The next few years are going to be very turbulent times for us as Christians in society. Paradigms are shifting, the ground is shrinking, and I don’t know if you’ve looked around you, but there aren’t many churches that are doing a great job of preparing for the times we live in.
I think on the show we’ve shown that we’re willing to stand up to some elements of the MAGA movement that represent or encourage a pervasive ungodliness in our culture. But right now, I want to speak to people who look like us in general, who maybe cheered when we supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis instead of Donald Trump, because we’re all in this together, and that means if we don’t work together, we’re working apart. Similar to Ben Franklin.
The idea that Donald Trump has not been held accountable for his mistakes is not true. God is better at holding people accountable than we are.
Feel free to talk about your most complex works of biblical or cultural interpretation from the comfort of your own prison cell, but there’s a world of difference between being willing to go to prison for a cause and saying, “I’ll just shut up this time and let them do their thing.” I don’t see what honor there is in that.
We need to understand what’s happening now. I learned a hard lesson when I worked on Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in 2016. After years of trying since Ronald Reagan, we thought we’d finally found the perfect sheriff in Gary Cooper, the dignified man we wanted our sons to emulate and our daughters to marry. But we didn’t realize the full cost of the failure of past Gary Cooper wannabes. They kept promising to take down the bad guys, but always ended up backing away or finding an excuse to do something else.
So people got tired of Gary Cooper’s performance and wanted a Pale Rider instead, a Man with No Name, except his name was Donald Trump. No more endless Mr. Nice Guy deaths with dignity. People wanted a warrior, and any collateral damage that came with it was worth the risk.
That was Trump in 2016. And he was clearly good enough to do the job, so dark and powerful forces had to fabricate fake Russia collusion and fake pandemics to get rid of him. The bandits returned, worse than ever. But the people’s memories of the past were unshakable. Any option other than Pale Rider would be unacceptable. This is a lesson I learned again from Ron DeSantis. Trump is being punished on their behalf, and they will not abandon him. Rather, they will bring him back.
Accountability for President Trump, and for us
Biblically speaking, Trump is Samson, a troubled figure who was greatly feared by the zeitgeist while living within a demonic Philistine culture that sought to invade and subjugate God’s people. And perhaps, after the assassination attempt, we may soon find that Trump has received a similar sanctification. Let’s hope that this is true.
But what we have to do is
do not have What we need to do is not stubbornly fold our arms and act like the Pharisees who said nothing good could come out of Nazareth. We need to hold on to hope when hope knocks on our door.
Some of you may argue that Trump has not repented for Covid or other character faults, but there is no room for hope until accountability is met. But just as Samson was used and punished by God at the same time, so may Trump. He still faces prison time. He lost millions, no, billions of dollars. He was one of the most beloved people in the world and now he is a symbol of division wherever he goes. His entire family has had to suffer for it. And oh, he was almost killed, probably with the help of his own government.
The idea that Donald Trump has not been held accountable for his mistakes is not true. God is better at holding people accountable than we are.
Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast is also relevant here in showing how America’s moral leadership is being held to account. The king sends out invitations to a long-anticipated event, but the people intended for the occasion decide they have other things to do. They become distracted, move on, and become annoyed. So the king commands his servants to throw open the doors and allow anyone who wishes to enter the feast.
The churches and pastors who were supposed to shape the spiritual consciousness of America have become distracted and obscured and abandoned their mission. They have pleats to work out, sweater vests to smooth out, and skinny jeans to iron. Meanwhile, the darkness is still here and God’s name is still cursed. So God has thrown open the door and said the battle must be fought. Come on, come on, come on.
The battle is here now
There are parts of Trump and his movement that I don’t understand and probably never will. But here’s the thing: Who violated the zeitgeist more last year? Your pastor or George Santos? A gay man pissed them off so much that they had to remove him from Congress, while your pastor just shut down his church on the orders of woke Governor Nero.
Do pastors deserve to be shot? Maybe the problem in this country is that pastors don’t deserve to be jailed or shot. Ask yourself, why is a billionaire playboy named Trump taking the devil’s bullet?
This is war, and it will happen with or without us.
Because he is a threat and they are not.
The shepherds don’t care if they sit across from the church, transgendering their kids, and murdering their souls with drag queen story times. If the fact that bandits are shooting in broad daylight at the people they think represent us doesn’t show you that the battle is raging here, I don’t know what will wake you up until they shoot you.
Wake up. This is the battle. If we overlook this, we will not face any resistance to ungodliness or anything else we are concerned about. We cannot sit with furrowed brows and folded arms and pass judgment on people, but rather acknowledge that they may just be more courageous than we are.
This is war. And the war will happen with or without us. Let’s take up our light and not hide it. We have lost a lot of credibility in this culture and left a lot of people behind. People like Cousin Eddie, who you laugh at while we blog here, are the ones on the front lines. What on earth are we doing?
This fight needs us. This fight needs you. We need your wisdom. We need your guidance. We need your principles, which don’t serve anybody if they’re hidden. We need your accountability. We need your discipleship, or this fight will go off the rails like the French Revolution.
Now is not the time to run away. We have an advantage in a way we haven’t had in a while.
Take it and fight!
