Expel the Wicked Man From Among You: The Church’s Dangerous Embrace of Trump
The violent mobbing of the Capitol on January 6 by supporters of President Donald Trump, incited by the president’s dangerous and deceitful rhetoric, ought to finally convince the church that our embrace of Trump was a deal made with the devil that has only left us burned. We all should have realized this a long time ago, as many did, but now there are no more excuses.
By compromising our principles and our stance that character and words matter, Christians – especially white Evangelicals – and pro-lifers have damaged our ability to reach those who don’t share our beliefs. We can only save souls and lives with truth and love.
In Thursday’s Morning Note, Carl Cannon explained Trump’s role in the riot:
Attempting to impede the pro-forma Electoral College vote certification by Congress, Trump delivered a fiery speech to thousands of his supporters, claiming yet again that the 2020 election was stolen from him and calling on Vice President Mike Pence, the ceremonial presiding officer of the Senate, to “do the right thing.”
“Our country has had enough!” Trump said. “We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. ... We will stop the steal!” Trump then directly urged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol, apparently to pressure lawmakers. “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Taken as a whole, the speech was essentially an incitement to riot. And his supporters took him both seriously and literally.
Trump continued to encourage the rioters even after the violence, which left five dead, had begun. “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he wrote in a post that Twitter later removed.
In a message to the violent insurrectionists who pushed past police as they carried “Trump 2020” flags into the Capitol, Trump chose to emphasize understanding and love.
“I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. ... But you have to go home now,” he said in a video more than 90 minutes after lawmakers were evacuated from the House and Senate chambers on Wednesday. “We love you. You’re very special.” (Although Trump condemned the violence on Thursday, he did not take responsibility for his own part in it.)
But it was not only Trump’s name that appeared in the riot; some took the Lord’s name in vain as they carried it with them on signs and flags.
As Kevin Singer has highlighted on RealClearReligion, young people are increasingly reporting little faith in religious institutions. As a young person who has experienced pain inflicted by the church, I’m particularly concerned for the ways the Christian right makes the Gospel seem unpalatable to nonbelievers. We have to consider how Trump reflects on us.
We are a movement whose spokespeople have not only tolerated but embraced leaders credibly accused of sexual abuse, misconduct, and immorality. We have ignored abuse in our own churches. And now, we have backed a president who incited an insurrection attempt. How can that movement expect to persuade anyone to accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior?
“Yes, Trump is a sinner,” many Christians would protest. “But so are you. So are all of us. And God uses sinners.”
Pastor John Piper brilliantly articulated the flaws and short-sightedness in this justification back in October and the piece is worth reading in full. Trump’s character absolutely matters not only in shaping the nation, but in the degree to which it damages the Christian message. Piper writes:
I think it is a drastic mistake to think that the deadly influences of a leader come only through his policies and not also through his person.
This is true not only because flagrant boastfulness, vulgarity, immorality, and factiousness are self-incriminating, but also because they are nation-corrupting. They move out from centers of influence to infect whole cultures. The last five years bear vivid witness to this infection at almost every level of society. ...
Therefore, Christians communicate a falsehood to unbelievers (who are also baffled!) when we act as if policies and laws that protect life and freedom are more precious than being a certain kind of person. The church is paying dearly, and will continue to pay, for our communicating this falsehood year after year.
What does the world see? Rarely are they likely to notice, or care about, the nuances of the arguments offered by the well-meaning Christians who voted, with fingers pressed to their nostrils, for Trump as the lesser of two evils. Instead, those outside the church are far more likely to notice the Eric Metaxas-types, the Jericho Marchers, and the rest whom David French has called the “Christian Trumpist” idolators. This is the legacy of the church in the Trump era.
But the legacy has leeched into the area of politics most of us claim to care most strongly about: abortion. As a passionate pro-life advocate, I’m also concerned by how the anti-abortion movement has traded in our ability to change minds and save lives in the interest of defending a president who cares very little for our values. “Trump has appointed pro-life judges,” his defenders say, but such arguments, which Piper also addresses, ignore the incalculable damage done to the credibility of the pro-life movement by Trump and his supporters.
The only way to truly end abortion is by changing the culture, not just the laws. Abortion should be illegal, but more importantly, it should be unthinkable. If we can convince women to save their babies’ lives by providing them with the love and resources they need and convince the world of the humanity of the not-yet-born, then lives will be saved. But we can’t persuade a culture if we give them reason to distrust us. And in embracing Trump, we’ve given them plenty of reasons.
In an apparently since-removed Facebook post, Abby Johnson, a Catholic whose shift from Planned Parenthood clinic director to staunch pro-life advocate was depicted in the film “Unplanned,” insisted that the capitol rioters yesterday were, in fact, Antifa. (False.) Her reasoning? “We are about law and order.” Apparently not.
If one of the most prominent anti-abortion figures – with probably the most powerful pro-life testimony – is willing to spread an obvious falsehood about the pro-Trump riot, how on earth are pro-choice Trump critics supposed to trust her word on abortion?
I thank God that his will is done with or without our involvement. Nonetheless, the church needs to choose whether or not to get involved. Any continued defense of Trump, an unabashedly immoral man who claims to be one of us, is done at the expense of our witness. Paul warned the church about the dangers of embracing men like him from the beginning, writing in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, “But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked person from among you.’”
The church can either save unbelieving souls and unborn lives by expelling the wicked man from among us or we can continue to idolize him.
Chandler Lasch the editor of RealClearReligion. She is a graduate of Hillsdale College and a resident of Southern California.