By – John Pavlowitz – Stuff You Need To Know
If I hear one more Evangelical claim that God chose Donald Trump, I’m swear I’m gonna rapture myself.
Christian Trumpers really need to stop spiritualizing the man, his campaign, and his Presidency.
It’s sinful.
It’s blasphemous.
It’s lousy evangelism.
It’s also just plain asinine.
The hypocrisy on display is historic: after spending the past 8 years straining to find infinitesimal specks in Barack Obama’s eye that they could condemn as dealbreakers—Evangelicals are now perfectly fine with Trump’s rotted forest of Redwoods.
In fact, in the most dizzying display of theological spin doctoring, it is now precisely his ever-growing trail of personal toxic discharge that supposedly proves evidence of God’s hand in it all.
So Trump’s multiple marriages, his porn star affairs, his mountain of sexual assault claims, his verbal obscenities, his disregard for rule of law, his compulsive lying, his clear racism, his unrelenting attacks on marginalized communities (things these Christians would have figuratively and almost literally crucified Obama for) are now unmistakable signs that God is using this President.
This is nonsense of Biblical proportions; to try and draw some line between Jesus of Nazareth and Don of New York, is about as farcical as you can get without actually spontaneously combusting from the cognitive dissonance.
Dying to justify their own allegiances to Trump, Evangelicals have lumped him in with other famously flawed heroes of Scripture, suggesting he is actually God’s anointed, imperfect tool of salvation—in the tradition of the Old Testament.(Well, God did apparently use the jawbone of an ass, so I guess there is precedent).
Seriously, this sanctified retrofitting of this godless President to any kind of Providential momentum is the height of absurdity. By that measurement, let’s find all the most reprehensible human beings we can, give them carte blanche in our seats of power—and see just what God can do!
No, Donald Trump wasn’t anointed by God.
He isn’t an instrument of Divine will.
He isn’t Biblically hastening Armageddon or Jesus’ return.
voter suppression,
Hillary hatred,
Obama resentment,
Democratic stumbles,
the votes of bigoted Evangelicals, whites terrified of losing market share, and third-party voters—and the inaction of 100 million Americans who couldn’t be bothered to participate in one of the greatest responsibilities of living here.
That’s it.
No Providence.
No Divine messages.
No Biblical prophecies.
No spiritual movements.
Just ordinary human beings who chose really, really poorly when they should have known better.
This isn’t a mystery or a miracle—and it sure as hell isn’t God.
Christians need to stop passing the buck to God, and just own the compromises and sick bedfellows they’ve been willing to make for Supreme Court seats, anti-LGBTQ legislation, weapon stockpiling, and a rapidly assembling white Christian theocracy.
Stop namedropping God.
God wasn’t generating fake news or showing up at his campaign rallies or stumping for him at nationwide crusades or using him as an expression of their misogyny.
God didn’t vote for the guy who said he could grab women by the genitalia.
God didn’t choose the guy who said protestors should be beaten.
God didn’t go with the guy endorsed by the KKK.
God didn’t excuse the bankruptcies and overlook the affairs and laugh off the racist remarks.
I’m pretty sure people did that—lots of supposedly Christian folks.
And God isn’t now taunting teenage shooting victims on social media,
or ignoring thousands of lost immigrant children,
or turning a blind eye to Constitutional crises,
or celebrating LGBTQ discrimination,
or laughing off collusion, treason, and human rights atrocities.
Again, Christians.
We really should stop pretending God is responsible for this fast food dumpster fire, when it’s clear whose hand is in it all.
This reality is the rotten fruit of misogyny,
racism,
Nationalism,
fear,
xenophobia,
and bigotry—all released by people who want God to consent to it all so they don’t have to deal with their own culpability or face their own repentance.
God does not consent.
Pray on that.
John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. In the past four years his blog Stuff That Needs To Be Said has reached a diverse worldwide audience. A 20-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. In 2017 he released his first book, A Bigger Table. His new book, Hope and Other Superpowers, arrives on November 6th.