Hilton Head Island, SC – November 12, 2023
The Chapel Without Walls
John 3:16-21; John 11:17-27
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. – John 3:16 (RSV)
The word “evangel” comes from Middle English. It means “good news.” The word “Gospel” (from Old English “Godspel”) also means “good news.” Evangelism is the process by which the good news of Jesus Christ is presented to those who have not committed themselves to Jesus in order that they may take the necessary steps to do so. Evangelicals are those who make this either a or the primary purpose of their lives. The two passages from the Gospel of John that you heard this morning represent the epitome of how traditional evangelicals perceive Jesus.
There are two basic kinds of evangelicals: fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. Fundamentalists insist there are five concepts you must believe to be a proper Christian: the verbal inerrancy of scripture, the deity of Jesus, the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross, and the physical resurrection and bodily return of Jesus in the second coming.
All fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. In the nineteenth century, most evangelicals were fundamentalists, but for the last hundred years, the percentage of fundamentalist evangelicals has been declining, and the percentage of non-fundamentalist evangelicals has been increasing. Nevertheless, both groups insist that faith in Jesus Christ is a necessity for salvation.
Mainline Protestants do not necessarily agree with that. In fact, many of us, your truly included, think it is rude to ask somebody, under any circumstances, “Are you saved?” For us, Christianity is less a matter of what specific beliefs we hold regarding Jesus, but rather whether we follow what Jesus told us to do. Our intention is to put our faith into action more than to put our faith into doctrines. How well we accomplish that is open to much debate. We don’t avoid doctrines; we just don’t talk about them very much, unless in church, and probably not then for most of us (not including yours truly).
This sermon is not a critique of traditional evangelicalism, which has been a very positive factor in Christianity as long as Christianity has existed. In general, evangelicals accomplish more for church growth than mainline Protestants. Instead, this sermon is a critique of a trend within evangelicalism that has been growing for the past half-century.
Members of the denominations that came out of the Protestant Reformations were always much more involved directly or indirectly in trying to influence political trends than those that originated later. In Geneva in the sixteenth century, for example, the elders of the church, by dint of those offices, also were automatically members of the city council. Today that would be opposed by virtually everyone, but back then, it was accepted as the way politics should operate, at least in Geneva.
Up until the 1970s, evangelical churches and denominations avoided all levels of politics, thinking it was a sordid affair, which often it is, as seemingly becomes more evident with each passing year. But old-line Protestant denominations jumped in with both feet, setting up offices in Washington to try to influence legislation in ways they thought reflected Christian values.
In 1961, Pat Robertson established the Christian Broadcasting Network, and in the next decade, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority. These and other evangelical leaders became much more involved in political issues and publicly took sides on particular questions, especially on matters of what they considered to be proper personal morality.
With the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, evangelicals found the political champion for their causes for whom they had long been looking, although for everyone except evangelicals, that has been impossible to fathom. Thus began what journalists called “the culture wars.” Evangelicals had concluded that certain social changes in American culture had led to moral decay. When the Supreme Court declared that same-sex marriage was legal, most evangelicals were incensed. Nonetheless, within a year of that court decision, 60% of Americans approved of the concept, much to the surprise of nearly everyone.
The vast majority of evangelicals are pro-life, while the majority of our populace are pro-choice. The election in Ohio last Tuesday to guarantee the right to an abortion in the state constitution passed by a significant margin. Various state laws elsewhere have been passed guaranteeing rights that previously had been withheld from LGBTQs: lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and queers. Evangelical culture warriors are trying to get those laws revoked.
Relatively small groups of evangelicals have united to take control of local or state school boards. They have banned books they think are inappropriate for young readers. Some of those books are recent or long-established classics that have been taught in schools for years.
A couple of fundamentalist groups in the nineteenth century taught that if the Jews returned to Palestine, Jesus would return to the earth and the end times would come. When the state of Israel was founded in 1948, many evangelicals took that to mean that the apocalypse was near. Their support of Israel and their opposition to the Palestinians has gained great momentum. The new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is an ardent fundamentalist, and is no friend of the Palestinians. Along with many other Republicans, he opposes any more military aid to Ukraine, but he quickly pushed through an appropriation for Israel in its war with Hamas. The evangelical allegiance to the Israelis is astonishing, considering that most of them are Jews, not Christians, and the rest are Muslims. But as long as Jewish Israelis are in Israel, many evangelicals think Jesus might return any day now. And now, with the latest war, their apocalyptic zeal may know no bounds.
In some American communities, evangelicals have become similar to the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel. Their influence is far greater than their actual numbers, but they are so well organized that they can push through legislation that is anathema to the majority of the American people. Many of them treat gay people like lepers. Their disdain is palpable.
This is not true of all evangelicals by any means. But it is true of many. They do not want an inclusive America; they want our country to be exclusive. Keep out Muslims, Hindus, people of color, gays and transexuals. Be very wary of Latinos too, unless they are evangelical Latinos.
All these strands came together when Donald Trump became president in 2016. It reached its peak among many evangelicals on January 6, 2020, when the defeated president organized a movement to try to overturn the presidential election. The majority of flags that were carried that day were American flags, but there also were Christian flags among them, and crosses on the clothing of some of those who stormed the capitol.
The insurrection was the biggest threat to American democracy in our history. Some of its most fervent leaders were people from very conservative evangelical denominations and congregations. In both 2016 and 2020, 85% of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.
