On New Year’s Eve, my parents and I decided to rent Wicked from Amazon. It had just been released on video that day so it cost $20 but we all agreed it was worth it, and that was still cheaper than all three of us going to the theater. When the price comes down, I am going to rent it again and watch it with audio description because there were a few places where I couldn’t quite follow what was going on and it was difficult for Mom to describe. But I got the gist of it, and enjoyed the music, some of which I sang in choir.

For our family who never supported Donald Trump, finding his amorality and narcissism repugnant, this month has felt strange. I love the way one writer I follow described it, like standing on railroad tracks knowing a train is going to hit you, but there’s nothing you can do about it. “I would link to it but I have read so much I cannot remember where I read it.) As I write this, Donald Trump has officially been president for one hour, so I guess the train is here. There is nothing really to say that hasn’t been said already, but I felt compelled to share some thoughts inspired by the opening number of Wicked that I believe will be valuable in putting this day in perspective and confronting Christian Nationalism, a political movement whose leaders are using Donald Trump to advance their agenda.

It is in our human nature to want to leave a legacy, so perhaps the reason the position of President of the United States is so coveted by some, and campaigned for so nastily is because it offers the ultimate opportunity to leave a legacy unlike any other. In a sense, we all leave a legacy. If you are a parent, your legacy takes the form of the children you raise. In addition to passing on your genes, you pass down your values. If you are a teacher, your legacy is the students you inspire, and if you are lucky, former students will write you about how you left a lasting impression on them. If you were involved in your community, your legacy might be your positive attitude or kindness that inspired others. All these are wonderful legacies, but I once heard a sermon about the reality that the youngest baby at your funeral, in one hundred years or less, will also die, and as such, for most of us, our earthly legacies are not lasting. Most of us fade into the vast anonymity of human history. But as President of the United States, your decisions shape the course of U.S. and to some extent world history. Sadly, Satan takes advantage of this human instinct, this lust for power. Jesus, the perfection of humanity confidently resisted Satan’s temptation (Matthew 4:9) but no human government has ever been capable of fully resisting a bargain with the Devil. They don’t literally bow down and worship Satan of course, but they make decisions based on evil motives like holding onto power, or projecting strength via violence toward other countries, or oppression of their own people. We have never had, and never will have a perfect president because America’s earthly interests usually don’t align with Christ’s righteous standards, especially in the foreign policy realm. Every president panders to constituencies for whom it is politically expedient to serve, while overlooking the most marginalized, especially the extremely poor. I must say I am conflicted as to my opinion of Joe Biden. On the one hand, his big ego—which every president has, and perhaps is necessary to even seek a job as high-stakes as President of the United States—got him into trouble. That debate in June, with his declining health on full display, was painful to watch, and he exhibited poor judgment by choosing to run for a second term, and selfishness in waiting so long to drop out that there wasn’t time for a proper Democratic primary. But Donald Trump is only a few years younger than Biden, and while at surface level he seems more vigorous, he has shown significant cognitive decline over the years as well. So perhaps the shame should rest not on Joe Biden, but on our society who prioritizes superficial physical strength and vigor over content of character. Joe Biden may have had a big ego, but “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34) and whenever Joe Biden spoke, he radiated genuine compassion for anyone experiencing hardship, whether it was cancer, financial insecurity, or the loss of a loved one in combat or due to gun violence, this empathy forged through tragedy in his own life. By contrast, whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth, he spews forth cruel rhetoric against immigrants or political opponents, mocks people with disabilities, and helps people experiencing hardship only if it is politically advantageous. And yet evangelicals overwhelmingly chose him again, despite his abandonment of the prolife platform, a sign that he has no true convictions. They still believe his administration can be a tool for “taking America back for God”, despite Jesus’s warning that “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:18). Much like the Pharisees of Jesus’s day, Christian Nationalists seem to be interested only in legalistic, cultural Christianity, which bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus at all. Adding insult to injury has been watching all the charges dropped, despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption, and the sentencing in New York that wasn’t really a sentence at all. Ordinary people spend years in prison for far less serious crimes, and yet Donald Trump gets by with everything.

But I was struck by the optics of Jimmy Carter’s funeral. Jimmy Carter, sadly and ironically, was treated similar to Biden by right-wing evangelicals. Jimmy Carter, another example of a man who was not perfect but lived out his faith, conducting himself with such integrity that he put his modest peanut farm into a blind trust, was scorned by evangelicals for, among other things, holding a summit on family policy that included LGBTQ families. But all hard feelings were left in the past, as even political opponents gave beautiful eulogies testifying to his integrity, his ability to negotiate peace treaties, and his legacy of service to the poor, building houses for Habitat for Humanity and eradicating diseases in third-world countries. Donald Trump attended this funeral because it wouldn’t look good politically if he didn’t, but his presence put the other dignitaries in awkward no-win positions. Depending on the political slant of the media outlet, Barack Obama was praised by some, and criticized by others for talking and laughing with Donald Trump. I couldn’t see the interplay for myself, but I imagine Barack Obama was trying to take the high road, going along with Trump’s banter, probably inappropriate for a funeral, to make the best of an awkward situation. Karen Pence, the wife of Mike Pence, was admired and rebuked, again depending on the slant of the media outlet, for snubbing Trump, which technically, if you take the Bible seriously, might have been wrong, but understandable from a human standpoint. After all, Donald Trump all but encouraged his supporters to hang her husband on January 6, 2021.

Of course, only God is qualified to know the eternal destiny of Donald Trump, and we are all wicked in our own ways and would be condemned if it weren’t for God’s grace and forgiveness through Christ. But as I listened to the coverage of Jimmy Carter’s funeral, and the analysis of the behavior of Barack Obama and Karen Pence, I was reminded of a couple lines from the opening number of the movie Wicked: “A good man scorns the wicked. Through their lives our children learn what we miss when we misbehave.”

Donald Trump may have skirted legal consequences for his actions, but I doubt he is genuinely happy. I have heard derisive laughter from him, in the context of mocking a political opponent, but never the genuine laughter aroused by a silly song, the cute antics of a child or the dog licking your face. In fact, he mocked Kamala Harris for her joyful laugh, viewing it as a sign of weakness. And when you are narcissistic, is it possible to have genuine friends? Big tech CEOs dined with him at Mar-a-Lago and have been involved in his transition, but it is clear they are flattering him because they want favors from him. Republican legislators are loyal to him because they want their party to stay in power. Leaders from other countries flatter him so that he will enact policies favorable to them. But does anyone genuinely enjoy passing an afternoon gulfing or enjoying a meal with him simply for his companionship, expecting nothing in return? Somehow I don’t think so. If I had children, I would love to point out how much joy he is missing out on in the absence of genuine friends, and his inability to laugh, how by being consumed with anger and thoughts of retribution, he is hurting others right now, but ultimately, as he lays on his deathbed, he may come to realize the person hurt most by his behavior was himself. And when he does pass on, I have no doubt the remaining living presidents and first ladies will attend his funeral out of respect, but given how he dehumanized them, will they be able to truly mourn him? And will history remember him kindly, or will he join the pariahs of history for whom any good they may have accomplished was overshadowed by the people they dehumanized? Has he yet contemplated these questions and felt a profound sense of loneliness?

Christian Nationalism is a movement with a spectrum, so it would be unfair to paint all with a broad brush, but I see in the most ardent adherents to the movement an all-consuming anger and hostility similar to that of Donald Trump. They may have genuine friends, but only within their tribe of white evangelicals. They do not welcome immigrants despite the fact that Jesus was a refugee, and they seem to forget that Christ’s blood purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). With these Christian nationalists too, repentance is possible with God if they choose to let go of their pride and come to Christ for forgiveness. In eternal life, we will all learn in one way or another what joy we missed because we misbehaved in this life. But we can choose to start behaving better now. As the chaos and immigration raids commence once again, what if we Christians led the way in making the reputation of Christianity beautiful again by speaking up for the marginalized, the immigrant seeking asylum? What if, one community at a time, we could show the world what joy and flourishing they forfeit by choosing the path of nationalism, defined by hostility and resentment, instead of Christ’s path of inclusion and love?

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When my siblings and I were growing up, we learned that the phrase which irritated our parents the most was “I’m bored.” Perhaps to parents—understandably—this phrase seems to imply ingratitude. We were very fortunate, and thus had more toys than we knew what to do with indoors, and outdoors, we had a two acre yard, complete with a swing set and basketball hoop. They would run through the list of all our entertainment options, and all of us learned at some point to figure out how to amuse ourselves and quit whining, or else they would give us housework to do. During our childhood, Mom and Dad claimed there was so much work to do they were never bored, and now that they are retired, they say they don’t understand how their peers complain of being bored once they retired. Between errands and house maintenance, they say they are keeping as busy as ever.

I remember one summer day in particular when I was eight years old. Mom and Dad were both at work, and my sister (six years older) was babysitting. I was a bit of a weird kid, a little more introspective than most kids my age, and that day, it was starting to occur to me—though I didn’t quite know how to verbalize it at the time—that what I was feeling was not boredom in the sense of having nothing to do, but a deep, abiding restlessness, a nagging sense that there had to be more to life than the endless school years of pointless worksheets, followed by summers of silly craft projects, children’s books and playing on the swing set. I wanted to do something real, something exciting, something meaningful. In other words, I was already contemplating in a childish way that universal human question: what is the meaning of life? Unable to articulate verbally exactly what I was feeling, I remember whining to my sister, “I want to do something I have never done before.” “Then do something you have never done before,” my sister said in a tone that clearly indicated annoyance with her little sister. I don’t remember how I ended up passing the time that day, but for the most part, I let the subject drop for the remainder of my childhood. Maybe the feeling would go away once I grew up and was allowed to do real work that made a difference in the real world rather than pointless school work that would be thrown into the recycling bin at the end of each semester. But in the adult world, I would discover that most jobs, though they may occasionally present opportunities to make a lasting difference in the world—or at least for one starfish as the parable goes—are mostly bureaucratic and ultimately pointless. And thus this restlessness is like a lifelong virus. It can be masked somewhat, but this side of heaven there is no cure. During the school year, children relieve its symptoms by rebelling—misbehaving in class or deciding not to do their homework. (I will neither confirm nor deny that I was one of the kids who decided not to do my homework.) During the summer, they mask it by passing the time doing a craft project, playing on the swing set, or escaping into a silly book or video game. During their working years, responsible adults like my parents learned to accept, and taught us kids to accept that the mundaneness of everyday life is an unavoidable reality. They intuitively lived out a modern take on the book of Ecclesiastes. The most you can hope for from life is a job that pays a fair wage, with a good company where your coworkers are pleasant and your boss treats everyone fairly. Despite what TV or social media might lead us to believe, it is actually extremely rare for people to land a job getting paid to do what they love. You go to work to pay the bills, keep your nose to the grindstone while you are there, come home and cherish time with family, finding time to pursue what you enjoy on evenings and weekends. That is a good life. Unfortunately, less responsible adults mask their restlessness by living beyond their means, doing the bare minimum in their jobs, indulging in shallow entertainment like reality TV, or self-medicating with junk food, pornography, drugs or alcohol. Middle-of-the-road adults like myself cope with boredom by getting overly excited anticipating man-made holiday traditions—singing Christmas music in October. As I write this, it is December 26 and I am coping with that annual post-Christmas malaise I feel every year. The week of Christmas, but especially Christmas Eve and Christmas Day always feels like a slice of heaven on Earth, as all society pauses from the routine of work to eat special food, play board games as a family, pack into church and sing joyful Christmas songs, and I have always found it difficult to come down from that emotional mountaintop and resume ordinary life.

