Why did the president of Liberty University endorse Donald Trump when it is well known that Trump is, from the standpoint of Christian morality, utterly corrupt? Why should he make any pronouncement at all on political matters? He is, after all, the president of a Christian University, and why should that university be involved in politics? Well, as is well known, he is the son of Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority, a "majority" once dedicated to preserving America as a Christian nation. A presupposition of this movement, the source of its energy, was the deeply held belief that America was a Christian nation established by God to be a light to the world. Where did this belief come from?

According to the American historian Sydney Mead, the medieval understanding of the one universal Christian church began to break down with the Reformation and the rise of nationalism in which each nation had their own national Christian church. America, however, did not adopt a national church, and as a result, the sense of universalism that once belonged to the universal church was attached to the nation itself with three characteristics especially significant. They were: 1. The nation became the primary agent of God's meaningful activity in history. 2. The nation became the primary society in terms of which individual Americans discovered their personal and group identity. 3. The nation became the community of the righteous. Once Americans felt this way about their nation, it became commonplace to believe that America, to quote Lincoln, was "the last best hope of earth."

With these assumptions, Christian Americans naturally believed that the nation could only be righteous if it was Christian since Christ was the very definition of righteousness. And indeed, there were many Christian elements that originally came together to form America's cultural life. Once these elements were threatened, Evangelicals rallied to preserve their heritage, and hence, in recent decades, the rise of the Religious Right who channeled their efforts through the Republican Party. In the eyes of many, these efforts to win the culture war have failed, signaled by the recent Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. They failed for many reasons, though two are worth noting. First is the fact that, by and large, the Republican Party was never really interested in the evangelical agenda. Rather, they, along with the Democrats starting with Bill Clinton, promoted the agenda of the corporate globalists. They threw off the legal restraints on corporate power arising from the great depression while greatly increasing the wealth of the rich at the expense of the middle and poorer classes. Second, as I shall describe, the failure to win the culture war was proceeded by a failure to win the spiritual battle for the church.

The feeling of dismay among Evangelicals as they lose the culture war stems from their failure to recognize that America is not the community of the righteous, nor the primary agent of God's work in history, nor is America their primary identity. The defeat of certain Christian political proposals is not the end of a Christians' true identity as America was never and never will be the redemptive Kingdom we all so desperately need. In other words, the spiritual root of the Religious Right's dismay at not saving America is idolatry, the attributing honor and glory to a nation whose founders carried out a bloody revolution rather than to Christ who founded his Church by dying for all. This is not to say that faith has no relevance to economics and politics, but rather to say that nations cannot be expected to become truly righteous, and to give one's heart to that expectation is to court certain disappointment.

Of course, many Evangelicals know that their final salvation is in Jesus and his eternal Kingdom. They know this, yet their loyalties are divided. They will say "love of God and country," as if the two loves were on the same plane, as if Christ would share his glory with the United States of America. No, they are not on the same plane. They do not go together. I see no support in Scripture for love of country. Scripture proclaims honor and respect for the governing authorities as in Romans 13, insofar as these authorities punish wrongdoers and serve the good. But when the state goes beyond this, when its citizens love it beyond its provisional and limited authority, it becomes the beast from the Abyss as in Romans 13.

Once many Christians had betrayed their Lord by ranking him along with their country, they then needed a working hypothesis as to what evil had invaded our common life. The choice was "secular humanism," popularized by Francis Schaeffer in the early 1980s. This term, however, functions to disguise the true religion of most believers. Religious people go to church, believe in God, say prayers, and some of them struggle with sin. As a result, they do not think of themselves as secular. They think of themselves as religious. When they hear terms such as "secularization" or "secularism," and hear lectures describing how secularism is destroying society, it leads them to see the evil as something external to themselves. Then, once the external evil is identified, they can carry out a campaign against it, opposing such things as abortion, homosexuality, and the lack of prayer in schools. As these campaigns are waged, the "warriors" are always in the right, fighting against the evils of secular humanism.

