On December 14, Beth Moore, a prominent American theologian, tweeted this:
"I do not believe these are days for mincing words. I’m 63 1/2 years old & I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it.
Fellow leaders, we will be held responsible for remaining passive in this day of seduction to save our own skin while the saints we’ve been entrusted to serve are being seduced, manipulated, USED and stirred up into a lather of zeal devoid of the Holy Spirit for political gain.
And, God help us, we don’t turn from Trumpism to Bidenism. We do not worship flesh and blood. We do not place our faith in mortals. We are the church of the living God. We can’t sanctify idolatry by labeling a leader our Cyrus. We need no Cyrus. We have a king. His name is Jesus."
Note that Moore cautions against placing either Trump OR Biden on a pedestal.
But it's the fact that she is calling out Trump worship that has touched a nerve among American evangelicals.
Such as Johnny Enlow of the "Elijah List", who then wrote:
Response to Beth Moore’s Tweet of Dec 13, 2020 (Twitter@BethMooreLPM)
Beth Moore, I was sent your tweet this morning and you wanted to hear from fellow leaders. Your rebuke was public so therefore this too is public. My goal is that this be an entreaty more than a counter rebuke. Now, I pray you will listen to a fellow leader. To acknowledge and recognize that God’s key governmental instrument is President Trump is not “Trumpism”. Nor is it denying Jesus any preeminent place. The reason God has Cyrus’s and Davids and Esthers and Moses’s and Pauls and Elijahs and Gideons and Joshuas etc. etc. is because He uses human instruments. If I applied your logic to your very ministry I could conclude that you are unnecessary to give a message because Jesus as King will take care of it. You seemingly have faith for Him to handle all governmental matters personally without need of an instrument but not religious or spiritual matters. I think it self-evident He would not call us the "salt" of the earth and the "light" of the world if He as King Jesus would handle everything.
What if King Jesus has Himself sanctioned and raised President Trump as His key instrument at this time? Would it not be an egregious offense before Him for a leader in the Body of Christ such as yourself to not recognize that reality because of some personal wound, grudge, blindness or preference? And worse to then encourage other leaders towards similar mutiny equivalent? What if some leaders in Moses’ day would have reached out to the people and messaged “We have no need to follow Moses! We must only follow God? God will open the Red Sea before us whether we honor or follow Moses or not". Would that “zeal for Jesus” have been looked upon kindly by God? I think not. It would be a zeal devoid of wisdom. Apply that to every Biblical character of renown that God used as His key instrument. Israel repeatedly faced judgment for ignoring who God had sent as His key instrument. That was true all the way into the New Testament. The Pharisees could not receive Jesus Himself because of their “zeal for God”. They disrespected the instrument God sent because He was not in the package they expected- and He was actually God Himself! Would not anyone championing “God” above honoring the leader this very God had chosen-- actually be in rebellion to God?
Beth, I must tell you that as much as I have respected your ministry to the Body of Christ for many years that this is where you find yourself today. You not only are in resistance to God’s instrument of choice of the hour but you are using the very platform God has given you to champion foolishness against God. While there may or may not be “Trumpism” the actual reason there is so much passion in the Body of Christ towards President Trump and what he is fighting for, is because there are millions of believers in this nation discerning God’s will and His instrument of deliverance for our nation. You have done them and the Body of Christ and the general populace itself a great disservice by calling their proper discernment into account. May you back down from your self-righteous stand and properly discern the day and the hour we are in. May the accountability you have projected onto leaders in the Body of Christ be properly felt by you, yourself, as it is serious.
Johnny Enlow
Enlow's daughter has a different perspective:
Please
read this from Promise Joy Enlow. Her father, Johnny Enlow, has
thousands of followers and appears regularly on Elijah List. I have felt
he is the most dangerous of those that prophesied that Trump would be
re-elected because he continues to promote QAnon conspiracy theories and
is inciting violence through the language he uses.
Promise
is not the only preacher's kid speaking out. I am in a closed Facebook
group, started by Anna Jayne Joyner, where other preacher's kids are
expressing concern at the cultish behavior they see in their parents.