And since the reelection of Donald Trump, I have read some fascinating commentaries arguing that boredom at the societal level may explain the “burn it all down” mentality of so many that allowed for the rise of Donald Trump. In his book, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy, Tom Nichols quoted George Will who remarked in 2020 that “Affluent societies are often gripped by a hunger for apocalypse, a wish for a great struggle that could give drama and deeper meaning, a frisson of risk to the otherwise dull rhythm of life in a country that meets almost all of the needs of its population, at almost all times, and entertains them continuously while doing so.” Tom Nichols adds that “Democracy at its best is boring, and when a society becomes attached to the idea that boredom is a burden that government should alleviate, the attraction of politics beyond the edge of reason becomes a matter of entertainment rather than of justice or even of necessity” (Page 67). Tom Nichols wasn’t writing specifically to Christians, but we are no better. In a November 13 editorial in Christianity Today, Russell Moore remarked, “What we call politics these days offers people a sense of meaning and purpose, an interruption to the dead everydayness of life. A jolt of adrenaline can feel almost like life—for a little while.” But ultimately, news cycles full of political drama only leave us feeling burnt out and distract us from the truth, that this manufactured political drama is temporary, fleeting and pitiful.

But the fact that we are discontent and bored with this life isn’t in and of itself a problem. In fact, for true Christians, it is a good thing, a sign that we recognize we were made for another world. As Augustine famously said, we were made for God and only He can fulfill what are restless hearts are longing for. And as Russell Moore noted later in his article, “You are meant to have a life of drama and adventure and excitement. Politics—of the left, right or center—can’t deliver it. News cycles can’t replicate it. For those of us who are Christians, we already have it. We need no Jungian hero’s journey. We are joined to the life of Jesus of Nazareth. His story is our story. Our lives are hidden in Him” (See Colossians 3:3). In other words, it is okay to long for drama, adventure and excitement. It is just that in our fallen state, we are prone to looking for this drama and excitement in all the wrong places.

Still to this day after an especially tedious day of work, I can lapse into doubt and wonder, if only I had been able to land one of my dream jobs I longed for all my childhood—a reporter for a newspaper who would fill the hearts of dishonest politicians with terror and dread, or a paid singer in a fabulous choir or Broadway production—I wouldn’t feel this restlessness. But King Solomon had the ultimate dream job, king over Israel, the global superpower of his time, and yet many scholars believe he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes full of depressing rhetoric such as “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Ecclesiastes ultimately points to Christ, the only one who can redeem this fallen world and offer what our restless hearts long for.

Our hearts should break for those who do not believe in Christ. They do not know that peace that passes understanding from a Father who forgives their sins and promises eternal life, and thus they are more susceptible to despair when life throws them curveballs because in their minds, this life, and this broken world, is all there is. But even for those who have accepted Him, life can feel pointless sometimes. God requires even his followers to endure the mundane tedium of everyday life, toiling at a job we don’t particularly enjoy because it is in the ordinariness of everyday life that our sincerity and commitment to our faith is tested. God also uses ordinary life, especially adversity, to cultivate character qualities that we will need to accomplish his true purpose for us. When we are first introduced to Joseph, he is a rather arrogant teenage boy, boastfully sharing his dreams that indicate that his brothers, and one day even his father would bow down to him. What his brothers did out of jealousy was wrong, but God used the experience of slavery, and what I am sure were long, tedious years in prison, to cultivate patience and humility so that when he was promoted to a prestigious position by the king of Egypt, he was prepared to exercise the authority he had been given for God’s glory, whereas if he had been given this position without first experiencing years of adversity, he almost certainly would have misused this authority, concerned only with his own worldly power.

Though Scripture doesn’t say so, Moses would have had plenty of time while tending his father-in-law’s sheep day in and day out for forty years, to lament his impulsive and foolish decision to kill that Egyptian whom he witnessed beating a Hebrew slave. By God’s providence, he was rescued from the river as a baby by the pharaoh’s daughter and was raised in Pharaoh’s palace where he would have received a world-class education, only to be sentenced to a boring life tending sheep. But God would use the patience, gentleness and perseverance cultivated while tending sheep to rescue his people from slavery in Egypt and lead them to the Promise Land.

In the apostle Peter’s day, all Jewish boys typically studied Scripture until around the age of 15, but the dream job was to be chosen to be a disciple of a Rabbi, who would train them to become rabbis and lifelong scholars of Scripture themselves. But only a select few boys made the cut to be discipled by a rabbi. Most were told to return home and learn the family trade. But through years of hard, unglamorous work fishing, and mending the nets, Peter learned important skills that Jesus would repurpose to make Peter “a fisher of people.”

The reality is that in this fallen world, all jobs to some extent are tedious. None of us will find that magical job that fills the God-shaped hole in our hearts. In my case, I have heard interviews of former Broadway performers who say that performance schedules were so demanding they practically burned themselves out, not to mention that by the end of a production’s run on Broadway, they may have performed it hundreds of times. They know how to paste on a smile so the audience doesn’t know, but in their hearts, they are so sick of performing their role they can hardly stand it. In my mature moments, I know my job working in a call center isn’t really pointless. Occasionally, people will tell me that speaking with me brightened their day, and I have even had a few opportunities to inspire and encourage senior citizens experiencing vision loss. And most likely, God is aware of people for whom I have made a difference that I am unaware of at this time. So as we embark on this new year that is sure to be full of political drama, I pray that all Christians, myself very much included, will listen to the Bible instead of cable news or political podcasts, the Holy Spirit rather than social media. Instead of praying for a more exciting job by my standards, I need to pray that His will be done, and that he might help me recognize and appreciate the foretastes of Heaven he gives us all the time, like the wonderful fragrances of flowers or cookies baking, conversation and laughter around the dinner table with my parents, or a song so beautiful you could cry. And even on particularly tedious days, those days we all have when nothing seems to go right, we can still find abiding, internal joy in knowing that one day, we too will be resurrected to dwell with Christ forever in a fully redeemed creation free from the curse of sin, that life of drama, adventure and excitement we were really made for.

That Reminds me of a Song: When I was seven years old, Mom ordered a collection of John Denver albums that was released to commemorate his tragic death in a plane crash just a few months prior. Immediately, I too fell in love with his music, and Mom and I spent many happy childhood hours listening to these albums together. But my absolute favorite of these songs has always been Wild Montana Skies. I have always been fascinated by its aura of mysteriousness. It tells the story of a man whose mother died the summer after his birth, but her prayer as she nursed him, and the refrain of the song was a prayer for practical needs—a home, the love of a good family, a wife someday—but also that he would have a fire in his heart, a light in his eyes, the wild wind for a brother, and the wild Montana skies. His uncle raised him, gave him a good home, but he never quite fit in: “There was something in the city that he said he couldn’t breathe. There was something in the country that he said he couldn’t leave.” I remember turning this song over in my mind at seven years old, and I still ponder this song today. In a Creative Writing class, I wrote an essay reflecting on this song. Perhaps the city is a metaphor for conformity, resignation, dashed hopes and dreams, whereas maybe the country is a metaphor for freedom, and the life God intended for us. There is no mention of God in this song: his mother prays to Montana. But this song came to mind again as I wrote this post. Perhaps there is Christian symbolism in this song. Perhaps we need to find the courage to not fit in, to flee the “city” with its petty political drama, its shallow concept of entertainment and its culture of striving for things that will never satisfy our restless hearts, and live differently, taking seriously the truth that we were meant for another world. The song never definitively answers the question of whether Montana ever gave this man the fire in his heart, the light in his eyes that his mother prayed for, but these prayers can be answered in Christ.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lostsheepofthechurch.com

Well readers, all I can say is I guess I am naïve. I still genuinely believe everything I wrote last week. No election, not even this one, is of eternal spiritual significance. God is sovereign over everything, so ultimately, all things will work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purposes (Romans 8:28). But I had a good feeling in my heart that Kamala Harris would win. Like all of us, she is a human who would not have been able to be completely faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness, but at least our country would be led by someone who has genuine compassion for people other than herself and wouldn’t undermine the way of Jesus in everything she says and does. I knew all the predictions that the election would be close, but since 2016, I have learned to be skeptical of polls. I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, and I was shocked that he won via the electoral college despite all of his racist, misogynistic and crude remarks which I am sure would have ended the campaign of any other candidate, but somehow didn’t affect Donald Trump. I also felt embarrassed to call myself Christian when I learned that 81 percent of my fellow white evangelicals voted for him. For a brief time, I felt a sense of shock, of mourning on behalf of our country. But because he did not win the popular vote, I could console myself with the belief that technically, most of my fellow countrymen were decent people. After a couple days, I was able to pick myself up and carry on with life, and join those willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe when campaigning was over and the reality of actually being president hit him, he would be humbled, and he would grow into the position. These hopes were quickly dashed, as it seemed we woke up every day to a fresh dose of chaos, dangerous rhetoric or cruelty. I felt a sense of relief on November 7, 2020. Though the election was still disturbingly close, a decisive majority of Americans came to their senses and elected a sane, compassionate adult for president. Maybe our country’s fascination with Donald Trump was like a fever that had broken. Then January 6 would prove it hadn’t. Even as the pandemic trauma gradually faded into the rear-view mirror under competent, adult leadership, Donald Trump never faded from the news cycle, and everyone I talked to seemed exhausted. Surely when the rubber met the road and people stared at his name on their ballot, they would remember the chaos and trauma his first administration wrought, his campaign rhetoric that was even more violent, crude and unhinged than it was in 2016 or 2020, the warnings from people who worked in his first administration that he admired fascist dictators, and there would be no guardrails this time around, they would not be able to vote for him. But they did, and this time, he even won the popular vote, making it a fully legitimate win. So I woke up Wednesday morning to a déjà vu feeling, my innocent faith in the goodness of most people called into question.

The prayer guide I mentioned last week had three parts, and Wednesday was supposed to be dedicated to prayers for our political enemies. But that morning, my parents and I weren’t ready for that. We vacillated between sadness and anger, even ruminating about how much we were looking forward to seeing Trump supporters getting what they deserve, when his policies end up hurting them. As a writer, I also felt discouraged, not so much for myself but on behalf of the talented scholars, journalists and Christian activists whose blogs I follow. I am not fond of social media and am too introverted to be an effective marketer of my writing by appearing on podcasts or doing speaking engagements, so while I am grateful to all 18 of you subscribers, I never expected my writing to make a difference in the outcome of this election. I write because I sense God calling me to write, and I trust that somehow, someday, He will use it to reach someone. But I grieved for scholars, reporters and Christian activists whose blogs have thousands of followers, who practically drove themselves to exhaustion in the months leading up to the election touring the country trying to be a prophetic voice, begging Americans to follow their better angels. Ultimately, none of their efforts made a difference, and it briefly made me wonder if the very act of writing was pointless. But we cannot “become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). The prophetic books are a case in point that God does not judge us by the results of our efforts. That is out of our control. He judges us on our obedience to his call on our lives. I also remembered that if the written word had no power, authoritarian leaders all through history wouldn’t find it necessary to ban books or persecute journalists. I don’t want to be overly dramatic. For the time being, writers don’t have to worry about outright persecution in this country. But the same cannot be said for writers in Russia whose leader Donald Trump admires, and the Washington Post’s decision to cancel their endorsement of Kamala Harris was alarming to me. I pray that if persecution comes to these shores, I will find the courage to speak the truth through the written word as my act of resistance.

But on Saturday, I felt ready to go through the prayer guide. Loving our enemies doesn’t mean we cannot be angry. In fact, Scripture encourages us to be honest with God about how we feel toward our enemies (Psalm 109). We just cannot allow ourselves to linger in this anger. Otherwise, we are no different from the world to which we are called to be salt and light. Even Pagans, tax collectors—and loyal Trump supporters—are capable of loving those who love them, and being kind to those that are kind to them (Matthew 5:46-47). Not only that, but when we overcome evil with good, we metaphorically heap burning coals on the heads of our enemies (Proverbs 25:22, Romans 12:20-21). For a modern-day example of what Paul meant by this, I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s commitment to this radical love is why television coverage of Civil Rights marches resonated so powerfully, even drawing white allies to the movement. If the black protestors had fought back when they were beaten, sprayed with firehoses, mauled by dogs, the world would have just seen a riot with the perpetrators indistinguishable from the victims. But when these protestors remained as innocent as doves even as they were beaten and mauled, public opinion for millions of Americans turned against these Southern police officers and Ku-Klux Klan members, and inspired many white allies, especially college students to join the cause of these protestors. And occasionally, perpetrators of evil who experience this radical love are moved to repent and come to Christ. Thus if I am really serious about rescuing people from the false teachings of Christian Nationalism, I must love my political enemies. Otherwise my pleas for them to follow the true teachings of Christ will have no credibility.