There is very little in Scripture to combat the belief that there is no God. There is massive evidence that God's people combined their belief in God with their lust for the baals whom they believed energized the fields and skies to grant the blessings of life. The essence of this pagan religion was the belief that the business of life was to receive life's blessings and religion helps in that regard. These blessings fall into three categories as seen in Christ's temptations (Luke 4:1-13) -- the right of bodily needs (bread), the right to power and wealth (the kingdoms of this world), and the right to status and honor (the awe engendered by leaping from the temple unharmed). The Christian religion does not deny the importance of these things, but they are superseded by radical obedience to God, the seeking first of his Kingdom, and the daily self-denial of the cross. In actual practice this means that Christians have no automatic right to temporal blessings since God at any moment may require that we forgo any or all of them. The crucifixion of Jesus is the proof of this.

Seen from this perspective, all Christians are pagan in varying degrees. In fact, much of which passes for Christianity is simply paganism given a Christian dress. The most egregious example is the prosperity gospel, together with his milder form, the therapeutic gospel as preached in many churches. There are other pagan forms as well, mean-spirited gospels where the brutality of the baals is given a Christian veneer. These "Christian" religious forms give little real knowledge of the greatest blessings of the Christian life, namely, to truly know the Father and his Son, for Jesus stated it clearly, "... whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:38).

The belief that the essence of life is prosperity is intimately connected to another belief, namely the idea that we must at times, sometimes regrettably of course, remove the obstacles to our happiness. So, for example, a person may decide to abort an inconvenient baby, or a nation may decide to invade another country which threatens its supply of oil, or a church may marginalize a prophetic voice it doesn't what to hear. All of these actions belong to the pagan belief that the essence of life is getting our needs met, and that the removal of hindrances is part of the process. That is the pagan way, but not the way of Christ. Rather than call down twelve legions of angels to defend himself when faced with death (Matthew 26:53), Jesus chose to die.

Now let us consider this matter from the point of view of church leaders, for Christian leaders are those who direct the church's role in political affairs. How does one get to be a leader in a church? The simplest and most direct route is to promote and espouse the beliefs of the church in question. By and large, those who do this well, those who appear to have leadership qualities, those who look good and have intelligence and conviction, become leaders. There are always exceptions, but by and large this is how it works. One crucial factor, however, must be recognized; as leaders climb up the scale of success, they cannot take positions that put them at odds with the great majority of the rank and file. Most leaders will, by and large, promote the party line. There is, of course, another way to become a leader. There are leaders who form coalitions and minority positions and fight for them, and in the end, prevail. But whatever their path, whether they curry the favor of the majority or create the preponderant force, they will virtually never arrive at a position that reflects the full gospel. This is because both they, and the people they lead, have limited and stereotypical beliefs as to what constitute sin and gospel freedom. They will not, for example, believe that abortion and the invasion of a foreign country are both sinful acts, even though both have the same root, namely, self-preservation. Some will call gay sex sinful, but they cannot see that the essence of America's economic order is sinful, nor will they see the deep and terrible evils that afflict both political parties. No, religious leaders will ignore the evils promoted by the people they represent, thereby limiting the degree of repentance and forgiveness they proclaim to their followers.

