‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ – John 14:15
I’ve never been a fan of the National Prayer Breakfast. Reason being that it doesn’t seem to be a prayer breakfast. Oh, I’m sure there are people of faith who go for that purpose, but it’s mostly an opportunity for the wealthy and powerful to meet behind closed doors and make deals. It’s a place where politicians can be politicians while pretending to be spiritual. A place where allegiances to America and God are so syncretized that you couldn’t separate them with a knife.
But something happened at this year’s Prayer Breakfast that deserves our attention. Conservative Christian and Washington Post Columnist, Arthur C. Brooks, delivered the keynote address. His topic was Jesus’ command to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Brooks’ hope, it seems, was to temper the acrimony that pervades our national discourse . It was an attempt at reconciliation, directed at everyone present, including members of Congress and the President of the United States, who was the next speaker at the breakfast.
Before turning to the President’s response, it is important to note that loving enemies is not a peripheral issue for Christians. It is a central one. Love for enemies lies at the center of our theology of the Cross (‘God proves his love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ – Romans 5:8). Jesus loved his enemies every step along the Via Dolorosa. He loved the religious council that condemned him, the Roman Governor who sentenced him, the soldiers who flogged him and hung him up to die. He loved you, me, and everyone else in the world who is ultimately responsible for what happened there. Yes, love for enemies is central to the Christian faith. It is a command of Jesus that his followers have no choice but to obey.
The President, however, wasn’t on board. He took the podium and started his speech by saying, ‘Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you.’ He then attacked his political opponents and questioned their faith. It was embarrassing. Unfortunately, this was just his opening act on a day when he would prove his complete and utter disregard for the command of Jesus.
The main event came later at a bizarre ‘news conference’ in the east room of the White House, where Trump, surrounded by congressional and other supporters (including evangelical Christians), lambasted his enemies. In the course of characterizing the investigation into his abuse of power as ‘bullshit,’ he called his political opponents ‘lousy,’ ‘vicious’ and ‘horrible’ people. They were ‘evil’ and ‘corrupt.’ Undeserving of love. Undeserving of respect. Undeserving of even the most basic civil courtesies. His supporters (including the evangelicals) stood and cheered. Arthur Brooks had given the President an opportunity to help heal the nation. Instead, he attacked his opponents, dehumanized them, and deepened the nation’s wounds.
None of his words surprised me. Nor was I particularly offended. The President, you see, is not a follower of Jesus. He is the leader of an empire. As such, I do not expect him to love his enemies. That is not to say I condone the fact that he doesn’t. It’s just that imperially minded people never do. That the leader of an empire (and yes, America is an empire) wouldn’t buy into the concept of enemy love should not surprise anyone. That the world should behave like the world is no more surprising than that a dog barks or a cat meows.
But what is surprising, although these days it is becoming less so, is that as the President spewed hatred and anger at his opponents, his evangelical minions, both in the room and around the country, clapped and cheered. That is not what followers of Jesus do. Followers of Jesus model the way of enemy love before the world. They show that the way of empire is wrong and that the way of Calvary Love (enemy love) is right.
One might have thought that as the President exemplified the opposite of Jesus’ teaching, they would have come to their senses. But did they? Have they? No. They continue to proclaim him to be God’s man. They continue to hold up a hater as the one worthy of Christian support. They continue to exalt the politics of hate over the politics of Jesus.
It’s time we stated the obvious: these religious charlatans clapped and cheered Trumps shenanigans because they, no less than the President, do not follow Jesus’ command to love enemies. For them, Jesus’ core teaching is disposable. They don’t believe it. Indeed, I’m not sure they ever did. For years we have seen them working to crush their opponents. They have spewed hate at people who struggle with particular types of sin. They have stoked the fires of war and then cheered as the bombs dropped. They have demonized all who disagree with their politics. In the wake of President Trump’s election, when asked whether the Trump-Evangelical Christian alliance might hurt the cause of evangelism among younger, more progressive folks, one prominent evangelical leader wrote an op-ed that insisted, ‘those liberals don’t like us anyway.’ In other words, if you’re not already on our side, why should we care if you come to Jesus? His view is hardly an aberration in the right-wing Evangelical world. Their record is clear: they do not love their enemies any more than the President does.
But forget about enemies, I’m beginning to question whether these clapping and cheering evangelicals love people at all. Well, maybe some people – the ones who are like them. But certainly not those who are different. They don’t love Democrats. They don’t love independent minded Republicans. They don’t love the poor. They don’t love immigrants or refugees. They don’t love LGBT people. Many don’t love people of color. People who look like them or share their affinities, they love them. But anyone else, forget it.
But even that may not be the worst of it. Given that Jesus commanded us to love everyone, including those who are different from us, including those who might even be our enemies, there is one more conclusion we must reach about the kind of Christian who cheers and claps while the President demeans both his enemies and those who are different. It is a conclusion I’ve tried very hard not to reach but honestly cannot deny any longer. Even as I come close to writing it I pray that I am wrong. But it is a conclusion as plain as day in light of Jesus’ clear statement, ‘if you love me, you will keep my commandments.’
No matter what they say or how loudly they say it, no matter how many church services they attend, no matter how many fish stickers they put on their cars, they don’t love Jesus.
God help them.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent