From Pulpit To Public Square

Every time I hear the news media use the phrase “evangelical Christians” when referring to conservative Republicans who claim to be Christian while pursuing a bigoted social agenda it makes my blood boil and my skin crawl.

These people who are attacking the LGBTQ community, who advocate for banning women from leadership roles in the church and are actively waging war against women’s reproductive freedom are not evangelical in any historical sense of the word.

To be an evangelical is to identify with a core set of doctrines that are hundreds of years old including the authority of scripture, the fallen nature of humanity (sin), the divinity of Christ, and the worldwide mission of inviting people to accept Christ as Lord and savior. There are millions of people around the world, including me, who proudly identify with this understanding of being an evangelical Christian.

I feel safe in saying that the vast majority of real evangelicals are not pushing the hate-filled social agenda that is being pursued by the so-called “evangelical Christians” of the 21st century. These people who falsely self-identify as “evangelical Christians” are far more informed by blind allegiance to Donald Trump and his MAGA worldview than they are to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In doing so, they violate one of the first principles of being a true evangelical which is that Christ is Lord above and beyond any earthly ruler or power.

The hypocrisy of this “evangelical group” is on full display when it condemns homosexuality and transgender persons but overlooks and even explains away the sexual crimes of Donald Trump who has already been found liable for sexual assault in one case and accused by nearly 20 other women of assaulting them as well.

Consider how shameful it is that a wedding web designer from Colorado won a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that said she could refuse her services to a same sex couple because doing so would conflict with her religious beliefs. It did not seem to matter to this “evangelical Christian” that no same sex couple had ever asked to use her services. Furthermore, the name used in her case before the Supreme Court was a heterosexual man who had been happily married to a woman for 18 years who had no idea that his name was associated with her case. The shame is on her for lying in her appeal, and on the Court for basing an important ruling on a purely hypothetical issue.

None of this sounds like the Christian faith with which I am familiar. This is not what it looks like to be an authentic evangelical Christian. This is what it looks like to be a 21st century conservative Republican who is appropriating the language of Christian faith to advance a purely political and social agenda.

Like the biblical prophets of the 8th and 7th centuries BCE who condemned any attempt to corrupt their religion, real 21st century evangelical Christians must reclaim the meaning of being evangelical and condemn those who act in ways that are in direct conflict with the faith they claim to embrace!