Figuring out how to do this in practice will be an ongoing process that will take more than this one blog post to sort out. But I think a good place to start is by contemplating the words Jesus spoke when his enemies crucified him. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). This verse came into my mind on Thursday when I read this article detailing how all the efforts of honest reporters who tried to warn the country of the dangerous implications of a second Trump administration were no match against the right-wing media empire which traffics in disinformation and fear. In some small towns and rural areas of the country, right-wing propaganda outlets have even taken over local news. Even when balanced media coverage is available, vulnerable people—the lonely, the elderly, the cognitively impaired—can get drawn in by this propaganda and lose their ability to discern the truth. On top of that, many Americans get their news exclusively from social media. Since acquiring Twitter (X), Elon Musk has made no effort to crack down on bots produced by foreign adversaries seeking to divide us against each other, such that the day after the election, Twitter users reported a dramatic drop-off in followers, as the bots, having accomplished their evil mission, went away.

As for the black men and Latino men who on the surface seemed to vote against their own best interests, Jonathan Walton offers an enlightening perspective in this live podcast recorded on Wednesday. He believes that whiteness is not just about skin tone. It is an ideology based on a hierarchy of race, gender and class that even minorities can be drawn to in search of acceptance. So a black or Latino man might vote for Trump in search of acceptance based on their masculinity. Donald Trump clearly distinguishes “us” from “them”, and Latino men, due to their history of colonization, are susceptible to a mindset that says if they double down on toxic masculinity, patriarchy, vilify LGBTQ people, they will be treated better and not find themselves on the wrong side of an oppressive system. They will soon realize however that this insecurity was exploited to win their vote, and that authoritarians like Donald Trump don’t actually care about them one bit. This doesn’t mean excusing the sins of white supremacy, toxic masculinity, or resentment. But perhaps loving our enemies starts with an attitude of forgiveness which simply means letting go of any bitterness, or in my case, a sense of moral superiority that dehumanizes Trump voters, and acknowledging that as a college-educated, white woman living in an affluent suburb, I take my privilege for granted. As unimaginable as it seems from my pedestal of privilege, it is possible there are many Americans who need to be forgiven because they have been led astray by wolves in sheep’s clothing in the form of right-wing news outlets, and social media algorithms, and do not yet realize the grievous mistake they made. It is only through a posture of humility and mercy when Trump voters inevitably get hurt by his policies that these lost sheep have any hope of being rescued. If Jesus could forgive those who crucified him, I can forgive my political enemies.

That Reminds me of a Song: All week, I have been thinking about the opening of Saturday Night Live after the 2016 election, when the actress that played Hillary Clinton sang Leonard Cohen’s Halleluia, and then sounding genuinely sad but resolute, said, “I’m not giving up and neither should you.” You wouldn’t think of Saturday Night Live, and crying in the same sentence, but I found my eyes getting teary that night, as this opening so beautifully captured the shock and sadness those of us who saw Donald Trump for who he was, were feeling. And though Saturday Night Live is not known for its reverence of religion, the decision to sing this song was poignant from a religious perspective as well, a beautiful reminder that no matter how tumultuous and uncertain the times we are living through, and even though it feels as if all is going wrong now, we will one day stand before the Lord of song, and sing Halleluia.

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In 2013, my parents and I awaited the week before Easter with eager anticipation. That was when The Bible, an epic dramatization of the whole biblical narrative produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett was set to release. Each evening that week, my parents and I tuned in for the next episode, and after each, we raved about how well-produced it was, how it could really help to reach a younger generation with the Good News. That was, until the episode when Jesus was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, and Mom gasped, appalled and told me that the Devil character bore an unmistakable resemblance to Barack Obama. Just like that, we went from praising the series, to mourning the opportunity for evangelism that the producers, whom I now recognize as Christian Nationalists, had squandered. With this one production decision, they no doubt confirmed the suspicion of untold numbers of young people and seekers, that Christianity in America had become a propaganda vehicle for the Republican party. But to be fair, it is no less sinful to use Christianity in service of the Democratic party. In a few moments of immaturity during the Trump administration, I found myself intrigued by articles speculating whether Donald Trump was the antichrist, and when we came to 2 Thessalonians in my New Testament overview course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I did a doubletake when I came to the verse about the man of lawlessness being revealed at the end of the age. “Could Donald Trump be that man?” I briefly wondered. Donald Trump certainly is a man of lawlessness when it comes to respecting civil authorities, or our Constitution. But biblically speaking, if you read the verse in the full context of the passage it is in (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12), he is not the man of lawlessness Paul is referring to. That person will perform supernatural signs and wonders that deceive many and has yet to emerge in human history. Donald Trump is just your garden variety human mortal who happens to be a narcissistic megalomaniac who admires and wants to be a fascist dictator. Unfortunately there have been many of his type in human history. And as inspiring as Barack Obama was, and Kamala Harris is, they too are humans who, like all of us, fall short of Christ’s righteous standards. It is wrong for Republicans to depict them as Satanic, but it is also wrong for supporters like me to elevate them to Messiah-like status, to believe that electing them will save America and solve all of our problems.

Family Radio, the Christian station I love to listen to while I work has been running public service announcements leading up to Election Day. One of these announcements, narrated by John MacArthur has been driving me crazy. He said a question he frequently gets around Election time is “should Christians vote?” His response is that any time Christians have an opportunity to take a stand for righteousness, we must do so, and in our context, voting is one such opportunity. So far, not bad. But then he says that Christians have an obligation to vote for the candidate who honors God and who is “faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness.” On the surface, this seems completely reasonable too, which is what is so dangerous about Christian Nationalism. To a vulnerable, naïve person, such a statement is benign and perfectly reasonable. But true Christians need to think critically about the credibility of the people making such statements, what honoring God looks like in practice, and about what a truly biblical standard of righteousness actually means. John MacArthur doesn’t say who Christians should vote for, and to be fair, this message could have been recorded years ago in a different election cycle. Or as much as I don’t want to be cynical, it could be that endorsing a particular candidate would jeopardize his church’s tax exempt status. But given his extreme and unbiblical complementarian views, and comments about slavery which I have written about before, I have little doubt he will be voting for Donald Trump. With all due respect, I cannot understand how any true Christian can say with a straight face that Donald Trump honors God and is more faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness than Kamala Harris. Donald Trump’s bad character is well-documented, so I won’t rehash all of his disqualifications here, but it is worth repeating that God is not pleased with cultural Christianity that goes through the motions of a Christian life but lacks genuine love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Like all politicians, Kamala Harris isn’t entirely truthful, and her positions change with the political winds. It is also important to note that while the Christian Nationalism of the Right is more blatant, there is a kind of soft nationalism that Christians need to be aware of in the Democratic party as well. Overall, Kamala Harris’s speech at the Ellipse was inspiring, and the symbolism of speaking at the same site where Trump inspired his followers to attack the U.S. Capitol was fitting. But I was a little uncomfortable with how she ended the speech with the line about turning the page and writing the next chapter of the most extraordinary story ever told. Though this line may have been spoken with good intentions—an effort to rally all Americans behind a common cause of figuring out how to live peacefully together—we as Christians should be weary of rhetoric that perpetuates the harmful concept of American Exceptionalism, a form of idolatry. The story of our country is not the most extraordinary story ever told.

Both Jerry Falwell Jr., and Zack Hunt, a former pastor and the author of Godbreathed who spoke on a Zoom call for Evangelicals for Harris a call that was discussed in this Rolling Stone article, agree that the goal of a presidential election is not electing a pastor. But Zack Hunt sums up the key difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris perfectly. “The problem for Christians is not that Trump fails to live up to the Christian principles he claims to defend.”—We all do, even pastors—“The problem is he actively and aggressively works to undermine the way of Jesus with everything he says and does, and with every policy he wants to enact.” Even if you just arrived from another planet and know nothing about the policy track records of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, you ought to be able to tell who genuinely seeks to honor God just by listening to them speak in side-by-side clips: I am always struck by the contrast between Donald Trump who doesn’t even try to tame his tongue, giving it free reign to spew deadly, poisonous rhetoric that inspires division, hatred and violence, while Kamala Harris seeks to heal and inspire all Americans with an inclusive, optimistic vision for our country’s future.

But in an article published in Religion News Service, Caitlyn Schiess cautions that as commendable as it is for true Christians, especially young people to reclaim true Christian principles by breaking away from the white supremacist, xenophobic, Christian Nationalist platform of their parents’ Republican Party, we must be careful not to make the same underlying mistake as our parents’ generation, the mistake of believing that the spiritual stakes for our country are high every election year, meaning that our votes are of eternal spiritual significance. “We have forgotten that for Christians, all of politics is contingent and provisional,” Caitlyn Schiess writes, “Our votes, cast by and for fallen and finite creatures will always and only be heavily mediated opportunities to aim at the best good available to us. They cannot bear the weight of expressing our Christian identity or representing everything the Bible commands of us.” This absolutely does not mean Christians should not vote, especially in this particular election. Although no election has eternal spiritual significance, the conscience of true Christians should be stirred to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city” (Jeremiah 29:7) which to my conscience means voting against candidates who admire and wish to emulate fascist dictators whose lust for power aggressively undermined the way of Jesus, and led to some of the darkest moments of human history. Of course Old Testament verses must be applied cautiously to our context. As I have written before, the United States is not a covenant nation as ancient Israel was, but we can learn from the principle that all Christians in a sense are living in exile. This country is not our true home and yet we are called to contribute to its peace and prosperity, and in so doing, offer a foretaste of God’s kingdom. But no matter who wins the election, true Christians must never forget that until Christ returns, we will not find a candidate completely faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness, and because we, the voters are also fallen and finite beings, we cannot fully imagine what a biblical standard of righteousness even means in practice. This is why it is dangerous to apply “spiritual warfare” language to secular activities like elections.

Spiritual warfare is theological speak for the reality that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). But in his book Losing Our Religion, Russel Moore explains that when tribalism connects with resentment, and resentment connects with fear, culture wars are viewed in terms of spiritual warfare, with human beings as the irredeemable “demons” to be opposed. Reading this explanation, and remembering the backlash against the first black president that was all over the news at that time, the portrayal of the devil as Barack Obama sadly makes sense. Furthermore, even if you know that your political opponents are not literally demons, Russel Moore reminds us that metaphors matter. In the same way that history has shown that referring to a minority group as vermin can eventually provide a permission structure for genocide, using spiritual warfare language against political opponents likely provided the permission structure for the insurrection on January 6, and continues to provide the permission structure for conspiracy theories and efforts to sabotage the election by setting drop boxes on fire or threatening election officials. And for my part, as appalled as I am by this paranoia and misuse of spiritual warfare language, it is hard not to respond by becoming a little fearful and paranoid myself. If I voted early, could our Republican municipal clerk throw away my ballot? Even on Election Day, could my ballot be rejected? After another election—pre-pandemic when election conspiracy theories were nowhere near as intense as they are now—I know of a Republican poll worker who was suspicious of a woman with a disability whose mother helped her fill out her ballot. But our country’s turmoil will not end until we all get out of this mindset. “The entire point of spiritual warfare is that it is not present or absent based on tribes or factions,” Russel Moore reminds us, “If spiritual warfare were simply another way of saying “arguing with each other” or “owning the Libs” or “raging against the corporate machine” or whatever, spiritual warfare would mean that some people are exempt, and other people are unsalvageable, irredeemable” (Losing our Religion Page 133). This would mean denying two of the most fundamental truths of Scripture, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13). Though Donald Trump’s words and external deeds undermine the way of Jesus, only God knows what is really in his heart. He, like me is just another broken but redeemable human being. The angry election deniers threatening violence if the election doesn’t go their way, are just broken but redeemable human beings too. All humans are made in God’s image, and God loves us even though none of us is righteous. That is why Jesus says that those who genuinely desire to follow him must love their enemies.

