David French Was Right

Over at The Dispatch, David French penned a Sunday piece called “Evangelicals Have Abandoned the Character Test. The Competence Test is Next.” Unsurprisingly, it centered on Donald Trump and his relationship with the white evangelical community. I could go into a lot of detail about French’s argument, but I’ll cut to the chase and say he’s absolutely right.

It isn’t news that the evangelical right, which for years had said, “Character counts,” gave character the heave-ho when it became inconvenient at helping them elect Republicans. This was not an isolated occurrence in 2016, it has been an ongoing decision since then as the president lies and gets away with things that no other president would dare do, all with the overwhelming and unwavering support of evangelicals who now argue that “We didn’t elect a national pastor.” (Full disclosure: I was raised as a Southern Baptist and am still a member of a Southern Baptist church.)

French concentrates heavily on Trump’s incompetence in dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic in making his case. I’ve covered some aspects of the president’s poor handling of the crisis as well, but new information on the lackluster early federal reaction is still coming out. But really, did you have to wait until the pandemic to see that Trump was incompetent?

Donald Trump has had precious few successes and most of those have relied upon executive power. His sole major legislative accomplishment, tax reform, was passed without a single Democratic vote. Since then, the president has relied on circumventing Congress rather than working with it. So much for his vaunted reputation as a dealmaker.

In fact, if we look at tactics and strategies rather than policy positions, Donald Trump closely resembles Barack Obama, a president reviled by the same white evangelicals that love Trump. Both presidents were intentionally divisive and sought to use divide and conquer strategies to fire up their partisan bases rather than building broad coalitions. Both proved utterly incapable of forging bipartisan agreements for the good of the country. Neither respected the constitutional limits on presidential powers and pushed the boundaries of executive actions. Both presided over large expansions of government and federal spending. Both men’s egos wrote checks that their abilities could not cash.

The difference is that white evangelicals support one and not the other. Some would say that the difference is the color of Obama’s skin, but I don’t believe that. I think the answer is simply that Trump tells evangelicals what they want to hear on a few key issues and, in exchange, they reward him with loyalty on everything else.

When you speak to evangelical voters, two factors trump all else when it comes to Donald Trump. The first is abortion and the second is the Supreme Court. The Bible says that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8), but for evangelical voters, spouting pro-life platitudes and appointing conservatives to the bench covers even more. Trump’s evangelical base will support him on whatever he does because “at least he’s pro-life.”

For Trump’s evangelical fans, saying pro-life things covers the failed North Korean nuclear talks, the fact that Obamacare is still unrepealed and unreformed, that Planned Parenthood is still funded, the trade war that has done so much to hurt American manufacturing and farmworkers, and a foreign policy that is even weaker than Obama’s. It also extends to cover abuses of power and criminal acts such as obstructing federal investigations. It will cover the death toll of the Coronavirus and Trump’s misinformation on the pandemic.

The one area where I can find disagreement with French is that white evangelicals are not about to abandon the competence test. They have already done so enthusiastically.

Everyone except the True Believers (in Trump, not God) knows that Donald Trump is incompetent. Many members of his own Administration have openly said so and the proof is in the pudding of his Administration’s poor performance. Evangelicals know it, but as in the story of the emperor’s new clothes, they are afraid to say it. Instead, they embrace the fiction that Trump is playing blindfolded underwater 6D chess or whatever level we are up to this week.

Believing that Trump is competent requires one to believe that everyone is incompetent or corrupt, giving rise to new conspiracy theories from the Deep State to Q. Everyone from Fauci to the FBI must be corrupt and trying to undermine Trump and launch a coup to destroy America.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Christians could be misled and steered astray. After all, a fundamental Christian doctrine is that men are fallible and prone to sin, selfishness, and bad decisions. In fact, the Bible warns us to guard against leaders who tell us what we want to hear (in Matthew 24:24, 2 Timothy 3:13, and 1 John 2:3-11 to name a few verses).

There are reasons to vote for Donald Trump, just as there are many reasons to vote against him. For people who assume that elections are binary choices, Hillary versus Trump was a choice between two evils. As French posits, however, the bigger problem than the initial Trump vote is that white evangelicals no longer see Donald Trump as an evil. They support him wholeheartedly and excuse his bad behavior rather than holding him accountable.

That brings to mind another Bible verse that I’ll close with. Isaiah 5:20 warns, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

De Blasio’s Church Threat Is Unconstitutional

There have been accusations of First Amendment violations in orders that prohibited church gatherings due to Coronavirus. Some have claimed that those orders violated religious freedoms because they included churches. Those people were wrong, but now New York Mayor Bill De Blasio has gone a step beyond what the law allows.

In a televised address, De Blasio told New Yorkers, “A small number of religious communities, specific churches and specific synagogues, are unfortunately not paying attention to this guidance even though it’s so widespread. I want to say to all those who are preparing for the potential of religious services this weekend: If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services.”

De Blasio then said that law enforcement had been instructed “if they see worship services going on they will go to the officials of that congregation and they will inform them that they need to stop the services and disperse. If that does not happen, they will take additional action up to the point of fines and potentially closing the building permanently.”

