Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

by Brian Zahnd

But how Constantine lived his Christianity is quite revealing. In delaying his baptism for twenty-five years—until he was nearing death—what was Constantine saying? Wasn’t he saying that he couldn’t really be a Christian until he was dead? Wasn’t he saying that ultimately his Christian faith was for the afterlife and not for this present life? And wouldn’t Jesus and the Apostles call that an enormous falseness? Jesus didn’t preach a gospel for the dead; Jesus preached a gospel for the living and said, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”[17] When Jesus commissioned his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God, he did not mean for them to say, “The kingdom of God is at hand, but don’t worry about any radical changes—for now we’re going to keep on fighting and striving and killing for greatness like we always have.”

“now is not the time to heal, love, and make peace; now is the time to kill, hate, and wage war.”

Committed as they were to a dualistic us vs. them paradigm, they could only interpret my kingdom-conscious approach to politics as traitorous. “If you’re not on our side, you must be on their side!” In their closed dualistic system, even Jesus has to be either a Republican or a Democrat.

If the local church is viewed as devoid of what we think of as real power, then we inevitably set our sights on Washington D.C.

And in the current American context, to talk about Christian nationalism is to talk about Donald Trump. I take the widely reported 81 percent support of Donald Trump among white evangelicals to be primarily driven by the aims of Christian nationalism. Christian Trumpism and Christian nationalism are essentially synonymous.

How could you be enthralled with someone like Donald Trump and be a follower of Jesus? And this was all long before Donald Trump became a serious political figure.

Donald Trump was the reality TV embodiment of three of the deadly sins—lust, greed, and pride.

When authentic Christian faith is trumped by white evangelical fear, we have a problem. My ultimate concern is not for the political state of America (though I do care about this), but the spiritual state of the evangelical soul. John Fea concludes his book with these sobering words. Evangelicals can do better than Donald Trump. His campaign and presidency have drawn on a troubling pattern of American evangelicalism that is willing to yield to old habits grounded in fear, nostalgia, and the search for power. Too many of its leaders (and their followers) have traded their Christian witness for a mess of political pottage and a few federal judges. It should not surprise us that people are leaving evangelicalism or no longer associating themselves with that label—or, in some cases, leaving the church altogether. It’s time to take a long hard look at what we have become. Believe me, we have a lot of work to do. Believe me.[3]

But that’s not what I see happening. What I see among evangelicals—especially among some of the most prominent evangelical leaders—is an enthusiastic, uncritical, carte blanche support of Donald Trump that has more than a touch of religious aura to it.

willing to kill their enemies on their behalf? That’s Barabbas! Barabbas was a national hero and a violent revolutionary willing to kill in the name of “freedom.” When you say, “I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find,” be careful, you might be saying, “Give us Barabbas!”

see charismatics—people I know well and love—scrounging around in the Old Testament and making preposterous claims about Donald Trump being some kind of modern-day Cyrus. Please. Do these people not have a New Testament? Don’t they know that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead and exalted him to his right hand? Don’t they know that God has given dominion over the nations to his exalted Son? Don’t they know that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to King Jesus?

God is no longer raising up pagan kings to enact his purposes, God has raised Jesus from the dead, and the fullness of God’s purposes are accomplished through him

I’m not reading 2 Chronicles to understand how God’s purposes are accomplished in the world of the 21st century AD—I’m reading Ephesians and Colossians! I’m not looking for a Cyrus—I’m looking for Christ! The resurrection of the Son of God changes everything, and if it doesn’t influence our political theology, we are failing to do theology as Christians.

I’m not looking for a New Babylon where some elephant or donkey sits on the throne, I’m looking for the New Jerusalem where the Lamb sits on the throne.

it’s just what happens if you can’t perceive the radical difference between what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God and what Thomas Jefferson dreamt of in 1776.

But it does mean we must always be prepared to spend a night in the lion’s den if our allegiance to national interest comes into conflict with our allegiance to God’s kingdom—and we should operate from the assumption that from time to time these allegiances will come into conflict.

But the possibility to be a faithful church is real too, and I believe in the possibility of a faithful church with all my heart. My life-defining faith in Jesus Christ not only includes faith in the church but requires faith in the church. For