Christianity Today editorial exposed flawed reaction
In recent decades the Christmas season has become a most difficult time for discerning what religious tradition, if any, our friends and neighbors follow.
Santa Claus, brightly lit conifers, gifting and even angels singing ancient Latin verse seem to belong to everyone, except perhaps true Bah-Humbuggers and the few Christian sects who forbid observing Christmas because the Bible does not command it.
Christmas Eve candlelight services fill up with strangers, some of whom haven’t visited a church in years and no one eyes them suspiciously because they can’t sing the hymns from memory.
This year, however, sidelong glances up and down the neighboring pews in search of potential apostates were likely common in many a Christmas gathering of Evangelical Christians. Last week’s editorial in Christianity Today, a widely respected magazine among Evangelicals, which described President Donald Trump’s “grossly immoral character” and called for his impeachment drew words of thanks and support from some Evangelical leaders but howls of protest and condemnation from others.
Franklin Graham, son of the magazine’s founder, Billy Graham, lamented that the publication has evidently fallen into the hands of “liberal elites.” Jerry Falwell Jr., accused the editorial team of behaving like the elitist Pharisees of 2,000 years ago. “I think,” said Falwell, “if Jesus lived today on the Earth, they would call him a smelly Walmart shopper.”
I admit to having spent part of Christmas Eve trying to wrap my brain around that assertion.
We heard the same story as always, about Jesus being born in a barn and cradled in a food trough because his poor parents could secure nothing more. Doubtless they couldn’t have afforded Walmart, either.
They needed a homeless shelter and probably a food pantry and, as the preacher urged that evening, welcoming such strangers today, especially the poor, ill, and hungry, epitomizes faithfulness.
This is not what Graham or Falwell meant to assert by asking how one relates to a poor, smelly Jesus. By their lights, true Christians support the president. All who do not support him declare themselves godless “elites,” enemies of all things good, just, and holy.
This criterion for determining authenticity does not apply solely to Christianity.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, made that clear this week when he proclaimed himself “more of a Jew” than George Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor. The difference between Soros and Giuliani, a Catholic with Italian ancestry? Giuliani supports the president and his policies regarding Israel, while Soros does not.
It seemed somewhat crazy three years ago when a couple of those newsy family Christmas letters that come each December rejoiced that God had now provided a “chosen one” who would lead America back to genuine truth and faithfulness. The apotheosis of this president, the least likely to have become a religious icon among all who ever held the office, still seems crazy. It has also become a serious threat to the nation as well as to the faith communities that have become captive to the new messiah’s promise of wealth and power in a purified land.
No good ever comes from subjugating the church to the state or deifying the great leader, be it Caesar, James VI, the Führer, Mao, or a president who, according to U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Georgia, has unjustly suffered even more than Jesus before his crucifixion. The church always loses its soul and the nation its bearings. Moreover, broken demigods, failed messiahs, and the acolytes who worship them never leave the stage quietly, much less willingly.
The unspeakable racket ahead may shake the hell out of us. But that could be for the best.