A 15-foot-tall balloon set up last fall by Faithful America didn’t stay up very long.
In simpler times, faith meant believing in the spiritual, without science or solid physical reality, old church relics notwithstanding. For most people in pre-modern times, the spiritual world was reality. And for centuries, the spiritual prevailed in the body of the church, which held great power over the state.
Historically, it wasn’t that simple. I spent many taxing hours in history classes learning about ancient and European history, the latter from the rise of Christianity in the Fifth Century, through the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century.
Throughout that Millennium, the church wielded tremendous power over the state; it almost was the state. We learned about religious wars, inquisitions, pogroms. Horrible stuff. I recall the feeling of revulsion seeing torture devices from the Spanish Inquisition in a museum in Ronda, a small, scenic village in southern Spain.
All of that history lays part of the groundwork for the origins of our nation, the United States of America. The Pilgrims first arrived seeking religious freedom. The First Amendment of the Constitution says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The “wall of separation” idea came later, in 1803 from Thomas Jefferson.
All of that worked fairly well until several decades ago. The Moral Majority and religious extremism gained political power resulting in what we have today, an amoral, irreligious president seeking his own power, abetted by movements such as the New Apostolic Revolution and Christian Nationalism.
The Baptist News reports, “In 2015, one of the apostles, Lance Wallnau, had a vision: ‘The Lord took me to Isaiah 45’,” Wallnau claimed. “He said, ‘The next president will be the 45th president. I want an Isaiah 45 Cyrus.’ (Checking the Baptist News website, it seems to be relatively credible and progressive.)
The report continues: “In the Hebrew Scriptures, Cyrus is not a believer in Yahweh but is used by God to free the Jewish people, who were exiled in Babylon. So, Wallnau figured, even though Trump may not be a believer, he could be used by God to free conservative Christians, who were exiled in the U.S. due to the liberal Democrats.”
If the so-called modern-day apostles want to make that analogy, others offer another one. Among the various protests last fall around the U.S. Capitol, Faithful America, a Christian social justice group, set up a 15-foot-tall balloon resembling Trump as the Golden Calf. In Old Testament history, around 1300 BCE, when the Israelites became impatient waiting for Moses to descend from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, they forged and began to worship a golden calf. Idol worship, then and now.
In the ebb and flow of such things, while we seem to be at the peak of the flow, we can only strive and hope to dial it back. What’s happening among the Christian nationalists isn’t about true, sincere, religious faith. It is about wealth and power. Or, glory and power, as in the title of the book by Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. I have read and highly recommend it.
The book “explores how evangelical Christians have pursued and often abused political power, highlighting the disconnect between their actions and biblical teachings. Alberta critiques the political hijacking of Christianity, the idolization of America, and the conflation of patriotism with religious zeal.”
Another book, which I am currently reading, helps Christians understand how we got here, and what we can do about it. The Exvangelicals – Loving, living, and leaving the White Evangelical Church, by Sarah McCammon, combines “memoir and investigative journalism… delves into the broader exvangelical movement, exploring its origins and the cultural, social, and political ramifications of this generational shift.”
Exvangelicals, people raised in a conservative, evangelical religious environment, have departed, not from their faith, but from that particular religious movement. Oh great, another paradox: Having faith while being highly skeptical of charismatic events, speaking in tongues, and modern day “prophets.”
This synthesis of faith and questioning falls within another paradigm that I have addressed elsewhere: Metamodernism. It “uses postmodern tools like cynicism to deconstruct and question the world—but it also points to the possibility of connection and meaning, leading toward something akin to hope.” – “Reading for the Love of the World”, Sara Kyoungah White, Christianity Today, Dec. 22, 2023.
Recently I watched a video entitled “What is metamodern Christianity,” hosted by Greg Dember and Linda Ceriello. They also host a website, “What is Metamodern.” The video featured an interview with two academics in the field of religious music, Joshua Busman and Maren Haynes Marchesini. They acknowledge the concerns about evangelical Christian nationalism. They see salvation narratives that are spiritual but not “religious.”
They mentioned the parable of the wheat and chaff. God winnows the grain, keeping the wheat (saints) and seeing the chaff (sinners) blow away. That is how the Christian nationalists seem to view it. You are one or the other. In the Metamodern mindset, that is not how God sees it. His world includes everyone; everyone is preserved in the winnowing. We lose chaff and come out better for it.
The topic for this post was inspired in part by a recent sermon at our church. In his sermons the pastor is conscientious about the separation of church and state thing; however, if you read between the lines, you detect some messages that could relate to the current political conflict. After Moses and the prophets, the Israelites desired a king. Samuel anointed Saul, then David followed by his son, Solomon. Overall, it did not work out well. Over 400 years most of them were bad kings, with much warfare, and far from Jesus’ message, love your enemies and those who persecute you.
One service included the singing of what has become one of my favorite Gospel songs. “Canticle of the Turning,” written in 1990 by Rory Cooney, uses words from “The Magnificat” (song of Mary) and melody from the Irish folk song “Star of the County Down.” It talks about patience waiting for God, God’s mercy, and dethroning tyrants.
The chorus goes: “My heart shall sing of the day you bring/Let the fires of your justice burn/Wipe away all tears for the dawn draws near/And the world is about to turn!” It has my vote for an official anthem or hymn of an ascending Metamodern Era where we can have faith, questioning, hope, realism, and truth. And not idol worship.
