TONY: I was on a radio show in New Zealand with a Christian Zionist who believes that Christ cannot return until the Jews are in sole possession of the Holy Land. I remember saying, “Wait a minute! Do you realize that the land that was promised to Abraham reaches from the Euphrates to the Nile? That’s what you read it in the book of Genesis. I mean, we’re not talking only about what we now call the state of Israel, or even the land occupied by Palestinians. It’s all the land from the Euphrates to the Nile. That includes a good chunk of Jordan, all of Lebanon, a good part of Egypt, and a good chunk of Syria. All of these lands would have to be cleared of non-Jews according to your beliefs, and only Jews would be allowed to live on that land. What do you propose should be done with all the people who live in that land right now?”

He said, “Well, they will have to leave, and if they won’t go voluntarily they must be forced to leave. And if they won’t budge, they will have to be killed.”

Shocked, and disbelieving what I had just heard, I asked, “Are you talking about genocide?”

His response was: “Well, didn’t God ordain genocide when the Jews went into the Holy Land the first time? Were the Jews not ordered to kill every man, woman and child, along with every animal? Were they not called upon to exercise genocide back then? The God who ordered genocide back when Joshua invaded the Holy Land is the same God we have today.”

I had to tell this Christian that my understanding of God as revealed in Jesus Christ trumps whatever was thought about God back there in Old Testament days. I do not believe that the God who is revealed in Jesus is a God who wills genocide. “If you and I hold opposite positions on this,” I told him, “I am not sure we worship the same God.”

Two things to be said about this. First, when Christian Zionists believe that Christ cannot return until the Jews are in sole possession of the Holy Land, they make Paul into a mistaken man. Paul said that every Christian, at every moment of every day from his time on, should live in the expectancy of the immediate return of Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:1–11). If Paul was right, then let it be said to anyone reading this book that, before you finish this paragraph, a trumpet could sound and Christ could return, whether or not the Jews are sole possessors of the Holy Land. To deny that is to deny what Scripture teaches.

Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus said to his disciples, “This generation shall not pass away till all these things are fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34). Was Jesus lying? His words led those in the early church to fix their attention on Saint John. He was the last surviving disciple, so folks figured the second coming of Christ would have to occur before he died. The early Christians lived with the expectation that Christ’s return was in the immediate future. There isn’t a theologian or a biblical scholar who I know of who will debate the fact that the early church, following the resurrection of Christ, expected Jesus to return at any moment. Are the Christian Zionists then saying, “Oh, those early Christians were wrong. They were mistaken because it’s already been more than two thousand years and Christ hasn’t returned”? Are they suggesting that Jesus was misleading his disciples, and that Paul made a mistake when he challenged the church to live in the expectancy of a Christ who could return at any moment? To think that way, I say, is blasphemy.

The Scriptures talk about the eschaton (the conclusion of history) when Christ returns. Christians shouldn’t talk as though the earth will end by being burnt up by fire. The Bible tells us that there will be a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1).

Isaiah 65 describes this world in wonderful terms. It says that when that great day comes, that everyone will have a decent house to live in. Isaiah tells us that everyone will have a job and that everyone will get the fair pay for his or her labors. That means that there won’t be children in Thailand producing sneakers and being paid only a dollar a day, so that we can buy those sneakers at bargain prices at Walmart and Target.

Children will no longer die in infancy, and old people will live out their long lives in health and wellbeing. That’s a vision of the eschaton that is “good news.” It is a vision of the future that challenges me to work toward those ends in the here and now.

SHANE: One of the clearest signs of hope I’ve seen happened in the West Bank this year; I got to visit a family who are new heroes of mine, the Nassar family. They put a name and a face on the conflict. They are Palestinian Christians who have lived simple lives off the land for generations, until recently. Israeli settlements have been built all around them, and the Israeli government tried to take their land. Unlike most families who lived in communal handshake agreements on land deals, they actually have deeds going back over a hundred years that prove they own their land, which made things tricky for the Israeli government.

As the Nassar family continued living on their land, a new strategy evolved—harassment. Olive trees were uprooted. Piles of boulders were dumped on the road leading to their home, so they couldn’t get any vehicles in and out. Even though they owned the land, they were refused permits for electricity and water. So, they went off the grid and used solar and rainwater collection. When they were refused building structure permits for their home, they started building underground, which is where I got to visit them.

It is one of the most inspirational stories of persistent love and Christ-driven nonviolence I have ever seen. At the front of their property is a sign that reads, “We refuse to be enemies.” After their olive trees were uprooted, a Jewish group caught wind of it and came and helped them replant them all. One story after another of reconciliation. One final attempt was made to buy them out, and the Israeli government offered them a blank check, telling them to name the price, however many millions of dollars they want for their land. But the Nassar family said, “No, there is no price.” They continue to live there and have gotten to know their neighbors. At one point they invited one of the Israeli settlers do dinner. When she came into their house, she started weeping, and said, “You have no water, and we have swimming pools. Something is wrong.” And when asked how they retain hope in the midst of such injustice, they simply say, “Jesus” with a big smile. (4)

Chapter 22. On the Middle East
4. Here’s where you can learn more about the Nassar family: http://www.tentofnations.org. And here are some powerful videos from our last visit: http://vimeo.com/37434264, http://vimeo.com/37416952, and

TONY: To call Israel and Palestine “the Holy Land” is a misnomer when what goes on there is so unholy. Evangelical Christians in this country do not realize that there used to be a large Christian community among the Palestinians that has been dramatically diminished. Many Christians have left Palestine because constraints and difficulties imposed on them by the Israeli government made their lives in Palestine more than they could handle. The Palestinian city of Bethlehem was 80 percent Christian twenty-five years ago. Today it’s down to 15 percent Christian. (1)

Thousands and thousands of Palestinian Christians have fled Bethlehem because they could no longer live freely in the city in which they had grown up. For them, Bethlehem became an occupied city. The harassment and the difficulty that goes with getting in and out of Bethlehem through Israeli checkpoints is just one of the things that makes life there unbearable for them.

