I've Walked Away from the Evangelical Church
But I'm Still a Christian
Many people have been so disillusioned with Evangelical support for Trump that they’ve left the church and even given up on their Christian faith.
So why am I still a Christian?
As a Christian it’s been extremely disturbing to watch as over 80% of white evangelicals have continued to support Trump. The grotesque spectacle forced me to take a closer look at the New Testament, and in particular the four Gospels, to try to come to some sort of understanding of what’s happening. And I read a lot of other books (I’ll list some of the more helpful ones at the end of this blog).
This put me on a faith journey of sorts, and a few things have come out of my reading of the New Testament:
1. First, I’ve shifted further to the left politically. For most of my adult Christian life (I wasn’t raised a Christian, but came to faith in my late 30’s), I would characterize myself as fairly conservative. However, the more I read the New Testament, and in particular the words of Jesus in the four Gospels, the more I find myself moving to the left socially and politically.
2. Second, the message of Christ in the Gospels doesn’t support what the MAGA Right-wing church in the USA mostly screams about. The more I read the words of Jesus and the letters of the New Testament, the more convinced I am that the right-wing neo-con church of America isn’t the Christianity of Christ. The Christianity of the Trump supporting MAGA church is some sort of sick perversion of religion that hates everything that Jesus loves. Everything that Jesus has told us to do, Right-wing evangelicals dismiss as ‘liberal’ and do their utmost to attack and destroy.
- Feed the poor? Nope. They despise ‘free’ handouts.
- Heal the sick? Nope, that’s ‘socialism’. We need to get rid of Obamacare.
- Help those less fortunate? Nope, that just encourages laziness. They just need to learn to pull themselves up and try harder.
- Jesus told us to love people, not money. MAGA churches are pro big business and are relatively silent on corporate greed.
I haven’t lost my faith because, between the faith of Jesus and the so-called ‘faith’ of Trump supporting Christians, I see – to borrow words from Fredrick Douglass – the widest possible difference.
“…between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference… I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, … hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.” (Fredrick Douglass. Emphasis mine.)
That for me is the main reason I haven’t lost my faith. In fact, it’s grown stronger of late, because I’ve fallen more in love with the words of Christ. The religion of the right-wing, gun-loving, money-loving, power-worshipping MAGA church bares no resemblance to the Christianity of Christ.
The right-wing evangelical church has abandoned the faith in its pursuit of currying favour with the President, hoping to get its political agenda put into place. They may still go to church on Sundays and call themselves Christians, but their hypocrisy evident to the entire world.
The Bible, however, doesn’t leave room for that kind of religion. Read Amos and Isaiah in particular. The biblical prophets railed against the hypocrisy of rich people going to church while they oppressed their workers and neglected the poor.
Here’s a passage from Isaiah, warning against the type of religious devotion towards God that was bereft of compassion towards people – the very sort of religion that the MAGA church has become: “They seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness.” Yet God wasn’t interested in their show of religion because “in the day of your fast (religious rituals) you do as you please and oppress all your workers” (Isaiah 58:2-3).
The prophet called on them to “take away the yoke (of oppression),” to “pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,” then they would be a righteous nation, and the Lord would be with them (Is. 58:9-12).
“This is the fast I choose: loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke”, “share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, to cover the naked” (Is. 58:6-7).
In other words, true religion is practised in how we treat “the least of these”, not in religious activity detached from compassion and concern for others. We cannot love God without loving people. “When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was naked, you clothed me. Whatsoever you did for the least of these, you did for me” (Mat. 25:40).
The vast majority of the evangelical church has morphed into the very sort of religion that Isaiah and Jesus warned of:
A religion that is no longer interested in “picking up the cross and following me,” rather it curries the favor of the rich and powerful for political gain.
A religion that is pro-rich and pro-gun, and shows little concern for the things that Jesus was most concerned about.
A religion that is happy with giving to the rich in the form of overly generous tax breaks and bailouts and preferential treatment in Washington and the courts, but is against increasing aid to the poor, against assisting lower income kids to get a good education.
A religion that dismisses welfare programs for the poor as “socialism”.
No wonder its lost credibility in the eyes of those outside, and as a result is losing an entire generation.
“Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Mat. 23:23).
The hypocrisy of the MAGA church doesn’t change the truth. I’m still a Christian because Jesus still lives. The tomb was empty on the third day, and we need the words of Christ more now than ever before.
I’ve adapted portions of my book, Jesus and Captain Kirk, for use in this post.
A book I’ve found very helpful in my faith journey is “Christians Against Christianity” by Obery Hendricks. This is a wonderful book that does a beautiful job of explaining the gospel of Jesus, and how the right-wing church has left it.