Matthew Schmitz

✔@matthewschmitz

De Blasio: churches and synagogues that hold worship services may be closed permanently

3,262

3:03 PM - Mar 29, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

8,177 people are talking about this

To be clear, quarantines and orders limiting public gatherings are both legal and constitutional. The understanding of the need for quarantines goes back beyond the understanding of germ theory. The CDC notes on its site that the word “quarantine” dates back to the Middle Ages and literally means “40 days,” which coincidentally, is about how long it’s going to take to slow the spread of COVID-19.

In early American history, quarantines were instituted by both the colonial governments and the fledgling government of the United States. Federal action today is justifiable under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause and the Public Health Service Act. Though modern Americans have not had to deal with a situation like the Coronavirus pandemic, quarantines and other restrictions were common in our history as our forefathers fought diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever.

In the past, however, many quarantine actions were undertaken by state and local governments. In the current health crisis, we see a similar pattern as governors and city leaders take the lead on restricting movements to slow the infection. In fact, states have much broader quarantine powers than the federal government. Vox has a good explanation of quarantine law and a rundown on various state laws here.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio is one of these local leaders. To be clear, De Blasio is within his authority and is doing the right thing to ban public gatherings. As David French and Sarah Isgur discussed on the Advisory Opinions podcast two weeks ago, if the government issues a blanket ban on public gatherings in an emergency that includes but does not single out religious gatherings, it is not a violation of the First Amendment or religious freedom.

A popular meme going around the internet says that quarantines only apply to sick people. This is also incorrect. Quarantines apply to people who might be infected. Sickness is not required.

Where De Blasio crosses the line is with his threat to permanently close churches and synagogues. Once the emergency is over, the city would have no authority to keep houses of worship open. If the City of New York tried to enforce such an unconstitutional order, it would lose.

Until the outbreak is stopped, however, De Blasio does have the authority to shut down religious services and fine those who flout the order. I hope that he does use these powers because the situation in New York is beyond the pale. Christians should have more consideration for their fellow man than to risk the deaths of thousands simply because they insist on meeting in person.

That does not mean that the faithful can’t continue to worship in small or virtual groups. Online services have become the norm around the country over the past few weeks as Chris Queen wrote two weeks ago.

When the plague has subsided, many Americans will rejoice and thank God in churches around the country. There will be more Americans alive to do so if churches and businesses don’t act stupidly in the meantime.

Originally published on The Resurgent

The World Turns On A Dime

One of the most important lessons of the Coronavirus pandemic is the reminder of just how fragile life and human constructions really are. A month ago, almost no one was seriously considering the possibility that almost the entire world would be shut down as millions are threatened with premature deaths, yet here we are.

It is times like this that we must acknowledge just how insignificant and out-of-control of our fates that human beings really are. In the space of a few weeks, we have gone from globe-trotting masters of our domain to cowering in our homes to avoid being infected by a pathogen so small that it is only visible through a microscope.

In science fiction, the idea of a butterfly effect has been the basis of many stories, particularly about time travel. The theory suggests that a small change, such as killing a butterfly in the past, can cause enormous changes further down the timeline. In our own reality, a virus that likely jumped to humans from a dead bat is panicking the world and may eventually kill millions. How’s that for a butterfly effect?

The world has turned on a dime before in my lifetime. On September 11, 2001, we pivoted from celebrating the end of the Cold War to an entirely new Long War against Islamic terrorists. As with COVID-19, the change was ushered in by a shockingly swift collapse of economic markets that upended the hopes, dreams, and lives of many around the world.

Turns on a dime don’t have to occur on a worldwide or national level. Almost two years ago I wrote about my sudden diagnosis with melanoma. While I was blessed that my cancer was found at stage one and was easily treatable, others were not so lucky. I have known too many people near my own age or younger whose lives were disrupted by untreatable cancers or suddenly ended by heart attacks.

We aren’t assured that our lives will last beyond our next breath or that our nations will endure another day. No matter what our intentions or plans, our ability to carry them out is wholly at the mercy of the will of something greater than ourselves.

Whether you acknowledge the existence and supremacy of God or whether you ascribe your impotence and powerlessness to an unfeeling and uncaring universe, you are not in control of your life or your future.

I am convinced that if we dwell too much on the futility of life and the certainty of death that it would drive almost anyone crazy. “Life’s a bitch and then you die” is a bleak outlook, but, if we depend solely on ourselves, it is ultimately all that we have.

The one way that we do have hope is by putting our faith in Jesus Christ and the God of the Bible, who ultimately exercise control over both our lives and the universe. When we trust in God and commit ourselves to his care, we can be assured that “in this world, we will have trouble” but that “all things work together for good to those who love God.”

The Coronavirus epidemic will run its course. The stock market will rebound. Life will go on.

But the world will turn on a dime for another reason one day and we are still going to die of something, whether it’s Coronavirus or old age decades from now or a car crash tomorrow. Life is always fatal.

I choose to believe that a God who could conquer death for his son, can also conquer death for me.

Originally published on The Resurgent

A Pastor’s Perfect Prayer For President Trump

When Franklin Graham originally pitched the idea of a National Day of Prayer for Donald Trump, he did so with a partisan bent. However, when the president walked into a Virginia church on Sunday morning, the pastor there delivered a perfect nonpartisan prayer for Trump and congressional leaders.  

Graham’s tweet on May 26 contained a video in which he said, “I don’t believe any president in the history of this nation has been attacked more than Donald Trump… If he succeeds, we all benefit, but if his enemies are allowed to destroy him and pull down the presidency it will hurt our entire nation.” The implication from Graham, who has warned that impeachment could spark a civil war, was that Christians should pray for Trump to triumph over his enemies although he did later tell the Christian Post, “My prayer is not an endorsement of the president.”

