The Judas Effect
How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power
By Amy Hawk
A Review by Dr. Dwight A. Moody
I have good news, and I have bad news for Amy Hawk.
First, this is a splendid book. It tells an interesting first-person story and does so in a winsome and compelling way. It is the story of her coming to faith in Jesus Christ, her slow inclusion into a Christian community, her rise to influence and leadership, and her slow disassociation with the Evangelical community that had nurtured her in her spiritual journey. It is all fascinating and frequently humorous. Ms. Hawk has a knack for telling a story.
What makes this story so worth telling is how it intersects with the larger story of our time, that collision of religion and politics that has dominated the national narrative for years, even decades. What she did not know when she submitted to the influence of a white Evangelical church in the state of Washington was how that religious community would be pulled from its Christian and Biblical moorings by the irresistible tug of our current President, Donald J. Trump.
Hawk sums it up this way, describing her Evangelical community: “They followed Trump’s lead instead of Christ’s and showed the world what hatred, greed, misogyny, a quest for worldly power, a lust for violence, bullying, corruption, and division looks like. A harvest of believers who should have come to know Jesus as Lord has been given a multitude of reasons not to trust the evangelical church in America. This is the cost of choosing power over love. This is the cost of betrayal. This is the Judas Effect” (xiii).
The most damning chapter is the one wherein she compares Trump to Hitler. It is the most complete and detailed exposition of their similarities I have read anywhere. This chapter 10, “Grabbing Anything,” is the longest chapter in the book, counting 25 pages. It is, frankly, revolting and alarming and damning: damning Hitler, damning Trump, and damning those professing Christians who followed Trump into the swamp of power and deceit.
The most powerful chapter is number 16. It reads like a sermon, and perhaps it is, using the words of Jesus as both a text and a title: “Leave Her Alone.” She describes this as “three of the most beautiful words in all of scripture…. For women—those three words are a gorgeous revelation of Jesus’s heart toward them. For men—they should be taken as a warning” (106f). I have received permission from Ms. Hawk to repost that chapter here.
But here is the bad news for Hawk.
In the last chapter of this book, Hawk issues a call for repentance. It is sincere, and spiritually focused, and biblically based, quoting as it does that one text all Evangelicals pull out to address the subject: 2 Chronicles 7:14, which begins: “If my people which are called by my name will ….” We all know the text and its invitation to repentance.
Evangelicals use this text not to frame their own change of mind and life but to point out the failures of others. It is those others that need to repent. Because Evangelicals have a long history in America of refusing to repent. I have written about this at length elsewhere, but here is the short version.
Evangelicals have their political and numerical base in the Old South, from Virginia around to Texas. Yes, some of that spirit has seeped out West and even into the Northeast, but mostly, it is the spirit of the old South, the religiously and politically conservative region that, first, bought and sold slaves, then rebelled against the United States when it appeared that their slavery passion was on the verge of elimination, and finally devised a score of ways to make life miserable for people of color.
In other words, Evangelicals had one opportunity to repent of their past, but choose segregation, Jim Crow, and lynching; then they had another chance to change their ways, but pushed back against the Civil Rights Movement, launching segregation academies and gerrymandering districts to disenfranchise their neighbors; finally, in these last days, they joined under the MAGA banner to denounce Black Lives Matter and explode the gospel-sounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives of institutions, corporations, and governments everywhere. Three times they have refused to repent.
They are not going to repent of Trumpism either: not today, not tomorrow, not ever. A hundred years from now Christian Trumpers will be defending Trump (perhaps not openly or publicly) and longing for the day when another such person will appear to give voice to their convictions and give action to their grievance.
Until then, the only option is to leave, shaking the dust off our feet, and seek a place where mercy, justice, and humility take the place of power, greed, and pride. Which is what Hawk has done. At the end, she writes, “This pilgrim is grateful for her journey” (142). Her journey is not over, nor is the hardship. But God has brought her through it all and, by faith, will see her home.
God bless you, Amy Hawk. Keep walking. Keep writing. Keep growing. Good things await you.