Promise's words "You've lost us" is something I've heard a lot.
Promise Joy Enlow's post dated November 12:
"Growing
up, one of my favorite Bible stories was of the prodigal son. I loved
the idea of a child being able to come back freely to his family after
potentially ruining his future, and still finding unconditional love and
zero requirements to receive it. It’s a beautiful picture.
Unfortunately I don’t think the evangelical church will have many “lost
sheep” even attempting a reunion after all that has happened.
Even IF
these Christian leaders/their followers were indeed right about their
ridiculous conspiring they have left ZERO room for any reconciliation
with those they have disagreed with.
The far-right, evangelical church
has officially sealed their position as a Trump cult.
There is no love,
kindness, gentleness, or other “fruits of the spirit” coming from their
camp.
They are so busy with their obsession that they have no time for
relationship.
Anyone who joins them from here on out will have been
forced into it by fear tactics and threats of an angry, judgmental god.
They’ve lost all credibility (Clinton, Obama, etc still not in jail and
the coronavirus is still happening despite their attempted predictions)
and now have taken to extremely weird emotional displays (check out
Kenneth Copeland and Paula White).
The posts of many popular evangelical
leaders that I grew up around break my heart and terrify me.
They are
full of rage, anger, denial, and even borderline incite violence (and at
minimum do nothing to speak against it...at least not from their own).
They are literally referring to anyone who didn’t vote for Trump as
evil, deceived sleepers, pedophile supporters, and worse.
Trump’s
election loss is literally being compared to the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
Their idol worship of Trump is not even attempting to
be subtle anymore.
The
most beautiful parts of the story of Jesus have been completely
abandoned by them, and replaced with the anger, jealousy,
vindictiveness, and inhumanity of the god of the Old Testament.
They
don’t want to love souls anymore (other than those of unborn babies and
missing children that aren’t actually missing...), they just want power
over them.
And to that I say: you’ve lost us.
You’ve drank the Kool-aid
and we’ve thrown our cup on the ground and will not trust anything else
your divisive message has to offer us.
We believe in love, and in each
other, and that is what we live by."
- Promise Joy Enlow
Beth Moore is not the only Christian evangelical warning against Trumpism and Christian nationalism.
C.S. Lewis and Phillip Yancey did:
"I see the confusion of politics and religion as one of the
greatest barriers to grace. C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes
of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with
politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of ungrace, allures
us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been
unable to resist.
Beth Moore is right.
Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, 233
Billy Graham did:
“I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."
―
David French, a conservative Christian political commentator, and senior editor of The Dispatch, also warned us:
The Dangerous Idolatry of Christian Trumpism
"This is a grievous and dangerous time for American Christianity. The frenzy and the fury of the post-election period has laid bare the sheer idolatry and fanaticism of Christian Trumpism.
A significant segment of the Christian public has fallen for conspiracy theories, has mixed nationalism with the Christian gospel, has substituted a bizarre mysticism for reason and evidence, and rages in fear and anger against their political opponents—all in the name of preserving Donald Trump’s power."
- David French
It's not lost on me that a woman who has consistently called out the culture of white-washing systemic sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Church is now the one who is being branded a "false teacher", a "sheep in wolves' clothing" and a "Jezebel".
Beth Moore is right.
Christian nationalism is not of God.
The kingdoms of this world are not the Kingdom of God.
The old book says, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.
In Amos, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Micah, the Gospels, James, and so on, God's righteousness is expressed as his JUSTICE.
Justice for who?
For widows and orphans and the homeless
For immigrants, refugees and strangers in the land
For Indigenous people and their ancient marker stones
For the abused and the oppressed
For the exploited and those cheated of fair wages
For those deprived of justice and integrity in the courts.
For those considered 'the least of these, my little sisters and brothers".
Seek first HIS Kingdom.
Not
the "kingdom" most likely to secure OUR rights, freedoms, privileges,
comforts, luxuries, customs, culture and preferred way of life, at the
expense of others.
Politicized, popular, performance Christianity is not where it's at.