Imagine then, the pressure that a pastor would feel if the Trump, clad in a sport coat over golf attire,  walked into his church on a day that was designated as a day of prayer for the president. The tension and awkwardness would be especially bad if said president visited a church in a state that he had lost and where he remains unpopular. Trump’s approval among evangelicals remains higher than with other Christian groups, but a large minority is critical of the president. Introducing politics into churches is a recipe for division and distraction from the true mission of the church, that of spreading the gospel and saving souls.

That was the case when President Trump visited the McLean Bible Church just outside of Washington, D.C. It would have been easy for Pastor David Platt to flatter the president by beseeching the Almighty to smite his enemies and bestow a second term upon him. Alternatively, he could have used the opportunity to slam the president with a prayer like the one many evangelicals prayed for Barack Obama that cited Psalm 109:8. Either course would have reflected poorly on the church and introduced unnecessary conflict within the church.

What Pastor Platt did was to embrace the spirit of what a presidential day of prayer should be. Despite Graham’s overtly partisan tone in announcing the day of prayer, subsequent advertisements referenced 1 Timothy 2:1-2, in which Paul instructed Timothy, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

That is what Pastor Platt did. With one hand on the president’s back and the other holding an open Bible, here is what Platt prayed:

"Oh God, we praise You as the one universal king over all. You are our leader and our Lord and we worship You. There is one God and one savior and it's You. Your name is Jesus and we exalt you, Jesus.

"And we know, we need Your mercy. We need Your grace, we need Your help, we need Your wisdom in our country. And so we stand right now, on behalf of our president, and we pray for Your grace, and Your mercy, and Your wisdom upon him.

"God, we pray that he would know how much You love him. So much that You sent Jesus to die for his sins, our sins, so we pray that he would look to You. That he would trust in You. That he would lean on You. That he would govern and make decisions in ways that are good for justice, and good for righteousness, and good for equity, every good path.

"Lord we pray, we pray that You would give him all the grace he needs to govern in ways we just saw in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, that will lead to peaceful and quiet lives, Godly and dignified in every way.

"God, we pray for your blessing, in that way, upon his family. We pray that you would give them strength, we pray that you give them clarity, wisdom.

"Wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Please, oh God, give him wisdom. And help him to lead our country, alongside other leaders.

"We pray today for leaders in Congress. We pray for leaders in courts. We pray for leaders at national and state levels.

"Please, oh God, help us to look to You. Help us to trust in Your word. Help us to seek Your wisdom and live in ways that reflect Your love and Your grace, Your righteousness and Your justice. We pray for Your blessings on our president toward that end. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen."

Platt’s prayer was Biblical and nonpartisan. It would be difficult to find fault with his request that the president be blessed with wisdom, grace, and divine guidance. It was a unifying, non-political prayer of the sort that could be prayed in good conscience by any American Christian, regardless of political affiliation.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Southern Baptist Attendance Fell To Its Lowest Point In 30 Years

The Southern Baptist denomination fell to its lowest point since 1987 per the evangelical group’s Annual Church Profile. The statistics show that the number of Southern Baptists fell to 14.8 million in 2018. This was the first year that Southern Baptists numbered fewer than 15 million since 1989.

Baptisms fell by three percent in 2018, which was a slower pace of decline than the nine percent drop from 2017. Weekly attendance fell by just under half a percent to 5.3 million and the number of Southern Baptist churches declined by 88 to 47,456.

The report was not all dark. Four states, Minnesota, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin posted double-digit growth in the number of congregations and giving increased by $82 million to a total of $11.8 billion. The sharp rise in donations is likely due to the good economy and congregants tithing based on larger incomes.

Still, the falling number of members and baptisms is alarming for Southern Baptist leaders. “Heartbreaking to see these ACP declines. We must do better as Southern Baptists. God help us,” said Adam Greenway, president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

As I wrote this weekend in “The Laodicea Church Is Now,” the decline of the Southern Baptists, the denomination to which I belong, is part of an across-the-board decline of organized religion in the United States. Evangelical denominations are following the Catholic Church and mainline protestant denominations in withering as the “religious nones” rise sharply.

The reasons for the decline are many. Several years ago, we were members at a thriving Southern Baptist church in Georgia that it would have taken an FBI investigation to determine was Southern Baptist. This “community church” did not identify as Southern Baptist because so many people had been alienated by other Baptists throughout the years that the pastor and deacons considered public association with the Southern Baptist brand to be a stumbling block in spreading the gospel.

The denomination has been famous for its teetoler preaching on alcohol and other aspects of pop culture. One Southern Baptist church that I belonged to split over a requirement that Sunday School teachers sign a pledge to abstain from alcohol. A Southern Baptist ban on dancing was the subject of the 1984 movie, “Footloose.” Southern Baptists even launched an ineffective boycott of Disney in 1997 over the company’s “anti-Christian and anti-family direction.”

A few months ago, I wrote about our search for a new church following a move. What we found as we visited many Southern Baptist churches was that quite a few were unprepared for visitors and lacked the programs that church-seekers are looking for. In some cases this is due to resistance to change from older members (ask any pastor about the phrase, “We’ve never done it that way before”) or that the members view the church more as a social club than an evangelical outreach organization. Very few churches seem to have any organized plan for outreach and are waiting on members of the community to find their way into the pews instead. This is increasingly unlikely in today’s society with its multitude of distractions.