I admit I am terribly undisciplined when it comes to formal prayer time, but I agree with pastors who advise that we should pray in preparation for Election Day and the days that follow, as the outcome won’t be known right away. But be careful. Christian Nationalist organizations are promoting prayer events tomorrow night. One event is calling people in all 50 states to gather for one hour and pray for God to save our country, unify our people and heal our land. On the surface, this sounds nice and innocent. But the United States is not a covenant nation. God’s plan is far bigger than the United States of America. We are just another empire whose existence Scripture already told us will not be eternal. And, you have to ask what kind of unity these organizers are praying for. Is it a biblical unity, the kind of unity that “makes every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3), or is it a manipulative call for unity behind a political agenda to restore a nostalgic cultural Christianity that is contradictory to the teachings of Christ? I will be using a prayer guide from Intervarsity Press, recommended by KTF Press, a Substack publication that seeks to elevate marginalized voices and help Christians break free of the harmful influence colonization and white supremacy has had on the American church. The important thing to remember is that the purpose of prayer is not to give God our wish list. During a dark season of anxiety in a previous job, I viewed prayer this way, and was a mixture of angry and devastated when my wish for a different job was not granted. But eventually, the stress and anxiety of the job was removed with a simple change of position within the same company. This taught me a valuable lesson, that God’s wisdom is far superior to ours, so the purpose of prayer should be to ground ourselves in Christ, and align our hearts to his. Because all political candidates will fall short of God’s righteous standard, we should pray for trust that no matter the outcome, God is sovereign and His will will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. If the outcome we wanted is granted, we should pray that we are not tempted into an attitude of smugness toward our acquaintances who voted for the losing candidate, or into political idolatry toward our candidate. Since all candidates will fall short of God’s righteous standard, Christians will need to hold power to account no matter the outcome, so we should pray for humility and discernment. We can pray a genuine prayer that election officials will conduct the vote counting with integrity, but we should also pray that everyone, especially professed Christians, will peacefully accept the results of the election, remembering that the political activities of this world are contingent and provisional. But most importantly, we must pray for our political enemies. In my case, whether or not he wins the election, I should pray for Donald Trump, in the sense of praying that he might have a change of heart and repent of all the ways he has undermined the way of Christ, and that if he does, I will rejoice and not be resentful like the workers in the parable who worked a full day in the vineyard and resented the workers who only worked the last hour and received the same wage (Matthew 20:1-16). We should lament and ask forgiveness for the times we may have been complicit in mistreating people we disagree with whether through name-calling or mean-spirited jokes. We should pray that we will show mercy and compassion to our enemies if they are hurt by the policies of the candidate they voted for. And above all, if someone in our lives comes to see the error of their political idolatry, we should be quick to reconcile with them and warmly welcome them back into the fold, just as Christ does when we stray from him.

That Reminds me of a Song: As I was writing this, The Kingdom of Jesus from the Porter’s Gate came to mind. It artfully reminds us that the kingdom of Jesus is both something that is within us which we have the power to give the world a glimpse of, and a future home we can joyfully anticipate. In both cases, this kingdom is so much greater, so much more powerful than the kingdom of this world. This should give us comfort when it seems as though evil is prevailing. I especially love how the song has the recurring motif “oh say, can you see” an allusion to our national anthem, used to remind us that we can only have one allegiance, and allegiance to the kingdom of Jesus has so much more to offer than allegiance to the United States of America.

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In his memoir, Walking with Peety, Eric O’Grey recounts how in 2010, he was in a very dark place. At 5 feet 10 inches and 340 pounds, he was morbidly obese. He had no social life, and because his obesity caused too much pain and exhaustion to take his laundry to the coin-operated machines in his apartment, the spare bedroom was piled high with dirty underwear. It was easier to just order new underwear every couple weeks on Amazon. He hated his job as an appliance salesman but had to work long hours to afford all the medications he needed for Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Worst of all, his job occasionally required him to travel by plane, which was always a painful, humiliating ordeal. He tried every gimmicky diet, but as is typical, these diets were unsustainable long-term, so he would gain all the weight back, and then some. He went through the preparation process for bariatric surgery, but changed his mind as he didn’t like what he saw as a barbaric, grotesque approach, removing a large portion of his stomach.

But in my view, as bleak as this man’s life was, we haven’t gotten to the worst part of it. What struck me as even more tragic than this man’s grim situation was the way others treated him. Most doctors, after spending no more than ten minutes with him, would just throw a prescription at him, never caring to see his humanity, to enquire into the root cause of his condition rather than just treat the symptoms. One doctor, after looking at his bloodwork, even told him to buy a cemetery plot because if he stayed on his current trajectory, he wouldn’t live more than five years. Perhaps this doctor had good intentions. There are some who believe that “scaring people straight” will motivate them to change, but anecdotal evidence I have read, and personal experience has convinced me that more often than not, this approach just leaves the recipient feeling more humiliated and ashamed, and a natural response is to turn to comfort food to soothe this shame and humiliation. Eric says he officially hit rock bottom after a particularly humiliating flight home from a business trip when the airplane ran out of seatbelt extenders and had to transfer one from another plane, delaying takeoff by 45 minutes. The man sitting next to him was so angry about this that he turned to Eric, seething, and said out loud, “Great! I’m going to miss my connection because you are so fat.” When he arrived home after this ordeal, he devoured two extra-large meat lovers pizzas from Dominoes and collapsed on the floor, regretting that he did not own a gun, or have any pills strong enough to end his life, and praying to God that He could just end his life that night. But God had other plans.

Eric said he was never particularly religious. The only times he went to church were for the occasional wedding or funeral. But that night, he blacked out, and during this blackout, felt what he could only describe as a sense of God’s presence. The next morning, he was still in physical pain, but had a renewed sense of hope, and felt an urge to order a Bible from Amazon, which he read voraciously from cover to cover when it arrived. To make a long story short, God led him to Dr. Preety, who spent an hour and a half with him, treated him as a whole person, prescribed a plant-based diet, and a shelter dog.

At the shelter, Casaundra, a compassionate adoption counselor said she knew the perfect dog for him, a dog who also had a sad past and was morbidly obese. With the intervention of these compassionate humans, and the unconditional love from Peety, who held Eric accountable in a nonjudgmental way, Eric ultimately turned his life around completely. I first read this man’s story in a 2018 issue of Reader’s Digest, but in a similar fashion as John Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance I discussed last week, this man’s story seemed to randomly come back to mind this week. But it occurred to me that this man’s story could be an allegory—if not an outright case study given that his transformation started with a desperate cry out to God and an urge to read the Bible—for how God intended for us to relate to one another. The long walks required to get from place to place and the lack of places to sit to take off your shoes at the airport, and the narrow airplane seats represents a society that privileges thin people and shows no grace to people who struggle to manage their weight, a metaphor for how some seek to create a society that privileges Christianity and shows no grace to people with different beliefs. The gimmicky diets could be a metaphor for hucksters that promise healing to desperate, vulnerable people if they send money, and when these victims are not healed, they are made to feel like failures, that they just didn’t try hard enough or have enough faith. All the people that stared at Eric in disgust or made a point of avoiding him could be a metaphor for the self-righteous, judgmental hypocrites that are the hallmark of Christian Nationalism. We all have planks we need to take out of our own eyes, just as most Americans are either overweight, or eat unhealthy diets devoid of fruits and vegetables that will catch up with them someday. Just because someone takes a vice to an extreme that I don’t understand does not give me permission to judge them or mistreat them because I am not the picture of perfect health myself, and but for the grace of God, I could have been in Eric’s position. How would I want to be treated if I were Eric?

Lest anyone think I am self-righteous, I should confess I was especially shocked by the cruelty of the man sitting next to Eric on the plane. But then I came to the sobering realization that I hate being inconvenienced too, especially if it is on the flight home. I hate traveling to begin with, and judging by the shameful way I seethed in anger one road trip when we got a flat tire that delayed our arrival home by two hours, I must confess that I cannot claim I wouldn’t have been absolutely irate if I missed my connection waiting for a seat belt extender. I hope I wouldn’t have expressed my anger out loud to the obese passenger responsible for the delay, but I am pretty sure I would have been seething, consumed with thoughts expressing this same sentiment, and Christ taught this is a distinction without a difference (Matthew 5:21-28).

The doctor who tried to scare Eric straight could represent pastors and politicians—some well-intentioned, many not—who spend an inordinate amount of time preaching God’s judgment or eternal punishment if they don’t change their lifestyle, or even if they vote for a pro-choice candidate. This is not to say sin won’t be punished one day, but I think it is dangerous and irresponsible, maybe even blasphemous to make this the starting place for our evangelistic efforts, or to presume we know what God’s verdict for anyone will be, especially given how Jesus says that we will be judged by the same measure we use to judge others (Matthew 7:1-2). Also, when you are young, the prospect of death and eternal punishment someday does not inspire genuine motivation to change, just as when I was a child, warnings of heart failure or diabetes someday—I envisioned myself the age of Grandma and Grandpa—didn’t inspire a genuine motivation to change my habits long-term. I would commit myself to a sort of legalism for a few months, exercising diligently and depriving myself of all my favorite foods. It was nice having concerned loved ones, teachers and doctors off my back, complementing my will-power instead of lecturing me, but changes never stick if that is the only motivation behind them. Though this is not a perfect allegory, I think it is still useful in the sense that the temptation toward fear-mongering and legalism is an unfortunate reality that religion and diet culture have in common with tragic consequences in both cases. The downstream victims of fearmongering pastors and politicians may vote as they are told, sit in church every Sunday, speak out on the latest culture war issues at every family gathering, but the dominant emotions in their lives are anger and anxiety. Or, similar to Eric, who almost gave up on the idea of ever being healthy and resigned himself to an early death until God intervened, they give up on Christianity altogether, having been led to believe that following Christ is like being on an extreme weight-loss plan with strict rules, a demanding exercise regimen, no flavor, no pleasure. Make one mistake, succumb to temptation in a moment of weakness and you are a failure.

The doctors who just threw a prescription Eric’s way could represent the politicians and activists motivated by Christian Nationalism who are looking for a quick fix, a simple solution to a complex situation. This is not the time to get into the weeds of the abortion debate, except to say that I believe passages like Exodus 21:22-23 and Luke 1:41 suggest that abortion should not be approached with a cavalier attitude. However, Jesus never directly discusses abortion—or any of the other current culture war issues for that matter—but he says quite a bit about showing mercy for the poor and marginalized of society, and compassion for the physical and mental well-being of women. If politicians truly wanted to make America more Christian, they would champion wholistic legislation that aligns with the teachings of Christ, rather than just competing to pass the strictest abortion ban for political gain.

I am blessed that regarding both my spiritual health and my physical health, I have not needed to transform my life from a place of extreme desperation like Eric, or the homeless person addicted to drugs for whom Christ was her last hope. But even in my comparatively privileged life, I know the joy of realizing I am lighter on my feet, have more energy, rarely come down sick, when I was persuaded by the positive attitude of new friends and the wonderful smell of healthy recipes cooking, to turn away from the typical American diet and eat a gluten free, mostly plant-based, and very flavorful diet. I was also blessed to meet some friends who did not compartmentalize their faith, and was persuaded by the peace and contentment that seemed to radiate from their countercultural lives. It grieves me to know that Christian Nationalism is depriving many people, some of whom are my own friends and family, of the peace and joy of a relationship with the true Jesus.