More about Amy Hawk can be found on her website: www.amyhawk.com
The Judas Effect
How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power
By Amy Hawk
A Review by Dr. Dwight A. Moody
I have good news, and I have bad news for Amy Hawk.
First, this is a splendid book. It tells an interesting first-person story and does so in a winsome and compelling way. It is the story of her coming to faith in Jesus Christ, her slow inclusion into a Christian community, her rise to influence and leadership, and her slow disassociation with the Evangelical community that had nurtured her in her spiritual journey. It is all fascinating and frequently humorous. Ms. Hawk has a knack for telling a story.
What makes this story so worth telling is how it intersects with the larger story of our time, that collision of religion and politics that has dominated the national narrative for years, even decades. What she did not know when she submitted to the influence of a white Evangelical church in the state of Washington was how that religious community would be pulled from its Christian and Biblical moorings by the irresistible tug of our current President, Donald J. Trump.
Hawk sums it up this way, describing her Evangelical community: “They followed Trump’s lead instead of Christ’s and showed the world what hatred, greed, misogyny, a quest for worldly power, a lust for violence, bullying, corruption, and division looks like. A harvest of believers who should have come to know Jesus as Lord has been given a multitude of reasons not to trust the evangelical church in America. This is the cost of choosing power over love. This is the cost of betrayal. This is the Judas Effect” (xiii).
The most damning chapter is the one wherein she compares Trump to Hitler. It is the most complete and detailed exposition of their similarities I have read anywhere. This chapter 10, “Grabbing Anything,” is the longest chapter in the book, counting 25 pages. It is, frankly, revolting and alarming and damning: damning Hitler, damning Trump, and damning those professing Christians who followed Trump into the swamp of power and deceit.
The most powerful chapter is number 16. It reads like a sermon, and perhaps it is, using the words of Jesus as both a text and a title: “Leave Her Alone.” She describes this as “three of the most beautiful words in all of scripture…. For women—those three words are a gorgeous revelation of Jesus’s heart toward them. For men—they should be taken as a warning” (106f). I have received permission from Ms. Hawk to repost that chapter here.
But here is the bad news for Hawk.
In the last chapter of this book, Hawk issues a call for repentance. It is sincere, and spiritually focused, and biblically based, quoting as it does that one text all Evangelicals pull out to address the subject: 2 Chronicles 7:14, which begins: “If my people which are called by my name will ….” We all know the text and its invitation to repentance.
Evangelicals use this text not to frame their own change of mind and life but to point out the failures of others. It is those others that need to repent. Because Evangelicals have a long history in America of refusing to repent. I have written about this at length elsewhere, but here is the short version.
Evangelicals have their political and numerical base in the Old South, from Virginia around to Texas. Yes, some of that spirit has seeped out West and even into the Northeast, but mostly, it is the spirit of the old South, the religiously and politically conservative region that, first, bought and sold slaves, then rebelled against the United States when it appeared that their slavery passion was on the verge of elimination, and finally devised a score of ways to make life miserable for people of color.
In other words, Evangelicals had one opportunity to repent of their past, but choose segregation, Jim Crow, and lynching; then they had another chance to change their ways, but pushed back against the Civil Rights Movement, launching segregation academies and gerrymandering districts to disenfranchise their neighbors; finally, in these last days, they joined under the MAGA banner to denounce Black Lives Matter and explode the gospel-sounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives of institutions, corporations, and governments everywhere. Three times they have refused to repent.
They are not going to repent of Trumpism either: not today, not tomorrow, not ever. A hundred years from now Christian Trumpers will be defending Trump (perhaps not openly or publicly) and longing for the day when another such person will appear to give voice to their convictions and give action to their grievance.
Until then, the only option is to leave, shaking the dust off our feet, and seek a place where mercy, justice, and humility take the place of power, greed, and pride. Which is what Hawk has done. At the end, she writes, “This pilgrim is grateful for her journey” (142). Her journey is not over, nor is the hardship. But God has brought her through it all and, by faith, will see her home.
God bless you, Amy Hawk. Keep walking. Keep writing. Keep growing. Good things await you.
More about Amy Hawk can be found on her website: www.amyhawk.com
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