Resolutions of the United Nations calling for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands have been regularly ignored by the Israeli government. This is significant because the state of Israel would not exist if the UN had not created the Israeli nation with a resolution in 1947. Israelis want UN resolutions that guarantee the continued existence of the Israeli state, but they do not want to obey UN resolutions that call for the just return of occupied territory to the Palestinians. The UN policy is that when any war ends, no nation has the right to keep any land they have occupied during the war as a result of military conquests.

When President Obama said he wanted the borders of Israel and Palestine to be re-established as they were in 1967 prior to the Six- Day War, he was declaring only what is legal and right according to international law. Nevertheless, the president’s proposal caused an uproar across this country. There were protests from the leaders of both political parties. Members of Congress knew that the American Evangelical Zionists, who number in the millions, would be on their backs if there was even a hint of asking Israel to give up any land it had taken from the Palestinians prior to 1967.

It should be noted that President Obama did not demand that Israel go back to the borders established by the UN in 1947. He was compromising by saying that the borders should be as they were in 1967, but that was not acceptable to Christian Zionists. When the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the US Congress that Israel would never return to the borders of 1967, he was given a standing ovation. Those politicians knew right well what Evangelical Zionists, as well as a significant number of Christians in mainline denominations, were expecting of them. Therefore, in spite of what they knew were Israel’s violations of rulings from the World Court and the UN, they affirmed the Israeli prime minister. The Israeli government has established hundreds of illegal settlements on Palestinian land, yet because of the political pressure exerted by Christian Zionists, most of those in Congress are unwilling to raise their voices in opposition. More than 300,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (2)

SHANE: With three bodyguards for every Israeli settler.

TONY: In addition to that, Israelis have built roads from Israel proper to each of these settlements. Israelis have constructed fences and walls along these roads so that Palestinian people cannot travel freely, even to visit relatives who live as little as a hundred yards away on the other side of the road, without going through a checkpoint into Israel proper and coming back on the other side of these walled roads.

Not long ago I spoke at a conference at the Bethlehem Bible College and had the opportunity to talk with Palestinian Christians whose homes had been leveled by Israeli bulldozers in order to make room for these illegal settlements. In several cases, these houses were on land that had been in their families for generations. This is, quite simply, the robbery of land and the illegal destruction of private property, yet the painful reality is that American Christians seldom ask what kind of justice this is.

SHANE: While in Palestine, the team I was traveling with visited a settlement to hear their perspective. Essentially, one of the settlers said, “God gave us this land. Anyone who has a problem with that needs to take it up with God.” He was kind enough to take questions, so I asked him what it said about the character of God if God seems to care more about folks on one side of the wall than folks on the other.

I told him that the God that I know is a God that heard the cry of the Israelites in their captivity, when they were slaves, and continues to hear the cry of the suffering. And I started to mention Jesus, but he stopped me and said, “I’m not a Christian.” But the golden rule to “love your neighbors as yourself” is not just a New Testament rule (Leviticus 19:18). It’s a rule of the Torah too. And when our theology gets in the way of loving our neighbors, it is time to rethink our theology.

TONY: What’s interesting about this theology is that many evangelical Christians point to Genesis 12 and 18 and say, “See, this land was promised to the seed of Abraham.” A Muslim Palestinian pointed out to me that while the Jews are the seed of Abraham, the Arabs are also the seed of Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac with his wife Sarah and another son named Ishmael whose mother was Hagar. Jews are the descendents of Isaac, and Muslims are the descendents of Ishmael, but both are the seeds of Abraham.

Ishmael is acknowledged as Abraham’s son and Ishmael’s descen- dents are cited as descents of Abraham (Genesis 25:12–17). Both were his seed, as would be their children and all who would be born into their two families for generations to come.

I realize that there are other Scripture passages suggesting that only the Jews are entitled to this land, because the Bible also says that the children of Jacob should inherit the Holy Land. But Scripture makes it is clear that Jacob could not fulfill the prophecies of the restoration of Israel without reconciling with his brother Esau. Certainly Jesus declares that if there is a problem of alienation with a brother, that reconciliation must take place before there can be any kind of worship of God (Matthew 5:23). In our day, we are given an ongoing ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18), and to that end we must work to bring Jews and Arabs together with justice for both groups.

The future of the Jewish people will be primarily in relationship with Jesus Christ; Scripture says that all people become one in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:23). The future of Gentiles and their salvation is in Jesus Christ, and the salvation of the Jews is also in Jesus Christ. Through Christ, we all become part of the same family of faith. God wants for the Jewish people what he wants for the Palestinian people. As Christians we become one with the Jews, and together we become the new Israel (Romans 9:25ff, 10:10–13). Nevertheless, I still think the Jews will have a special place in the “end times,” according to God’s plans, but I am still trying to figure out what that place will be.

