American Has Voted/Is Voting

A Prayer of Confession for Trump Enabling Pastors

“In a society that is growing radically more secular…, We have more to fear from those who let their politics determine their faith practices and who turn their religious communities into political armies. We have more to fear from people who look to politics as a substitute for faith.”  - David Brooks

Prayer of Confession for Trump Enabling Pastors — Bishop Will Willimon

Dear Fellow Evangelical Pastors:

As increasing numbers of Trump’s buddies jump his sinking ship, I’m sure that his evangelical allies are afflicted with buyer’s remorse.  Even though many of you are in churches that don’t have prayers of corporate confession, we all know that confession is good for the soul, that you are all busy people with mega congregations, and that it may be as hard for you as it is for Trump to admit to wrongdoing. I offer this efficient means of making your belated–but I’m sure still graciously welcomed by our Lord–admission of sin.

Dear Lord:

Even though, as you well know, The Donald has rarely attended a church, knows little of the Christian faith, and brags that he will never, ever confess or even apologize for his sin, I

(check one or more)

•  confess 

•  bewail 

•  decry 

•  regret

•  am embarrassed by

•  sort of feel guilty

•  wish I hadn’t got caught

I disregarded minimal standards of Christian belief and behavior and, in a four-year lapse of good judgment, and in reckless disregard for the spiritual health of my flock, supported and defended Donald Trump.  

There, I’ve said it.  Please don’t make me say it twice.

And Lord, though I’m sure you know there’s no excuse for me–a Bible-believing Evangelical -- to consort with a lying, misogynistic, racist clown like Trump, I humbly submit for your gracious consideration my trumped-up excuses:  

I (check any that apply)

•  have a bad drinking problem.

• was intimidated by all the Trumpers in my congregation

•  did not attend a seminary where the Ten Commandments were stressed

•  feel some of the same things Trump feels for Putin and Kim Jong Un

•  possess an AK-47 (but only use it as self-defense from my congregation)

•  believe that our Lord made too big a deal out of serial adultery

•  feel the same way as Trump about tax collectors 

•  like Trump, made a few mistakes, assaulted a few women, and stiffed some creditors in my twenties ( ), thirties ( ), forties ( ), fifties  ( ), sixties ( ), seventies ( )

•  Would, like Franklyn Graham, say or do anything, and sacrifice any principle for an invite to a fancy dinner at the White House

•  am on my third marriage too

Therefore, I promise to cease making dumb statements like

(check any that apply)

•  “Lincoln lied too” 

•  “Bone spurs are no joke”

•  “Our Lord had a soft heart for prostitutes too”

•  “Though there’s no evidence for it, maybe he’s changed”

•  “Abortion, while not mentioned in Scripture, is the only sin that’s actually a real sin”

•  “My children are not the brightest candles in the box either.”

•  “Lots of people in the military were suckers and losers.”

•  “It’s not a lie if you think it’s not.”

Lord, if you can forgive some of the stuff I did as a teenager (remember, that was before I got saved), if you could forgive a thief on the cross (who, for all I know, stole more than my former political hero), then surely you can forgive me for my political indiscretions. I’ll admit I’m not the best person in the world, and you know I have my faults, but, Lord, at least I’m not as bad as Trump. Please keep that in mind when separating sheep from goats.

Your faithful servant,

___________________________________________________________

Christian Name Date

Christian Politics - A Sermon by Stanley Hauerwas

I do not know about you but I have found going through these Donald Trump years exhausting. One of the reasons I have found them exhausting is I have no idea what is going on. Or it maybe I think it is obvious what is going on and I do not have the slightest idea what could be done to right the ship. Something seems to have happened to our world and few of us have any idea how to put in back together.

That I am a theologian should make some difference. I have spent a lifetime reading books that should give me insight into the world in which we find ourselves. For example, consider this passage from Bonhoeffer’s Ethics.

“For the tyrannical despiser of humanity, popularity is a sign of the greatest love for humanity. He hides his secret profound distrust of all people behind the stolen words of true community. While he declares himself before the masses to be one of them, he praises himself with repulsive vanity and despises the rights of every individual. He considers the people stupid, and they become stupid, he considers them weak and they become weak, he considers them criminal and they become criminal. His most holy seriousness is frivolous play; his conventional protestations of solicitude for people are bare-faced cynicism. In his deep contempt for humanity, the more he seeks favor of those he despises, the more certainly he arouses the masses to declare him a god. Contempt for humanity and idolization of humanity lie close together. Good people, however, who see through all this, who withdraw in disgust from people and leave them to themselves, and who would rather tend to their own gardens than debase themselves in public life, fall prey to the same temptation to contempt for humanity as do bad people.”

