Tag: Donald Trump

The Curious, Mysterious Nature of the Kingdom of God, Its Effects in the World, and Our Place In It

The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed

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“Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” 

Luke‬ ‭17:20‭-‬21‬ ‭NIV‬

I have been continually impressed by the countercultural and otherworldly nature of the kingdom of God. In response to the question by the Pharisees, Jesus plainly said that the coming of the kingdom of God is nothing we can observe, but it is in our midst.

As I think about his response, I am reminded that the Holy Spirit is like that as well. The Spirit is like the wind: we can’t see it, but we can see the effects of the wind.

The wind, of course, is a bit less of a mystery than the Holy Spirit or the kingdom of God. We can measure the wind, and we can (somewhat) predict the direction and velocity of the wind. (However, imprecise our predictions may be!)

The wind is a natural phenomenon driven by natural forces (no matter how difficult it may be to predict those forces). Natural forces are different than the forces of personal agency. The Holy Spirit (and the kingdom of God) are forces driven by agency – God’s agency. The Holy Spirit is a Person, and the kingdom of God is, presumably, advanced by God in the “form” of the Holy Spirit (and by the agency of believers as well).

We don’t confuse the wind with other effects in nature, though we might be apt to confuse the effects of the kingdom of God with other effects, such as political, cultural, and other worldview effects.

I suspect that volumes could be written on this!

What are the effects of the kingdom of God? We can’t see the kingdom coming, but I assume we can the see effects of the kingdom of God coming just like we can see the effects of the wind (or the Holy Spirit). It seems that we have some confusion about these things, just as the Pharisees were confused in the 1st Century. However, we do have some guidance from Jesus to help us.

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Certainty in Uncertain Times is the Theme of the Top Article from this Blog in 2021

The most read article in 2021 for this blog has prophetic and apocalyptic undertones.

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Each year since I started this blog in 2012, I have reviewed the most read blog posts of the year. Certain posts on timeless themes, like “It is Well with my Soul: The Story” (from 2014), are perennial contenders. Not this year, though. That article doesn’t even make the top ten.

While some timeless “favorites” (recognizing this is a relative term here) tend to make the list each year, 2021 is marked by the emergence of relatively new writings and a new theme. We might call that theme the signs of the times. At least, we might say that writings which reflect the current times have emerged on top.

That statement is certainly true of the article that is by far the most read article on this blog this year: Who Were the Sons of Issachar? And What Might They Mean for Us Today?

This article was written in September of 2020. At that time we were careening toward a contentious presidential election. Though it was written with only three months to the end of the year, it became the most read article of 2020 (beating out It is Well with My Soul), and it is the most read article in 2021 by far.

In fact, the Sons of Issachar article has quickly become the most read article of my blog, ever, beating out the 2014 article (It is Well with My Soul) three times over. That it grew out of my own angst leading up to the presidential election is certainly a sign of the times. We have had much angst in the last two years!

I have never highlighted a single article in my past annual summaries. This year is different. I will get to the summary, but first I will tell the back story and reflect on the significance of the Sons of Issachar article, which seems to have hit home with people.

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What Should We Do When the Prophets Are Wrong

We should not despise prophecy, but we should test everything, focus on what is good and reject evil.

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“When the prophet of the Lord arrived, King Ahab asked him, ‘Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or not?’” (1 Kings 22:16)

I continue to process the events of the last year, and my reading through Scripture will sometimes call those things to mind. One of those ongoing events involved former President Trump and all the evangelical support he received regardless of whatever he said or did.

There were evangelicals who defended every word and action. Their support was unwavering, and prophets even prophesied that he would be reelected.

Obviously, they were wrong.

Let me say that again. They were wrong. If God spoke to them and said Trump would be re-elected, he would have won, regardless of any voter fraud.

Regardless of the circumstances in the world. God is sovereign. He knows those things. If God actually moved in those prophets to foretell the future, it would have come to pass. They were wrong! God didn’t prompt those prophecies.

More importantly, I want to focus on the evangelical support of Donald Trump. The unwavering support and relentless defense of Donald Trump troubled me greatly from before he was elected in 2016. I wrote often about it. The prophecies that he would be reelected troubled me even more.

They didn’t trouble me because of the thought that Trump might be reelected. Whatever God will do, He will do. If God wanted Donald Trump to be President for another four years, so be it. God establishes authorities. (Rom. 13:1)

The prophecies troubled me because Paul says we should not despise prophecy. (1 Thessalonians 5:20) We should, therefore, not take prophecy lightly. In that vein, I was troubled that I could be dead wrong about my assessment of Donald Trump and of what God is/was doing in our time.

I wrote about the Sons of Issachar who “understood the times” in an attempt to think, pray and write through it. The people who were saying that Donald Trump would be elected were claiming to be like the Sons of Issachar. They claimed to know what God was doing in our times, and they were one hundred percent behind Donald Trump who they claimed was God’s man for this time.