SHANE: Do you have some suggestions of real concrete possibilities? Obviously, as outsiders, it’s not our place to pre- scribe all the answers, but we both know tons of folks on the ground, and you’ve been actively involved in these negotiations for decades. Any thoughts on a way forward that might help solve the problems of the Jews and the Palestinians?

TONY: There are two dominant issues that keep peace from being established in the Middle East. First, there’s the problem of the Palestinian refugees who are living in the Gaza Strip on the West Bank. They want what they call “the right of return.” In the midst of the two wars in 1948 and 1967, many Palestinians fled to the West Bank and to the Gaza Strip when the Israeli army moved in and took over their land. Palestinian villages and their vineyards were taken away from them. One of the Palestinian demands is the right to go back and live on the land that was once theirs and to repossess the homes that they believe were illegally taken from them.

The Israeli government reasonably says, “We can’t let the Palestinians return. Not now! Over the last fifty years they have reproduced at such a high birth rate that if they return to that land that is now within the borders of Israel, they would outnumber the Jews and, hence, they could vote the state of Israel out of existence.” For the Israelis this is a real and understandable concern.

The second major barrier to peace is that the Palestinians in the Gaza strip and the West bank demand that the illegal Jewish settle- ments be dismantled and the Israeli settlers be sent back to where they came from. But the present Israeli government is unwilling to give back any of that land. The Israelis are not about to dismantle the extensive housing they have built on that land, nor are they willing to drive the more than 300,000 Jews who live in those houses out of their homes.

SHANE: Just give the Palestinians back the keys to their houses, right? Or maybe the keys to the settlements?

TONY: Here is a proposal that was drawn up by the political science department of Princeton University; it is called the “Condominium Solution.” (3)

First, it states that there should be a two-state solution. It is proposed that Israel should have a state with safe and secure borders; and that Palestine should also have a state with safe and secure borders. Additionally, each state should have a fully recognized government. Both of these nations would have capitals in Jerusalem. There is a section of Jerusalem, now referred to as East Jerusalem, which belongs to the Palestinians, and this section of the city should be set aside as the capital for this new Palestinian state. The Israelis would have the rest of Jerusalem for their capital.

Second, all people who are of Jewish descent would be required to be citizens of the state of Israel, regardless of where they live. Whether these Jews live in Israel proper, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip, those of Jewish descent would be have to be citizens of the state of Israel.

On the other hand, every person of Arab descent would have to become a citizen of the new state of Palestine. That means that the Arabs who live within the legal borders of Israel and who have Israeli citizenship would have to give up their Israeli citizenship and become citizens of the Palestinian state. This would be hard for Arabs who are presently Israeli citizens, since they have enjoyed many benefits by being Israeli citizens.

Third, and most important, both Jews and Arabs could live anywhere they wanted in the Holy Land. It means that the Arabs could return to land in Israel proper and the Jews could continue to live in the settlements. Since Jews and Arabs would be mixed up together living side by side, Hamas would probably have to give up lobbing rockets into Israeli territory because by doing so they would be just as likely to kill their own people as their “enemies.” There would be Palestinians living alongside Jews within Israel and Jews in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank living alongside Arab peoples.

Only Jews would be allowed to vote in Israeli elections, so the Israeli government would not have to worry that Palestinians living within Israel proper could vote the state of Israel out of existence. That would be the case even if Palestinians outnumbered Jews within the borders of Israel. Palestinians would only be able to vote in Palestinian elections, and Jews could only be allowed to vote in the Jewish election no matter where Jews and Palestinians lived.

Of course, the United States would have to put up a lot of money for Palestinians to buy back land and buildings that the Israelis have developed in wonderful ways over the last half century, but that would cost a lot less money than we’re now spending to make the Israeli army the fourth strongest in the world and also to underwrite the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Better still, the United Nations ought to carry some of this financial burden since it created the problem in the first place.

When I presented this plan to both officials in the Israeli government and to elected Palestinian officials, I got the sense that they saw the plan as workable. If we are called to be agents of reconciliation, we cannot simply allow the hardened positions that differing Christian groups have established in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to remain in place. As Red Letter Christians, we have a calling to come up with proposals that offer both these groups a way to live together in peace.

SHANE: Another reason the United States is so deeply invested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the biblical issue of the end times. The word eschatology means the study of eschaton, or the end times. This is the backdrop of much of the conflict in Israel-Palestine. In fact, Israel is the biggest recipient of US foreign aid. It can feel like we are stocking up weapons and preparing for the apocalypse.

It’s interesting because in one sense folks are saying, “We love the Jews. God bless Israel.” But then if you press them, the same folks will say, “But if you don’t become a Christian, then you’re going to go to hell.”

To be continued tomorrow…

Chapter 22. On the Middle East
1. An interview with Alex Awad, Dean of Students, Bethlehem Bible
College, March 8, 2012 [[publication details? personal interview?]].
2. Central Intelligence Agency, “The Middle East: West Bank,” in The
World Factbook, March 21, 2012, CIA Website. https://www.cia.gov/
library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html.
3. Russell Nieli, “The Marriage of a One-State and Two-State Solution,”
Tikkum, July/August 2009, 33.

