Commentary: What have we evangelicals become?

How can any Christian reconcile the teachings of Christ with support for the actions of the Trump administration?

Michael Barrett, my friend and former high school track rival, had this brilliant guest essay published today in the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union. I received his permission to run it here, because I believe it resonates with Orange County politics. So many elected officials claim to be on the side of Christianity, yet ignore the Bible in their actions and words. Although I am Jewish, I have long found Christ to be an inspiring figure whose lessons were valuable. How so many of his disciples mangle it is beyond exasperating.

Here’s Mike …

I recall the oath I took when I enlisted in the Army. There was nothing in those lines about defending a land or a people, only a Constitution. But now, Supreme Court orders are being ignored. Those who attempt to violently overturn an election are pardoned while others are deported and jailed without so much as a hearing.

As Kilmar Abrego Garcia is unjustly held in an El Salvadoran jail, his family responds by saying: “We continue to pray.”

That prompts me to look to my own evangelical community and the unprecedented sway we have with the current presidential administration. But there are no calls for justice. Just ... crickets.

The evangelical mission is a singular one: to live as witness to the love of God and win souls to Christ. Not political campaigns. Not culture wars. As the late Pastor Tim Keller correctly observed in Donald Trump’s first term, “People who once called themselves the ‘Moral Majority’ are now seemingly willing to vote for anyone, however immoral, who supports their political positions. … ‘Evangelical’ used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with ‘hypocrite.’”

It’s a change that has yielded tremendous secular achievements, but poor spiritual ones. As religion and partisan politics are increasingly entwined, it is driving more Americans to disaffiliate with religion: For the first time since Gallup started measuring it in 1937, fewer than half of Americans now say they attend a house of worship. This is an abject pastoral failure.

Personally, I struggle to observe much enthusiasm among evangelicals for Jesus’ message — 200-plus verses on serving the poor, feeding the hungry and welcoming the foreigner, to say nothing of practicing justice and loving mercy. By contrast, evangelical Christian enthusiasm for the president’s policies and personal conduct is off the charts.

On the rare times that someone in the evangelical community speaks up, they are often ostracized in favor of tribal allegiance. Imagine selling a self-serving version of the Bible as a money-making scheme to fund an election? I can’t think of anything more antithetical to Christ’s teaching than leveraging the word of God to secure personal glory and earthly power. And now, the president’s second-term religious adviser is selling Easter blessings for $1,000 a pop (his first-term adviser was indicted on child molestation charges).

The Bible tells us to give to our church, but to do so joyfully. There has been no joy for me as of late, and so I’m considering redirecting my giving elsewhere. Sadly, there are no shortage of options, given that billions in humanitarian aid has been cut to the poorest countries, which will result in innumerable deaths, along with proposed Medicaid cuts that will hurt America’s poor. This comes despite Jesus’ admonishment in Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did unto me.”

Evangelicals should not care more about putting the Ten Commandments in schools, to show how pious they are, than about actually loving their neighbor.

To the charlatans and grifters, Christ said in Matthew 16:26: “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

Michael Barrett lives in Waterford, N.Y.