So how should Christians apply this allegory? Obviously on an individual level, we should behave like Dr. Preety, Casaundra, and even Peety, and not like the man on the airplane or the doctors who employ scare tactics or quick fixes. But on the societal level, as counter-intuitive as it may seem to some Christians, we need to learn to accept a secular approach to governing that does not privilege Christianity over other religions in the public square. In their book, Jesus and the Powers, N.T. Wright and Michael Bird concede that secularism can be anti-religious. I immediately thought of authoritarian regimes where religion is either strictly prohibited or closely regulated by the state. But in its best form, secularism is a safeguard against theocracy on the one hand—the Taliban came to my mind—and atheist fanatics seeking to eradicate religion. “In a healthy liberal democracy, Christian voices will not be stymied, but neither will non-Christian voices be censored. The purpose of Christian influence is not the pursuit of Christian hegemony, but the giving of faithful Christian witness. Christian hegemony treats Christians as a type of invisible ruling class or an unspoken civil religion that demands public assent. In contrast, Christian witness is offered in a spirit of persuasion, not in a spirit of pursuing raw, public power” (Jesus and the Powers Chapter 4). Unfortunately, I believe the most influential pastors and politicians who champion Christian Nationalism are the wolves in sheep’s clothing Jesus warned us about. They have no interest in faithful Christian witness: they intentionally misappropriate Christianity for worldly political gain. But sadly, many ordinary people downstream of these pastors and politicians—our loved ones at the family reunion—are like vulnerable sheep. They want to be, and often sincerely believe they are giving faithful Christian witness. In their family, and their often homogenous community, they are compassionate people who are the first to respond when anyone needs help or comfort. But the wolves have figured out how to exploit a variety of factors from economic disadvantage, to fear of change, to nostalgia for a Christian nation that never really was, to convince these people that Christian hegemony pleases God. But the Bible states in no uncertain terms that God has no interest in a culturally Christian nation (Matthew 7:22-23, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3). A nation that reduces Christianity to legalistic rules, a faith that goes through the motions of following Christ but shows no love for the marginalized, or for people of different religious beliefs or ethnic backgrounds, is not a Christian nation at all. God desires genuine Christians who will persuade others to follow Christ, not via coercion, self-righteous, judgmental lectures, or scare tactics, but via the sincere, unconditional love, peace and joy that radiates from their lives. And a healthy liberal democracy, where everyone’s religious liberty is protected is the ideal environment for this genuine Christianity to flourish.

That Reminds me of a Song: Whenever I listen to the music of Bill and Gloria Gaither, I think of my maternal Grandma, (Granny), who passed away just after Christmas last year. She was a Quaker, and a beautiful example of someone who quietly lived out her faith, but never self-righteously shoved it down the throats of others. Her memory is likely why, while writing this post, I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say… one of my favorite songs on an Israel Homecoming album she gave me came to mind. The song is based on Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” These words of comfort, combined with a calming melody, and intentional instrumentation that invites the listener to rest, I think this song is a beautiful musical picture for how true Christians are called to live and represent Christ to others.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lostsheepofthechurch.com

Perhaps the spirit of the back-to-school season has given me a feeling of nostalgia for my Political Science courses as an undergraduate at Carroll University because this week, I found myself contemplating philosopher John Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance. Basically, this is a thought experiment in which Rawls proposes we imagine ourselves behind a veil of ignorance where we draft principles for a fair and equitable society, not knowing what our own social position—gender, race, socioeconomic status or abilities—will be. This is an effort to curb the human tendency to think only of our self-interest. Of course, in reality this theory falls short because we are incapable of surrendering completely to this way of thinking. Our social position, and the thought patterns that come along with it, are so engrained in us that they will inevitably influence how we think.

This theory came to mind when I heard the horrible, baseless story last week that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating people’s pets. From a Christian perspective, this rhetoric is despicable on so many levels. For one thing, God did not include any qualifiers in the commandment “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16), so the fact that some of the same politicians who want the Ten Commandments posted in every public school classroom, can justify this cruel, racist lie for political gain is our first clue that Christian Nationalism is their true religion, a completely different religion from the teachings of Christ. I would also add that I believe that most people possess a basic sense of decency, a component of God’s general revelation, evidenced by the fact that prohibitions against stealing other people’s property, killing or otherwise harming one another, are included in the moral codes of all mainstream religions, both Eastern and Western. Even humanists and Atheists recognize that it is in our best interest to have an orderly society where we don’t have to fear for our safety and where personal property is respected. Of course in practice, the Doctrine of Total Depravity means that all humanity, across every race and religion is susceptible to lust, greed, jealousy, and thus theft and cruelty are not uncommon occurrences. Thus even if pets had been stolen and eaten, the proper Christian response requires recognizing that but for the grace of God, any one of us, put into the right circumstances, is capable of egregious conduct, which is why we can seek restitution, through proper legal channels, from the individual responsible, but ultimately, we must forgive, and attribute our hardship solely to the total depravity of all humanity, not any particular ethnic group.

But as Kaitlyn Schiess insightfully points out in this week’s episode of The Holy Post, this was never even about immigrants causing harm, such as the little boy in Springfield who was killed in a bus accident by one of these Haitian immigrants, nor even about the isolated incidents across the country of undocumented immigrants murdering people. If it were, the politicians could have stayed focused on these stories. But the motive for spreading a baseless claim on social media that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets is far more sinister: to argue that these immigrants are fundamentally different from us, subhuman, savages. It should go without saying that God would disagree (Genesis 1:27). Again, there are no qualifiers: all humanity was created in God’s image and are to be treated with dignity. For all the ways we, in our fallen nature have come up with to divide ourselves, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that there are really only two types of people in this world, those who are near to Christ, and those who are far from Christ, whom God calls us to minister to so that they too might draw near to Christ (See especially Ephesians 2). In The Holy Post, Phil Visher also sited a statistic that 47 percent of the world’s migrants are Christian, so our shame should be magnified if we stop and consider that when we dehumanize immigrants, there is a good chance we are dehumanizing many of our own brothers and sisters in Christ. But dehumanizing those who may not be Christian is no less shameful. In fact, it is tragic because our misrepresentation of the true Gospel may be so off-putting that they never trust in Christ.

But I want to return to the idea of the Veil of Ignorance. We are incapable of putting ourselves behind a veil of ignorance, and actually, even if we were, this wouldn’t be the most Christian response to the injustice and inequity of our society. Sure, it could yield excellent earthly outcomes of fairness and equity. But Christ is not interested in merely our external behavior but our motives, and thus if I am crafting social policy that lifts up women, the poor, people of color simply because I might be born into one of these groups and will have to live with the consequences of my policies, I am still acting in my own self-interest, albeit in a roundabout way. True Christianity requires that even affluent white men advocate for policies that lift up the marginalized, even if it costs them wealth, or status or political power, motivated by genuine love and a desire to offer society a foretaste of God’s kingdom where there will be no social stratification.

Shortly after leaving the Catholic church and joining a nondenominational Protestant church, I was listening to a radio sermon from Pete Briscoe, the son of renowned pastors and missionaries Jill and Stuart Briscoe. He mentioned how as a kid, he asked his parents one day why he lived in comfort, when so many he met on the mission field with his parents lived in extreme poverty. I wasn’t a missionary kid, but as someone who grew up in a stable, loving family in an affluent suburb, I had often wondered the same thing. The response of his parents was one simple word: grace. Growing up Catholic, I understood grace from a theological perspective. We are all sinners who deserve eternal punishment and separation from God. But God graciously sent his Son to atone for our sins so that we may enjoy eternal life. But with this broadened application of grace, so much more of the Bible, and our lives in this world make sense. There was nothing particularly virtuous about anyone in the Old Testament. In fact, it has all the makings for a gripping television drama: deception, betrayal, jealousy, even incest. But God, by his grace, chose flawed people to play a part in his redemption plan, and long before Christ came to dwell among us, even before God gave the Law to Moses, formally prohibiting things like deception and incest, the Bible tells us that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6, James 2:23). I did absolutely nothing in a previous life or anything to deserve my good fortune, and children born in a war-torn region like Gaza, a slum in India, or even a family or community right here in America plagued by drug addiction or violence certainly did nothing to deserve their hardship. But God did not set Abraham apart for a life of privilege in a vacuum. God told Abraham that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). In other words, while God doesn’t tell us why he chose Abraham for the lineage that would become Israel, or why for that matter, he declared the Israelites his chosen people, God was very clear as to how the Israelites were supposed to respond to this grace: to be a blessing to others. In the same way, God does not tell us why to this day, some of us live in peace and comfort while others are born into war and poverty, but he is clear that he did not endow us with these blessings so that we could hoard them for ourselves, like lighting a lamp and then putting it under a bowl (Matthew 5:15). We too were shown grace so that we might be a blessing to others, like putting our lamp in its stand so that it gives light to everyone in the house (Matthew 5:16).

Such a massive influx of immigrants to one small community is a legitimate logistical concern that needs to be rationally addressed. But to respond to these Haitian immigrants, and all immigrants for that matter, with hateful rhetoric about how they are taking our jobs, or buying up our houses making housing unaffordable, or requiring us to pay higher taxes, is reprehensible because from a Christian perspective, these resources were never ours to begin with. Our financial resources, even the land we occupy, are gifts from God we were given not because of anything virtuous we ever did to deserve them, but by virtue of God’s grace, so that we could be a blessing to those less fortunate, like these Haitian immigrants, who came legally by the way, fleeing extreme poverty and lawlessness in their country.

When I was eighteen years old and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I chose to study Political Science because I found political discussions interesting in high school, and being the typical young idealist, I thought maybe if I studied Political Science, I could pursue a career in government and in this way, have the power to make a positive difference for society. I had accepted Christ, but my faith was a compartmentalized faith. I went to church every Sunday and generally tried to be a good person, but I didn’t fully appreciate how the Christian faith is supposed to radically transform our entire outlook on life. But looking back on my studies with the perspective of a much more mature faith, I have come to realize that no political ideology, no silly theory like John Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance has the power to make a genuine, positive difference in the world. The Oxford English Dictionary defines politics as “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.” This desire for power means that self-interest is inseparable from governance. Jesus said that no man can serve two masters, and he was right because history proves time and again that when people try to combine Christianity with a political philosophy, Nationalism, the lust for political power inevitably wins out, resulting in supposed Christians misusing the name of the Lord, and twisting Scripture to justify all kinds of evil, including the hoarding of God’s grace for themselves. As discussed above, the Veil of Ignorance thought experiment is impossible to actually carry out, and even if we could stand behind such a veil, we would still be, in an indirect sense, acting out of self-interest. Ideologies like Socialism or Communism are feeble attempts to manufacture fairness and equity without God that do not account for the evil in every human heart. This is not to say Christians should completely disengage from politics: On the contrary, Christians are called to “seek the good of the city” (Jeremiah 29:7) which in our context means praying that the Holy Spirit speaks into our conscience, voting accordingly, and then continuing to speak truth to whomever is elected because every political candidate will fall short of Christ’s righteous standard, including Kamala Harris. In the interest of full transparency though, I have to say here that I believe character matters above all else. Sticking with the immigration context, the Biden/Harris administration has unfortunately succumbed to political pressure to secure the border by denying migrants the chance to request asylum if border arrests rise above 2,500 per day for a week, a policy that is arbitrary and cruel from a Christian perspective, but overall, you can tell by the way they speak that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have compassion in their hearts, that they at least recognize the humanity of these migrants, even if they like all politicians, sometimes put political expediency ahead of doing what is right. But I cannot fathom how honest Christians can vote for someone who says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country, and who amplified the horrible rumor in Springfield. But ultimately, true Christians recognize there is no political solution to the immigration debate, or any of the other social issues for that matter. Only a truly biblical worldview that recognizes the grace we have been shown, and our mandate to respond to this grace by being a blessing to others has the power to make a genuine, positive difference in this world.

That Reminds Me of a Song: But for the Grace of God, sung by Keith Urban is technically not a song in the Christian music genre. It is a country song expressing gratitude for the love of his wife. I kind of quit listening to country music several years ago when it took on a more pop sound, so I hadn’t heard this song in years, but as I was writing this post, it came back to mind. In the first verse, he sings of the neighbors who are always fighting, and how he has to turn the radio up to drown out the shouting. Then in the second verse, he sings of a man in his neighborhood who is materially rich but spiritually poor. No one calls him or comes to visit, so he wanders through his empty home, surrounded by his things. Meanwhile, the narrator is blessed to have a peaceful life with a wife who loves him, which he correctly credits to the grace of God. In the refrain you can almost imagine him crying as he is clearly aware that but for the grace of God, his life could have turned out very differently. The song doesn’t tell us whether he responds to this recognition of God’s grace by reaching out to these troubled, lonely neighbors, but what if we used this song to imagine a third verse to God’s grace in our own lives?

