In large part, that’s why we become so persistently polarized, and that’s why our divisions can intensify to the point of mutual fear, hatred, and hellish violence.
In short, the quantitative and qualitative evidence – and, I will add, my own anecdotal evidence – strongly support the argument that the Christian Right has been a primary factor in the decline of white evangelicalism in the last decade and the dramatic rise of the nones since the 1990s.
The short answer, according to Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, is that a man like Donald Trump is exactly whom they were expecting. Nothing like Jesus. But a lot like John Wayne.
Perhaps the lesson of Easter still stands: no stone, no guards, no jeering crowds, no pious bureaucracy, no political compromise will ever hold back, or even begin to contain the living Truth.
Distressingly, the language of spiritual warfare has transitioned into the sort of religious rhetoric that lends support to literal civil war, or at least religiously sanctioned violence.
There can be only one Jesus, and he was a person of color murdered in the streets simply for proclaiming God’s kingdom, where the poor are blessed, not forgotten.
We must not sell our souls for the lesser power of nationalism, for nationalism will reap what it sows and get what it deserves—which from John’s perspective, is death.