How support for Trump is causing a rift in the evangelical church
"Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today."
In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement.
Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal.
For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster.
Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.
Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting.
Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing.
Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?
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From the interview with the author
"Yes. I think, in many ways, when people ask, well, where does this story begin?
I think it starts with Jerry Falwell Sr., and I think it starts with his Moral Majority. I think, perhaps even more to the point, Terry, it starts with the founding of a small Christian college in Lynchburg, Va., that was later renamed from Lynchburg Baptist College into Liberty University.
And that period of time in the mid to late 1970s, when Jimmy Carter is president, when the culture wars are beginning to rage around abortion and prayer in public schools and pornography and drug usage and all of these things, Jerry Falwell Sr. senses an opportunity to use these massive organizations - his Christian school, his large Christian church and this new organization, the Moral Majority - to use them in concert to apply pressure on the secular left and to enlist like-minded religious conservatives to join his cause.
And what he discovered was this incredibly explosive, dynamic formula for raising money, for mobilizing the grassroots to vote Republican.
And I think what was so dangerous about it was that there's ample evidence to suggest that Jerry Falwell Sr. himself did not believe in most of this fear that he was peddling, this fear that he was using to exploit the masses of evangelicals who he was raising, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars from and buying a private jet and flying around the country, saying that the end is nigh. Falwell Sr. himself did not personally believe that, but he was planting this...
(Note: Sound familiar?)
GROSS: But how do you know?
ALBERTA: Well, I've spoken with a lot of people close to him. I've read some of his correspondences. There is ample evidence to suggest that Falwell and his contemporaries at the time, some of whom spoke to me for this book, they knew that what they were doing was dishonest, that it was duplicitous, and they didn't particularly care because they saw this as sort of a means to an end, the end being a conquest of the secular culture. And so once you justify things that way, then it's fair game.
(Personal note and observation This mistaken and congregation destroying notion of mixing far right politics with Bible literalism also infects relationships in the splits, splinters and slivers of the defunct WCG as well as on the GMF, i.e the Ambassador Alumni Forum 'General Message Forum')
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Remember when a common bond in our WCG experience was:
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: ( or the "Liberals" "Communists", "Marxists and "Woke") but now is my kingdom not from hence."
Well those days are over. Now the Kingdom of many fundamentalist churches is indeed of this world and fighting in church over it is emptying churches, destroying friendships and trashing classic Christian priorities.
It divides the GMF as well into the constant rants of point and counter-point, exchange of insults and reactions to them, all revolving around conservative, dare we say, Trumpian adoration and liberal disgust with it all.
Personally, "once and done' with the WCG experience was the best decision I personally ever made in my naive view that perhaps as a more liberal thinking pastor by personality, I could help mature the church and get it off the majoring in the minors as well as leadership by the one man show. How wrong I was.
I can't imagine pastoring in any of the debris left over from WCG, old school or "Jesus worked a miracle" and "liberated" us.
Some individual's gods, evidently, are the authors of confusion and chaos.
26 comments:
Jerry Falwell was documented as having a very pleasant social relationship with his "opponent" Larry Flynt. HWA actually preferred many of his "worldly" and "secular" non-WCG social relationships over those he had with church members. It's a common pattern among big-name "religious" leaders.
I had recognized this as a potential problem decades ago, to the point of being very concerned if these people ever became the mainstream, or grew in power to the extent of being able to take control of, or in any way dictate national policy.
Because of my taking exception with their mindset, attitudes, and visions for America as even being Christian, I have lost some long term friends. These days, I've learned to keep my mouth shut about certain things. Whatever is happening is just going to have to run its course, and there will be painful lessons before there can be any change.
BB
NPR?
ROTFLMAO!
They lost all credibility years ago.
Dennis and others complain about "mixing far right politics with Bible literalism." However this is unjustified since 'politics is downstream of culture,' or stated differently, all politics has an underlying moral foundation. Just as John the Baptist and Christ criticized the leaders of their generation, today's religious leaders are morally justified in criticizing today's politics.
I am sure that NPR did lose credibility in your partisan circle, much the same as Fox News did in the circle of others. Back in the '60s you had to read the old hippie "Free Press" as you were listening to the latest Grateful Dead album in order to get the dirty truths behind the establishment's party line media. Or, later, "Mother Jones". You had to be into Billy Jack. Collectively, they held the establishment accountable. NPR still does this today. Many big cities have a version of New Times. Mother Jones is still around, and these days, the Grateful Dead survivors are touring as "Dead and Company". We need all of these more than ever to counter the blatant lies of the establishment.
I remember growing up in the cogs. The wailing and knashing of teeth over Bill Clinton and his immorality. Then I noticed the complaining about Obama. After that I noticed the absolute crickets about Trump and his blatant immorality. But a lot of jawing about how Fauci handled the pandemic. Mixed in with complaint about leftists, woke, and the newsmax/fox/RSBN political slop of the day. That helped me see they didn’t believe in the morality they preached. Conservative politics has always been a trap for religious people.
Great post, Dennis! Christian Nationalism in the United States has converted many evangelical and fundamentalist Christians into worshippers of the state. They see the United States as a "Christian" nation that has gone astray and must be revived and controlled by the "Christian" Right. The Kingdom of God is no longer the primary focus of these folks - it's on Making America Great Again - or "moral" again. Many of them operate from the delusion that the United States was a righteous nation in times past - the "good old days." Instead of Jesus Christ, they look to a sinful, angry, and profane man as their Savior. They have adopted the notion that the ends justify any means employed to achieve them, and anyone who has a different perspective (even fellow Christians) are evil/wicked/demonic).