Bonhoeffer wrote that sometime between 194l and 1943 while staying at the Benedictine Abbey Ettal. The secret seminary he directed had been closed by the SS and many of the young men he had trained had been drafted only to be sent to Russia. The passage I just read is obviously Bonhoeffer’s reflections on Hitler and the Nazi takeover of German life. That it is so may mean it is not relevant for our situation because being ruled by a bore is not the equivalent to being ruled by a totalitarian murderous thug. I suspect, however, it is all too relevant to our situation.

I am aware that to begin a sermon with these kinds of reflections risks offense. I am a visiting preacher. I will say what I have to say and then get out of town. I do not have to pay any price for a sermon, and some may wonder if it is a sermon, that seems far too political. But then I hope to convince you that one of our failures as Christians has been our unwillingness to acknowledge and preach the politics of the cross.

There is also the problem of using a sermon to support or criticize particular political opinions. I obviously am not a big fan of Donald Trump while many of you may well think him as inspired leader for our time. Yet you do not get your view in play because I am in the pulpit and you are in the pew. I win.

Of course we try to avoid acknowledgment of the politics of preaching by underwriting the dogma that religion and politics do not mix. It is assumed my negative view of Trump and those with more positive views should keep those judgments to themselves particularly when they are in church. The only problem with that strategy, which I take to be an attempt to avoid conflict, is the importance of recognizing that few claims are more political than the phrase “religion and politics do not mix.”

That is particularly true when the attempt to keep politics out of the sermon is reinforced by the distinction between the public and the private. Most of us are well-schooled by the general presumption that religious convictions are “personal” or “private.” “Private” means it is not incumbent on anyone else to believe what I believe.

That commitment is assumed to take the politics out of religion. Of course, as the great historian, Herbert Butterfield, observed some years ago there is usually enough conflict in any church choir to start a war. But that is a politics internal to the church. No one, moreover, takes such politics seriously. The only problem with the relegation of religious convictions to the private means is that when what we believe is so understood what we believe is seldom thereby thought to be true.

By now I may have tested your patience to the breaking point. You came to hear a sermon and what you have gotten seems more like a lecture about religion and politics that you can well do without. Where is the good news in these problematic generalizations about the relation of the church and politics?

Here is the good news—“There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.” Soon after Election Day, we will celebrate the feast day of Christ the King. It does not get more political than that. The temptation, of course, is to use the language of kingship to make the cross a religious symbol that has no political implications. We are after all Americans. We have never had a king or queen and we have not seemed less for not having monarchs. Was not the War of Independence fought to free Americans from the reach of a king?

We are in the generic sense democrats. Democracies do not have kings. At least they do not have kings that actually rule. We are, moreover, a liberal democracy which is dedicated to the project of making each of us our own tyrant. To be an American means you have to do what you want to do.

Jesus may have been a king but we will not be ruled by a king. We will not be ruled by a king or queen unless we have learned to live as if we are each a monarch of our lives. Yet the desire for freedom without limitation leads, as Bonhoeffer’s analysis presupposes, to servitude.

But if Christ is king it must surely be the case that there is no way to avoid the fact that there was and still is a politics in play that climaxed in his crucifixion. The one who tempted him in the desert was revealed in the crucifixion as the false ruler that tempts us to be more than creatures of God’s good creation.

It is not accidental that the feast day of Christ the King was established by Pius XI in 1925 in his encyclical Quas Primas. Pius was so concerned by the murderous reality of WWI he reasoned that the only hope of avoiding future conflicts depended on the public recognition and celebration of “Christ the King.” We become a people incapable of killing one another through the recognition that Jesus is king.

To be sure the politics we experience are democratic. It is also true that there are few examples of the politics of democracy in the Bible. Jesus is nowhere addressed as “Mr. President.” Nor does he seem to be someone who might try to win an election. Take up your cross and follow me does not sound like a winning campaign slogan. I concede that there is one democratic moment in the Gospels—the people choose Barabbas.

I think the problem of articulating the politics of the cross in modernity is not because we are stuck with kingship language in a democratic social order. No, I think the problem is Jesus. In Colossians, we are told, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.” All things have been created through him—dominions, rulers, or powers.

What are these “powers?” They are givens of God’s good creation that were meant to make our lives possible. But they are fallen giving us the illusion that we are in control of our lives. They were meant to make us cooperative and at peace with one another but they are now used to assert our will over each other.

