Unfortunately for the Church and the Gospel, Christians in these latter centuries have been repeating certain unbiblical patterns of behaviors. And here we must be cautious about saying that. We all sin to varying degrees and we are all capable of committing gross sins as individuals. Thus when we see other Christians sin, we need to treat them with the same grace and mercy as we have been and are treated by God when we commit our own sins.
But individual sins is not what is being referenced here. The subject here is the behavior of the dominant branch of the Church in a given country. For example, prior to the respective revolutions in France, Russia, and Spain, the respective dominant branch of the Church sided with wealth and power. And one of the results of that was that when the revolutions came, the Church, along with the state, was seen as an enemy of those revolutions and thus it not only suffered unnecessary persecution, the reputation of the Gospel was significantly harmed.
One only needs to read Vlad Lenin's words as he described the Christian religion as the opiate of the people. For in saying that, Lenin was speaking from observation, not from any ideological deduction. And, btw, the behavior of Christians that made the Church an enemy of Lenin and his hijacking of the revolution was also observed by Rosa Luxemburg. Only she pleaded with the Church to support the workers rather than to support those who oppressed them.
In this part of the 21st century, the repeated behavior of the Church that we are focusing on here is not the dominant branch of the Church in a given country as it supports wealth and power, even though we could do that. Rather it is the free choice of the Church to support authoritarian rulers because those rulers are offering them protection from perceived threats. Three places where has been occurring are Syria, Egypt, and the U.S.
Now in Syria and Egypt, the very existence of the Church has been threatened by violent anti-Christian forces who want to eliminate the existence of the Church in their areas.. And thus the Church's support for brutal dictators is somewhat understandable though problematic. But in the U.S., Church support for the authoritarian leader who is protecting it is even more questionable. That is because the authoritarian leader protecting the Church in the U.S. is not protecting the Church from any violent threat to its existence. Rather, the authoritarian leader who is protecting the Church in the U.S. is protecting the Church from having remained fallen from a place of supremacy in society and culture. This authoritarian leader is promising the Church to be restored to its role of supremacy over society. This kind of protection is evident from William Barr's recent address to the law students at Notre Dame.
In the U.S. the dominant branch of the Church is a coalition of conservative Catholics and conservative evangelicals. And since the legalization of same-sex marriages by decision of the Supreme Court, many leaders in the dominant branch of the American Church has seen that decision as the South saw the loss at Appomattox. These leaders now see the Church as being on the losing side of the culture wars that have been fought in the U.S. since who knows when. For some of us were unaware that there were culture wars being fought here until these leaders complained about that Supreme Court decision.
What was being fought for in the Culture Wars here was the place of supremacy in the culture to have the greatest influence over society. And many of these conservative Christian leaders have described the Church's current plight as hanging on by a thread. Why? Because many of these leaders seem to believe that either the Church has a place of supremacy over society, or the Church's very existence in being threatened by secularists and progressives.
Thus when Donald Trump came, these religiously conservative Christians saw their champion and defender. And because he was their champion and defender, they saw no contradiction between his tough talk and intolerance of others with what is taught in the Christian faith. They see him as defending the Church's existence because he has caused them to believe, whether it is true or not, that he will restore their place of supremacy over culture and society and thus will save the Church from being destroyed.
And so though the Church's support for tyrants in Syria and Egypt is wrong but understandable, the Church's support for the authoritarian leadership of Donald Trump is even more problematic. Why? It is because he is not defending the Church from being violently destroyed and eliminated here, it is because he and the Church are making a deal for the Church to eventually garner the power it once had here in America. Such a deal is contradicted by what is taught in the New Testament.
Unfortunately, in seeking to regain its place of supremacy over American society, the Church has forgotten its past sins when it reigned over society. And by doing so, it has forgotten much of what the New Testament tells us about how to treat others. And forgetting that is the true threat to the Church's existence.
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