12) Go Down Moses*

Last week the whole country (well, most of it) threw back its head and collectively howled at the President of the United States after he tear gassed peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so he could stand in front of St. John's Episcopal Church for a few seconds and get his picture taken while holding a Bible handed to him by his daughter. It was a bizarre scene, a bizarre picture, and a bizarre event - and I think it's safe to say that it would only happen here in the good 'ol US of A. But why? Why does a president in the middle of a global pandemic and national protests over civil and criminal injustice want to stand and have his photo taken with a Bible? While I can never hope to speak to what goes on in Trump's mind, I'd like to try and explain the symbolism in the context of our country. But let me first back up a bit.  

When I was a senior in college, I had my first serious bout of depression. Even now, my memories of those first few weeks are sort of hazy. I felt like my brain just kind of unplugged. I stopped doing my homework, only went to some classes - and if I did I didn't really participate (not like me), and wanted to either sleep or sit quietly and not have to talk to anyone (again, not normal - I'm pretty extroverted). After this went on for a few weeks, my professors started noticing, my friends got really concerned, my sister flew in from Boston to talk to me, and everyone decided that I needed to take the next semester off to recover from serious burnout. But there was a lot more going on than burnout. I was in the process of having my whole worldview shatter, and it rocked me to my core. This had been happening slowly, over the course of my years in college and with friends - I'd only been home one summer since I left. Everything that I'd been brought up to believe about life - especially how black and white everything was (no pun intended) - how clear the lines of good and evil were - was being brought into question. You may find this extremely puzzling if I tell you that all of this was happening at Wheaton College, that bastion of conservative evangelicalism in the heartland of America, but for all its faults, Wheaton opened my eyes to the world, and taught me to think. (I refer to some of this experience in my post, "A Call to Embrace") 

When I returned in the fall of 2001 to finish my senior year, my relationship to the Christian faith had changed. I still had one, but like my knee that I had surgery on years later - it has scars, and I have to exercise it differently. That has continued to be true over the years - time and again, and for varying reasons. But one of the main ones is because growing up in my childhood home, I saw religion - what I now realize was a false and often twisted religion - used to justify the abuse of women, children, non-white races, poor people, immigrants . . . basically all of the groups that Jesus himself (the historical person who lived in Galilee, and the one represented in the Bible) spent time with, cared for and about, and prioritized. Somewhat ironically, one of the things that helped to unravel my childhood worldview was being a Biblical Studies major and getting to know what the Bible itself said about . . . well, everything. I ended up dropping that major after my senior semester away, but I'm still grateful for what I learned from it.

So here's my take on what was happening with Trump and that Bible. If we're going to use biblical terms (stay with me people!), America is an empire - just like Rome, Babylon, Persia, Egypt, or in more modern days Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, etc. Nearly every empire throughout history has had its token gods, and has used them as part of the way that it helps to unite its citizens. If everyone in the empire is worshiping the same god or gods, there's less dissent, civil unrest, less money spent trying to quell protests (ahem). The United States inherited its Christianity from Great Britain in the same way that slaves in Louisiana inherited Christianity from their masters - it was part of the culture. We therefore shouldn't be surprised that the variety of Christianity on display in political documents in the early years in our country, let alone in the minds and decisions of the white men in power, looks nothing like the original version as seen in the life of Jesus, or written about in the Bible. I mean, 3/5 of a person? Really? I'm sure God was scratching his head at that one. "How'd they arrive at 3/5? I mean, those Egyptians were crazy but I gotta feeling Americans are gonna need waayyyy more than 12 plagues to get the message that my people gotta go!"  

While I joke at the utter absurdity of trying to quantify the worth of another human being using fractions, I want to sincerely address the confusion and distress caused by the way that Christianity has been co-opted in America, under the brand of "exceptionalism" and in the name of empire. I'm gonna preach for a minute, so hang in there. In the gospel stories, Jesus spends 40 days in the desert fasting and praying before he begins his three years of ministry. During those 40 days, he faces three different "temptations." During one of them, Satan comes to Jesus and offers him "all the kingdoms of the world" if he will bow down and worship him. Satan isn't a literal person - the most accurate translation for "the satan" is actually "the accuser" (or as French anthropologist Renè Girard points out in his profound work on this subject - the one who scapegoats); the temptation was for Jesus to do what every other king had done before him, to conquer an actual city, an actual kingdom, and to rule it, in the name of good - which is what his followers were begging him to do. At the time, this probably felt absurd. Jesus was a Jew - a despised little ragtag group of people on the outskirts of the Roman Empire; it would be like hearing that someone in the slums of Puerto Rico was going to be elected president. But this is exactly what the modern church has done - they've succumbed to their desire for power, and taken a religion that is for the outcast and underprivileged and made it for the rich, for the elite, and for the powerful.  They've been so excited by the prospect of an earthly kingdom with tanks and aircraft carriers and jets and anti-missile defense systems that they've literally built churches in the shape of them. Of course, Roman Emperor Constantine paved the way for this, and the Edict of Thessalonica in AD 380 cemented it by declaring Christianity the official state religion of the empire. Ever since then, it has been difficult to recognize true religion as separate from what is just a cultural or politically convenient norm. 