But they have been exposed and thus redeemed by Christ making it possible for us to live in peace. What does it mean to say they are redeemed? It is to say that the pretension that we are our own creator has been unmasked by the cross. It is to say that if there did not exist a people who worship a crucified king then the world Bonhoeffer describes is never far from reality.

Christ is king. Christians accordingly must be the most political of all God’s creatures but our politics is not “out there.” Our politics is first and foremost here in this bread and wine. Here we become for the world a people of peace in a world of violence. Such a people are made possible by the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness makes possible the acknowledgment that we can confess the sins of the past without trying to justify what was so wrong nothing can make it right. Slavery was sin.

There can be no question for us who worship a crucified savior—religion and politics do mix. Indeed they do not mix but in fact, they are one. There is no politics deeper than the community that is gathered around the cross of Christ. For it is assumed such a community has nothing to lose by acknowledging the truth about our failures to follow this Lord is about truth. We live in a dangerous world made more dangerous by our unwillingness to obey anyone other than this strange king of the Jews. Do not be afraid but rejoice in the fact that you are a citizen of the kingdom of this crucified king.

Taylor’s Tunes

“Never be ashamed of your music.” - Dr. J. Hartelius

“America” is the lead single from Sufjan Stevens’ most recent album The Ascension. It is a 12.5-minute protest song against the sickness of American culture and it crescendos into a rather cathartic reflection on disillusionment and the loss of faith in the nation. It contains all of the classic Sufjan-esque elements that have made his career what it is from pulsing synths to layered recorders to an earworm of a chorus.

On the morning of the presidential election in 2016, I drove to my local polling station (a Seventh Day Adventist Church) and after depositing my vote into the machine I looked up to see a mural of Jesus laughing his ass off; it was perfect. Stanley Hauerwas reminds us that we get the politicians we deserve and that, in spite of our best and even worst attempts, democracy is a highly coercive way to do things - particularly when 50.1% of people get to tell 49.9% of people what to do. “Bad Decisions” from The Strokes reminds me of this problem.

Kevin Morby and Katie Crutchfield’s (Waxahatchee) cover of Jason Molina’s “Farewell Transmission” is a haunting and holy tribute to a great songwriter who died at the age of 39 from alcohol abuse-related organ failure. My favorite lyric comes about midway through the song, and I think the words are particularly fitting for the time we find ourselves in: “The real truth about it is no one gets it right / The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try.”

Hardy’s Lifehack - Improving the Life You Didn’t Know Needed Improving

It’s Election Day, but you probably already knew that. I’m a political junkie. When I first left college I thought I would be working on the Hill. Little did I know that to get a job on the Hill you had to first be willing to work for free. That wasn’t an option so here I am, a United Methodist Pastor.

I have worked on political campaigns before. In 2004 I volunteered for one of the Presidential candidates. And in the fall of 2005, I worked on a US Senate campaign in West Virginia. I know how much hard work goes into getting a candidate from announcing their candidacy to the debate stage, and through election night.

There are a few things I get to watch with zero input from the rest of my family - Orioles’ baseball, Presidential Debates, and Election Night returns. Tonight I will be glued to a TV, cocktail in hand, waiting for the media projections to be announced. My iPad and iPhone will be fully charged so I can Tweet my opinions out into the internet where I know everyone be waiting on the edge of their seats my hot-takes on the evening.

The 2020 Presidential Election has been hard on us. This election has alienated me from members of my family. I know, regardless of what the final outcome is, there will be friends and family members who will continue to not speak to me for months to come.

My wife is not sleeping these days. I guess a global pandemic, being a small-business owner, and living a stone’s throw from the center of the American political universe will do that to a person.

It seems like so much is broken right now - our healthcare system, the economy, the election infrastructure, and our families to name a few. And while I would never advocate alcohol as the cureall for what ails you, becoming an at-home mixologist has been proven to be an upside to the dumpster fire that 2020 has been.

There’s a line in a recently popular country song that goes like this - “…I can’t fix that, but I can fix a drink.”

To make election night a bit more fun here are a few drink recipes that I’ll be mixing up as I listen to the media projections.

Manhattan

1 oz. Bourbon (I will be using Makers’ Mark)

0.5 oz. Sweet Vermouth

2 dashes Aromatic Bitters

1 Candied Cherry

Stir all of this in ice and then strain into a glass.

Vodka Martini

2 1/2 oz. vodka

1/2 oz. dry vermouth

For garnish, green olive or strip lemon zest removed with a peeler

Stir all of this in ice and then strain into a glass.

