An Open Letter to the Religious Right

I am an evangelical Christian. I believe scripture is the inerrant word of God. I believe that when scripture speaks with authority on a subject, it is accurate even though it sometimes forces me to confront seeming contradictions. I believe in one triune God who through the person of Jesus Christ has delivered me from sin and will return to judge the quick and dead.

But I no longer believe in you.

While there are many right thinking Christians in the United States, the Christian Right has become as worldly and polluted as the Christian Left. Liberal Christianity in the United States has found that God is ever changing. His pronouncements on homosexuality have evolved. The application of the Bible need not be taken literally. And sin itself must be affirmed. Now the Christian Right does the same. It ignores admonitions of the Bible. It excuses the sins of those on the team.

To be clear, when I say Christian Right, I mean the political organizations that agitate for Christian values in Washington, D.C., not the conservative Christians in America struggling through their lives. I do not mean the mission focused biblically based organizations spread across America. I mean the remnant of the Moral Majority, which still seeks to exercise influence on behalf of Christians in Washington, D.C.

By your actions in Campaign 2016, you have harmed all of our witness. You have made it more difficult to save the lost and more difficult to protect the rights of faithful believers.

You have dragged down the reputation of penitent heroes of the Bible to justify the sins of Donald Trump.

You have dismissed claims of sexual assault against Donald Trump.

You have subverted and perverted the Word to justify and excuse the behavior of a man who finds it accept to degrade others and revels in sexual sin.

You have taken the story of Jesus protecting a woman from stoning and twisted it into an admonition that we should not hold Donald Trump accountable for sexual harassment lest we be “judging” him.

You have ridiculed the motives of the women who have come forward and in some cases mocked these women created in the image of God solely for political gain.

You have defended Donald Trump as partisans, not as Christians.

You have openly embraced a man who revels in sin and failed to publicly call him to repent.

You have made binary a choice that involves the weight of daily faith and determined that one evil should be chosen over another. Then you had the audacity to declare it God’s will instead of relying on God.

You made Christianity partisan instead of holy.

You should be ashamed.

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Donald Trump is going to lose the White House now and through you he has dragged down all of us. When Christians of good faith and conscience stand up now to defend religious liberty, who will take us seriously? You championed a man who does not respect the First Amendment. You championed a man who implied that he, not Christ, will make Christianity great again.

When Christians argue for a moral basis of law, who will take us seriously? You, the media adorned face of Christianity in America, rallied to a man who revels in sin. You dismissed sexual assault claims because you did not want to harm your chances of getting secular, worldly power.

When Christians argue that we should, in the future, have a moral leader, who will take us seriously after you so quickly whored yourselves to Donald Trump?

When Christians take a bold stand, how will anyone assume the motivation is pure when you’ve been taking money from Trump? How will people know that this next time you are not bought and paid for?

We live in an age of increased cynicism toward faith and increased hostility toward Christians. By standing with a man who makes a mockery of faith, who revels in sin, and who calls himself a Christian, but has never felt the need to repent, you have exascerbated secular stereotypes of the Church in America. You have provided all the ammunition the secular world needs to question our motives, our beliefs, and our aspirations.

And yet you have no shame and refuse to acknowledge the damage you have done by excusing a man accused of sexual assault.

Christians should be known by our love, but you have sown division, hatred, and apologies for sin. You have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. You have made an idol of your politics and worship it as a religion. You have allowed bad company to corrupt your good morals.

The harm you have done at a time Christianity is under assault will echo through the coming decades. Instead of putting your trust in the real savior, you went looking for an earthly savior and shackled yourselves to him.

My only hope is that as he sinks down that you remain shackled to him as well and drown in your own irrelevance that Christians in America can be surrounded and supported now by the right Christians instead of the Christian Right.

Let the wicked be put to shame; let them go silently to Sheol.

Shame on you.