Check Your Sacrilege
Attention evangelicals who voted for Trump. I am going to humiliate you in front of your savior.
“ But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” Matthew 6:6
American evangelicals never do anything in private anymore. With their megachurches, their anti-science theme parks, their New York Times bestsellers, and their slick Hollywood bible tales, they are everywhere “on the street corners to be seen by men,” contrary to their savior’s specific instructions. Their fall is so total their only private moments with their Father might be in the voting booths of America — where they sin miserably.
A staggering 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump, more than voted for George W. Bush in 2004. W. was a Pharisee of the first order, to be sure, but at least he pretended to believe in God. He perhaps even believed that he believed, as self-deceiving evangelicals have taught themselves to do in the half-century since they willingly fused themselves with unfettered capitalism the likes of which would make the merchants in the temple blush.
But there is no basis for self-deception now. You have sinned openly against your principles. Even your children tried to warn you in the name of the principles you taught them. But you did not hear. Blinded by your alleged blessedness and the satanic perversity of the prosperity gospel, you voted out of fear and self and greed and hate. The storm came and you cowered. “Do you still have no faith?”
Perhaps some of you now have regrets. If so, I hope a true revival of your principles leads to feats of charity the likes of which the world has never seen. You must protect the poor and the stranger from the hateful monstrosity you have unleashed. It is not too late. On the other hand, if you are defiant, it is going to be very hard for you, though I feel no need to convince you. “Your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”
But I will not make it comfortable for you while you await this final judgment. As a witness to those events, all those years ago on Calvary, I understand your Jesus better than you do. I understand, first of all, that he was not and is not God. You might find that comforting. I am an unbeliever. I can be discounted.
Unfortunately for you, I also understand that Jesus’ message, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” is the most beautiful thing ever uttered on this dying world. You, on the other hand, have failed to love even your neighbors.
As revenge I resolve to take this teaching into my heart and, through its practice, expose your total lack of faith. Should you then meet Jesus in the afterlife — I do not believe this will happen, but you do— he will ask, “Why did this boastful soldier, who did not even believe that I was God (though he stood by there on Calvary and saw it for himself), why did he so much more perfectly practice the principle with which you claimed in public to be so familiar?”
It will not be comfortable for you.
You think you’ve got me now, I see, on the issue of revenge. This is your favorite tactic of self-deception, to accuse others of not matching your hate with the love you profess to have. The hypocrisy here is staggering — why do you not express Christian tolerance for my false Christian intolerance, you demand — but I understand that you have twisted your souls to help it find its groove.
So let me be clear: I do not fear being judged by Jesus, because I do not believe Jesus is God, as you claim. A little revenge in my charity? I can accept that.
But for you, there is so much more at stake, so many sins you have already committed and so little time to make them right. Your standards are so much higher than mine, and yet you have done so much less. Diagnosing my weakness for revenge will not help you.
And if it turns out that we are, in the end, judged by this Jesus, I will gladly accept the wages of my revenge if it means helping your hypocrisy to its just reward. For that, lost souls, is how much I love you.