***No Sufjan Stevens fans were harmed in the writing of this lifehack

Minute with the Minion: Barth on Revelation - David King

Only God can reveal God. In the Barmen Declaration, Karl Barth’s argument for the sole activity of God in the work of revelation stems from his worry that the search for revelation elsewhere (i.e. in a natural theology later exemplified by Emil Brunner) cannot but compromise the Christian’s allegiance to God by displacing the centrality of Christ.  In the Barmen Declaration, Barth foregrounds all other declarations with one concerning God’s unique and singular revelation that has a universal claim on the life of the Christian. The declaration opens, “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.” This statement is followed immediately with the explanation for why it must, again and again, be said: that there is “false doctrine,” and that there are forces and powers that seek for the Church to admit of another “source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God…as God’s revelation.”  Here, Barth makes explicit that the logic behind natural theology, or seeking a revelation of God besides Jesus Christ, is the same logic that allowed the German church to acquiesce to Hitler’s rule, namely, a logic of revelation that did not require a miracle. 

In this miracle, nothing short of God in Himself is revealed, Barth argues. Revelation is not a question of which aspects of God are revealed where but is rather a question of understanding who God is in Jesus Christ. Barth understood that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel, God’s irreducible, particular revelation. Jesus Christ stands for nothing other than Himself, none other than God. For Barth, Jesus Christ as God’s self-revelation means precisely that God is the living God, the concrete God who is utterly free to reveal who He is in whatever manner He wishes.  

God cannot be known apart from Jesus Christ; in Him, we see not only the only true God but also true humanity. 

Must Christians Vote for One Candidate Over Another? - Jason Micheli

Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

Two hundred years before they posed this question to Jesus, Israel suffered under a different empire, a Greek one. And during that time, there was a guerrilla leader named Judas Maccabeus. He was known as the Sledgehammer. The Sledgehammer’s father had commissioned him to “avenge the wrong done by our enemies and to” — pay attention — “payback to the Gentiles what they deserve.”

So Judas the Sledgehammer rode into Jerusalem with an army of followers to a king’s welcome. He promised to bring a new kingdom. He symbolically cleansed Gentiles out of the Temple, and he told his followers not to pay taxes to their oppressors.

Around 160 BCE, Judas the Sledgehammer got rid of the Greek Kingdom only to turn around and sign a treaty with Rome. The Sledgehammer traded one kingdom for another just like it. But not before he became the prototype for the kind of Messiah Israel expected.

When Jesus was just a kindergartner, another Judas, this one named after that first Sledgehammer, Judas the Galilean — he called on Jews to refuse to pay the Roman head tax. With an armed band Judas, the Galilean rode into Jerusalem to shouts of hosanna. Judas the Galilean cleansed the Temple. And then he declared that he was going to bring a new kingdom with God as their king. Judas the Galilean was executed by Rome.

Perhaps you can sense then what’s at stake when Jesus throws his Temple tantrum and when the Pharisees ask Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar. The only thing left for Jesus the Sledgehammer to do is to declare a revolution, to stand up to injustice, to deliver the oppressed, to cast down the principalities and powers from their thrones.

To take up the sword. That’s why the Pharisees and Herodians trap Jesus with a question about this tax. “Jesus, do you want a revolution or not?” That’s the real question. “Come down off the fence, Jesus. Which side are you on, Jesus?”

And Jesus responds, “Why are you putting me” — the LORD your God — “to the test?”

Politics makes for a strange bedfellow. The Pharisees and the Herodians were the two political parties of Jesus’ day. The Sadducees were theological opponents of Jesus. But the Pharisees and the Herodians were first-century political parties, who, despite their differences, discovered unity in their common opposition to Jesus. They were the Left and the Right political options. And instead of Donkeys and Pachyderms, you can think Swords and Sledgehammers.

The Herodians were the party that supported the current administration. They thought the administration was restoring Israel’s greatness. Rome, after all, had brought roads, clean water, sanitation. And even if it had taken a sword, Rome had also brought stability to the tinderbox called Israel. The last thing the Herodians wanted was a revolution, and if Jesus says that’s what he’s bringing, they’ll march straight off to Pilate and turn him in.

On the other hand, the Pharisees were the party that despised the current administration. It’s worth noting, for instance, that the Pharisee Zadok joined in with the failed revolution of Judas the Galilean. The Pharisees were something of a resistance movement. The Pharisees were Bible-believing observers of God’s commandments. They believed a coin with Caesar’s image and Son of God printed on it was just one example of how the administration forced people of faith to compromise their convictions.

The Pharisees wanted regime change. They wanted another Sledgehammer. They wanted a grass-roots righteous revolution. They just didn’t want it being brought by a third-party like Jesus, who’d made a habit of pushing their polling numbers down.