 

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom … these are the beginnings of sorrows. MARK 13:8 KJV

TONY: I’m disturbed that some evangelicals in this country are so intensely committed to supporting the state of Israel that they have lost sight of the need to stand up for justice for Palestinians, even for those Palestinians who are their Christian brothers and sisters. Note that I referred to the state of Israel. It’s one thing to love the Israeli people and want to see their borders secure, their children live without fear that terrorists will bomb their school buses, and to call for an end to the rockets regularly being lobbed into Israeli territory by angry members of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But it is quite another thing to say we are committed to the policies of the Israeli government, no matter what it does to the Palestinian people. I am frustrated when I hear evangelicals say that anyone who criticizes the policies of the Israeli government is opposed to God. Then they usually quote the Bible and say, “Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed of God, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed by God” (Genesis 27:29, paraphrased).

There is little doubt that the unquestioning pro-Israeli government mindset among Evangelical Zionists here in the United States has become a major barrier to peace in the Middle East. Any attempt to get the Israeli government to return to the Palestinians the land its army took away during times of war or stole during times of “peace” is met with the same by Evangelical Zionists, even though the Israeli government has demonstrated by returning Gaza to Palestinians that giving up land for peace is something it is willing to do.

SHANE: While I was in the Holy Land last year, a priest told us sadly that if Jesus had tried to make his walk from Bethany to Jerusalem today, he wouldn’t be able to make it through the checkpoints. We lamented together that the wall that so terribly divides this Holy Land into what one Israeli leader called “the most sophisticated apartheid system the world has ever seen.”

As I walked the footsteps of Jesus through the land, I was reminded of a story Jesus told about a wealthy man who built a wall and locked the poor outside of it, a story often known as “the Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke 16:19–31). In the story, the rich man has created a gated neighborhood and locked the poor beggar, named Lazarus, outside the gate. He’s living it up inside the wall while the poor man suffers on the other side. As the story goes, when they die, Lazarus is rescued by the angels who carry him to Abraham’s side in paradise. The rich man ends up in the flames of hell, pleading with the beg- gar for a drop of water. But Abraham tells him that he received his good things on this earth while Lazarus suffered, but now Lazarus is comforted while the rich man is in agony. It’s a heavy story and one that says a lot about class struggle.

The only character in any of Jesus’ parables to be given a name is this beggar. And his name is Lazarus, which means “the one God rescued.” The rich man, however, is not named. No doubt the fellow had a name on earth; he probably had a street or a corporation named after him! While we don’t know his name, we do know that the rich man was religious. He knows the prophets and refers to Abraham as “father,” and yet his religion did nothing to tear down the wall he had built between himself and his poor neighbor.

The rich man comes to see that his gated neighborhood not only separated him from the beggar Lazarus but it separated him from God. To love God is also to love the most vulnerable of God’s children. We are made for compassion.

So often we build walls to protect ourselves only to find that we are the ones held hostage. We think we are locking others out, but we are really locking ourselves in. Not only are the poor robbed of community and compassion, but so are the rich. If only the rich man had opened his gates, not only would Lazarus have been set free but so would he.

I heard a rabbi say that the parables are like diamonds. As we look at them in different light, they take on new dimensions. When I was in the Middle East, I saw the story with new eyes. One of the most important things I learned in the Holy Land is that both Israelis and Palestinians are being held hostage; they are both locked behind walls. I heard folks on both sides say they didn’t care if the solution was one state or two states or no state, as long as all people were treated equally and with dignity.

The great thing is that walls are never too big to fall. One of Jesus’ promises in the Gospels is that the gates of hell will not prevail. There are hells today that hold people hostage, and we should be storming the gates to rescue them. As we do it, we will discover that when the walls fall down, both Lazarus and the rich man are better off. As Red Letter Christians, we need work to tear down all walls and eliminate this hell on earth.

To be continued tomorrow…

The chapter writers—Republicans, Independents and Democrats—deal with hard questions: What does the Bible say about Donald Trump’s character? His personal sexual behavior? His constant lies? His nasty personal attacks on those who disagree with him?  His political agenda and programs?  Does Donald Trump unite or divide the nation?  Does white evangelical support for Donald Trump help or hinder evangelism? What criteria should biblical Christians use as they choose who to vote for this November?

This book does not hesitate to state  hard truths.  Chris Thurman’s chapter points out :“After just three years in office, Trump has made over 16,000 false or misleading statements, a number previously unimaginable when it comes to the most powerful person in the world. “

Mark Galli, former editor in chief of Christianity Today says in his article: “In his tweets and comments, Mr. Trump habitually ridicules, describing his opponents as ‘unhinged,’ ‘crazy,’ ‘lying,’ ‘disgraced,’ ‘losers.’ When our nation’s leader speaks with this disdain and contempt about those with whom he disagrees, he’s making America worse.”

Peter Wehner is a longtime Republican, holding important positions in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. But  Wehner says bluntly: “Evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its political relationship—its love affair—with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck.”

 Prominent historian, Randall Balmer says,  “Evangelicalism died on November 8, 2016. “

READ: Voting for the Common Good

Napp Nazworth was a long time political editor for the conservative magazine Christian Post before he resigned late last year protesting their attack on Christianity Today’s courageous call for  Donald Trump’s removal. Nazworth says: “Evangelicals lost their away and elected a race-baiter, misogynist and fool. “

In his powerful essay,  Ron Sider pleads with white evangelical centristss not to repeat their timid silence of 2016. Many of those leaders did not support Trump but they did not have the courage to tell their people why he was such a problem. The result?  81% of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.

