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“In my opinion the Republican party has prostituted the American Evangelical church. They (now) own us and our thinking. We end up holding values that are counter to the values of Jesus because they’ve got us thinking along their paradigms rather than us evaluating everything according to the stated values of Jesus and the example of His life.”
The truth is, the abortion issue is a “shiny red button” that the Republican Party loves to hold out to us as a way to manipulate us to vote for their candidate. But once that person is elected the issue of abortion is never a priority for that politician. Here’s why: The “shiny red button” works as it was designed to work. It makes us vote for them. That’s all it is supposed to do.
Simply put, the abortion issue is nothing more than a means to manipulate the evangelical Christians in America to vote for Republican candidates.
The fact is that the majority of Supreme Court Justices who ruled in the Roe v. Wade case were Conservative appointees. The Southern Baptist Convention’s former president, W. A. Criswell, even published a response after the ruling where he said: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person ... and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”3
And W. Barry Garrett of the Baptist Press said, “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision…”4
And, shockingly, in 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging Southern Baptists to, “work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”
As Frank Schaeffer remembers: “Dad was very persuasive, and the word began to spread. But then we also made some converts to our cause who were in positions of influence—for instance, Congressman Jack Kemp, who then invited us back to the Republican Club in an evening hosted by him and Bob Dole. And then soon after that, Dad met with Ronald Reagan and talked about this. They began to see it as a way to win elections. We began to see winning elections as a way to make our country a better moral place.”8
In his book, Kruse explains how business leaders plotted to link Christianity, Republican politics, and libertarian economics tightly together. Why? To help drive a wave of public piety and create a feeling of solidarity between Christians and corporations who might both see “Big Government” as a common enemy.
“The reason they [corporations] start making this argument about freedom under God is that it’s a much more effective way to push back against the regulatory state and the labor unions. It’s no longer businessmen making the case for businesses. It’s ministers.”12
And why Christian ministers? Because they were better at propaganda. “They’re very effective at making this argument that a state that restricts capitalism will inevitably restrict Christianity,” says Kruse. “They link economic restrictions with religious restrictions. It requires a bit of a leap of faith, but it’s one that they effectively sell.”
Both Phillips-Fein and Kruse credit a pastor by the name of Reverend Fifield—whose large Los Angeles congregation was made up mostly of millionaires—as one of the most effective ministers in the capitalistic Christian movement.
As Kruse explains, “[this movement] had been launched to roll back the New Deal and instead it helps inspire a new sort of religious nationalism.”
We are all the victims of a well-funded, decades-long campaign to twist our faith into an easy-to-control voting block.
Let’s be clear. The answer to all of this is not to join the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party, or even to create our own political party. No, the answer is to abandon politics completely, to re-focus our eyes on Jesus, and to place our faith in His plan to change the world.
“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for ‘people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.’ If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning” (2 Peter 2:19-20).
In the book, Abortion in America, by James C. Mohr, this time between 1840 and 1880 is referred to as “The Great Upsurge of Abortion.”
However, by 1910, that abortion rate had been cut in half by a movement of Christians who provided women with positive alternatives to abortion. They focused on helping young, pregnant women in poor communities—including prostitutes—to carry their children full-term. After delivery, they either helped each young mother find adoptive parents for her child, or they stood by her to help her keep her child.
The goal was very simple: Take valuable resources from smaller, weaker nations and grow your own nation’s wealth in the process.
It all started with the creation of the World Bank, and eventually the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations.
Soon, the benefits and virtues of greed began to be taught in our business schools. Eventually it was an almost unquestioned fact that increasing wealth for American businesses was the de-facto goal of our nation, and no one questioned how that might be accomplished.
The most startling example of this new paradigm came when America sought to disrupt the Iranian government after their democratically-elected leader started to nationalize their oil companies. He wanted to keep Iranian oil for Iran. This threatened American oil business in the region.
Kermit Roosevelt, the son of Teddy Roosevelt, was that operative, and he was surprisingly successful in deposing Iran’s leader and replacing him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran. The best thing was that he did it quietly, without a war, and it only cost a few million dollars.
Once the debt reaches a critical mass, corporations send in a negotiator. The negotiator convinces the leader of that nation to sell their resources to American corporations for a discount price, to pay off their debt.
The Bible explicitly says to not do this.
In short, Americans loan these weaker countries money,
Is China do this to us now?
If there is corruption around the globe, we might ask, “Who is doing the corrupting?” But, we may not like the answer.
Our practice of American empire-building is also what drives illegal immigration into our country.
Are we really committed to ending illegal immigration? Then we should seriously consider ending our corporate stranglehold on developing nations. By making the lives of people in other nations better, we will ultimately make our own lives better.