As a result of these limitations, and in light of the relevance of the church to political and social matters, you will hear church leaders discoursing on how same sex unions contribute to the demise of the family, but they will say nothing on how the economic policies of the last forty years have forced wages so low that both husband and wife must work to the neglect of the children. Or, you may hear a call to defend the unborn, but nothing will be said about the fact that American expansion did not stop with the robbing and killing of the Indians, but continued on in new forms, the penetration of American capital throughout the world beginning in the 1880s, followed by coups, invasions, military occupations, slaughters, and the propping up of brutal regimes dedicated, not to the welfare of their populations, but to the protection and expansion of American and local elite capital. In fact, few people even want to know about this sordid history that continues to this day, and out of self-preservation, their religious leaders will tell them nothing, seeking refuge in ignorance. Or religious leaders will describe in fervent tones the danger of the Islamic terrorist threat, but when President Bush announced on the eve of 9/11 that "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world," scarcely any of these leaders stood up to denounce this horrible falsehood. This wretched lie concealed the fact that the Western powers, including the US in recent decades, has invaded, exploited, betrayed, and intervened in the internal affirms of Islamic countries for centuries and that certain Muslims simply wanted revenge. No, America's religious leaders would denounce the sins of America's enemies, a common tactic of the false prophet, but would say virtually nothing of crimes against Muslims. And had those leaders been willing to confess all sins, had they been willing to take out the log before they went after the mote, perhaps the religious public would not have been so quick to mix their allegiance to Christ with a devotion to American exceptionalism. Perhaps they would have repented of their divided love and turned heart and soul to the real shepherd of their souls, our great savior the Lord Jesus Christ.

The confusion between church and state and the need to fight the evil threatening American society goes part of the way to explaining Jerry Falwell Jr. and other Evangelicals who support Trump. But there is another factor we must take into consideration. Trump is mean-spirited, a tough guy, strong enough to take on the vested interests and make things happen. He can, if given support, rescue the country and "Make America Great Again." It should be apparent, however, that he really has no long-held consistent economic and political perspective by which to develop policies or programs. He says whatever is expedient and makes little effort to hold to facts. His program is himself, and he crushes his opponents will personal attacks rather than an examination of their policies. Put simply, he is mean and he cannot be counted on to keep his word. Now, what is the relevance of this? There are a good many people who concern themselves with policies grounded in facts, but by and large, most people do not support a candidate because of their policies, but rather as to whether they resonate internally to their statements. Mean-spirited, bitter, unforgiving people resonate to mean-spirited candidates. A major segment of the American population is angry and bitter because their way of life has deteriorated in recent decades. They have been abandoned by both parties, and they like Trump because he is going to make someone pay for their suffering. Whether he has a program, or is true to his word, or understands national or international affairs, is essentially irrelevant. They love the rhetoric and the belligerence.

This condition of being eaten up with anger, or any of a number of spiritual afflictions, is common to the public at large. On all sides human beings are harassed, afflicted, and oppressed by such things as hate, lust, fear, anxiety, addictions, obsessions, occult involvement, and much, much more, and the church scarcely knows how to address these terrible conditions. Throughout the land broken-hearted people come to their pastors for help, and beyond telling them to pray harder, or memorize Scripture, or obey the dictates of the church, or get a therapist if they can afford it, most pastors do not know how to minister to these broken souls. They do not because so many of them, to one degree or another, are also harassed and afflicted and have received little internal transformation. What is needed is the ancient catechumenate of the first centuries of Christian life. It was composed of the teaching, the scrutiny's, and the exorcisms, and it was a potent weapon against the idolatries and corruption of the surrounding culture.

The teaching involved such things as biblical exposition of the Creed or the Lord's Prayer. The scrutiny's were a rigorous self-examination which enabled a person to forgive all slights and injuries, to expose all idolatries great or small, to repent of all sins, and to lay bare the work of evil spirits which energize these idolatries and their attendant sins. The exorcisms cast out these spirits in the mighty name of Jesus. Through this process, wrongs are forgiven, confession of sin is made, forgiveness proclaimed, and evil spirits banished. This rigorous process took months or even years, and once cleansed, believers were fit for baptism on Easter Eve. All of this is well known to students of early church history.

Among the idolatries confessed by early believers was admiration and love of the Roman Empire, for many early Christians came out of a culture that venerated the state. In this regard, the Book of Revelation was not only written to encourage persecuted Christians, but to give the severest warning to those Christians who venerated the Roman order. A thorough-going catechumenate today would emphasize forgiveness of political leaders deemed harmful, whether it be persons such as George W. Bush or Barack Obama, forgiveness of a nation's enemies such as the terrorists, or forgiveness of hated sectors of the population, together with every effort to understand the elements of truth that might lie in the actions or beliefs of those formerly hated. Among other things, thorough forgiveness and cleansing can enable people to come to have compassion for those they formerly despised because they can see that such persons are "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).