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Back in March, I mentioned that I listen to Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur, and promised that I would take him to task someday on his extreme complementarian views. But then I put this post on the back burner. This is partly due to the fact that current events inspired other posts which I felt took priority, but if I am being honest, I also didn’t fully recognize and appreciate the overlap of Christian Nationalism with complementarianism. I am passionate about the mission I sense God has given me, to speak out against Christian Nationalism. I read every book and article, listen to every podcast or documentary I can get my hands on to make sure I fully understand this unbiblical philosophy in all of its nuance. Family and friends who know about this passion will sometimes even send me material, asking “did you see this?” But I must humbly confess that I am still learning. At the root of Christian Nationalism is fear of change, which has resulted in men, especially white men, fearing a loss of authority and status as women broke into careers that have long been pretty much the exclusive domain of men, and as black Americans fought for and won basic civil rights, to distort Scripture to justify racial subjugation and patriarchy. People are complex, and I still give John MacArthur credit for recognizing the foolishness of Christians lobbying in Washington. But lobbying in Washington is just the tip of the iceberg of the harmful repercussions of Christian Nationalism, and unfortunately, John Macarthur has serious blind spots in his interpretation of Scripture. I was horrified when I read recently that John Macarthur commented back in 2012 that he found it strange that we have such an aversion to the human institution of slavery because for some slaves working for a gentle, caring, loving master was the best of all possible worlds. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course, I am not implying that holding complementarian views also means you condone slavery. But given the insecurity at the root of Christian Nationalism, it makes perfect sense how for John MacArthur, as well as those who don’t want children to learn just how evil the institution of chattel slavery was, downplaying slavery and preaching complementarian theology would go hand-in-hand. Our God is a God of progressive revelation, and perhaps this applies not only to God’s gradual revelation of his redemptive plan for humanity over the course of about a thousand years, but also to a more enlightened understanding of Scripture, as new archeological evidence comes to light and scholars gain new insights. Christians still have a lot of work to do toward living as Christ calls us to live, evidenced by the fact that Sunday mornings are still the most segregated time of the week. I am also well aware that globally, there are more people working as slaves today than there were in the 18th and 19th centuries. But at least in principle, the vast majority of American Christians would agree that slavery, especially Chattel slavery, was an ungodly institution according to Scripture, read in its proper context. Our understanding of God’s view of women has not caught up to this level of enlightenment yet. But in The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth Allison Barr raises a compelling question: “When we rightly understand that biblical passages discussing slavery must be framed within their historical context and that, when framed through the lens of this historical context, we can better see slavery as an ungodly system that stands contrary to the gospel of Christ, how can we not then apply the same standards to biblical texts about women?” (Page 34) Given the rise of Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, and the fact that many prominent figures, most notably J.D. Vance share John MacArthur’s view that a woman’s place is in the home, caring for (biological) children, it is time to give this issue priority.

In her book Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn, before diving into the academic focus of the book, shares her personal story. She grew up in a large, traditional family. Her father had a good job with the federal government, and her mother loved being a homemaker and doted on Sandra and her four siblings. Sandra always dreamed of being a mother, and church teaching she was exposed to reenforced this, teaching that motherhood and homemaking was God’s ordained purpose for women. But after multiple miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy and three failed attempts to adopt, Sandra struggled not only with the emotional and financial toll of infertility treatments and hopes dashed, but also with the question of what God’s purpose was for women like her? It is this question which inspired her to study more carefully the cultural context of ancient Ephesus, the backdrop of 1 Timothy 2:15 in which Paul writes, “But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” Beth Allison Barr, a Southern Baptist who grew up immersed in complementarian theology, and a history professor who teaches about women in Medieval and early modern church history, was inspired to write her book after her husband, a youth pastor, was fired for challenging the church’s position on women in ministry. Both Sandra Glahn and Beth Allison Barr acknowledge that everyone reads Scripture through the grid of their personal experiences. As I have discussed frequently on this blog, Christian Nationalists also twist Scripture out of context, or cherry-pick passages that support their political agenda, while ignoring others that do not. But what if Beth Allison Barr and Sandra Glahn were doing the same thing? It is true that the extreme positions taken by some evangelicals, or at least the self-righteous, judgmental way biblical principles are applied, is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. But it is also true that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and as such, true Christians can expect that at some point in their study of Scripture, the Holy Spirit will reveal something we don’t want to hear, or that goes against the cultural trends of the day. Put another way, one of our pastors once said that if God always agrees with you in every matter, it could be that you are creating God in your own image. But Sandra Glahn and Beth Allison Barr make a commitment to set their personal experiences aside, and to evaluate, as impartially as is humanly possible, the emerging research of Bible scholars, and archeological discoveries related to the cultural contexts of ancient Ephesus and Corinth. In so doing, these women make a compelling argument that “biblical patriarchy” isn’t really biblical at all.

The concept of biblical patriarchy, as Beth Allison Barr pointed out, goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:16 when God told Eve, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” This is after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God and eaten from the forbidden tree. This is Scripture’s first indication that biblical patriarchy was not ordained by God, and not part of God’s original creation but another consequence of the fall. The curse of sin will not be fully reversed until Christ returns, but if Christ called Christians to be salt and light, offering the world a foretaste of God’s kingdom, we should be taking our cues from other passages of Scripture, especially Galatians 3:28, not from the culture around us, or even from church history. Beth Allison Barr notes that “Christians in the past may have used Paul to exclude women from leadership, but this doesn’t mean the subjugation of women is biblical. It just means that Christians today are repeating the same mistake of Christians in the past—modeling our treatment of women after the world around us instead of the world Jesus shows us is possible” (Page 41).

According to Sandra Glahn, it is also worth noting that in Proverbs 31, the Old Testament passage proponents of complementarian theology turn to most, the virtuous woman described does fulfill domestic duties—providing food, sewing garments—and submits to her husband. But she also “sees that her trading is profitable” (31:18), makes and sells linen garments (31:24), and “speaks with wisdom” implying that a virtuous woman could teach (31:26). In other words, a virtuous woman could provide for her family while also earning money outside the home.

In the Gospel accounts, Jesus models a level of respect for women that was radical for his time. In Luke 10:42 for example, Jesus is invited for dinner at the home of Martha and her sister Mary, but Martha is upset that her sister is sitting at Jesus’s feet listening to him teach, rather than helping her with dinner preparation. In response, Jesus says, “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her,” prompting Sandra Glahn to quip that “The first female seminarian was not feminist Betty Friedan’s idea, but Jesus Christ’s” (Page 10).

People hostile to Christianity love to hate Paul, but this hostility is due to an inadequate understanding of the context of Paul’s letters, perpetuated by prominent pastors like John MacArthur. When framed properly in their cultural contexts, Paul’s letters actually offer the most compelling repudiations of biblical patriarchy. While proponents of complementarian theology, and those hostile to Paul, for different reasons cannot get past Ephesians 5:22—wives, submit to your husbands—the women Paul was speaking to would have focused on Ephesians 5:27—husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them—and this would have been revolutionary in a historical context where Roman law viewed women as the property of men, and Pagan husbands frequently beat their wives. According to Beth Allison Barr, Roman civil law required women to submit to their husbands. Paul believed that the credibility of the Gospel of Christ depended on everyone living quiet lives, obeying to the greatest extent possible all the civil laws so as not to cause trouble. But Paul also believed it was possible to simultaneously live quiet lives in obedience to Roman civil law, yet also live subversively as people who recognize they are ultimately citizens of another world.

If God ordained marriage for all women, (1 Timothy 5:14), then why, in 1 Corinthians 7:8 does he tell Corinthian widows it is good to stay unmarried? It is clear that these books of the Bible, which are letters Paul wrote to specific churches to address specific situations that arose based on the unique cultural contexts of each church. Moreover, Paul makes it clear through the use of first-person pronouns—so I counsel other widows—that his words are not a command directly from the Lord as the words of the prophets were, but words of wisdom in his own voice, informed by prayer and study of Scripture no doubt, but still his own words to address specific circumstances, not decrees for all time. And if Paul’s wisdom, informed by the Holy Spirit and study of Scripture held that it is good for some women to remain unmarried, and if the Law, Prophets, and Christ himself were clear that marriage is a necessary prerequisite to childbearing, then Paul could not have been teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15 that childbearing is necessary for a woman’s eternal salvation. The Catholic church I grew up in is extremely patriarchal: only men can become priests, despite the fact that in 1 Corinthians 11:5, Paul presumed that women would prophesy, and on the day of Pentecost, both men and women prophesied. But the Catholic requirement that nuns and priests live celibate lives is a testament to the recognition that while raising children is a beautiful, high calling, so is celibacy, as it allows people to devote their lives to serving the Lord at a level that would not be feasible if they had to juggle marriage and family responsibilities.

Artemis has long been thought to be a fertility goddess, but archeological evidence disputes this, as literary, epigraphic and architectural artifacts have revealed that Artemis was a virgin, though she indirectly contributed to fertility as a midwife whom the Ephesians believed could deliver women safely through childbirth, a perilous experience that killed many women before modern medicine, or if the woman must die, kill her quickly and painlessly. Paul would have understood how newly converted Ephesian women might have been tempted, due to social pressure and internal anxiety, to cover all their bases, praying to Jesus while also, secretly if necessary, going to the temple and offering a sacrifice to Artemis. Thus, Sandra Glahn makes the compelling argument that Paul received assurance from the Holy Spirit, and was passing this assurance on to Timothy, that during this foundational period for the church when the influence of false deities was still powerful, women in Timothy’s pastoral care would not die in childbirth so long as they fully trusted in the true Savior and deliverer.

This is not an exhaustive overview of all the biblical passages that repudiate complementarian theology. An exhaustive overview would have turned this blog post into a novel. But I hope it is enough to soften the hearts of people hostile to Christianity, and to comfort others who may be like me. You see, the brain tumor that caused my blindness also damaged my pituitary gland, so it would be risky, if not impossible for me to have children. Furthermore, I haven’t yet met a life partner anyway, not that I am really looking for one. After observing friends and coworkers using online dating apps that encourage superficiality, and after reading articles about how abusive, controlling men sometimes seek out women with disabilities, I have decided not to force things. If God wants me to marry someday, he will put me in contact with the right guy who may join my choir, or be out walking his dog at the same time I am walking mine. Until then, I am content to be a single, childless cat lady, and it is comforting to be assured through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the scholarly research presented in the books I have mentioned, that there is nothing wrong with that. Of course, I do need to be mindful that my love for my cat doesn’t cross the line into idolatry. Like maybe I shouldn’t have spent $17 on a fancy laser toy for him on Chewy last week. That money could have gone to mission work. But in all seriousness, if you are reading this as a woman who has found a life partner and you have been  blessed with the joy of holding a baby in your lap, you are fulfilling a beautiful, high calling in raising the next generation. But if you are reading this as a woman who has not found a life partner, does not feel called to raise children, or you are unable to have children, and you spend your evenings watching television with a purring cat in your lap, your life is no less virtuous or beautiful. It may be that God has blessed you with an equally beautiful, high calling, to devote your life fully to serving the Lord. Don’t listen to insecure male pastors or politicians who twist Scripture to convince you otherwise. And if you grew up going to church, but you left because of complementarian theology, I pray you might come back, and give Christianity another chance because complementarian theology is a byproduct of Christian Nationalism, not true Christianity.