Leaders like Fuller Seminary president Mark Labberton, Sojourners president Jim Wallis, and former Eastern University president Roberta Hestenes all urge Christians to listen carefully to this important work. I agree!

This is how Roberta Hestenes puts it: “The authors warn of the spiritual damage to the soul and witness of evangelicalism in America. Issues of character, speech and behavior as well as policy choices on racial justice, immigration, treatment of women, and the needs of the poor should be shaped by the teaching and example of Jesus and the Scriptures. Christian witness and faithfulness to the gospel are all at stake.”

 And Jim Wallis says bluntly: “I pray that this book will help spark conversations across the country that will finally end the silence of white evangelicals. It’s time to move from caution to courage in the most important election of our lifetimes.”

Here is my suggestion: Get several copies (see the special discount) and give them to family and friends with whom you find it hard to discuss President Trump’s policies. You can tell them you would be glad to listen to their reflections on the book after they read it. You can get multiple copies at a 40% discount: go to wipfandstock.com, enter the name of the book in the search field,  and use the  discount code DANGER40.

Now is the time to act.

Every societal system should be regarded as Babylon, given its usage in the book of Revelation. For people living in Japan, their Babylon is the Japanese socio-economic system and culture. For the German people, Babylon is the German socio-economic system. But because we live in the United States of American, our Babylon is the American societal system.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my country. I believe it’s the best Babylon on the face of the earth; but it is still Babylon. It is not the City of God! To treat it as such is, according to the book of Revelation, idolatry (see, Rev. Chap. 17).                                              

Our Babylon invites us to embrace wealth, whereas the lifestyle of those who live out Jesus’ radical lifestyle requires that we sacrifice our wealth to help the poor (Mark 10:17-27).The American Babylon affirms capital punishment and legitimates war, whereas the ethics of Christ’s Kingdom ask that we show mercy and be peace makers. On the one hand, our dominant culture invites us to glorify ourselves and assert ourselves above others while the Jesus we read about in scripture teaches us just the opposite (Matt. 5:5 and Phil. 2:4-11).

While Babylon glorifies popularity and fame, Jesus tells us to beware when everyone speaks well of us, and to see ourselves blessed when the people of Babylon reject us and say ugly things about us (Luke 6:22-23). It is no wonder that there are those who regard Christians who live according the values and lifestyle prescribed by Jesus as living an “upside down” existence in contrast with those who have been seduced by Babylon. 

The dominant society also fosters idolatry. Indeed, so many of us in the Church could be accused of worshiping Babylon rather than Jesus, and thus could be called idolaters in that we are compromised Christians who adore and seek after the glories of Babylon, rather than seeking to glorify God by living in accord with the values and requisites of God’s Kingdom (Matt. 6:33). Many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus are not ready to commit ourselves to following the Christ who calls us out of Babylon (Rev. 18:4) and challenges us to resist being conformed to what Babylon wants us to be (Rom. 12:1-2). You cannot read the New Testament without becoming aware that being a follower of Jesus is to be counter-cultural to all that Babylon is trying to sell us and lure us into becoming.

As we read the closing chapters of the book of Revelation, we learn that sooner or later Babylon will fall. Every Babylon eventually falls, and the American Babylon is no exception. Only that Kingdom wherein Jesus is King has no end. We affirm this on Easter Sunday when we join the church choir in singing the Hallelujah chorus that declares that, “He shall reign forever and ever.” There is one other Easter hymn that lets it be known that “Kings and Kingdoms shall all pass away,” but that Jesus shall reign over his kingdom forever.

READ: Christian Nationalism: The Real American Idol

As we consider this present age we might conclude that one reason that our Babylon will fall is because our consumeristic lifestyles requires the exhausting of the resources, both natural and human, that have made the luxurious existence we have come to take for granted possible (Rev. 18:12-13). There will come a time, the scripture tells us, when the rest of the people of the world will no longer buy the merchandise that our Babylon is selling (Rev. 18:11) and that is another reason Babylon will collapse. Our economic domination of other nations will be no more and the commerce that has made America rich, at times at the expense of others, will have come to an end. 

Ours has been an empire built on the sufferings of many innocent people. As I read Revelation 15:5-6, which makes clear that there will come an end to such an empire, I could not help but think, in historical perspective, how our American prosperity has been built on the sweat and blood of people we have victimized and from whom our ancestors have stolen. I am thinking of people like Native Americans and African slaves. The book of Revelation lets us know that a day of reckoning is coming.

The Bible says that the fall of Babylon will come quickly (Rev. 18:10). There will be, according to scriptures, two reactions to this overnight collapse.  First will be the reaction of “the merchants,” who will weep and wail because they had been totally invested in Babylon. They will weep because all that was precious to them will be no more. They will agonize because the “markets” into which they had poured their lives will have disappeared because, “No man buyeth their merchandise anymore” (Rev. 18:11). We Americans should have known this was coming in that we were given foretastes of such a collapse during the economic downturn in 2008, and then again have witnessed the effects on the economy following the Coronavirus outbreak in 2020. During those days we should have sensed the precarious nature of the affluent way of life we had learned to enjoy (Rev. 18:14). 