Many people will not do this, or even think of it, in part because their leaders do not call them to it, or they are afraid to do so. They fear that if they forgive the harms done to them, or forgive their nation's enemies, they will leave themselves or their country vulnerable because they do not hate enough to adequately defend themselves or their country. So, religious leaders will not issue a call to forgive and understand their nation's enemies. To do so would antagonize their base and undermine the power of the state to defend them against threats, real, imagined, or exaggerated.

It is not the case, however, that forgiveness makes a nation weak. The exact opposite is the case. Forgiveness enables persons to see reality clearly, unencumbered by anger and resentment. Those who do not forgive become victims of their own rage. They exaggerate the slights they have received, they amplify the danger posed by individuals or foreign nations, they incite conflict by their unrepentant anger that brings untold harm to themselves and others, and they are blind to true openings for more peaceful approaches. They plunge their nation into increasing internal or external conflict resulting in terrible suffering. In a sinful world with evil on every side, there is such a thing as legitimate defense as the lesser of two evils. World War II is a case in point. But not all wars must be fought, especially those based on a whipped up lust for revenge or exaggerated fears as has been the case in recent years. Sooner or later those nations and parties which satisfy their unrepentant lust for revenge sow the seeds of their own destruction. I have seen it over and over in history. A tough guy takes command, his program is himself, and because of his violent heart, he leads a country into conflict, whether external or internal, usually both. The words of Jesus are true: "For all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52).

But even if it cannot be shown that a mean spirit brings a nation to ruin, that forgiving one's enemies weakens a country, Christians still have to face Jesus' command to forgive and to love one's enemies. If Christian leaders do not want to proclaim this because they fear it brings weakness, then they have chosen the nation over the commands of Christ who seeks to form a holy people. What are Christians called to do, make America a hateful nation or forgive and become the holy people of God?

I believe strongly in defense because we live in a sinful world where evil people need to be locked up and violent unprovoked attacks from other nations need to be repelled. But I also believe no nation should go to war except as a last resort, and only on the basis of a truthful analysis of the threat. Jesus allowed his enemies to kill him for the sake of the Kingdom, but in political affairs we are not establishing the Kingdom by war, but only rough justice, punishing evil as Paul described in Romans 13. In the political sphere, loving your enemies does not mean allowing them to kill you.

Do the religious leaders of our country practice the catechumenate, a process securely anchored in the biblical revelation? Do they call their followers to forgive and understand America's enemies? Do they speak the truth, giving the full story, or do they uncritically adopt the latest propaganda? Ask yourself these questions. Have you noticed our nation's religious leaders doing these things, speaking from a gospel perspective or from a pagan perspective? And since the church proclaims a watered-down gospel, because the churches do not practice a true catechumenate, nor do they understand the power of the Holy Eucharist celebrated with beauty and reverence, the moral life of most Christians can scarcely be distinguished from the population at large. Here is a quotation from an evangelical social scientist in this regard.

In virtually every study we conduct, representing thousands of interviews each year, born-again Christians fail to display much attitudinal or behavioral evidence of transformed lives. For instance, based on one study released in 2007, we found that most of the lifestyle activities of born-again Christians were statistically equivalent to those of non-born-agains. When asked to identify their activities over the last thirty days, born again believers were just as likely to bet or gamble, to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal non-prescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at someone for something that he or she did, or to have said something behind another person's back.

No difference.

Why has the Religious Right lost the culture war? Among other reasons, it has lost the war for the soul of the church.

Let us return to our original questions. Why do so many on the religious right support Donald Trump? Among other things, their hearts are not with the church but with the state, they do not recognize that their greatest danger is not external threats solved by a strong man but the condition of their souls, and finally, and this is the great shame, so many of them resonate to the anger and belittling offered up by Trump. This is true because they have not gone through the catechumenical process in depth, and as a result, their hearts are not pure. They resonate to claims of greatness and power, to egoism and the belittling of others, and are swept away by promises to make America great without any clear program based in reality as to how that will happen.