The modern church’s political mission is also to blame. It seems to be no coincidence that the Southern Baptists peaked in the 1980s when Jerry Falwell entered politics with his Moral Majority. The shift of focus from soul-winning to political power likely raised walls between churches and about half the country who were being implicitly called immoral if they disagreed with Falwell.

Southern Baptists are a denomination that is run from the bottom. There is no head of the Southern Baptist church that is equivalent to the pope. Instead, churches send delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention each year. The problem with this system is that when the public sees Southern Baptist leaders, it no longer sees men like Billy Graham and Russell Moore. Today, Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Robert Jeffress are identified as Southern Baptist leaders. The pro-Trump message of these men often drowns out the gospel message of their denomination.

Franklin Graham, son of the apolitical Billy Graham is an unabashed Trump supporter. On Sunday, Graham tweeted out a partisan call for prayer, saying, “I don’t believe any president in the history of this nation has been attacked more than Donald Trump… If he succeeds we all benefit, but if his enemies are allowed to destroy him and pull down the presidency it will hurt our entire nation.”

https://twitter.com/Franklin_Graham/status/1132754733305745408

Likewise, Jerry Falwell, Jr. was an early supporter of Trump in 2016. The backing of the Liberty University president enabled many Christians to look past Trump’s past and behavior to support the serial adulterer and foul-mouthed candidate.

Robert Jeffress, the pastor of Dallas First Baptist, has made news time and again, not for spreading the gospel, but for his adulation of President Trump. In 2017, the choir at Jeffress’ church sang a “Make America Great Again” hymn while earlier this year Jeffress himself attacked evangelicals who do not support the president, saying, “Let me say this as charitably as I can. These ‘Never Trump’ evangelicals are morons. They are absolutely spineless morons, and they cannot admit that they were wrong.” It is hard to find a more explicit message that if you aren’t sold on Trump, you aren’t welcome at church.

While people like these do not represent rank-and-file pastors of Southern Baptist churches, they are the public face of the church to much of the country. When paired together with local church members who present a legalistic and unfriendly view of the denomination, it is no wonder that seekers are going elsewhere. Or nowhere.

As Jesus said to John the Revelator, many Southern Baptists have lost their first love, that of the gospel message, or have diluted it with an unpopular and divisive political message. If the denomination wants to turn its decline around, it should return to the tactic that made it successful in the first place: going outside the church walls to spread the Biblical message of Christ’s love and forgiveness.

A declining number of Bible-believing Christians is not going to change American culture from the top down. Whether on abortion or the content of movies and television shows, pursuing political victories as a minority is destined to fail and hurt the church in the process. Instead, churches should focus on changing the culture from the bottom up by changing people through Jesus.

Originally published on the Resurgent

Can Christians Be Democrats?

From time to time, the Resurgent writers have some spirited discussions in the back room. That was the case this week after Steve Berman posted his compelling idea for a Christian political party. Eventually, the conversation wound its way around to whether Christians could be Democrats (or vice versa).

The question of Christians and Democrats is not a new one in conservative Christian circles and there is a legitimate question of how Christians can align with a party that supports abortion on demand, rejects Biblical teaching on sexuality and gender, and even goes so far as to support the persecution of their fellow Christians. Often, the assumption from the Christian right is that when it comes to the Democratic Party all Christians have left the building.

As the saying goes, however, when we assume it makes Christ’s mode of transportation into Jerusalem out of you and me. It turns out that there are a lot of self-identified Christians who still consider themselves to be Democrats. A Pew poll of voters in the 2018 midterm elections found that the partisan split among Christians is much more even than you might think. The poll, which breaks down Christians into “Protestant/other” and “Catholic” found that Protestants favor Republicans by a 56-42 margin while Catholics are almost evenly split between the two parties. Party preference of Christians has not changed appreciably in the midterms dating back to 2006.

These numbers might shock many political observers, especially considering the Republican Party’s party’s self-proclaimed status as the Christian Party, but they shouldn’t. As a matter of simple math, black voters lean Democrat by about 90 percent and about 80 percent of blacks identify as Christian.  

Even beyond black Christian voters, who are concentrated heavily in traditional black Protestant denominations, another Pew poll found that most branches of Christianity are more Democrat than Republican. Only Evangelical Protestants are significantly more Republican than Democrat (56 percent), but even then a large minority of evangelicals (28 percent) are Democrat. (Mormons also favor Republicans by 70-19 percent, but I consider them distinct from traditional Christians.) Catholics, historically Black Protestant denominations (such as African Methodist Episcopal and Christian Methodist Episcopal), and Orthodox Christians all lean Democrat. Mainline Protestants are almost evenly split at 44-40 percent with a slight Republican edge. The bottom line is that Republican Christianity is very white and evangelical.

So, a lot of Democrats claim to be Christian. Are they really? After all, how could any Christian support something as heinous as New York’s new abortion law that permits killing full-term unborn babies?

I agree that is a valid question. I’ve known some pro-choice Christians including an ultrasound technician who worked for the OB/GYN who delivered my son. Her rationale was that she didn’t think that parents should have children if they didn’t want them and that abortion was needed to prevent child abuse.