Not only will the merchants on Wall Street weep and wail upon the fall of Babylon, but so will many of the rest of us whose lives have been so greatly invested in its materialistic system. We people who have become comfortable in the ways of Babylon will weep and wail but, as the scripture tell us, so will those in other nations whose lives had been inexorably tied in with our Babylon (Rev. 18:3). Those other peoples of the world who had lived the “good life” derived from Babylon’s efficient and productive societal system also will share in this suffering. The collapse of Babylon will pull them down as well.

In contrast to all the bad news about Babylon, there is some good news. There also will be a great celebration in reaction to the fall of Babylon. The nineteenth chapter of Revelation declares that those people of God who had not been seduced by Babylon, but rather, had poured themselves and all that they had, into the ministries of the Kingdom of God that are marked by love and justice, will join the heavenly hosts and shout “Hallelujah!” as Babylon falls. These will be those who had invested themselves in works of evangelism and social justice. Their good works were treasure laid up in Heaven “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal” (Matt. 6:19-20).

Here is the question that every one of us must one day answer: “On that awesome day when Babylon collapses, with whom will you stand?” Will you be with the merchants, and all those identified with them, and weep and wail because you and all you had lived for had been invested in the empire? Or will you be able to stand with the angels and the people of God and shout, “Hallelujah!” because you have been invested in the works of God? How you answer that question will have eternal consequences. I, myself, struggle to answer that question and I must admit that I am uneasy whenever I think about it. My only comfort is the good news that my salvation is a gift of God, given by grace because of Christ’s faithfulness to his Father in His death and resurrection. And so I ask again, “On which side will each of us stand on that great and awesome day?”

There may be latent reasons for why white Evangelicals are as committed to Donald Trump and the Republican Party but their rhetoric almost always brings up the abortion issue. Without apologies, they often admit that they are “one issue voters”, even after efforts are made to point out other urgent issues that warrant their strong concern and political consideration. They should consider the following. 

Research, according to the Guttmacher Institute, shows that 72% of all women who have had abortions this last few years have felt driven to have them because of economic reasons. Consider a pregnant single woman whose job pays her a minimum wage; has no medical coverage so that paying a hospital bill seems out of reach; who’s afraid of losing her job if she takes off a couple of weeks to have her baby; has no child care for her infant when she goes back to work and doesn’t consider adoption as a viable alternative. It’s easy to understand why she might consider having an abortion. Yet those same politicians who often vote for the pro-life agenda go on to vote against raising the minimum wage; oppose providing universal health care and vote against needed day care programs.

There was a time when pro-life Republicans controlled the White House, both houses of Congress and had pro-life Supreme Court judges but, nevertheless, failed to pass the legislation to ban the abortions as they promised they would. These same politicians who claim to be pro-life have usually had no problem voting against reasonable gun regulations, expanding government spending for killing instruments of war, and failing to do much about the life-threatening pollution of the environment, all of which might be considered pro-life concerns.

I am not minimizing the abortion issue when I argue that there are other issues that Christians also should consider this coming November. For instance, they also should think about whether their votes are going to candidates who will refrain from overtly racist language, and who oppose sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia. 

Some of my Christian friends tell me to remember those political advisors of Bill Clinton who said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” They tell me that I should give attention to an economy that is booming and has reduced African-American unemployment to its lowest level ever and has done much the same for Hispanic people. But if that booming economy has come by removing needed regulations on industrial polluters, giving tax breaks for the richest Americans while taking social benefits from the poorest sector of society to pay for those tax breaks, I think that my Christians friends should be asking, “Are such things right?”

While seeking a booming economy is very important, Christians have to ask themselves if they are willing to make seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33) is even more important? While many Evangelicals chant “America First!” there are many followers of Jesus who claim that God’s kingdom comes first and that life is more than gaining the material things of this world, such as “what we shall eat, and what we drink, and where with all we shall be clothed” (Matt. 6:31). 

Red Letter Christians (many Bibles have the words of Jesus highlighted with red letters) believe that the teachings of Jesus, rather than those slogans of politicians, should determine their voting. Spread that message and help our Red Letter Christians movement to spread that message! You can sign on as a Red Letter Christian and you can help the rest of us by giving financially to undergird what we’re doing.

We know the vast majority of white evangelicals will stand firm in supporting the president in spite of these moral failings, because they say that they like his policies. They are thrilled with his appointments of conservative judges to the courts, hoping these judges will support their “family values” on such matters as abortion and gay marriage. They endorse Trump’s policies toward Israel, especially his support for moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem and of the prime minister’s desire to annex the West Bank. They even, for the most part, join him in denying global warming.

We Red Letter Christians, who go by this name because the teachings of Jesus in many Bibles are highlighted with red letters, differ from mainstream white evangelicals in that we claim that Trump’s policies often are contradictions to what Jesus actually taught.

We believe that giving huge tax breaks to the rich while cutting programs that help the poor is contrary to Jesus who had a preference for the poor. While we support the rights of the state of Israel, we also support the Palestinian people’s right to a state of their own, and do so in conjunction with the six million Arab Christians who live in the Middle East. We take seriously the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law and challenge the anti-democratic voter suppression efforts many politicians have embraced to cling to power. We take seriously the biblical mandate to be good stewards of God’s creation and join with those who are committed to saving the environment. We believe that the ethno-nationalism that is so evident in many of Trump’s pronouncements, especially about immigrants at our southern border, is diametrically opposed to what Jesus taught about treating aliens as we would Jesus himself.

