Beware of Churchmen Making Political Declarations
Shouldn’t we question boldly the political declarations of religious leaders?
This is spooky.
I saw a news report yesterday about University of Michigan closing the school’s DEI office. Obviously, this is due to pressure from the Trump administration. I immediately thought of Robert Ericksen’s book Complicity in the Holocaust: Universities and Churches in Nazi Germany. It is a haunting book and one I urge everyone to read. In 2016, provoked by the candidacies of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, I wrote an article quoting Ericksen’s article. Remember those days when Ted Cruz actually stood up to Trump?
I want to reprint much of the blog post dated June 24, 2016. On June 16 of that year, Trump attended a meet and greet with hundreds of evangelical leaders who seemed to warm to him as a result. In the context of Trump overtaking his Republican challengers during the 2016 election, I wrote the following.
……………………………….
In 2012, several candidates were presented to Christians as God’s choice for president (e.g., Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry). This time around Ted Cruz was picked by both the Christian and Latter Day Saint gods as being the anointed one. Now, especially after Tuesday meeting involving Donald Trump and his evangelical friends, more religious leaders are coming out with religious imagery to describe the rise of Trump.
Case in point is an article at Charisma News describing the meeting by Barb Heki. She summarizes the tone of the meeting by the words “amazing grace.” Her summary points are what reminded me of the Ericksen book:
Franklin Graham echoed similar sentiments when, after telling the group that Donald Trump offers substantial hope for America whereas Hillary Clinton offers no hope whatsoever, Rev. Graham did this: He acknowledged that we will never have a perfect candidate, and he compared Trump to great biblical leaders who had fallen into sin at various points in their lives, like Moses and King David, yet were used mightily by God to protect and lead the nation He had chosen them to lead.
It made me wonder, as I’ve watched Donald Trump inexplicably winning state after state by record numbers: Are we watching the hand of God upon Donald Trump at this moment in history? I’m not alone in my wondering, and if the sentiment at this meeting was any indication, I have a lot of godly company in my assessment that we have got to vote for Donald Trump in order to defeat Hillary Clinton because the freedoms we will lose with her at the helm will obliterate our ability to accomplish the very thing that is our mission in life—to preach the gospel of Christ and make disciples.
“Are we watching the hand of God upon Donald Trump at this moment in history?” [Yikes!]
Consider this quote from Ericksen’s book taken from a German Lutheran newspaper in April 1933:
We get no further if we get stuck on little things that might displease us, failing to value the great things God has done for our Volk through them [the Nazis]. Or was it perhaps not God but ‘the old, evil enemy?’ For humans alone have not done this, an entire Volk , or at least its largest part, raising itself up into a storm, breaking the spiritual chains of many years, wanting once again to be a free, honest, clean Volk . There are higher powers at work here. The ‘evil enemy’ does not want a clean Volk , he wants no religion, no church, no Christian schools; he wants to destroy all of that. But the National Socialist movement wants to build all this up, they have written it into their program. Is that not God at work? (p. 42)
Heightening concern is the observation that Trump has called for war crimes, singling out and banning Muslims, deporting 11 million illegal immigrants, stigma against children of immigrants, and limitations on the press. He also told religious leaders that he wanted to make Christianity more powerful and somehow coerce businesses to say Merry Christmas. Even the impulse to take power in this manner should be questioned by the church. Instead, religious leaders are telling us that Trump “gets it.”
By now, shouldn’t we question boldly the political declarations of religious leaders? History shows us multiple illustrations of religion being used and abused for political benefit. To be candid, I fear this in the present day. Religious leaders have had a full year to study Trump and become knowledgeable about him. However, after one meeting with him, many come out declaring him God’s man for the hour. I just can’t get there and in fact their reassurances worry me all the more.
……………………
Well, if anything, things are worse than I thought they would be. People are disappearing for without due process, being deported for expressing their free speech rights, law firms threatened over representation of clients. And universities are rolling over when their rights are challenged.
I know there are good things happening as well. Let me hear from you in the comments.
I grew up in a time when it was rare to hear a legitimate church leader or pastor talk about politics. Televangelists—who were just getting started back then—don’t count. They were, and still are, part of the corruption that has rotted the Church from within. Sure, there were moments when a local issue like a vote on alcohol sales might get mentioned, but national politics? Off-limits.
That changed when certain sects realized they could use wedge issues to gain power. Chief among them: abortion. The Protestant church barely blinked when Roe v. Wade passed. But power-hungry operatives—Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority crowd—saw an opportunity. Abortion wasn’t about saving babies. It was about gaining control and distracting from the church’s ugly racial history. And it worked. The Religious Right and the political right merged into a single, toxic movement.
Christians followed blindly. They expressed outrage on cue and voted as instructed. It wasn’t long before being a Democrat made you suspect—maybe even a heretic. The idea that Christians could belong to either party died, replaced by a new Evangelical Republicanism that smeared Democrats beyond recognition.
So no, I don’t trust the political proclamations of religious leaders. They’re tainted by ambition and corruption. Worse, their influence has led us to ruin—into senseless wars, economic calamities, unbridled greed, and now, the collapse of democracy and the post-WWII world order. White evangelicals, who gifted us this madness, are due for a brutal spiritual reckoning.
As for me, I have little left but contempt for the Church. The silent enablers could’ve stopped this. The sheep who followed every lie could’ve prevented it. Those who swallowed slander about Democrats without a shred of discernment—without any of the wisdom God supposedly grants the faithful—could have changed everything. We all bear some blame, but the Church carries the heaviest burden. It was your job to be a bulwark for the country against evil--now you are the evil.
As for my faith, you won’t fool me again. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. The suffering you’ve enabled—the starvation, the disease, the innocents condemned to rot in foreign prisons, the Americans denied healthcare, food, and dignity—it’s beyond belief. And it’s on you. I will not trust you again.
I have often wondered how you were able to survive working at Grove City. My son graduated there in 2017 and Pence was the commencement speaker. His speech mostly consisted of him praising Trump and thanking God for the blessing and privilege of serving the president.