Can there be any doubt by this point who Donald Trump is? He presents himself to his adoring crowds as the only person who can save America from its own demise. Nonetheless he is a classic narcissist, his language is atrociously vulgar, his behavior is uncouth and mean, and he has few if any really close friends. If anyone disagrees with him, he turns on those people like the viper he is. In two of his recent civil trials, he obviously lied under oath. Yet he is revered by his millions of followers as though he is their messiah. If he is, God help us all.
At a rally in Derry, New Hampshire, Mr. Trump compared himself to Nelson Mandela, which seems to be something of a stretch. Then he talked about how dirty the streets are in Washington, D.C. “We want them to be tippy-top,” he said. Finishing his thought, he stated, “Well, they are not tippy-top. They are a (blank)house.” Having read some of his past statements, you can easily fill in the blank. This much is evident: he does not hesitate to use the most gross of vulgarities.
How can any evangelicals in good conscience support this man’s re-election as president? First, they do so because he favors many of the political and economic legislation that Trump sponsored as president, but also because he supports many, although not all, of the social issues they favor in the culture wars. They consider America to be a godless culture. By now it should be obvious that few of them perceive him as an irreligious charlatan in sheep’s clothing. Most will not abandon their champion unless or until he is convicted on some or all of the 91 criminal charges with which he had been indicted, or ultimately it is legally decided that states can remove his name from the ballot in the 2024 presidential election.
But the main reason evangelicals support Donald Trump is because he is highly skilled deliverer of delusions, and they have become self-deluded. I am sure that evangelicals are as intelligent as any large group of Americans, but they are more subject to self-delusions that most others. They do not lack brain power; they lack perspective, historical awareness, political discretion, and social compassion for people whose values or behavior they strongly disapprove. On many social issues, many evangelicals are not compassionate conservatives.
Many evangelicals support gerrymandering by state legislatures to ensure more Republican seats in state and national legislatures. They approve state laws that prevent women from having the right to abortions. They have overseen laws to prevent teachers in public schools from ever talking about sexuality and especially about transsexuals. They show open hostility to those who hold opposite views from themselves on social issues such as these.
The Beatitudes are the first section of the Sermon on the Mount. In the Seventh Beatitude, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mt. 5:9). When Israelis and Palestinians take up arms against one another, evangelicals always side with the Israelis, and peace never comes to what evangelicals call “the Holy Land.”
Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the left cheek, turn to him the other also….If any one forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles” (Mt. 5:38,39, 41). After that Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 6:1). Evangelicals are far more likely to display their piety in public than all other Christians. Mainline Protestants are loath beyond mere timidity to do such, but many evangelicals want to be perceived as paragons of piety, which is a risky self-image to project.
Last Tuesday evening the third Republican presidential candidate debate was held. Five people were allowed to participate. Three of them, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott, and Vivek Ramaswamy are self-professed evangelicals, and two, Ambassador Nikki Haley and Gov. Chris Christie, are not. Incidentally, this is probably not an objective observation, but it seemed to me that the latter two made the most statements that made the most sense, and most of what the first three said seemed ill-informed, implausible, or ideologically beyond the pale.
Ron DeSantis was the most bellicose of the five candidates. Were he president, he said, we would not send troops to Ukraine, not that anyone has suggested that, but he would send troops to secure our southern border. In addition, he would send in special forces to defeat the drug lords in Mexico. In his closing statement, his last words were, “God bless you.” To me that sounded a bit like a practicing cultural-christian mafioso trying to display piety before a national audience.
By his upbringing, Tim Scott probably is the most genuinely evangelical Christian of all the Republican candidates. Nevertheless, in his opening statement he declared that Israel has “the right to wipe Hamas off the map.” That doesn’t sound like Jesus telling us to love our enemies. He said we should close the southern border, which would negate the many injunctions in the Old and New Testaments to show special regard for immigrants and sojourners in our midst. He favors a federal law mandating that there could be no abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, an idea opposed by nearly two-thirds of Ohio voters last Tuesday. In his closing statement, he said that America has a spiritual crisis, and many people would agree with that, but would express it in quite different terms than Sen. Scott.
Vivek Ramaswamy, as usual, spoke very quickly, smiling broadly, taking the opportunity often to interrupt other speakers, which was against the debate rules. However, he has fallen so far in the polls that almost certainly he will not be the GOP candidate.
With the election results in Virginia, Kentucky, and especially Ohio last Tuesday, there was considerable discussion about abortion. Ms. Haley was the only person to suggest that it would be unwise for Republicans to continue to espouse inflexible pro-life positions that must be upheld by state statutes. It appeared as though only Chris Christie might follow her advice.
The rigidity of evangelicals on the issue of abortion is illustrative of their inflexibility on other similar matters. They think that America is out of step with the seventeenth century principles of morality upon which they think our nation was founded. It is correct that we have rejected most Puritan ideas of acceptable Christian behavior. We have done that in large part because we reject the basis upon which those purported principles were founded. There is no reason for people of good will to try to deter evangelicals from holding the moral and ethical notions to which they subscribe, but there are many reasons why we should deter them from legally forcing their morality onto everyone else in American society. After all, this is a democracy. It never was or will be a theocracy, we trust.
Are evangelicals keeping the faith? In most respects, without doubt. In the culture wars? In a democracy, there are many reasons to question their fidelity to the morality espoused by Jesus. A year from now, we will better understand the thinking of the majority of American voters.