Amos
5: "You trample on the poor and force them to give you grain while you
live in mansions ... you oppress the righteous and take bribes, and
deprive the poor of justice in the courts. I hate, I despise your
religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies .. away with the noise
of your songs! I will not listen ... But let justice roll on like a
river, righteousness like an ever flowing stream."
American evangelicals
are making a serious error by conflating church with politics and using
venal men like Trump to further their culture war agenda.
That is not
the way to exalt righteousness in a nation.
The people who are supposed
to be about Truth have followed a narcissistic liar; the people who are
supposed to be about Love have become hateful.
It has brought
Christianity into disrepute.
The international community watches in dismay as Christianity is warped much as Islamic fundamentalist extremists warped Islam for their political agendas.
It is time to stop spiritualizing political issues.
It is time to stop inferring that God is on 'your side' and that your political opponents are 'of the devil'.
It is time to wake up to the polarization tactics being deployed against you.
The kingdoms of our God are not the
Kingdoms of this world.
It is not Beth Moore who needs
to repent of self-righteousness.
It is a dreadful thing to watch sincere Christians marching beside "Proud Boys" in their "Jericho Marches", proclaiming the name of Jesus - even as they repeat Qanon disinformation - and conflating conspiracy theories from that nefarious source with false prophecies from false prophets - leading them further out of touch with reality and further into collective delusion.
My American husband told me, after scanning scores of "Stop the Steal" posts and sites, "I feel like a spiritual orphan. I feel I have lost my tribe."
Joe Terrell wrote here:
"If
we don’t pump the brakes soon, all of this macho rhetoric and posturing
can only end one way. And it’ll make the whole of 2020 look like a
cakewalk. It may sound and look like far-fetched and alarmist political
theater, but the precedent being set by the GOP leadership should
disturb every American. Because none of this occurs in a vacuum.
According to a recent survey, more than half of Republican voters don’t
believe Biden won the 2020 election (https://bit.ly/37Xwioq). "
and
"Our nation is rapidly approaching a point of no return. It may be time to temporarily set aside our partisan differences. You may have not voted for Biden. You may hate everything the Democrat Party stands for. But in recent weeks, President Donald Trump has proven himself either pathologically unable to admit defeat or mentally ill - perhaps both - and his behavior threatens to push our country to the brink of a crisis of unimaginable consequence.
Make no mistake: As Trump continues to frame himself as the only "righteous" source of truth, authority, and justice, his political movement is rapidly transforming itself into a cult (https://bit.ly/3mfJcmU)."
Dan Hawk commented further on the "Stop the Steal" and "Jericho" marches:
"The
Jericho March and Stop the Steal rally in Washington D.C. on December
12 followed on the heels of three pre-election prayer rallies. It
included many of the same individuals, with the addition of Eric Metaxas
and Alex Jones, Roman Catholic leaders, such as Archbishop Carlo Maria
Vigano (arguably the fiercest critic of Pope Francis), Michael Flynn,
and the My Pillow guy (whose adds at times appeared on split screen with
speakers). The tone this time was stridently militant rather than
penitential. The speakers articulated and reiterated the main points
we’ve been hearing from this group in the weeks since the election:
· Nefarious forces have stolen the election
· The rule of law is at stake
· Most Christian leaders are asleep, have given up, or are on Satan’s side in this battle
· The judges who have ruled against Mr. Trump have no courage
· An attack on Mr. Trump is an attack on the church or the citizens of this nation
· The media are working for the liberal overthrow of the U.S. and are spewing lies
·
God is calling Christians, through his contemporary prophets, to fight
along with the angelic forces that are battling in the spiritual realm
for the United States
·
Perhaps most alarming: Follow your “heart” and not your “head.” Trust
your own inner voice and believe what the prophets and sympathetic
politicians tell you. That is the real truth.
The
last point explains a lot. One cannot reason with such people, because
they have rejected reason altogether. "Truth is what I believe it to be
in my heart and is confirmed by people who share my belief."
We find ourselves, therefore, in a time of significant peril.