And so, if Jesus says he’s not bringing a revolution, the Pharisees will get what they want because all of his followers will think Jesus wasn’t really serious about this “Kingdom of God” rhetoric. They’ll write him off and walk away. That’s the trap. If Jesus says no, it will mean his death. If Jesus says yes, it will mean the death of his movement.

Which is it going to be, Jesus? The Sword or the Sledgehammer? Which party do you belong to? You’ve got to choose one or the other. Check the box, Jesus. What are your politics Jesus?

Jesus asks for the coin. And then he asks the two political parties: “Whose image is on this?”

Pretending not to recognize Caesar’s face on the coin, Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.” But it’s not that simple or clear, because the word Jesus uses for “give” isn’t the same word the two parties used when they asked their question.

When the Pharisees and Herodians asked their question, they’d used a word that means “to present a gift.” But when Jesus replies to their question, he changes the word. Instead, Jesus uses the very same word Judas the Sledgehammer had used 200 years earlier. Jesus says: “Payback to Caesar what he deserves and payback to God what God deserves.”

His answer is ambivalent. What does a tyrant deserve? His money? Sure, it’s got his picture on it. He paid for it. Give it back to him. But what else does Caesar deserve? Resistance? You bet.

And what does God deserve? Everything. Like a good press secretary, Jesus refuses the premise of their question.

The Pharisees and the Herodians assume a two-party system. They assume it’s a choice between the kingdom they have now and another kingdom not too different, just of a different hue. They assume the only choice is between the Sledgehammer and the Sword.

But like a good politician, Jesus refuses their either/or premise. He won’t be put in one of their boxes. He won’t choose sides. Jesus refuses to accept their premise. His movement is about defeating his opponents by dying for them, and that qualifies all our politics.

As happened four years ago, it’s often said that this is the most important election of our lifetimes, and perhaps hindsight will bear it out. But magnifying the stakes this way is a dangerous habit for self-justifying sinners whose hearts are idol factories and whose wills are bound.

This poses a serious spiritual problem. As a preacher I seldom dole out shoulds or oughts, but here’s an exhortation, a simple nonpartisan election season prescription: don’t do to Jesus what Jesus wouldn’t do to himself. Don’t box Jesus in and make Jesus choose sides. Don’t put a sword or a sledgehammer, an elephant or a donkey, in Jesus’ hands. Don’t say Jesus is for this party or against that party. Don’t say this is the Christian position on this issue. Don’t say faithful Jesus followers must back this agenda, should support this issue. Don’t insist that this or that Christian value ought to have only a one-party solution. Don’t demonize those with whom you disagree.

Political parties don’t get to decide the bounds of what Christians value. Jesus does.

It should chasten all of us in our political pride that the only scene resembling anything like a democratic election in the Bible is when we shout crucify him, casting our vote on Good Friday for Barabbas rather than Jesus Christ. I realize that this probably sounds like a modest prescription. But maybe modesty is the best policy. Given what the Gospel reveals about us and what was required for us, for our redemption, maybe modesty is the best policy.

There is, though, a Gospel promise embedded in Christ’s answer to their question about taxes. “‘Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’ And they all reach into their pockets to produce one.”

But notice, Jesus had to ask for one.

The coin that condemns them under the Law, since it bore another god’s image — Christ isn’t carrying one. His pockets are empty. He alone is righteous. Jesus is our substitute not only on the cross but in his faithfulness. And that righteousness — Christ’s permanent perfect score, the Bible promises — it’s gifted to you, gratis and forever, at your baptism. The currency exchange that matters in Mark’s Gospel isn’t what happens with the moneychangers outside the Temple; it’s what the ancient church fathers and mothers called the great exchange.

In taking the unclean coin from our hands, Christ takes our sin into his own hands. And then two days later he takes our sin in his body to a tree.

The baptism of his death and resurrection is a refining fire that has rendered you purer than silver and more precious than gold no matter what you render to Caesar. Where our pocketbooks prove that we have no king but Caesar, he brought down the mighty from their thrones by being lifted up on his cross — his victory, by grace through your baptism, it’s as though you had won it by your own obedience.

Where we fail to render to God the everything that belongs to God and give a lot more heartburn and bother to the Rome we call America, by grace through your baptism you are credited as blameless as Jesus Christ himself. There is therefore now no undoing it. Don’t do to Jesus what Jesus wouldn’t do to himself. Don’t insist that Jesus fit into your red or blue box. You don’t need to. Because you’ve been gifted Christ’s own righteousness, you have the right to be wrong.

But there’s the rub. So does your neighbor. They have the right to be wrong, too.