Let me stop right there and say that her argument was not logical and does not withstand factual scrutiny. First, it is abhorrent to think that killing a baby is preferable to birthing an unwanted child. If only planned children were born, the world’s population would probably die out fairly quickly. America’s position as a world leader is already in danger from our declining birth rate. Her assumption also presupposes that parents will never grow to love and appreciate an unwanted child. In the second place, even not considering that abortion is child abuse in and of itself, child abuse rates have risen by more than 500 percent since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Finally, adoption is available as a nonlethal alternative to parents who don’t want to be responsible for their children.

The truth, however, is that a lot of Christians support abortion. Turning to yet another Pew poll (Pew is great for in-depth looks at religion), we see that majorities of most Christian demographics are in favor of legal abortion. Despite the prominence of the Catholic Church in the pro-life movement, Catholics are evenly split on the issue. Even 33 percent of evangelicals are in favor of abortion. At 60 percent, mainline Protestants are the most pro-choice.

The question remains whether support for abortion and the other anti-Christian planks of the Democratic platform are enough to deny salvation to those who believe in Christ. Is being wrong on a political issue and voting for the wrong candidate enough to jeopardize your soul?

The Bible teaches that the way to salvation is to acknowledge that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23) and under a sentence of death for our transgressions (Romans 6:23). The Biblical formula for salvation is to publicly accept Jesus Christ as your savior and believe that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9-10). Everyone who accepts Christ’s offer of salvation gets it (Romans 10:13). That’s it. Bottom line. Case closed.

But wait, you say, what about Matthew 7:16 where Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits?” Doesn’t that mean that Christians who produce rotten fruit aren’t Christian at all? In the preceding verse, Jesus says to “beware of false prophets” so it isn’t clear from the context that this verse was intended to be directed at lay believers, particularly those whose sin is something so tenuous and indirect as voting for the wrong candidate.

There are numerous Bible verses that make it clear that salvation is based on nothing more than our faith and God’s grace. Other than accepting or rejecting Jesus Christ, there is nothing that we can do or not do that would affect our salvation.

Granted, James does argue that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), but this is an argument that faith should spur good works, not that salvation is dependent on works. In verse 22, James makes this clear when he says, “faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect.”

Some Christians argue that Christians who vote Democrat are either not Christians at all or are backslidden Christians who are ignoring God’s will. This is an example of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in which a blanket statement is rendered unfalsifiable because a true example can’t be found, similar to the argument that communism works but that “true communism” has never been tried.

I’m not prepared to consign anyone who votes Democrat to hell and others should be cautious in doing so as well. Matthew 7:1-3 warns, “With what judgment you judge, you will be judged.” Are Republican Christians really eager to have God judge them based on their voting habits?

I have a good friend who is an atheist. In 2016, we discussed the nomination of Donald Trump at length and my friend was dumbfounded that conservative Christians in the Republican Party would rally around a man who was unfaithful to his wives (Matthew 5:32, 1 Timothy 3:2), was the owner of casinos (Proverbs 28:19), was sexually immoral (Romans 13:13), who cheated in business dealings (Proverbs 20:23), who was a bigot (Galatians 3:28),who was coarse and vulgar (Ephesians 5:4), who was insulting (Proverbs 15:1), who was unforgiving (Luke 6:32-42), and who was a habitual liar (Proverbs 26:28). When Christians responded to Trump’s faults in 2016 by saying that they weren’t voting for a national pastor, one wag responded that it was a good thing because they couldn’t get much further from pastor material than Donald Trump.

Jesus didn’t command Christians to vote for a fifth conservative justice on the Supreme Court or to block Hillary. He did command us to make disciples and teach the nations “to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:16-20). Have Republican Christians fulfilled this commandment in their embrace of Donald Trump? It’s more likely that as conservative Christians have become more political they have alienated more lost people and contributed to America’s moral decline. The Christian right certainly didn’t help me win my friend to Christ.

Many Christians supported the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy of separating children of illegal immigrants from their families as a tactic to discourage illegal immigration. Even some legal asylum-seekers were separated from their children. How can this intentional abuse of post-born children with Jesus’ admonitions to love and protect children (Matthew 18:2-10) as well as Old Testament instructions to treat foreigners fairly (Deuteronomy 10:19)? Enforcing the law is one thing, but intentionally treating migrants harshly is something quite different. This is especially true when some of the families may never be reunited.

  

Some Republicans have gone even further and replaced Jesus with Donald Trump. Some Republicans have made comparisons not only between Donald Trump and the Biblical Kings David and Cyrus but between Trump and Jesus Christ himself. In 2017, conservative artist Jon McNaughton painted a picture of Donald Trump that depicted the president standing on a dead snake’s head, a clear reference to messianic prophecy (Genesis 3:15). Just before the 2018 elections, a group posted a billboard near St. Louis that depicted President Trump and said, “The Word became flesh… - John 1:14” with the slogan, “Make the Gospel great again.” In that verse, “the Word” is Jesus. The Washington Times even ran a Thanksgiving piece titled, “Time to give thanks for all God, Trump have provided.” Social media is replete with memes and videos comparing Donald Trump to Jesus, some are satirical and some are serious and it can be hard to tell which is which, but equating Donald Trump, a mortal man, with the son of God is heretical as well as being a violation of the First Commandment (Exodus 20:3).

It boils down the fact that conservative Christians who judge Democratic Christians are making the same error as liberals who claim that conservatives don’t care about [insert interest group here] because they don’t sign on to liberal policy prescriptions. No one knows what is in someone else’s heart. Their salvation is between them and God.