The
rule of law is maintained by mediating institutions, like courts, that
adjudicate competing claims and render equitable judgment based on
evidentiary standards. Over fifty judges or panels of judges, many of
them Trump appointees, have repeatedly ruled that there is no evidence
in support of Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud and a stolen election. The
courts are working as the Founders designed them to. To reject their
judgments is to reject the rule of law and to open the door either to
authoritarianism or to civil war.
Christian
faith and practice are rooted in the careful, rigorous interpretation
of Scripture, guided by the intellect and informed by tradition. The
reasonable, critical interpretation of the Bible provides a fundamental
means of evaluating visions, impressions, and convictions. To reject the
intellect and instead to cherry-pick biblical texts to support one’s
subjective belief or putative revelation, is to place one’s experience
above the truth of Scripture.
History
reveals where this leads – to aberrant doctrine and, more seriously, to
a spiral toward violence.
When a group of ardent adherents places
themselves above others of their faith, on the basis of subjective
experience or divine revelations, the result has almost always been a
descent into violence and the justification of brutality against the
perceived enemies of God – that is, ultimately to the same thinking that
justifies flying airliners into skyscrapers and to wiping out
indigenous people as demon worshipers.
The
Jericho March rally looks less like a scene from the book of Joshua and
more like the scene at Mt. Carmel, when the prophets of Baal called on
Baal again and again, and by various devices, to manifest his supremacy
over the nation. The cult of Baal was an abomination, not only because
it presented a rival claimant for Israel’s loyalty, but also because
that cult served the aims of the ruling regime. Elijah – and all the
prophets of Israel – insisted that the Lord was free from and stood
apart from all earthly aspirations for power. Yahweh is no ruler’s
servant.
For this reason, I don’t expect to see the kindling of the sought-after fire on the Jericho March altar."
What I Saw At The Jericho March
by Rod Dreher
Some excerpts:
"This was truly
extraordinary: the conflation of shedding blood, seizing the government,
and serving God. This was a great gift to the Left, this speech. The
entire day was. A very conservative Christian friend e-mailed me during
all this to say, “My God, this is the kind of stuff that drove me away
from Christianity for 25 years!”- discusses the errors of Christian Americanism, End Times conspiracy theories, and the prosperity doctrine - and how these groomed the masses for delusion.
- Michael Horton, The Gospel Coalition
Another speaker, a man wearing a black cowboy hat, called on Trump to “invoke the Insurrection Act” to “drop the hammer” on “traitors.” He said that Trump should know that the “militia” is with him.
“Let’s get it on now, while [Trump] is still the commander in chief,” said the speaker.
But like this? By putting all your faith in Donald Trump? By believing and proclaiming things that are false, or at least contestable? By demonizing all those who doubt or disagree?
This is how you fight for righteousness?
No. No, no, no. No!
Yes, it is bonkers. All of it. But you would be wrong to make fun of it and blow it off.
This phenomenon is going to matter. Divinizing MAGA and Stop The Steal is going to tear churches to bits, and drive people away from the Christian faith (or keep them from coming in the first place). Based on what I saw today, the Christians in this movement do not doubt that Trump is God’s chosen, that they, by following him, are walking in light, and whatever they do to serve Trump is also serving God. They have tightly wound apocalyptic religion to conservative politics and American nationalism.
“We have to align our spirituality to our politics,” said the speaker today. Notice that she didn’t say “align our politics to our spirituality.”
Meet the evangelical Trump Truthers: Jenna Ellis and Eric Metaxas
"These days, what Metaxas and Ellis have in common — coming from different backgrounds and two decades apart in age — is a willingness to bend the present truth into a new kind of historical fiction.
Gerson, of the Washington Post, sees a danger to the witness of Christianity in this denial of reality.
“Dedicating your life to Trump is in the same category. If a Christian leader believes — honestly and adamantly believes — that Trump is a fount of truth, a defender of the faithful, a Lincolnian guardian of liberty and a victim of a nationwide electoral conspiracy, he or she is likely to fall for anything. People like this — people like Metaxas — make the critical intelligence of Christians seem limited. And what these leaders say about religion loses in credibility.”