Specifically, Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Trump because Trump "is a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again." He believes that "Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment," and he further believes that "Trump cannot be bought, he's not a puppet on a string like many other candidates ... who have wealthy donors as their puppet masters ... And that is a key reason why so many voters are attracted to him."

What are we to make of these accolades? First, it must be said that a man who has been married three times, who is an adulterer, who publically denigrates women, who creates conflict on all sides, who has never sought God's forgiveness, and who alluded to his privates in a live primary debate, cannot be a wonderful father nor can he be living "a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment." This should be utterly obvious, and there are Evangelicals who know this. Further, he may be "a successful executive and entrepreneur," but whether he has conducted his business affairs with integrity and honesty is another matter. For example, on four occasions he has not taken responsibility for his business failures, but left it to florists, engineers, lawyers, electricians, bondholders, and others, to receive pennies on the dollar as he declared bankruptcy. And as for not being beholden to puppet masters, this may well be true because there is little evidence that he will keep his promises to those who promote him. Even more to the point, he is, like most Americans, a slave to his lusts, his desire for physical pleasures, wealth, status, and power, all the things the devil offered Christ in the temptations. They are his masters and I invite the reader to contemplate where they will lead him.

What is his appeal? What energy drives believers to discount the overwhelming evidence that he cannot be a good family man, nor can he be seen as loving others? What is the attraction? He is a strong man who talks tough, who is beholden to no one, who knows how to generate wealth, and who, above all, will make American great again. In short, people resonate to the sense of power he generates. He has achieved what they want, the power and the wealth, and if he can get this for himself, then he can get it for the rest of us. This resonance is not based on facts, on knowledge of the world, on thought-out programs that might succeed in our political context, nor on experience in the political realm, but on feelings, feelings that overlook facts, lack of realistic programs, and little evidence of an upright character. This is typical of idolatry, a refusal to see the obvious, an inability to see that feelings aren't facts, and an unwillingness to recognize the sins of the idol, whether a country or a man who presents himself as the savior of that country.

We are now at the threshold. For years the Republican Party has masqueraded as the Christian party, all the while cultivating the dark side with their Southern Strategy. Now the masquerade has come to an end. The meaner group has emerged, and even some Christians have endorsed their candidate. Trump has shown that the party base is not really Christian, that anger not morality is now its driving force, and that the real god of the Republican Party has always been Mammon and Mars. Of course, the Democrats promote Mammon and Mars as well. Beginning with Bill Clinton and continued with Obama and now Hillary, they have not stood up to the corporate globalists and scarcely challenged the justice of America's endless wars.

But the immediate danger is the hate, the unwillingness of Trump to immediately and resolutely disavow the endorsement of David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK. Now that Trump is almost certainly the candidate of a major political party, the meanness and the hate have legitimacy. The far right senses blood, they are itching to take hold of the reins, and they look forward to the deeds of a strong man. If Trump is elected, they will surely expect someone to suffer and meanness will become public policy. And if Hilary is elected, they will declare the election invalid and mount a vicious campaign to destroy her, accusing her, among other things, of being a lesbian or a murderer. There will be no compromise or governance for the sake of all.

One of the great achievements of America, a task almost beyond comprehension, has been America's effort to being together so many diverse people with wide-ranging beliefs and customs, into a sort of harmony that seeks to honor all. Terrible failings have occurred in this task, so much more is left to do, it is a work of centuries, the goal is always threatened, but a degree of progress has been made. If anger begins to reign, if passion is placed above reason and good will, if a strong man is preferred above policy, and if, and this is important, politics no longer honors compromise so that all may be honored, but rather, allows the emergence of a party that refuses to compromise, that crushes its opponents, that proclaims itself the savior, then we are headed toward a terrible end. And if the holy people of God divide their loves by endorsing this, then we have lost the church except for the remnant preserved by God to bear testimony. That is the threshold as I see it.