It seems that neither party can really be termed a Christian party even though Christians support both parties. I tend to think of the Democrats as heathens and Republicans as Pharisees. Democrats don’t seem to know or care what the Bible says while some Republicans have replaced Christian love with legalism and others have moved all the way to idol worship. Together, the two branches of political Christianity sound like the lukewarm church of Revelation 3.

Thank God that our salvation does not depend upon ourselves! We would all be in deep trouble if it were up to us to earn or keep salvation through our own good works in a fallen world that is filled with temptation.

So how would Jesus vote? It seems that both parties have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I’m not sure that Jesus would vote at all. He was focused on the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdoms of men. I’m certain that Jesus would mourn for the hundreds of thousands of murdered American babies, but I’m also certain that he would weep for the young children ripped from the arms of their parents.

I think the key is in Abraham Lincoln’s answer to the question of whether he thought God was on the side of the Union. Lincoln replied, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Christians should put aside their partisan filters and make sure they are on God’s side.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why Was The Christmas Star Visible From Afar But Not Noticed In Bethlehem?

There are many mysteries about the miracles that form the basis of Jesus Christ’s claim of divinity. Jesus is claimed to have healed the sick and raised the dead of the Roman province of Palestine during his short ministry. These miracles made him famous and inspired disciples to follow him but from a modern perspective, they are impossible to verify. The witnesses to these miracles are long dead. Even Lazarus and the others that Jesus restored to life eventually returned to the grave. However, there is one miracle associated with the life of Jesus that should be easy to verify because it was apparently visible from around the world.

The miracle of the Christmas star occurred at the time of Jesus’ birth and according to the Biblical account was visible to learned travelers from a distant land. Matthew tells us that the Magi saw a star that they recognized as symbolizing the birth of the king of the Jews and traveled to Jerusalem “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea” (Matt. 2:1). The star apparently appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth (2:7) and lasted months until the Magi could make their journey from a distant land. The problem for Christian believers is that other observers of the time don’t report significant astronomical events around the time of Jesus’ birth. The lack of reports would seem to rule out stars as well as nebulas and comets.

Beyond the lack of extrabiblical support for a stunning celestial display, there is another problem with the story of the Christmas star. There is a paradox in the Bible’s claim that the Magi could see the star from thousands of miles away while King Herod seemed ignorant of it only five miles away in Jerusalem. Any obviously bright star would be easily visible to anyone who looked up at night, yet Herod and his court were unaware of it.

Further, consider that stars typically seem to move when viewed from the earth’s surface. The location of stars is fixed in space, but the earth’s rotation makes them appear to move. A star that rises in the east would set in the west a few hours later yet the Bible says that the star “stopped over the place where the child was” (2:9). The typical depiction of the Christmas star as an immense, blindingly bright star hovering above the Bethlehem stable seems more and more unlikely.

The problems with identifying the star of Bethlehem seem insurmountable. The star was allegedly seen clearly from a great distance away but unobserved in and around Bethlehem. The meaning of the star was so obvious that the Magi left on an international trip yet other astronomers around the world missed it entirely. Stars normally move but this one was reportedly stationary. The problems are so difficult that many consider the Christmas star to be nothing more than a myth.

A clue to the answer can be found in the original Greek text of the New Testament. In his fascinating look at the historical foundations of the Bible, “The Bible As History,” Werner Keller pointed out that in verse two, the Greek word translated as “star” for thousands of years is actually plural rather than singular.

Keller offers a theory as to the identity of Matthew’s Christmas stars. For hundreds of years prior to the time of Christ, Jewish exiles had lived in Babylon. Babylon, located to the east of Palestine in present-day Iraq, was also the home of an advanced school of astronomy. Clay tablets discovered by archaeologists that date back to more than 400 years before the time of Christ detail calculations by which the Babylonians could predict the paths of the planets, which of course look like stars when viewed without a telescope.

Two planets in particular may have been of interest to the Magi. Jupiter, the king of the planets, was considered to be a royal star and was also associated with luck. The second largest planet, Saturn, was associated with Israel according to ancient Jewish traditions described by Tacitus, a famous Roman historian. 

Keller describes how Jupiter and Saturn came together not once but twice in 7 BC. The first conjunction occurred on May 29 and was followed by a second on October 3. He writes that the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem would have taken about six weeks by camel caravan in Biblical times. It would have been unwise to undertake such a journey across Middle Eastern deserts at the beginning of summer but an October departure would have placed the Magi in Jerusalem in late November. This would place the birth of Jesus prior to the onset of winter in Palestine when shepherds would have still had their flocks in the fields (Luke 2:8).

Frederick Larson of BethlehemStar.com has a similar theory but arrived at a different date for the star’s appearance. Larson looked at the movements of the heavens and found an interesting occurrence over a period of months in the years 3 and 2 BC. At that time, Jupiter and Regulus, a star the Romans considered royal, entered a triple conjunction that would certainly have attracted the attention of Babylonian astrologers.

Larson also provides an answer for how the star could have stopped above the stable in Bethlehem. If the Magi were observing Jupiter from Jerusalem as it entered retrograde, the planet would have appeared to stop over the town of Bethlehem, five miles to their south. One of the dates that this could have occurred was December 25, 2 BC.

