For what does it gain a movement if it acquires all the power while forfeiting it’s soul?
[Originally posted on 1/10/2021] I’ve been thinking about what to say for days now. What happened Wednesday at the US Capitol was terrible. But there are much smarter, more experienced men and women than I commenting on that. If you want general thoughts on what happened, there are better sources than me.
But there is one topic on which I felt the need to speak. We don’t know how to have hard conversations with “our” people. This is true for our society as a whole. But now is not the time for my group (politically conservative, evangelical Christians) to be worrying about society as a whole. It’s not the time for us to be critiquing those outside of our walls. It’s a good time to do some self-reflection, self-examination, and to be self-critical.
There is a consistent biblical ethic that we should expect more from each other as Christians. That we should be watching each other’s backs and lives. That we should be paying more attention to our walk, than watching the walk of others to criticize it. For that reason, there is something I need to say about OUR walk (politically conservative, evangelical Christians). That’s my people. My group. My tribe. That’s who I’m qualified to talk to.
Wednesday I saw people waving “Jesus Saves” signs as the person five feet away beat police officers with a lead pipe. I saw people in “Trump and Jesus” t-shirts pulling down the US flag to replace it with a Trump campaign flag. I saw a “prayer march” transforming into a terrorist attack. I saw the results of political loyalties becoming more important than our spiritual loyalties.
We don’t know how to have hard conversations with “our” people. But we need to learn how. Because we (evangelicals) have grouped ourselves in with some truly horrific ideas. We need to start having the courage to stand up and say “we do not accept you, we would rather lose your votes than be associated with your ideas.”
At that riot I saw people in Christian t-shirts walking next to folks with shirts that read “Camp Auschwitz”. Not in remembrance of heartrending loss, but in mockery. Many of the marchers had “Proud Boys” t-shirts, a modern white supremacist organization. A picture was taken of a man running through the capital building in tactical gear with guns and an armload of zip ties, the kind for securing prisoners. They were looking to take elected officials hostage. I saw Nazi tattoos, t-shirts, and even flags. Many shirts were seen that said, “6MWE”, those are the ones that trouble me the most. They mean “Six Million Wasn’t Enough,” as in, the holocaust didn’t do a good enough job of killing Jews.
It’s not enough to pretend that it’s not happening. I’ve seen some claiming it was secret antifa plants within the Trump crowd that did it. There’s no good evidence for this. In fact, many in the pictures within the capital and in the crowd have already been identified. Including former state republican officials and Trump rally regulars. I’m looking at you America-Viking guy. We see these claims because we are uncomfortable having hard discussions with our people. We know there is guilt here, and we are terrified of it falling on us by association. But if that’s the case, then we have to confront what has brought us to this point. What has made us feel like we need to have common cause with those who make us feel guilty by association?
I think what’s brought us here is idolatry of political power. Because if political power is my goal, and associating with and accommodating neo-Nazi’s, racists, and anarchists gets me closer to that goal, then so be it. We (evangelical support was crucial) elected a president who switched parties to gain political power. We have tons of national level political leaders who repeatedly make decisions for the sole sake of gaining more political power. By not voting them out of office, we let them. We have aided and abetted the growing idolatry of political power.
We’ve idolized political power for good reasons and bad. Because it makes us feel in control. Because we think it’s the way to shape society in a good way. Because it makes us feel like we have say in where our lives are going. But like any and every idol, we have now seen that political power promises freedom but only delivers bondage. Our idolatry of political power has bound us up with racists, anti-semites, fascists, neo-nazis, and neo-confederates. My Northerner heart ached to see the confederate battle flag marching through the halls of the Capitol. The blood and tears of the men of the state where I was born and bred kept that flag from ever getting that close 160 years ago.
When we want to break the control that an idol has over us, there is no real way to do it without giving up the idol. So the question is, will we? Will we have hard conversations where we explicitly reject and condemn these anti-Christian ideologies? Are we willing to lose elections for a time to rebuild our witness? To purge ourselves of these evil associations? Or will we make excuses? Will we say we can’t control who comes alongside us in our political advocacy? Will we say that holding onto what shreds of political power we have left are more important than holding on to the shreds of our moral authority and credibility?
How do we break the bonds that political power hold on our group? We take actions, one step at a time. Actions that say loud and clear that other things are more important to us than political power. That looks different for each of us. But it boils down to making one decision at a time. Each decision reinforcing that other things are more important to us than political power. Then one day we find that we can make those decisions without even having to think about it.
I’m a big book person, so for more detailed ideas I’d recommend “The Liturgy of Politics” by Kaitlyn Schiess, “Divided We Fall” by David French, or “Them: Why we hate each other, and how to heal” by Ben Sasse. Some great social media follows about Christian loyalty beating political loyalty would be Benjamin Watson, American Solidarity Party, and the And Campaign.