Christians Who Do The Work of the Anti-Christ Must Be Called Out

I have been thinking a lot about the vote for Donald Trump by a large percentage of those who consider themselves to be real Christians, especially thinking about that blog post by Yolanda Pierce that I mentioned a while back.

First, to dispose of the atheist snarking, that a lot of people who claim to be following the Gospels but who don't doesn't discredit the Gospels, such a thing was foreseen by Jesus and he gave a way to know the authentic followers from the hypocrites by looking at their acts and the results of their acts. People who claim to be followers of Jesus but who do what he said not to do and, as important, don't do what he said to do discredit themselves, not the truth of the Gospels.  That he both predicted what came and a means of testing it shows remarkable foresight and understanding of reality.

I think we've been entirely too unwilling to call out the hypocrisy of maybe even a large majority of Christians who are in continual violation of even the most basic teachings of Jesus.  The ground floor teachings of doing to other people what we would have them do to us, for one.   There is no way that someone could favor Donald Trump having political and legal power if they took that seriously.   If he followed a commandment it would be "screw everyone you can if you can get something out of them, to hell with anyone you can't use".   He's hardly kept that a secret, it's what his entire public career is based on, it is his message.   It's what made his TV show popular with the fans of strong-man fascism.

That which you do to the least among you, you do unto me,  is not the practice of any Christian who voted for Republicans in 2016.  Their stated intention is to grind the poor into further destitution and an early and convenient death.  That has always been the real program of conservatives, especially in the Anglo-American tradition.  The real commandment such Christians live by is "kick down, kiss up".   The cowardice of people with little to no power who adopt their messaging is to attack the weakest who can't fight back instead of those who really cause their oppression*.

The relationship of such Christians with the truth is not ambiguous, they fully grasp even the most obvious of lies and promote them and base their actions on them.  Faced with the candidacy of Donald Trump, a man who lied so much that his lies contradicted themselves, sometimes within hours if not minutes and continually over the course of the election campaign, they voted for the most blatant liar we've ever had as a candidate for a major party.  Even Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had some sense of making their lies consistent, with Trump the very concept of truth has gone out the window.   Since the Gospel says that if you know the truth the truth will make you free, such Christians as voted for Trump voted for lies which will enslave us.

This listing of the disparity between the actions of those who thump the Bible the hardest and their profession of faith, when tested against the Gospels, could be encyclopedic.  In every way such Christians not only fall short, they don't even begin to match their actions to their professions of belief.   The election of Donald Trump exposes, not only the total decadence of American democracy in the Age of Lies, it exposes a far more serious crisis in Christianity than even the new-atheism did.  That crisis, in fact, is what has given the enemies of Christianity some of their most potent ammunition.  Such "Christians" as who voted for Trump and a line of those whose policy is directly and entirely opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the entire Hebrew prophetic tradition are doing the work of the anti-Christ for him.  Donald Trump is a far better candidate for that role and if not him, his owner, Vladimir Putin.  Even that fact, that Donald Trump is the candidate of the dictator of Russia, was not enough to lead such "Christians" to vote against the prince of liars who Donald Trump is.

I think it is a moral duty of Christians to examine their own lives and see where they fall short and to correct that, it's a continual duty because the temptation is always there.   But it is as important to call out the disparity in public life.  Jesus wasn't addressing a world which lived under electoral democracy, democracy means that, far from being the subjects of power, The People must, collectively, address their power to do things in the world.  In a democracy that self-examination becomes a public matter and the blatant and serious immorality that we try to correct in ourselves takes on a group and public character.  I think it's necessary to point out these things, the beam in our eye, under democracy, becomes the beam in all of our eyes, the power of the United States, its ability to do evil in all of our names makes that necessary.  It is a moral responsibility of Christians in a democracy to do that.  We don't do it nearly often enough in these terms.  We aren't used to articulating the language to do it, that takes a Diane Nash, a Martin Luther King jr. or a Ceasar Chavez, a Yolanda Pierce.   We have to learn how to reject the false prophets and to condemn their hijacking of Christianity to do the work of the anti-Christ.

P. S.

The Book of Revelations, what my Catholic upbringing calls "The Apocalypse" is something I've never been very comfortable with.  I have said it was one of the most unfortunate inclusions in the canon for the use which some of the worst and most violent fanatics have made of it.  That it is so popular with so many of those pseud-Christians of the kind who voted for Trump is certainly reason to be skeptical of it.   It was certainly not written about today but was a book about the time of persecution of Christianity under the Roman Imperial dicatorship.  Only it's the story of all dictators in all of history.  Everything from the injustice and oppression to the despoilation of the natural environment which is checked only in so far as the ability of the dictator and his legions to do it.  Today, Putin, Trump, etc. have the power which science and technology and record keeping and online hacking have given them.  Watching the work of the anti-Christ all around us, I am thinking maybe there's more value to that book than I used to think.  Not in the terms that the psychotic delusion of the fanatical fundamentalists give it, but informed by reality instead of their sectarian traditions.   Donald Trump, in his love of gaudy show has probably generated some suggestive symbolism, if not him then Putin and his vulgar acquisition.

* The author of the Epistle of James, Chapter 2,  understood that mentality, perfectly, almost two thousand years ago.

My brothers, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
For if a man with gold rings on his fingers and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here, please,” while you say to the poor one, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs?  Listen, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose those who are poor* in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?  But you dishonored the poor person. Are not the rich oppressing you? And do they themselves not haul you off to court?  Is it not they who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you?   However, if you fulfill the royal* law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.  But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by The Law as transgressors.   For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it.   For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not kill.”  Even if you do not commit adultery but kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.   So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom.   For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

I don't know of anything in social science that explains it better than that.  I put "the law" in capitals to distinguish the Mosaic Law as opposed to civil law, which certainly doesn't convict you for partiality for the rich over the poor but rewards it.   Secular law, in so far as it favors the rich, and it does, in just about every way, will always be a danger to democracy on that count.