It seems like duplicity that the same white evangelicals who sanctimoniously called for Bill Clinton’s resignation in light of his sexual indiscretions now look past the moral failures of this current president and affirm his claim that he is the “chosen” by God to lead our country.

When, during the Clinton years, we Red Letter Christians went into the Oval Office, we did so in order to call the president to repentance rather than to lay hands on him to give him a sign of divine ordination, as did some evangelical leaders.

We know that the overwhelming majority of white evangelical voters will again vote for Donald Trump, but in doing so they will hurt the reputations of their churches. We Red Letter Christians hope they will search their hearts and search the scriptures and do what is right, as God leads them.

For the sake of our nation’s integrity and the most vulnerable in our society, we call on fellow Red Letter Christians to support the current impeachment inquiry and removal of Donald Trump. Now is the time to shine the light of truth. Please join us in praying that the truth will be revealed and set us all free.

TAKE ACTION: Add your name to the statement

Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo
Shane Claiborne
Lisa Sharon Harper
Rev. Dr. William Barber, II
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Rev. Sharon Risher

Nevertheless, there is an imperative for Red Letter Christians to speak about the crucial concerns that are impacting what will be decided by elected officials. We must do this, however, without being ugly toward those who are opposed to what we believe to be “Christian” points of view.

In too many cases, in order to escape heated arguments we avoid our obligations to voice our concerns for undocumented immigrants; to speak up for the elderly who wonder if there will be money available to care for them if their health insurance benefits run out; to advocate for children who need the education essential for them to have a hopeful future; to ask for help for those college and university students who are wondering how they will pay for their education; and to make the case for the next generation who will need clean air, pure water, and uncontaminated food. We especially must talk about what America is going to do about politicians who, in cavalier fashion, make threats of war which could claim the lives of many innocent people.

Given these realities, it is important for us to pray for the Holy Spirit to guide our conversations so that we will be able to respectfully listen to those who have points of view that disturb us. We should be asking God for the grace to say with sincerity, “I could be wrong,” when that is warranted. And then, we should always try to move the discussion toward an end (when possible), wherein we share some beliefs upon which there might be some kind of agreement. One thing must be understood… avoiding political discussions is not a Christian option.

In II Corinthians 5:19, we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. Even as Jesus reconciled us to God we need to be reconciling ourselves to one another. Somewhere along the line, Red Letter Christians need to step up and get people on both sides of political discussions to listen to each other and examine the biblical grounds for the beliefs that determine our political opinions. We need to speak the truth, so far as we know it, in love. Sometimes that’s difficult, but it is always necessary.

As the campaigns related to the 2020 election unfold, there is going to be a lot of meanness and hatred expressed. We Red Letter Christians are required to stand opposed to that kind of talk and, according to the red letters of Jesus, “overcome evil with good.” May we Red Letter Christians say to those who refuse to be civil in political discourse that we are followers of Jesus who expects us to be kind to one another, even when that might seem difficult.

Just the other day, I heard a sermon in which there was a declaration that Donald Trump was not a Christian because he does not live out many of the teachings of Christ, as they are highlighted with red letters in many of the old Bibles. I believe that we should make judgments on political issues and government policies, but should shy away from judgments as to who is and who is not a Christian. I can only echo the words of Søren Kierkegaard who asked, “If we mean by Christian, those who live out the teachings of Jesus without exceptions being made, who then is Christian? In any generation, their might be four or five.”

To make value judgments about whether a particular politician is a Christian is beyond our prerogative. As Billy Graham once said, “My task is to preach the Gospel. It is the task of the Holy Spirit to bring people under conviction. And it is the responsibility of God to do the judging.” I think those should become the guiding words for all of us as we enter political discussions. We should speak the truth in love and not judge others, lest we also be judged.

During the days that lie ahead let us each talk politics whenever we can with whomever we can. The stakes in the coming elections are high and we dare not remain passive. We must, however, challenge any politician who dehumanizes their political opponents with degrading talk. That’s what Jesus was talking about when He said in Matthew 5:22, with words that are highlighted with red letters in my Bible, that whoever degrades another person by what is said is guilty of “Raca” — which is akin to committing a grave sin like murder. That, it must be agreed, makes diminishing the humanity of another child of God serious stuff.

I don’t know if you can recall that Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford were political opponents but were able to be good friends and Christian even after tough political campaigning ended. They modeled political discussion without acrimony. If we could go back to their kind of politics, then maybe we really could make America great again.

The first thing we bring to your attention are the policies that the Republicans have established toward immigrants. The words of Jesus in Matthew 25: 35-40 tell us to treat the alien, or stranger, as though that person was Jesus himself. Given that biblical teaching, we are critical of the president and his Republican supporters who suggest with generalizations that we view those coming across our Southern border as possible rapists, murderers, and thieves.

When it comes to immigration, we Red Letter Christians react strongly when the president had his administration separate small children from the parents of those who crossed into the United States illegally. Many of those children have been severely traumatized, and we remember that Jesus once said, “Whosoever offends one of these little ones, it would be better for him that he had never been born (Mark 9:42).

A comprehensive immigration bill was passed by the U.S. Senate, but when the bill got to the House of Representatives, the Republican Speaker of the House refused to allow it to come up for a vote.

