed most vulnerable."

That was us.

►Finally, all of us have failed to foster healthy political discipleship.

The foundation of our reckoning was laid far before Trump. Committed to reaching the world, the evangelical movement has emphasized the evangelistic and pietistic elements of the mission. However, it has failed to connect this mission to justice and politics. The result of this discipleship failure has led us to a place where not only our people, but many of our leaders, were easily fooled and co-opted by a movement that ended with the storming of the capitol building.

What comes next.

At the root of these three causes lies our inability to live up to our calling as evangelicals: to righteously, prophetically, and compassionately proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Our reckoning is not because we have lost worldly power but because of what we betrayed to attain and sustain it in the first place.