The Tares in Power

Why am I so hard on Republican Christians?

This is why. If you are a true Christian, no, let me say it this way, you are only a true Christian if you have been broken by Christ. Period. That is the benchmark. If you have not been flat on your face, or curled up into a sobbing knot of pain, calling out to God for rescue and forgiveness you do not know the Savior. You may have made an alter call, or been baptized within a community–you may sincerely believe the Gospel is true–but unless you have been abject before the King you are not saved.

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need, sings Bob Dylan on Every Grain of Sand, when the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed. You must be crushed with repentance to feel the light of forgiveness. That is the Christian experience.

When you are broken by Christ, you are then in that instant rescued by Christ. And it is a singular experience that forms the core of your life going forward. To be in proper relationship with Jesus, based on your terrified submission in that moment of crisis, is the foundation of the Christian life.

That moment of your total surrender to the Light of God, that moment of pain and cleansing is Christ. Not Bible study, not prayer groups, not five or fifty thousand member churches. And most certainly of all, it is not the Republican Party.

Because no human being who has been broken before Christ would dare say the words and do the things Republicans say and do. Ask any Republican Christian to site Biblical reference for their platforms. Outside of abortion, there is none. (Governmental marriage is none of our business, per C S Lewis) You don’t need a degree in Biblical Studies to know this is true. A little time at Bible Gateway in the search function is all that’s required. Try these terms; Servant, greed, rich, poor, harvest. Then you can cover Republicans specifically; Master, lies, tongue, pride, hypocrite.

Now I realize this condemnation is a wide brush. There are some, maybe many, Republican Christians who are also true Christians. They have been broken by sin and dysfunction, pleaded with Jesus and restored by love of God. Then time passes, the experience grows dimmer and there is life to be gotten on with. A community to be part of. Jobs and commitments to fill. If the true Christian tries to fit in with false Christians, there will be an incentive to not speak against the group. That is detrimental to the individual Christian and the Body as a whole. Because we speak for Christ.

Do not be afraid. How often does Jesus say that to us? And yet people who call themselves Christian spend many hours of their precious days trafficking in fear. Fear is the backdrop and narrative of the Republican party’s propaganda machine, Fox News. Many Christians use Fox as their sole source of information: a pit of vipers in smarmy suits and shimmery skirts. Wolves in Fox clothing.

Christians are taught that the Enemy has control of the world at present–he is the Prince of the Air. Today, a more relevant translation might be Prince of the Air Waves.

Fox News decries the persecution of Christians in the Middle East–they are right about this, and the liberal media downplay the atrocities–but in the next segment Fox lauds the Wall, and rails against the immigrants from the South. Well, I’m sure this is news to Fox News, but those immigrants are overwhelmingly Christian. The Trump policies are causing direct harm to many innocent Christians. and spreading fear like a virus over whole communities.

I won’t address race at Fox News. There isn’t much to go on. The faces are nearly all white and their grooming prom-night shiny. A reflex presumption  of white superiority burps from the mouths at Fox News, for those with ears to hear. Whitewashed tombs outside, but stench within. It’s convenient when the parable is color coded.

Healthcare is the issue that exposes Republican Christians serving the Golden Calf. There is no justification in the Judaeo/Christian ethos for their alliance with the Insurance/Pharmaceutical/Finance industry–truly a devilish triad–over the welfare of human beings. Republican Christians serve the Enemy openly, with earnest white faces, on this issue. They choose Mammon over God, and throw a beer blast in the Rose Garden. It may well be the last Garden they occupy.

To you true Christians, lost and abandoned in the rhetoric of the Tares who run the Republican party, please take heart. He is still with you. You may yet stand up and tell the truth. Just take some time to be by yourself, in prayer. Ask Jesus to let you remember exactly, vividly, how terrified and pitiful you were.

Yes, that sobbing wreck.

Would you in that moment of transforming truth affirm any Republican bitterness? Deny healthcare to anyone? Privatize prisons? Destroy the very earth He gave us ? Worship gold?

Would you, in that mortifying moment of God’s grace, tell a lie?

Christianity is at a crisis point Brothers and Sisters. We must not serve this vile, serpent-tongued Caesar.

We must be to the world the Christ who saved us.