I was personally concerned that I had it all wrong. I am not a prophet, and I don’t claim to be one, though I feel sometimes that I have a prophetic bent in me (whatever that really means). I would not, however, and do not call myself a prophet.

I don’t predict things.

Not that predicting things is all the prophetic gift is about. I don’t think it is. I think the prophetic gift is about speaking the mind of God. It may include speaking the mind of God in a particular moment, to a particular person or people, or not. It may include speaking God’s mind and heart generally.

I believe people who preach can be prophetic in their preaching. There are teachers, and then there prophetic preachers.

Prophecy may (at times) be predictive, but I think it is more about speaking God’s mind and heart than the ability to predict things. For whatever reason, though, people are really interested in predicting things and knowing the future. In fact, we seem to be obsessed with it.

This isn’t anything new. The disciples asked Jesus many times about when the end would come. Jesus said it wasn’t for them to know the day or time. Still, they pressed him.

Throughout history are examples of people claiming to know the end times. Though, many people have predicted days and times, they have all been wrong.

Of course, someone someday might be right, so people continue to try….

Not that I think we should. Jesus said we wouldn’t know. I take him at his word.

We see this same kind of preoccupation with wanting to know the future in the Old Testament. I recently read the story of Israel’s King Ahab and Judah’s King Jehoshaphat coming together to attack the City of Ramoth Gilead that once belonged to Israel. This story has something to say to us today on the subject of prophecy, and it’s the backdrop for what I have on my mind today.

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Decompressing from Politics, Storming the Capitol Building, and the Church in America

Does anyone think the “QAnon shaman” is really representative of Christians?

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Crowd of Trump supporters marching on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Creative Commons License

I think many Americans have been trying to decompress from the events that took place on January 6th. The long, tense build up to the electoral college vote count, the persistent claims of fraud and a stolen election, the rally and then the sudden alarm of people storming the Capitol Building are being replayed now in the impeachment hearing.

Legal retribution is grinding forward. The Biden/Harris duo were confirmed, took over the White House and issued a flurry of executive orders, but we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The ripple effect of the events that preceded the inauguration seethe and heave under the surface.

A majority of Americans condemn the outburst of misplaced patriotism that spilled into the Capitol Building and onto the congressional chamber floor. Most were horrified by it. It looks even worse in retrospect.

I recently heard someone emphasize that Trump lost by 7M votes. That seems like a hefty number, but consider that almost 75M people voted for him. Almost half the country voted for Donald Trump.

How do we move forward? How does the church move forward? (Divided as it, not much unlike the unchurched)

Our human penchant for sweeping generalization in times like these misses the nuance and complexity that fill out the truth. I think about these things as I listen to an interview of Sarah Posner on the podcast, Sacred & Profane, titled Render Unto Q.

Posner wrote the book, Unholy, WHY WHITE EVANGELICALS WORSHIP AT THE ALTAR OF DONALD TRUMP. She speaks in the interview about the New Right, Moral Majority and New Apostolic Reformation as precursors from the 1970’s and 80’s to what she calls “worship at the altar of Donald Trump” today.

I was involved in the New Apostolic Reformation during that time period, though we didn’t have a label for it. I remember the influence of politically minded religious leaders and religiously minded political leaders during those times.

I am now an outsider to the New Apostolic movement, but I was once an insider. I have friends who are still actively involved in current iterations. As I listen to the interview, many of the things Posner says ring true, but I can bring a little nuance into the dialogue from my own experience.

Sarah Posner has studied these things closely, and is somewhat a subject matter expert on the involvement of evangelicals in politics. She has a far more nuanced understanding than most people, so her comments bear some consideration. I will summarize some of Posner’s observations and add my own, especially where I can add some clarity from my own experience.

Part of the problem with critiques of what happened on January 6th is trying to understand the strange mixture of forces that came together in the storming of the Capitol. They have long been stewing together in a weird kettle of different fish.

As with any stew, the individual ingredients take on a singular flavor, given time, and this stew has been marinating for quite a while. To the extent the church is close enough to this stew to take on its flavor is concerning.

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Martyrs, Satan, Nuclear Bombs and Holding on for a New Normal

We need a new normal and new perspectives.

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As I think about the events of this week (and of the past four plus years) and read through social media comments, I am thinking about things that have been percolating in my mind and heart for some time. I will try to lay them out in this blog article by borrowing some quotations from my social media feed with some hope I can tie them together and make some sense of it.

I write this thinking about neighbors and people I have spent time with, shared a drink or meal with, laughed with, worked with and done some aspect of life with who don’t think or vote exactly as I do. Some of them voted for Trump; some would never vote for Trump.

I may find it hard to synthesize all of these points as I let my social media feed direct my steps, but here goes.

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