I want to pause here and say that I know many people of faith have a wide range of views when it comes to how the church and the nation should interact, and I am just one extremely broken human being trying to figure out this relationship and my own personal duty from one day to the next. But at a time when our country is bearing witness to its sins of oppression, I feel obligated to call out the way that religion has been twisted and used - is being used every day - to continue that oppression. Because the American Church is inside the dominant world power, it has unique temptations, and in many ways it has succumbed to these. It’s so easy to do, when all it requires is to do nothing. But we know it hasn’t even stopped there. The Church has not only passively supported violence, it has maintained the structural systems that allowed it to take place. It has helped to build prisons, to elect “law and order” candidates who do not see the poor, the underprivileged, and the criminal as people worthy of redemption, but as the “other” that must be shut out of society so that good people can be safe from them. It has marched off to war on many occasions, and fostered enthusiasm for the taking of life - as long as they don’t wear our uniform. It has helped to weave a narrative about poverty that equates wealth with godliness, and the lack of it with character defects such as laziness and ungratefulness. Rather than being a religion for people who are hurting, for people who have done wrong, for people who need help, Christianity has become synonymous with punishment, with “lock ‘em up”, and “smoke ‘em out.”

But with all of that being said, and all the damage I recognize has been done in its name, I came back to Christianity because I believe it holds the key to ending the unending cycle of violence in this world. Ironically, in spite of what American Christians may want or may claim regarding safety and security, Christianity is probably the most UN-safe religion that has ever existed. As my pastor likes to say, "martyrdom is always on the table."* Jesus didn't tell his disciples to take up their M16s and follow him. He told them to pick up their crosses and follow him. In the United States, we associate Christianity with "love of country" as if those two things fit together. But it doesn't. That's American Christianity. That's 4th of July Christianity. That's empire Christianity. 

Jesus called his followers to something quite different.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you as a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did you see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 

"Then the King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." 

Matthew 25: 34-40

As someone who works in healthcare, I’m always amazed at this model for “whole person care” that Jesus and the early Christians had - meeting physical needs, mental needs, spiritual needs - starting with the most vulnerable, the most neglected, in society. American Christianity, on the other hand, has some unique features and one of them is a preoccupation with itself - rather than others. This is why you’ll see these “National Prayer Breakfasts” and other strange events that have nothing to do with the work of Jesus. But American Christians have created a powerful narrative of persecution. They both want to be IN power in the country - to have Christianity be the law of the land, to have the 10 Commandments up in all the public schools, to have "Christian" Supreme Court judges, to have tokens and statues that show its presence, while simultaneously claiming that they are constantly under threat. (hence the conspiracy theories, the belief in a deep state, etc.) But if nothing else should indicate the falseness of the American Church it’s this - its own preoccupation with itself.

With that said, fear tactics are always worth paying attention to - no matter who's using them - because they're usually the best way to both stoke and subdue a population. The threat of persecution allows the Church to amass large amounts of money, power, and to form close political ties with people in government. Essentially, nothing has changed since the days when the Pharisees and Sadducees - the religious Jews of Jesus' day - handed him over to Pontius Pilate to be crucified on the pretext that he “stirs up the people all over Judea with this teaching” (Luke 23:5); in other words, he upset the carefully built relationship that the religious leaders had with the Roman authorities. It’s also a strange echo of what else is being “stirred up” in our country right now that some people are objecting to. So the real work of Christianity will always be juxtaposed with the alternative agendas of those who want a more tangible “kingdom” on this earth, and those agendas will always have a receptive audience with the “principalities and powers” that rule (aka kings, presidents, prime ministers, etc.) When Trump stands up in front of the cameras and holds a Bible, he's doing the same thing that Pharaohs did in ancient Egypt when they'd command their people to worship Ra, the Sun God, and for some people it has the desired effect. But we must recognize it for what it is; the token act of an empire's figurehead to unite its people and retain its grip on power.  

*I am using this phrase for both of its meanings - first, its original context in the Old Testament, when God said to Moses to go “down to Egypt” and command Pharaoh to “let my people go,” (Exodus 8:1) - i.e. the Hebrews who were enslaved at the time. But I am also using this phrase because of the spiritual song that was written by black Americans about their own experience with slavery, called “Go Down Moses”, of which perhaps Louis Armstrong’s recording is the most famous but there are many incredible versions.

*So much of my thinking about these issues has been shaped by Pastor Brian Zahnd of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri and the books he has written, including Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, A Farewell to Mars, Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the Allure & Mystery of Christianity, Postcards from Babylon, and Unconditional: The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness. Zahnd’s work on violence and the church helped to revive my faith at a time when it was very faint. I consider him a scholar, a mentor (although we’ve never met), and a true prophet of our times.