Regardless of which celestial event is the particular one observed by the Magi, the theory that the eastern travelers observed astrological signs that pointed them to the newborn Messiah is an idea that can overcome the difficulties inherent in a traditional reading of the Christmas story. The astrological event would have been visible to trained observers but would not have been apparent to King Herod or the people of Judea. The meaning of the signs would have been lost on other astronomers who were not aware of the association of various planets and stars with Israel and Judaism.

The search for the Christmas star has lessons for those who are seeking God. At the outset, it seemed that it was impossible that the account of the star could be more than a myth. The very idea seemed to make no sense and the problems presented by skeptics seemed insurmountable.

Upon closer inspection, however, when the original writings and understanding of the Bible’s writers were taken into account, it turns out that there is a rational explanation that can back up the story of Matthew’s Magi. As it was with the ancient Jews, who thought the Messiah would be a military leader who would overthrow the hated Romans, our problem with the Christmas star lies in our lack of understanding of what the Bible’s writers were trying to convey. When we put aside our preconceived ideas about what the star must have been, we find the answer was there all along.

The lesson of the Christmas star is that God answers those who seek him. While not all of the answers and explanations to Biblical questions are readily apparent, we do have enough answers to know that Christian faith can be based on verifiable facts and does not have to be a blind faith. The Bible’s accuracy is a launching point for the relationship with Christ that offers our only hope for conquering death.

That is the true meaning of Christmas. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why I Believe In The God Of The Bible

Earlier this year, I had cancer. Thankfully, it was only a stage one melanoma that was easily removed, but to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, the possibility of death concentrates the mind wonderfully. Some of the things that my mind concentrated on were God, the afterlife and whether my own religious beliefs reflected the true path to heaven.

I’ve been a Christian for most of my life and at times it has occurred to me that, for most of us, our religious beliefs are somewhat hereditary. We are Christians or Muslims or Jews or Buddhists because we were raised in families and communities that followed those traditions. For something as important as the final destination of our immortal souls, we should probably look beyond what our family and neighbors believe and seek out the objective truth.

I’m a rational and logical person. Generally, when making decisions and forming opinions, I look for objective facts. Religion is no different. If we base our religious beliefs solely on subjective feelings and emotions, then we can’t be sure that we have the truth. Adherents of all religions feel that they have the truth, but they can’t all be right.

Investigating God and religion is actually a two-stage process. The first question is whether God and the spirit world exists at all. When that question is answered in the affirmative, the second question is which of the myriad religions comes closest to accurately reflecting the true message that God has given us. In my case, I’ve had several incidents in my life that proved the existence of the spirit world beyond my doubt so the question was whether Christianity truly represented God’s plan.

Determining whether writings and beliefs about something as intangible as spirits are true can be difficult, but the Bible actually contains some good and objective advice on how this can be accomplished. Deuteronomy 18:21-22 says, “If the word [of a prophet] does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken.” It turns out that determining truth is actually pretty easy. Just look to seek if prophecies match reality.

Objective research should include listening to both sides of an argument as well as considering alternatives. Objectively, religious claims cannot be used to prove themselves. External, impartial evidence should be used to corroborate religious claims. Not every statement made by religious texts is verifiable, but many are. Differences in language and points of view between the ancient writers and modern readers should be considered as we do so.

For example, there are several statements in the Quran that are at odds with modern science. The Quran claims that the earth is flat and that semen “comes out from between the backbone and the ribs.” The Quran also claims that there are seven planets. Muslim apologists have explanations for these passages, but these claims seem to be irrefutably wrong. Such mistakes seem inconsistent with a book that Muslims believe “exists today in the precise form and content in which it was originally revealed.” Likewise, the historical claims made in the Book Of Mormon fail to match archaeological fact.

With respect to prophetic claims, a list of fulfilled prophecies from the Quran seems very vague and open to interpretation. Another fulfilled prophecy, a great fire “in the land of the Hijaz which will illuminate the necks of the camels in Busra,” occurred some 640 years after Mohammed’s death, but is not actually recorded in the Quran.

In contrast, many of the historical claims of the Bible can be verified by archaeology. “The Bible as History” by Werner Keller is a classic text that describes much of the scientific evidence for the historical books of the Old Testament. King David, long thought by many to be a myth, is referenced in an inscription commemorating the victories of an Aramean king that was discovered in 1993. “Patterns of Evidence,” a 2015 documentary, provides plausible evidence for the Exodus by postulating that scholars were looking at the wrong dates in history.

When it comes to science, there are many claims that the Bible is in error. A representative list can be found here on Rational Wiki. Unlike Islam’s scientific claims, most of the problems have simple solutions. Some purported Biblical errors are due to a literal reading of passages that weren’t intended to be taken literally. For example, in Matthew 13:31-21, Jesus is not making the claim that there are no seeds physically smaller than a mustard seed, but that is the message that some critics get from the verse. Another example is Leviticus 11:20-23 in which the Biblical description of insects differs from the modern scientific definition. This problem is easily resolved by considering the differences in language between the Bible’s writers, later translators and modern readers. Deuteronomy 20:16-18 is held up as an error because DNA studies show that ancient Canaanites survived the Israelite invasion. The Deuteronomy verse shows that the Israelites were commanded to kill the Canaanites, but other verses, such as Judges 3:5-8 show that they failed to do so.