That Reminds me of a Song: Every Sunday morning for several years, I listened to Rick Jackson’s Country Hall of Fame on the radio, which featured older country songs no longer played regularly on the radio. Easter Sunday featured one of my favorite episodes of the year, as the theme was gospel music. That is where I first heard He’s Alive, sung by Dolly Parton. It is told from Peter’s point of view, but it tells the story of how women were the first to discover that Jesus’s body was no longer in the tomb. A pastor once explained that in the Roman world, if someone committed a crime and 100 women witnessed it, but no men had witnessed it, the court would not find their testimony credible, and the alleged criminal would likely go free. But the testimony of one man would be taken seriously. Knowing this, it is easy to understand how Peter could not believe Mary at first, until he saw Jesus for himself. This is a thrilling song, and one I make sure to play every Easter, even though Rick Jackson’s Country Hall of Fame is no longer on the air. But what I love about this song as it relates to this blog, is how it pierces the soul as only music can, not only with the liberating power of Christ’s resurrection itself, but also the fact that the incredible privilege of being the first to see the empty tomb, and spread this most important testimony in human history was given to women. That ought to be enough to repudiate complementarian theology once and for all.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lostsheepofthechurch.com

Last Saturday, July 13, my brother and his wife came to visit, and we were finishing up a lovely dinner of mahi-mahi grilled to perfection when Mom got a text from my sister in Maryland. It simply read “Turn on the news.” That is how we found out that someone attempted to assassinate former President Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Though I strive to keep this blog focused on Christ rather than partisan politics, I have been fully transparent regarding my rebuke of Donald Trump. Jesus was neither a democrat nor a republican, and all elected officials will fall short of God’s righteous standards. But Donald Trump’s conduct is particularly egregious, made worse by the fact that many of his supporters misuse the name of God to condone it. But this does not, by any means justify the assassination attempt on him. Political violence of any kind is inexcusable, not only because it is a threat to the values of liberal democracy, but also because it is unbiblical. Satan is clever in his ability to convince us that political violence can be righteous. Peter no doubt thought he was doing the right thing, defending Jesus by striking Malchus, the servant of the high priest who came to arrest Jesus, with his sword cutting off a piece of his ear. But in addition to Jesus’s rebuke of Peter because his crucifixion had to happen in order for Scripture to be fulfilled, Jesus also said, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). In other words, Jesus understood that in sinful human hands, violence only leads to more violence, or put another way, anarchy. Our God is a god of law and order—and not in the coded racism sense of the phrase. No one, regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic status is above the law, and in fact Jesus teaches that those blessed with societal privilege are held to an even higher standard (Mark 12:41-44). We don’t yet know the motive of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the young man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we find out, consistent with past perpetrators of political violence, that his dislike of Donald Trump was so intense he irrationally believed he was justified in attempting to kill him. The problem is that because of the evil in every human heart, if we start tolerating political violence against anyone, it starts a dangerous cycle of continuous retribution, which carried out to its logical conclusion, can trigger civil war. That is why Jesus insists that until his return and final redemption of Creation, we must submit to the earthly governments of our respective countries, trusting that God will judge justly. Jesus himself could have called on his Father who would have sent “more than twelve legions of angels” to save him, but while on earth, even he submitted to the governing authorities—paying his taxes, and not resisting when he was arrested and ultimately crucified.

That being said, we have a unique privilege that was unheard of in biblical times, the privilege of having some say in who governs us. Thus in our context, wouldn’t loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength involve stewarding this privilege for God’s glory by voting for the candidate whose life shows evidence of good fruit? Couldn’t ministering to “the least of these” in our context include voting for the candidate more likely to take “the least of these” into consideration when enacting policy, rather than thinking only of our own interests?

This past week, Milwaukee hosted the Republican National Convention. We live in a suburb just a short drive from the convention site. My parents and I decided not to venture downtown, but I couldn’t resist watching it every night on television after work. If not for the events of last Saturday, the convention would have been difficult enough to watch, what with speaker after speaker riling up the delegates with alternative facts about the success of Donald Trump’s first term, and downplaying what a second term would mean for “the least of these.” But in light of last Saturday’s tragedy, I have found something especially offensive about the way proponents of Christian Nationalism like Franklin Graham gushed that God saved Trump’s life for a reason. Again, for the record, I’m glad Donald Trump didn’t lose his life last Saturday. Jesus and the apostle Paul both rebuked those who sought to resolve political differences with violence, and if Donald Trump had lost his life, I shutter to think of the anger, the calls for retribution, and societal instability that might have ensued. It is also unbiblical to demonize political opponents as the devil incarnate when they, like us are bearers of God’s image whom we are called to love and pray for, and we are just as capable of the pride and narcissism we criticize in them. And just on a human level, when Donald Trump Jr.’s daughter Kai spoke about how her grandpa gives the grandkids candy and soda when their parents aren’t looking and loved to hear how they were doing in school, it softened my heart a little, not enough to believe he should be our next president, but enough to realize that while most of us only know him from a distance, to some he is Dad or Grandpa, and I cannot imagine how difficult it would have been to have to grieve the loss of your dad or Grandpa with the whole world watching, and a few on social media no doubt taking partisan politics way too far by celebrating his death. I wouldn’t wish this kind of trauma on any family, especially innocent grandchildren like Kai. But to say that God spared Donald Trump for a reason is unbiblical.

Due to his common grace, God allows sun to shine, and rain to fall, on righteous and unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45). In our context, you could say God allows cancer, car accidents, gun violence to befall righteous and unrighteous alike, and therefore according to Philip Yancey, we should never presume anything about the righteousness of the people involved when say, an earthquake in South America kills a lower percentage of Christians compared to the rest of the population. Given this theological reality, the statement that God spared Donald Trump for a reason is incredibly offensive in its disrespect and dismissiveness toward Corey Comperatore’s grieving family.

But this argument is also flawed because in reality, there is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10). In the context of Matthew 5:45, Jesus is referring to those who have accepted Him as righteous, which theologically speaking, they are because we are saved by faith alone. But sanctification is a lifelong process, and thus, I don’t know about you, but I am always grateful when I am given one more day to try and do better, be a little kinder to my parents, a little more patient with difficult situations at work, a little less envious of other people’s lives. But if my acceptance of Christ could serve as a sort of vaccine that would forever prevent hardship from befalling me in this life, this sanctification would be stunted. I would become complacent, take life for granted, become entitled in the sense that I would see no higher purpose to life than pursuing comfort and pleasure and ultimately, decide I can get along just fine without God. That is why God does not interfere with the laws of nature, or human free will, thus allowing suffering to impact righteous and unrighteous alike (Luke 13:1-5). Put another way, catastrophe “joins together victim and bystander in a call to repentance, by abruptly reminding us of the brevity of life” (Where is God When It Hurts, Philip Yancey page 84). As a baby, I survived a brain tumor which damaged my optic nerve, which is why I am blind. The tumor also damaged my pituitary and this means that occasionally, my electrolytes get off-balance, especially if I catch a stomach bug. Of course, I don’t remember the three surgeries required to treat the tumor itself, or the touch-and-go recovery process after each. But this experience brought the fragility of life into sharper focus for my parents. Then during my 20s, I had to go to the emergency room 3 separate times for aforementioned electrolyte imbalances, which brought the fragility of life into my awareness, and into sharper focus for my parents again. After each of these incidents, I came away with renewed gratitude and appreciation for the little things, like gathering around the dinner table with my parents, savoring the smell of fresh Spring air, or singing along to a beautiful song. The scariest of these experiences was the seizure in 2017 due to low sodium. When I came home from the hospital after that experience, I had what I can only describe as a sort of born-again sensation. A sense of contentment and peace seemed to surround me as I went about my work, and certain things that used to upset me like office drama, I realized just don’t ultimately matter. Instead of getting emotionally invested in the drama, I found I could just smile and go about my work, letting the office drama just swirl around me like meaningless background noise.

The whole nation has been a bystander to the assassination attempt against Donald Trump last Saturday, and many did recognize it as a call to repentance, a recognition that united we stand, divided and polarized we fall, and therefore we need to tone down the rhetoric. Christianity is all about redemption and second chances, and as such, I, like Skye Jethani, a host of The Holy Post podcast, hoped that this incident would serve as a “road to Damascus” moment for Donald Trump, where he, similar to the apostle Paul, might repent for his contribution to the violent rhetoric that led to the incident, take responsibility for the crimes he has committed and make amends to the people he has hurt over his lifetime from the women he sexually assaulted, to the people he cheated in his real estate deals, to the children separated from their parents at the border to the whole country with the “big lie” and the insurrection on January 6, 2021. But judging by his abandonment of the unity speech on the teleprompter in favor of his usual hate-filled tangents, and his ungracious response to Biden’s wrenching decision to withdraw from the race, it is becoming painfully evident that the assassination attempt against him didn’t change him at all. I will grant that with the passage of time, the vividness of God’s grace in keeping you alive can fade, and with it, the appreciation for the fragility of life. In the years since my seizure, I have gotten into a couple bitter arguments with my parents, ironically, over their anxiety about letting me stay home alone because had I been home alone on the occasions my electrolytes got off-balance, I might not have survived. We have come to a compromise where they will let me stay home alone when they occasionally go out of town as long as I promise to keep my phone with me at all times, answer it when they call, and consent to a Ring “spy camera” in the kitchen so they can monitor from a distance if I don’t look well. But my distaste for gossip and drama, as well as shallow television shows that have no socially redeeming value, has stuck with me to this day. So the absence of any noticeable spiritual fruit even in the immediate afterglow of realizing he survived an assassination attempt, is chilling to me.

Donald Trump and proponents of Christian Nationalism did make one theologically correct statement. It is by the grace of God that Donald Trump survived. But sadly, both have a warped understanding of what grace actually means. Since God does not interfere with the laws of nature or human free will, allowing suffering to impact righteous and unrighteous alike, any time someone survives an incident that took the lives of others, it is a blessing that is undeserved, the very definition of grace. But instead of being humbled by this grace from God, it has made Donald Trump, and the proponents of Christian Nationalism who support him more arrogant. If proponents of Christian Nationalism were sincerely interested in true Christianity, they would have viewed Donald Trump’s survival as an opportunity to administer much-needed spiritual care, helping him turn toward God and repent for the behavior that led to this incident, and our country’s polarization in general. Instead, they have reinforced the arrogant notion that God saved Donald Trump for a reason: God is on America’s side, and He has ordained Donald Trump to “make America great again!” And in this way, it would seem human nature hasn’t progressed at all from the Ancient Near East, the cultural context in which the Old Testament was written, when kings were allowed to believe they were God.

That Reminds me of a Song: Just a few days after the hospitalization for my seizure in 2017, I was watching Last Man Standing—a cute sitcom that is no longer on the air—with my parents. In this particular episode, there was a church scene, and in the background, they played Put Your Hand in the Hand, by Ocean. It has a definite 1970s sound, like something that might have been performed at Woodstock. Something about this song struck my born-again brain as particularly beautiful, and I couldn’t stop singing it for days. I didn’t fully realize it then, but looking back, I think it resonated with me because it is all about the importance of humility, and appreciating the peace and grace Christ offers when we put our hand in His hand. In these tumultuous times, that is what we all need to do.

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But more important than honoring the legacy of our founders, given the purpose of this blog, is that requiring posters of the Ten Commandments is a misrepresentation of true Christianity to the children of other religions. To be clear, I do believe that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16) including the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament. After all, Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). But like Tim Alberta, it never struck me as a coincidence that the vast majority of references to Scripture from politicians came from the Old Testament. “Jesus, in his three years of teaching, taught mostly about helping the poor, humbling oneself, and having no earthly ambition but to gain eternal life. Suffice it to say, the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount were never conducive to a stump speech” (The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory Page 47). It is obvious from the money invested in these battles, the contempt for the poor or the refugee, and the political partisanship behind them that proponents of Christian Nationalism have no interest in eternal life, only earthly wealth and status. Not only that, but they blatantly violate Exodus 20:7. When most people think of taking the Lord’s name in vain—I think the NIV’s translation, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God” is more accurate—we think of using God in a curse word, which of course we shouldn’t do. But this commandment also encompasses the wicked practice of co-opting God’s name for nefarious purposes. Isn’t that what Christian Nationalists are doing when they use God’s name to advance their political agenda?

