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4 months ago
7
I confess there’s very little that shocks me these days when it comes to MAGA Christianity.
That said, this post celebrating the House Reconciliation Bill passing Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget did feel a bit over-the-top:
Conservative evangelicals are known for their respect for the authority of the Bible, I’ve been told.
It’s one of their top “distinctives”—according to evangelicals themselves.
I’ve often observed, however, that “respect for the authority of the Bible” too often goes hand-in-hand with proof-texting and cherry-picking Bible passages, and applying them in ways that advance whatever agenda they’re pushing.
I’m Reformed, and I’m a fan of the priesthood of all believers, but I can also see where the “plain reading” of the Scriptures can take us without theological guardrails and the wisdom of interpretive traditions. And, I can see where “inerrancy” can be a convenient tool weaponized by those willing to twist God’s word to coerce others into doing their bidding. (The wisdom of the framers in setting up the separation of church and state appears clearer by the hour.)
I’m used to seeing misappropriation of Scripture passages in Christian nationalist spaces, but this post from our Speaker was so far outside orthodox interpretive tradition that it really feels like he’s trolling us.
Maybe he really believes this. Given his immersion in David Barton’s teachings, maybe he’s lost any ability to sort truth from useful fiction—historically and theologically.
Or, maybe he’s posting something so theologically absurd simply because he knows he can—he knows the MAGA base will take anything he feeds them, so why not have a little fun?
Or, maybe he knows that, little by little, authoritarianism succeeds by eroding people’s sense of truth, redefining “truth” according to their agenda, and providing increasingly absurd loyalty tests to cement the regime’s control.
Who knows?
When I saw the Speaker’s tweet, I thought back to a Substack post by Emily Snook the day before. Emily’s new here, and I recommend subscribing to her Substack. She comes from the thick of this world. (For more on that, read this post, too.) A true believer in the Scriptural teaching she learned in those spaces, she’s trying to make sense of what she’s seeing now—how those who taught her these things are contradicting the essence of those teachings, on a daily basis.
Here’s what she has to say:
Growing up in the SBC- that’s Southern Baptist for the untraumatized reading this- there were three things drilled into every millennial kid who took our faith seriously. (I can’t speak to other generations but I’d guess it’s generally the same. I specify here because the time frame matters and because it’s what I know.)
1- We are people of the Book. We take the Bible seriously. We study it and teach it. A lot. We commit it to memory. We have competitions for children to display their commitment to memorization (Oklahoma State Bible Drill Champion here thank you very much). To be a baptist is to be formed by Scripture above any tradition or ideology or anything else.
2-Every human life is made in the imago Dei, the image of God. And because of the imago Dei, every single human being on earth is precious, deserving dignity and protection. As the people of God, it’s our job to care for every life we can through ministry and missions.
3- Cooperation is how we do ministry and missions. The SBC is founded on missions- more on that to come. And the SBC is a group of churches choosing to work together to do more together than they can on their own.
At least, that’s the message we got as kids in the SBC. And I bought it. I bought it with my heart and mind and my whole life. I memorized huge passages of Scripture. I gave sacrificially to missions. I ministered in my community. Even as a little kid. I believed in doing more together, that what we did together mattered for our neighbors and to God. And I wasn’t alone in that. A lot of us bought it.
Then, for many of us, there was a day (or many days) we learned we were sold a message of half-truths.
Maybe it was the day we learned that “founded on missions” meant splitting from Northern Baptists to allow slavers to be missionaries to Black and Brown people overseas.
Maybe it was the days we advocated for reform to address clergy sexual abuse and the response was to focus on the importance of keeping women out of SBC pulpits.
Maybe it was the days we advocated for immigrants, gun control, or medical care access and we found out the only lives we were supposed to protect and value were those in the womb,
Maybe it was the day we learned abortion replaced segregation as the politically unifying principle of the SBC.
Maybe it was the day we learned the leaders of the “Conservative Resurgence” and “Battle for the Bible” were predators and abusers who shaped a whole denomination into a weapon for their own power and officiated an idolatrous marriage between the church and a single political party.
There are so many maybes, too many to list them all. But whatever maybe, a day came that we realized we were doing more harm together than anything else and walked away. Only to watch the ‘“faithful” who stayed pledge their allegiance, or at the very least excuse and enable, more and more to Donald Trump and MAGA.
Like current Speaker of the House and Southern Baptist Mike Johnson. This Mike Johnson.
At the SBC school where I took biblical hermeneutics (the art and science of the interpretation and application of Scripture) we learned a word for this- Narcigesis. Think of it as main character syndrome but worse, when you read a text, particularly about a figure like Moses- read yourself into it. Which as we say in the taking the Bible seriously biz, is bad hermeneutics. Moses is Moses. Mike is Mike.
But, let's assume sincerity in the Speaker’s belief. He’s not doing a very good job. Moses melted down the people’s golden idol and made them drink it. Mike is a pick me girl for this guy.
And then of course there’s the issue of rather a lot of Mosaic law that is significantly different from the things the Speaker is pushing our law makers to even as I type. Take essentially all of Deuteronomy 15, for example. Or this from Deuteronomy 24
Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherlessof justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow,so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.
So it can be a little, ok a lot, disorienting to actually KNOW Scripture and and hear God’s name invoked by someone who claims to be a Moses figure as justification for mistreating the poor, the migrant, and the sick while amassing wealth and power for men whose whole public and private lives are anathema to the Law and the Prophets.
But. I don’t know that it should be. Should we be surprised and disoriented that the self-proclaimed prophet of MAGA evangelicals, who is supposed to lead America out of slavery and into freedom and justice has upside down political hermeneutics? Probably not. Because the truth is the SBC, the GOP (I know, potato tomato), and maybe America generally right now is much more analogous to the people in the time of Ahab than Moses. Mixing syncretic worship of God with money and power and nationalism. Ready to ostracize and kill prophets, not be called to repentance by them.
Just as I was about to wrap up this post, I realized it could be worse.
Much worse.
The latest propaganda video put out by the Department of Homeland Security popped into my feed. A man’s voice quotes from Isaiah 6: Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? I said: Here am I. Send me. In the background we see flashes of well-armed Border Patrol, night vision images of people being targeted. The music “sooner or later God will cut you down” provides a soundtrack.
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch for the full effect. A summary can’t really do it justice.
When I come across such misappropriation of Scripture, one word comes to mind: blasphemy.
(Truthfully, two words come to mind. The other is sputton, but I wasn’t sure how widely that would translate to readers here. )
Apart from the theological problems, this kind of twisting of Scripture is also dangerous.
Such misuse of God’s name justifies violence in God’s name. Watch that video again.
It’s not that self-identified Christian nationalists don’t take blasphemy—and also, for that matter, heresy—seriously. In fact, many are already advocating for laws against blasphemy and heresy.
If the more extreme proponents have their way, in the Christian nation of their dreams, blasphemers will be punished. Some suggest heretics deserve to be executed.
It’s just that they apply the terms differently.
Today, for example, Christian nationalists are gleefully celebrating the Homeland Security video.
When they talk about executing heretics, my guess is they aren’t thinking of people who can’t articulate the mystery of the incarnation with the specificity that would impress a seminary professor. I’m pretty sure that, in their world, “heretic” comes down to anyone who interferes with their quest for power.
That’s me, and that’s most of you.
**A reminder that this Thursday evening, my friend Bruce Berglund and I will be discussing Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. Details here; if you’d like to join us live, click here for the link:
