Dwight A. Moody
Much is made these days of the divide within the Christian community for and against President Trump. Eighty one percent of white Evangelicals, the data declare, are all in for Trump, as if that is an unusual number. Which it is not, with super majorities of said group voting for Republicans all the way back to Reagan. Plus, majorities of Catholics and Protestants.
And when we take a look back, our history gives us another lesson of great importance.
Before and during the Revolution, 250 years ago, Christians in America were deeply divided, for and against the British Crown. For every preacher declaring God’s favor on the rag-tag revolutionaries, there was another pastor admonishing the flock to submit to the established authority of the monarch across the way.
Same thing 75 years later, in the run up to the Civil War. Abolitionist preachers were full of fire, fury, and the wrath of God, mostly in the North, while status quo preachers, mainly in the South, quoted Scripture to assure their parishioners of the favor of God.
Then again, during my childhood, the black preachers led the nation is declaring the preference of God for equality, dignity, and opportunity. But across the street and over the tracks, other ministers insisted the time was not right and the people were not ready (speaking mainly of white people, of course).
In all three of these chaotic times in our history, the Christian community heard voices on both sides of national issues; and we were all divided as to what it meant to love God and follow Jesus. Mostly, our Christian convictions fell in line with our social and economic interests (and therein lies a serious and sobering commentary on all the gospel enthusiasm that percolates through our churches).
Which brings me to Donald J. Trump.
Some believers among us swear he is the anointed of God, shockingly raised to power by the mysterious hand of God, there to lead the nation further down the pro-Israel, anti-abortion path to a revival of religious America complete with prayers in (increasingly private) schools and preferences everywhere for those who employ the rhetoric of Christian America.
Others declare Trump is indeed and undoubtedly the counter-christ, displaying every vice condemned by scripture, tradition, and reason, and directing public policies that favor the rich over the poor, the white over the colored, profit over people, and established interests over environmental care.
The divide in the religious community will be a top story, we are told, in this full-blown election year. And while I intend to cover all of this in The Meetinghouse—both the current digital edition and the imminent audio version (that is, radio!)—I am well aware that we have trod this way before.
We Christians in American have long lived in a divided land. Aside from the political issues posted above, we were, for a century, Protestant against Catholic. A hundred years ago, there arose the Fundamentalists against the Modernists. And in more recent times, congregations were driven asunder by the Pentecostal question, the Charismatic experience, and the Contemporary worship wars. We are very experienced at being a Church divided.
This brings us to a “good news—bad news” place in our journey to love God and follow Jesus.
The good news is this: Donald J. Trump will not destroy the Christian Community in America. We will survive to fight another day, another place, over issues major and minor, matters that will consume our energy and divert our resources from loving God and following Jesus.
The bad news is this: Donald J. Trump places before us the challenge to be, as the secularists put it, “on the right side of history” and as the gospelers phrase it, “on the right side of the gospel”. In the double description of divisions among us, we now think: some were right, and some were wrong. Revolutionaries established the United States, abolitionists secured freedom, and those who marched with King brought with them the best of both the Constitution and the Bible. And through all the emotion of the moments, we now embrace the dreaded Catholics, Modernists, and Pentecostals as our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank God for those on a particular side of each of these struggles; some were more centered in the gospel than others! One day, we will know the same about our division today. We will know who among us, those sitting beside us on our church pew, were praying, marching, and voting in keeping with our common call to love God and follow Jesus.
Until then, we all pray the same prayer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
(February 2020)