A claim that the Bible violates mathematic law is also dependent on assumptions by the reader. Critics claim that the large bowl described in 1 Kings 7:23-26 could not have existed because the measurements don’t fit the mathematic equation for circumference. If the Bible is right, they claim, pi would have to equal 3.0 instead of 3.14. Leaving aside rounding error and the lack of a standard measurement, the critics fail to note that the description of the brim of the bowl was “a handbreadth thick.” The equation could be thrown off by the difference between the inner and outer dimensions of the brim.

With respect to prophecy, the Bible makes numerous specific prophecies that can be tested against historical records for accuracy. Rational Wiki also provides a list of Biblical prophecies that the authors claim were in error. As even the compilers of the list acknowledge, some of these prophecies were contingent on the behavior of the recipients of the message. The classic example is Jonah’s prophecy that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days. The prophecy fulfilled its intended purpose when the people of Nineveh repented and so the prophecy was never fulfilled. Similarly, some prophecies are end-time prophecies that have not been fulfilled yet.

A more difficult case is the prophecy that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre in Ezekiel 26. Critics say that the destruction of Tyre never happened and that the city continues to exist today on an island in contradiction to the prophecy. Archaeological evidence, however, suggests that the city of Tyre was primarily a mainland city in ancient days. Nebuchadnezzar apparently destroyed the mainland portion of the city while some survivors escaped to the island, which was later destroyed by Alexander the Great. One view is that fulfillment of the prophecy was begun by Nebuchadnezzar and completed by Alexander. Interestingly, verse 12 sounds like a very specific description of how Alexander used the rubble of the destroyed city to build a causeway to the island and finish Tyre’s destruction.

A few chapters later, in Ezekiel 29:17-20, the prophet talks about the destruction of Tyre as if it has already happened. In the same passage, he says that Nebuchadnezzar will defeat Egypt. This happened in 605 BC at the Battle of Carchemish.  Critics argue that Babylon never completely conquered Egypt, but the prophecy merely says that Nebuchadnezzar would plunder his enemy. Two other passages, Ezekiel 30 and Isaiah 19 are also cited as prophecies that were erroneous. The opinion of many theologians is that these are end-time prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled.

To me, one of the most compelling proofs of the Bible is what Rabbi Jonathan Cahn calls “the anti-witness” in his devotional book, “The Book of Mysteries.” Cahn points out that if the biblical claim that the Jews are God’s chosen people is not true, there would be no reason for the age-old persecution of Jews. Instead, we find that Jews not only have been the subject of attempts at racial extermination throughout history but that they have survived as a genetically and culturally distinct group more than 2,000 years after Judah ceased to exist as an independent kingdom.

A friend recently pointed out to me the historical evidence that God used hostile nations to judge the Jews, but then judged those nations in turn because they attacked his chosen nation. The pattern repeats many times. Egypt, a longtime enemy of ancient Israel, was conquered several times by Assyria, Persia and finally Rome in 31 BC. After the death of Solomon, ancient Israel split into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. The kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria around 740 BC. Assyria became the conquered less than 150 years later in 612 BC at the hands of Medo-Persians and Babylonians. Judah was conquered by Babylon in 586 BC. Only 50 years later in 539 BC, Babylon fell to the Persians led by Cyrus the Great. In AD 70, Rome recaptured Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple at the culmination of the First Jewish Revolt. Nine years later, Mt. Vesuvius erupted during a festival celebrating Vulcan, the god of fire. This eruption, which destroyed Pompeii and several other cities, still ranks as one of the worst volcanic disasters in history. In 1945, Germany’s extermination of Jews was interrupted by the country’s total defeat at the hands of the Allies. Since World War II, the modern state of Israel is undefeated even against numerically superior Arab forces. Clearly, making war on the Jews can be harmful to your health.

When it comes to determining the truth and validity of the Bible, there is an added complexity. The Bible is not one book but is actually an anthology that is broken into two parts: The Old and New Testaments. While many of the details of the Old Testament can be verified through archaeology, the New Testament largely consists of theological books and the story of Yeshua, a Jewish carpenter better known to the world as Jesus. These themes do not lend themselves to archaeological fact-checking.

Accordingly, some claim today that Jesus never existed and is only a fictional character. This point is easily disproved through ancient writings that reference Jesus as a real person. Validating Jesus’s claims of divinity are more difficult to prove, however.

Even though the New Testament books weren’t written down until long after the death (and alleged resurrection of Jesus), there is evidence that Paul’s letters contain early church creeds that confirm that the message of the books written later was true to the story of Jesus. The evidence is that the content of the New Testament has been unchanged since the first century.

Skeptics also dispute the gospel claims about the death and resurrection of Jesus, the foundation of the Christian faith. The details of gospel story have been thoroughly investigated and found plausible by such one-time skeptics as Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and J. Warner Wallace. I encourage any seeker to read their answers to skeptical charges that the gospel accounts are unreliable.

No matter how much evidence there is, in the final analysis there is no definitive proof for spiritual matters. Ultimately, everyone has to make a decision as to what they believe and how to react to that belief. Belief itself is not enough. James 2:19 points out that even the demons believe in God. Forgiveness and salvation only come when we add submission to God’s authority to our belief (Romans 10:9).

Even though I cannot offer conclusive proof that the Bible is true and that Jesus is the only way to heaven, I have made the choice to believe and accept that truth. This faith is not a blind faith. It’s based on a preponderance of the evidence.

Originally published on The Resurgent