Researchers at Princeton University recently looked at 20 years’ worth of data to answer the question: “Does the US government represent the people?”3
To quote the actual study: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
But the study also revealed another alarming fact: Those who had influence—the extremely wealthy, corporations, those who could buy lobbyists to promote their interests—were much more likely to have their way in Congress.
So, while we cheer for Katniss in The Hunger Games as she defies her oppressive government, we would never tolerate anyone who refused to place their hand over their heart and pledge allegiance to our flag at a football game.
When people are afraid, they are easy to manipulate. They are quick to adopt an “us versus them” posture, and will more readily participate in scapegoating—in which an entire people group, political party, religious group, race, or other faction may be pinned with the blame for whatever threat has been identified, whether real or imagined.
Let’s not kid ourselves here. We cannot do both. Either we put our hope in Christ and walk in His love, or we walk in fear and live our lives as people who must manage those fears.
This fear is simply a tool to manipulate us into voting the way they want us to, to send money, or to add our name to a survey. Fear is a tactic, and it’s not one that is used by our Lord. Our Lord commands us to rest in Him and trust that He is in control. What’s more, He tells us to “seek first the Kingdom of God” and not to worry about tomorrow.
“There are two opposite spirits that have been operative within American Christianity since the beginning of this nation. One is submission. The other is revolution. The one was learned from Jesus, the other from the Enlightenment. This dual spirit explains how guns, the military, soldiering, and Old Glory are virtual sacraments in the life of the American Church. In fact, the average Christian may be more moved to tears by these symbols than they are by baptism, the broken bread and poured out wine, and the preaching of the cross.”
Jesus never meant for his commands to be obeyed by national governments. He was speaking to His followers—the Church.
The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, by Leonard Verduin. In this book, the author explains how the Anabaptists and the Reformers clashed over exactly the same question: “Who are ‘we’? ” The Reformers said that “we” equaled everyone in a given nation. The Anabaptists—in contrast—believed that “we” only pertained to the Church—the Body of Christ—and that the State’s authority ended at the doorstep of the ekklesia.
Jesus had introduced a revolutionary idea that completely decimated the idea of sacral society. To understand why this was so revolutionary you have to first understand what is meant by a “sacral society.” Sacral doesn’t mean “sacrament.” It means “bound together by a common religious loyalty.”
So, the Reformers were sacral and therefore they saw themselves as being both Christians and Nationalists. The Anabaptists were non-sacral, having embraced the revolutionary teachings of Jesus that allowed them to identify themselves as followers of Christ alone.
They also tend to see America as a Christian nation and attempt to “bring America back to God”— as if it were ever a nation that was founded on the specific teachings of Jesus. This difference in perspective is significant. It’s ancient. It’s also deadly.
They, sacralists that they were, knew no answer to this question. It vexed them every time they tangled with it. And for that reason they confronted the Master with it, so that He too might be embarrassed by it and be hopelessly pinned in a corner. How great must have been their surprise at the ease with which Jesus, acting on the new insight He had come to convey, sailed through the dilemma with “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”. In His way of thinking there wasn’t even any problem.
It is implied in the NT vision that Christianity is not a culture-creating thing, but rather a cultureinfluencing one.”
The Church was never meant to be yoked to the State. We are not compelled to legislate culture through the courts or the law. Instead, we are commanded to communicate the radical Gospel of Jesus to everyone around us, and to influence the human heart to submit to the rule and reign of Christ—regardless of what the laws of the land may be.
The New Testament vision does not pit a “Christian culture” against a non-Christian culture; rather does it introduce a leaven into any existing culture into which it insinuates itself, a leaven whereby that already existing culture is then affected.”
As long as Christians maintain a sacral perspective of their faith and their society, they are immunizing themselves to the teachings of Jesus. One cannot help but wonder if this mindset exposes the enemy’s tactics against the Body of Christ. As long as Christians embrace this sacral ideology, the Gospel remains unpreached and unlived.
Sadly, I believe that the Church today is more American than Christian. We are largely unable to divorce our faith from our nationalism.
There is only one holy nation on this earth, and it is us: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” (1 Peter 2:9). Who is the apostle Peter talking to? To the Church. We are the people who are now called “a royal priesthood” and “a holy nation.” (Revelation 5:9-10).
If we continue to cling to tribalism, which declares that we are separate from everyone else in the family of God around the globe who is not also in our tribe, then we divide the Body of Christ.
In fact, all of these divisions are evil and are tactics of the enemy to drive the Body of Christ apart. Jesus said that our unity in love would be a sign to the world that we were His disciples. This is why the enemy has worked so hard—and so successfully—to divide Christians over things like doctrine, denominations, nationalism, racism, etc.
Jesus, in Revelation, is seen as a King who is waging war with the nations of the earth. Not just the “bad” nations—every nation. His Kingdom intends to supplant and replace every earthly kingdom that has ever reigned or will ever reign.