The tax policies of the Republicans also have us upset. Whereas the Jesus we read about in the gospel of Luke wants us to lift up the poor, we find that the Republican agenda presented over the last two years supports and justifies a new tax code that gives huge tax breaks to the very rich while cutting all kinds of needed social services for those whom Jesus called, “the least of these” (Matthew 15:45).

Consider the Republican administration’s assaults on regulations that have protected the environment from harmful exploitation by commercial corporate groups and interests. Red Letter Christians are especially committed to saving the earth from degradation, and we believe that it is a biblical imperative, according to Romans 8, that we are to protect the earth and the atmosphere from pollution.

READ: How Christian Theology Lost Its Way

Another of our great concerns is the growing dishonesty coming out of Washington. When Jimmy Carter was elected president, he made a promise that he would never lie to us. So far as I know, he never did. That cannot be said about the Republican president who presently occupies the White House. Those who keep track of President Trump’s lies to date have figured that he has told more than 6,000 of them. When it comes to lying, we all know that this is not only a prerogative of Donald Trump and the Republicans. The Democrats have their own share of lying, nevertheless, there has never been anything to compare with the lying of Donald Trump.

Don’t get the idea that we Red Letter Christians are thrilled with the Democrat Party and its policies. If Hillary Clinton had become president, the Supreme Court would provide little hope for those of us who are pro-life when it comes to restraining abortions. And when it comes to the alleged extramarital affairs of President Trump, we readily call attention to the reality of the problems of President Clinton.

It should be noted that the free-trade policies which the United States initiated in 1994, when the Democrats were in power, enabled heavily subsidized American farmers to produce wheat, rice, and other commodities, which often were shipped to poorer countries like Mexico. In so doing, American products undersold these same farm products produced by indigenous farmers, driving huge numbers of them out of business. Our subsidized farm commodities were able to drive large numbers of people in Latin America into poverty. If the Republicans seem hard-hearted by wanting to build a wall to keep poor, unemployed farm families from crossing the Southern border, we must remember the farm policies of the Democrats in the 1990s that were responsible for impoverishing these people who are now banging at our nation’s door, begging entry from the very nation that helped cause their plight.

A further concern of Red Letter Christians has been the Republicans who have blocked the kinds of health plans that would provide care for all Americans. They are the ones who have worked hard to dismantle essential parts of the limited Obamacare health plan, which caused millions of our citizens to lose the health protection they very much needed. Republicans have even tried to limit health services to poor pregnant women by cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, even after this organization gave assurances that none of the funds would be used for abortions.

READ: Claiming to Follow God’s Guidance in Politics

What may be most reprehensible is that there is little question that it has been primarily Republican party leaders who have worked overtime to suppress the voting of poor people and minorities. It has been the Republicans who, for the most part, have put forth plans gerrymandering voting districts, keeping minority people and poor people from having their voices heard in the democratic process. In addition to ending the Voting Rights Act that protected so many Americans’ right to vote, Republicans have put into place voting restrictions that are specifically aimed at keeping poor and minority people from voting. The hard work that those of us who gave so much time and energy to support Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement seem to have come to naught. For instance, did you know that in some states where there are large numbers of Native Americans, people cannot vote unless they have specific home addresses for registration? That leaves many Native American Indians who live on reservations outside of the voting process.

Regardless of all I am telling you, we Red Letter Christians still claim to be nonpartisan. If it seems that our complaints are, for the most part, about Donald Trump and his party, it is because they are the ones that are now in control in Washington. Should the Democrats come to power in 2020, I believe that you will find that we will be just as critical of any of the ways that they may deviate from social justice policies implied in those red letters in the Bible.

I must confess, however, that right now we Red Letter Christians agree with the words of the late William Sloane Coffin who once said, “The heart is a little to the left.”

As bombs were destroying downtown London, Mrs. Roosevelt was publishing a short book entitled, The Moral Basis of Democracy. She overtly framed her book around the teachings of Christ and proposed that democracy depended on taking what we now refer to as “the red letters” seriously. She asked America on the eve of World War II to rise above the Nazi ideology and “practice a Christ-like way of living.” She told our country that a good work ethic in itself would not make America great, because it is not enough for its people to work for themselves. Rather, they must “serve the purposes of the greatest number of people.” That’s what all Red Letter Christians should do!

Eleanor Roosevelt was the embodiment of Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath, when he wrote: “Whenever there are battles to be fought or injustices overcome, wherever there are people – individuals or masses of people – who need a friend, Eleanor Roosevelt will be there… doing her job.”

She was a leader for civil rights long before there was Martin Luther King, Jr. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who pushed for African-American pilots at the Tuskegee Air Base to be deployed on combat missions. She struggled to save Jews from anti-Semitic leaders in the State Department who had worked to shut the door on Jewish refugees. She did her best to open America to all people in need, as Jesus told us to do in Matthew 25:35.

After her husband’s death, and following the end of WWII, she exercised her most important role when she led the drafting of the Declaration of Human Rights that was passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations. She maintained an opposition to bigotry which I am sure grew out of her childhood days in Sunday School where she learned to sing:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world,
Red and yellow, black and white,
They’re all precious in His sight.

President Kennedy would appoint her to be chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Eleanor Roosevelt became the face not only of American Idealism, but an example of what one person can do for America and for the world when that person takes the red letters of the Bible seriously and tries to use them to mold public policies.