Looking back I don’t think we could classify wwcog as an evangelical church.
Certainly we had magazines and broadcasting, but generally we were very insulated from evangelicals. Hidden away and we individually did not engage in evangelism per se. That was the magazine and TVs job. We were a community within a community. Certainly right wing in many aspects, some even far right with regards race. I do believe that, and there is very good scholarship supporting this, that what is often called ‘right wing’ is actually founded in the left which gave birth to Marxism and Fascism. Fascism is indeed a baby of the left. Much of splintertom are likely Trump supporters. Interesting times.
I remember on this blog during this past election season, an individual or two someone were trying to let me know that the liberal left was trying to take away our freedom of speech. But look at whose basically ordering the kidnapping college students just for writing for support of palestinians on X or her schools newspaper. The problem with many in Armstrongism is that after service they yuck it up about how great this or that republican administration is during fellowship. They too get deceived into being sucked into this culture war drama, instead of the income inequalities within our nation. They ignore what they don't like about Trump and celebrate what they chose.
The current Trump cabinet includes an openly homosexual Treasury Secretary.
Not to mention a "second lady" who leans Hindu - the sort of mixed marriage that COG ministers in the past would have opposed, citing the Old Testament.
But has any COG mentioned it? To my knowledge, no. Trump-backers now say such things are no big deal.
Tim has always been a wak-a-doodle. I guess he's trying to get someone that can read, to read his diaper load of crapola. Surely a best seller for the trumpers loosing there chit now.
Same here 11:55, I noticed even in a cog that I was in, we had a minister brag about listening to Rush Limbaugh in a sermon. He and the other ministers were silent on what Bush had done to the economy including the blunder of Iraq, but when Obama won the presidency (not even gotten into the the white house yet), they were railing and like you say gnashing their teeth, just at the thought of him being president. One of the ministers even blamed him (Obama) for the financial crisis.
Seeing how they respond to when a republican is in office as oppose to a democrat in office is like night and day. Then when Trump goes in, there is silence to morality. Hypocrites.
Tank
2:06, they are also no mention of Pete Hegseth or Trump being on their third marriages. Not to mention Elon's village of babies by different women. COG ministers are silent.
What always go me was Herb preaching a strong assertive American military in order to protect his church, while teaching passivism to his members in order to protect his ministers lording power.
What always go me was Herb preaching a strong assertive American military in order to protect his church, while teaching passivism to his members in order to protect his ministers lording power.
Yeah, 12:45. The Democrats have historically been about inclusion and protection of minority groups, marginalizing racists and protecting people from the haters. The Republicans did a damned good job of flipping that script and claiming that they were the real victims, suffering grievous harm from wokeness, DEI, CRT, etc. The voters apparently bought into the flip, and here we are. What worries me is that we're probably screwed for the foreseeable future.
The big question is, could any nation survive the sheer magnitude of changes brought on by an unprecedented number of executive orders? It is quite obvious that there are structural anomalies and cracks appearing already. I just don't know if we are going to make it until the mid term elections.
I don't know, 4:25. I check out our guys just like I check out your guys, for the same reason, which is to see if they are legitimate. It's always a sifting process, and is of paramount importance. If they are legit we can attach more weight to their particular advocacy. Not finding any red flags on Tim.
BB
Granted, it might be the effect of me being born right after Watergate, but I simply do not understand any American Christian believer who wants to "hitch their wagon" to American politics. Something about that just seems counterproductive to me.
American evangelical Christianity is in truth Zionist Christianity.
The Dow Jones Industrial average has been dropping like a rock the past few days. Oh, what a coincidence that it's shortly before Passover. Something major happening internationally just before this feast and Tabernacles is the norm. Satan and his minions always try to pull people's attention away from these major feasts. The fake atheists on this blog know this.
You all are completely obtuse about those supporting the actions of Trump. If you are looking for the millennialist Tim Alberta to explain (incorrectly) the rise of the moral majority and evangelicals connection to Trump I have to question how many other years you sleep walked through.
Sorry, I don't believe that Satan and his minions are the least bit interested in the ACOG's attempt to observe the feasts outlined in Torah.
Miller Jones, if the ACOGs are nobodies in Satan's eyes, why are you giving these groups so much of your attention? Why do you complain about the politics in their sermons? I believe that the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses etc are fakes, which is why I ignore them rather than being fixated on them.
Yea 11:07, there's probably no coming back from this. But America did come back from a civil war, great depression, etc....we shall see. But yea the voters and the ACOGs of the conservative nature (LGC, PCG, UCG) who subscribe to this nebulous war against wokeness etc are deceived to what is really going on, and the real problem.
7:04 That's a heck of a statement!
8:15,
Why do I give the ACOGs so much of my attention? Because they deceive and hurt people. Having formerly been a part of the deceived, I have a desire to free and help those who are still actively a part of the delusion. Also, I don't want to see anyone else entangled in that mess! By the way, my messaging about religion and politics should be regarded as generic - having universal applicability (liberals, conservatives, churches, groups, individuals, ethnicities, etc.).
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