But for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the motives for Louisiana’s law are pure, and proponents of Louisiana’s law are truly motivated by nothing more than a genuine desire to ensure that in today’s tumultuous world, America’s children have a strong moral foundation. Just as with religious persuasion, moral education is also primarily the responsibility of parents, but given that children generally spend around seven hours a day, five days a week, nine months of the year in school, schools also have a significant influence on the moral education of children. Let us also imagine just for argument’s sake that you also had a genuine desire to make sure every child is exposed to the good news of the gospel, not to make them fully American, but because Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and you worry if they aren’t exposed to God’s word in school, they never will be and thus they will wander in darkness their whole lives. Other religions, including Humanism, share moral principles in common with Christianity—charity to those in need, compassion and humility—because these basic moral principles are a component of God’s general revelation to all of humanity. But only Christianity offers the hope of eternal salvation. I would still argue there are more appropriate passages to accomplish these purposes than the Ten Commandments. For an example of what I mean, let’s look at Exodus 20:4: “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” Lifelong Christians like David French and myself might not think anything of this commandment on the poster because we are part of the privileged majority and we understand what it really means for our day. While in the Old Testament, people worshipped gold statues of animals that were referred to as idols, every sermon I have heard on Exodus 20:4 agrees that when this principal is carried over to the New Testament, an idol is anything that we prioritize before God in our lives which could include, our career, pleasure, money or power. But for a child from a Hindu family who just sees this poster and doesn’t have the full context of the New Testament, they might go home and feel confused or ashamed by the statues of other gods in their home and depending on the culture where they live, they may even be bullied about this by classmates, even teachers who embrace Christian Nationalism. This is definitely not how Jesus intended for the good news of the gospel to be shared. In fact, this self-righteous, legalistic way of sharing the gospel feels ominously comparable to the behavior of the Pharisees whom Jesus rebuked sharply.

What if, instead, the poster on every classroom wall read, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)? It is not overtly religious so as to confuse or shame children of other faiths, or no religion at all. The longing to be loved unconditionally, to be treated with dignity and respect, is a longing planted in the hearts of all humans according to God’s general revelation. Thus, if you insist on having a poster with Scripture in every classroom, at least 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 starts from a place where we can all agree, and these verses have more potential than the Ten Commandments to open doors for the Holy Spirit to prompt a child to tell a Muslim friend about Jesus on the playground, or a Christian parent to reach out to the parents of their child’s Hindu or Atheist friend.

But I think the apostle Paul would say that regardless of the Scripture printed on the poster, Scripture is “only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1) if the words aren’t lived out in the overall culture of the school. It is also important to remember again that while 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 seems like it would be a mutually acceptable passage for people of all faiths or none at all, my perception may be clouded by the fact that I am part of the privileged Christian majority, and people of other faiths may see even this verse as unwelcome, indirect proselytism in the same category as sacred choral music. Given all of these realities, how about we live at peace with everyone, and honor Christ more appropriately by decorating classroom walls with cheerful artwork, and devote our energy instead to the lived out culture of the school. After all, Jesus taught that the Law and the Prophets can be summed up with one simple principal: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). This is not “chasing God out of the schools.” God is almighty. Nowhere in the universe is beyond His reach. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10). I think we can safely infer from this beautiful psalm that to fear that the absence of superficial expressions of religion in public schools such as formal prayer time and posters with the Ten Commandments amounts to locking God out reveals a tragic lack of genuine faith.

That Reminds me of a Song: My Catholic education in childhood gave me an excellent Christian moral foundation, but one thing I missed out on was learning fun Sunday School songs. That wasn’t really part of the Catholic tradition. But my mom who was raised in the Quaker tradition, taught some of these songs to me, and as I was writing this, “They’ll Know We Are Christians” came to mind. It has an upbeat melody that would be fun for children to sing. The song is all about seeking unity, honoring each person’s dignity and living in peace. The refrain states, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love.” My mom remembers her parents saying on numerous occasions that if someone has to tell you they are Christian, you should be wary of them. It should be obvious by the fruit of their lives. Thus, in the spirit of this song, true Christians should be wary of proponents of Christian Nationalism who want the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, while their policies demonstrate contempt for the poor, the orphan, the widow and the refugee, and their rhetoric inspires hate and divisiveness.

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I am the product of public schools where technically speaking, no one religion was promoted above others, but almost everyone was Christian, at least culturally. No one talked about church or God in the cafeteria, but everyone talked about celebrating Christmas and Easter, and several of my classmates I knew for sure were Christian because I saw them again at Tuesday or Thursday evening Catholic Formation class at Saint Dominics. Once I became aware that a few of my classmates did not celebrate these holidays, I felt sorry for them. I wondered what the few Jewish or Muslim or Hindu students were thinking as everyone talked excitedly about Christmas plans. Did they come home in tears, pleading with their parents to become Christian just so they wouldn’t feel left out? In high school, other aspects of being the privileged cultural majority started to occur to me. For example, given that we are a culturally Christian nation, it is easy to take for granted that schools are always closed for Christmas, but one year in high school, an important dress rehearsal in preparation for a choir concert conflicted with a Muslim holiday that two boys in the choir observed. They received approval from the choir director to miss the rehearsal, but this had to be an awkward conversation for these teenage boys, and as is the case any time you are absent, it is the student’s responsibility to figure out what they missed and catch up.

And speaking of choir, Christianity inspired such an extensive and rich tradition of choral music that when I attended concerts at other high schools in our area, which we were required to do each semester, the difference in the beauty and sophistication of the music chosen by schools that excluded religious texts was noticeable, and honestly sad. Some schools sang romantic, and sometimes challenging madrigals, but more often than not, the concert was full of choral renditions of silly pop songs. But one year in high school, someone—not the parents of the Muslim boys—complained that the songs our choral director had selected amounted to the unconstitutional promotion of religion in public school. As a high school student, I wasn’t privy to every detail of this situation the choral director had to deal with, but with the hindsight of adulthood, I speculate that my choir director, whose passion for quality choral music was deep, had likely been to such concerts too, and she wasn’t going to let this happen at our school. That is why, I suspect, she abruptly switched from preparing us for a Christmas concert full of sacred English texts, culminating with the Hallelujah Chorus, to a classic Latin requiem. That way, she could argue that songs were chosen strictly for their artistic and educational value, and not for their religious message since no one speaks Latin these days. The position of choir director would be tailor-made for someone who did wish to illegally proselytize in a public school, by giving sermons on the theological significance of the texts we were singing, or having students read the Bible passages that inspired the songs. But my choir director never did anything like that. Thus I am confident that the original English pieces she selected were chosen strictly for their artistic and educational value, but singing Latin music gave additional credibility to this argument. Of course, I acknowledge that my perception could be colored by the fact that I belong to the privileged majority religion, and if I put myself in the shoes of someone from a minority religion or no religion at all, I can appreciate how they might feel as though indirect proselytism was taking place even if this wasn’t the choir director’s intention at all. To be fair, one could argue there is room for ambiguity regarding whether Louisiana’s law requiring a poster with the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom also qualifies as proselytism. It is just a poster after all, and David French, who grew up in Kentucky when the Ten Commandments were posted in every classroom until the Supreme Court deemed Kentucky’s law unconstitutional remarked that “There is a real belief that the Ten Commandments have a form of spiritual power over the hearts and minds of students, and that posting the displays can change their lives.” But he does not believe that documents, in and of themselves radiate powers of personal virtue. As such, these “faded posters” on the wall had no impact on the lives of him or his classmates. It is true that sometimes, adults make a bigger deal of things than they should. But I would still argue that requiring posters of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms is a threat to religious liberty and a dangerous misrepresentation of Christianity that should be regarded warily by true Christians.

Proponents of Louisiana’s law argue that The Ten Commandments had a profound influence on the founders of this country, and so they view these posters as a historical document to inspire children when they look up at them. It is true that the Bible had a significant influence on our founders. As I was brushing up on my U.S. history for this post, I was struck anew by the number of references to the Bible and God’s laws in the oratory of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry. Louisiana state representative Dodie Horton also argued, “The measure allows for our children to look up and see what God says is right, and what he says is wrong. It doesn’t preach a certain religion, but it definitely shows what a moral code we all should live by is.” Our country’s founders should not be idolized or mythologized. We should not let the inspiring biblical references in their oratory cloud the reality that they, like all of us lived lives that fell far short of God’s righteous standards, evidenced by their hypocrisy in speaking inspiring rhetoric about creating a nation free of tyranny when they owned slaves. But they were right about the importance of complete religious liberty, to allow both the nation, and genuine religious expression to flourish. This is not to say that even in the aftermath of the American Revolution, there wasn’t a temptation to declare America a Christian nation. According to the website of the Colonial Williamsburg museum, historians debate whether Patrick Henry, the first governor of Virginia following the Declaration of Independence, actually said “Give me liberty or give me death!” He never wrote out his speeches in advance, so they have been reconstructed based on accounts of other people. But if he did say these words, I find it ironic that he did not make the connection that complete religious liberty is a crucial component of overall liberty. In The Religious History of America, Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt lay out how, before the Revolution, the only officially recognized religion was the Anglican church of England. All other forms of religious expression, including other Christian denominations, faced persecution. After the Revolution, everyone recognized that some degree of disassociation with the tyranny imposed by the church of England was necessary, but some feared that abandoning all governmental alliance with religion would turn “all history and society upside down” (The Religious History of America Page 124). To that end, Patrick Henry and the legislature of Virginia were tempted to compromise by not establishing any particular church or sect, but Christianity itself as the official religion. Patrick Henry argued that this compromise would not discriminate against (Christian) dissenters yet it would “help safeguard the social and moral order that a new state needed even more than before” (Page 124). Of course in practice, we have always fallen short of our founders ideal of complete religious liberty. The cruel attempt to erase Native American culture by requiring Native American Children to attend abusive boarding schools, a practice that persisted through the 1970s, is a sad testament to this, as is the Islamophobia and antisemitism that persist to this day. But in theory, the arguments for full religious liberty ultimately won out. In a Memorial and Remonstrance written in opposition to Patrick Henry’s bill, James Madison argued that “legislators simply do not have the right, much less the wisdom, to set themselves up as judges of religious truth” (Page 125). Only “the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe” is truly qualified to make laws pertaining to religion, and He chose to give humankind freedom of conscience. In 1789, the first paragraph of the Virginia Statute for Religious freedom, composed by Thomas Jefferson declared that, “Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was his Almighty power to do.”

Furthermore, James Madison argued that if Virginia could establish Christianity to the exclusion of all other religions today, what would stop them from establishing a particular denomination of Christianity tomorrow, putting Virginia right back where they started before fighting a Revolution to end tyranny. After all, as Boston Minister Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) pointed out, “People are not generally deprived of their liberties all at once, but gradually, by one encroachment after another, as it is found they are disposed to bear them” (Page 123). Thus, I would argue that if we truly wanted to honor the legacy of our founders, we would keep all blatant references to religion—“you shall have no other Gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)—out of public schools. I speculate that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, if they were alive today, would oppose Louisiana’s law, arguing that religious persuasion should be the sole responsibility of parents until children are old enough to think for themselves. I also speculate that Jonathan Mayhew would join ranks with people like Catherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers, who has shown that small victories like Louisiana’s law should not be dismissed as isolated incidents, but as part of a larger war to chip away at public education so that the prosperity and privilege that comes with a high quality education is accessible only to (predominantly white) children of the right religious persuasion. Thus, the Ten Commandments law is in reality closely related to the seemingly unrelated and separate battles over book bans, Bible study clubs inside public schools, and vouchers to give parents “choice.” I would also say the volatility of school board meetings surrounding these battles in recent years are the definition of hypocrisy and meanness, as is Governor Landry’s comment “I can’t wait to be sued.” This is definitely at odds with the teachings of Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). And how does he know he will be sued? Because the decision to pass this law demonstrates a willful disregard for Supreme Court precedent, and the teaching of the apostle Paul: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established” (Romans 13:1).

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