Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned

by Brian D. McLaren

No matter how many lies their candidate told, no matter how small-minded and vengeful he showed himself to be, when he advocated violence against protestors engaging in free speech, when he normalised white supremacists and neo-Nazis, when he bragged of adultery and sexual assault, when he boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue with no repercussions, and even when he dared to disagree with one of Jesus’ central teachings – while at the National Prayer Breakfast, no less – even then, white Christians, especially Evangelicals, stood by him. Along with too many of their white Catholic and Mainline Protestant brothers and sisters, white Evangelical Christians remained the most loyal segment of his loyal base, even when he botched the response to COVID-19, even when his toll of lies topped 30,000, even when he incited a mob to storm the Capitol just before his turbulent presidency ended.2 It became increasingly clear that they loved him not in spite of his faults but because of them. He might be tough, crude, dishonest, vicious and self-serving, but he was their tough, crude, dishonest, vicious and self-serving champion.

Jesus had to be incarnated as a non-violent man because men were (and are) so violent that we needed a new model of manhood as the next step in our redemption.)