All people of good will, Democrat or Republican, Christian or non-Christian, rich or poor, all races and ethnic groups, must unite against the hate and the self-righteousness that places a particular cause above the common good. At present this hatred, both for and against Trump, threatens our national life. The democratic and republican leadership must lock arms and condemn it, and all Christian leaders must denounce it.

Finally, what is the challenge facing the church? The church is called give undivided love and loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and him only, to repent of all idolatries and sinful passions, to stand for truth at all times, and to live holy lives by receiving the great graces found in Christian preaching and teaching, in the Eucharist celebrated with reverence and joy, and in the cleansing power of the catechumenate. Anything less will surely fail.

"And I saw a beast rising out of the sea ..." (Revelation 13:1).

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders Ph.D. is an ACNA priest and a contributor to VirtueOnline.

FOOTNOTES

Many Christians do not consider themselves Evangelicals, but many do, and the actions of Evangelicals do shed light on the church in general.
For a series of 13 videos on the Holy Eucharist see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlRyUl-c0QA&feature=youtu.be
Sidney Mead, The Nation with the Soul of a Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 73.
See the essay, "Bible Economies and Mammon," http://rsanders.org/biblical-economies-and-mammon.htm
David Domke, God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the "War on Terror," and the Echoing Press (Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 102.
In order to find out why America was attacked by Al Qaeda, it might be helpful to read at least one book on the history of the Middle East. Here is a good one, a scholarly, balanced college textbook, giving the basics: William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, (Third Edition), Westview Press, 2004. Once one does a bit a research into the matter, Osama Bin Laden's explanation for the 9/11 attack is readily intelligible, "...you attacked us and continue to attack us." He lists several venues where he perceived these attacks: Palestine, Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Lebanon, and continues by saying, "You steal our wealth and our oil at paltry prices because of your international influences and military threats. The theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world" (Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens, New York: The Penguin Press, 2008, pp. 569-70). For a good summary of the horrors of Western intervention in Muslim lands, see the essay entitled Muslim Memories of West's Imperialism, https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/17/muslim-memories-of-wests-imperialism-2/. It is far worse than we imagine.
For a fuller account see the essay, "A New Heart and Soul," http://rsanders.org/a-new-heart-and-soul.htm
I entered into a rigorous catechumenate process in the early 70s. Its initial phase lasted for 18 months, during which I was delivered from terrible forces that had afflicted me from early childhood. In 1973 I began seminary where I took a summer of Clinical Pastoral Education as well as pastoral courses to help me minister to broken people. This training had a few good ideas, but compared to what I had experienced in the dark night of the catechumenate, their effectiveness was minimal. Forty years of life in the church has only reinforced that early conclusion.
Richard Bauckham, in his masterful commentary on the Book of Revelation, recognizes that not all John's readers were poor and persecuted, but that many "were affluent and compromising with the oppressive system. The latter are not offered encouragement, but severe warnings and calls to repent." Bauckham, Richard., The Theology of the Book of Revelation, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993), p. 15. That is where we stand today. Most Christians are compromising with the oppressive system. The system is oppressive because power and wealth are its goals. When these goals are accepted, they destroy the soul.
As of 2012, when the Department of Veteran's Affairs stopped releasing statistics on the number of veterans who had been treated by the VA, some 900,000 had been treated. As of now, it is estimated that the number is over a million. This doesn't refer to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis that have died, nor the millions made refugees, nor the devastation of their countries. In my view, the VA stopped listing their statistics in 2012 because the military does not want the American public to know the terrible effects of these wars on our young people, nor on the Middle East in general. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccaruiz/2013/11/04/report-a-million-veterans-injured-in-iraq-afghanistan-wars/#456349aa4149
David Kinnaman, UnChristian (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007), p. 47.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/jerry-falwell-jr-endorses-trump-218238
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/jerry-falwell-jr-endorses-trump-218238