The "H" Word

In the recent final season of The Boys (which I don’t recommend) one of the major plot points is the evil narcissistic superman-like character Homelander decides he is now “God”. Not that he’s the son of God, or a second coming of Jesus but “God” himself. This comes with establishing official government sponsored churches and coming out with his own rewritten “Bible”. A part of this new “Bible” consists of a new “American Testament” written supposedly by AI using the works of Pat Robinson. Homelander distinguishes himself from Jesus in a positively eerie propaganda video where a fake Jesus tells Homelander “Turning the other cheek isn’t working we need results. A real Savior with real American values.” (Anthony Starr’s performance in that scene is hilarious)

Of course, this was meant to parody the Trump Bible but it ended up being way more prophetic because the week before that episode aired with a golden Homelander statue, Trump had erected a golden statue of himself and had posted an AI meme of himself as Jesus. Even the showrunner Eric Kripke couldn’t get over the absurd hypocricy, “To me, yes, the Trump statue is just tacky, but it isn’t even about the statue… It was about, like, the evangelists encircling it, like, praying, that I just found so crazy. I forget who said it and I’m paraphrasing, but one of the quotes on social media was, ‘If you have to say this isn’t a golden calf, I sort of feel like you’ve lost the, is this a golden calf argument?’”

It isn’t just the idolatry or the blasphemy that is clearly on display by Trump. It’s as Kripke noted, the hypocrisy of Evangelicals that have routinely turned a blind eye to damning and dangerous undermining of God, the gospel, and the name of Jesus Christ. There’s a word for that, heresy. I know that word is uncomfortable for many Christians. I particularly grew up in a tradition that overused that word and robbed it of its seriousness. But I believe it is time for that level of serious. Those of us who call ourselves Christian need to clearly delineate not just the false teachers but the trajectory the American church is heading. It isn’t just that Evangelicals have entertained false teachers, it’s that they are creating government policy based upon lies. These policies and the President himself have been partially shaped by grifters and charlatans. Finally, people who clearly are abandoning the very gospel they claim to preach are gaining alarming institutional power.

A ”Movement” Based on Lies

Two things happened this past week, Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission published it’s preliminary report and the Texas school board voted to make the Bible required reading in public schools. This was not a coincidence. In an Oval Office press event Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick stated, “The separation of church and state is not in the constitution, and from this day forward, if anyone says that to you and they’re in public office or serve in any agency in official capacity, they have to point out exactly where you have violated the Constitution because you have not.” One can only wonder if this was intentionally said to provide cover for the Texas school board.

Of course, Patrick’s remarks are a long held “argument” most notably pushed by propogandist David Barton with whom Dan Patrick has partnered with numerous times. Like most propaganda it weds one truth, the actual words “separation of church and state” are not in the First Amendment with a lie, that the principle articulated by those words are not as well. The report of the Commission itself is not as “enthusiastic” as Patrick admitting that the “metaphor” of “wall of separation” had been overused. Yet even in the report there are falsehoods propping up their position. The report claims, “The idea that it does allow—or even require—a “wall of separation” only took off in the mid-twentieth century”. This insinuation is that the legal concept hadn’t really existed till the mid 20^th century. This is false. The phrase was first used by the Supreme Court in 1879 and had been used in the appellate courts before that. The 1947 court didn’t pull Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists out of nowhere, “separation of church and state” had been settled law for almost one hundred years.

This isn’t the only falsehood that plagues the Christian Nationalist movement. In fact, the entire enterprise is built on either outright lies or at best myth. Take a few recent examples, the James Madison quote given to justify the display of the Ten Commandments is made up. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson similarly loves to use a John Quincy Adams quote that also doesn’t exist. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth loves to use a myth about George Washington as if its real. Pastor Josh Howerton recently repeated a talking point David Barton loves except there’s only one problem, the DC school board they reference had merely given Thomas Jefferson a ceremonial position as “president” when he was President and he had already left (1809) and was back in Virginia when the board approved the Bible and an Issac Watts hymn (1812).

All the above doesn’t even come close to the fact that Paula White-Cain is the President’s “spiritual advisor” and member of the aforementioned Religious Liberty Commission. White is a charlatan whose history is rife with questionable bankruptcies, allegations of Ponzi schemes, and even outright embezzlement and fraud. Paula routinely demands money from her followers in promise of vague “blessings” that they will only receive if she gets thousands of dollars over a short amount of time. White-Cain’s “ministry” isn’t even close to espousing anything close to orthodoxy or the Christian gospel. Yet one of the biggest ironies has been the biggest voices opposing “Women’s ordination” and supposed “Biblical Faithfulness” have dutifully made the pilgrimage to the White House to submit to Paula’s “leadership”

The above are simply some of the most recent examples but they are far from extensive. Let me give one more example and offer some questions, recently David Barton and his son (heir apparent and also not a historian), were invited to speak at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In their presentation Tim claimed that pastor John Wise had inspired the Declaration of Independence, “In one of these two sermons, John Wise, and I quote, says, “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” That’s in the Declaration! This is also where they got the idea he taught that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed. He taught—and this is in these sermons, these two sermons—he taught that taxation without representation is tyranny. Those are all things that show up in the Declaration.” There’s only one problem, those words never appear in the sermons Tim is referencing. In fact, those words don’t appear in the entire book Tim Barton was holding up. (For more follow Warren Throckmorton here)So, let me ask a few questions, what does it say about the reputation of the church that platforms someone who so easily and blatantly lies? What does it say about the agenda that person is presenting to the church that is built on an obvious lie? What worldview or beliefs are the Bartons trying to get the people in that church to believe about themselves that is based on a lie?

Calling What is Good Evil and Evil Good

To return to the irony of The Boys and the “Homelander Bible” someone couldn’t possibly be that blasphemous and heretical in real life, can they? I mean surely a “Christian” publisher wouldn’t put out anything that even remotely sounds like “turning the other cheek isn’t working” right?

I have to thank Sarah Stankorb for alerting me to a soon to be published book Loser Theology: Why the Weak will not Inherit the Earth by Northern Kentucky pastor and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary alum, D. Michael Clary. The book is being published by Doug Wilson’s publishing arm Canon Press (Clary’s first chapter is available for download and the quotes have been taken from that) . In it Clary pretty much places Russel Moore as his exemplar of “Loser Theology”, “Loser Theology regards itself as the truest and most humble expression of Christianity, delivering an embattled yet faithful minority report in the midst of a hostile culture. Exiles make better witnesses than culture warriors, Moore says. Given this self-identity, advocates of Loser Theology gladly concede the majority position to secularists, to whom they bear their prophetic gospel witness.”

According to Clary the Christian church in America has declined and a whole host of secular issues (some wildly overblown) have come because Evangelicals went “soft”. Instead of seeing the Elder Brother in the Prodigal Son parable as the example they saw him as needing just as much salvation as the rebel. It’s “loser theology” that led to the Obergefell decision to legalize gay marriage (just how Christians were supposed to stop that Clary doesn’t say). Clary castigates Christians that were angered by January 6 because that rage shouldn’t be directed towards conservatives. He later reiterates, “That’s Loser Theology in a nutshell: a half-Christ who always bears the cross, never wears the crown, and calls us to follow his example of losing. Some Christians have a cultural apologetic that only see believers as a marginalized minority, never as a powerful majority. Loser Theology has no vision for victory. In fact, victory feels almost unholy.”

While Clary doesn’t outline in his first chapter (a serious literary flaw) is his particular theology of winning. He does however offer what he believes is the antithesis to Russel Morre and what winning looks like, Doug Wilson. Clary states, “Ironically, CNN was interviewing Pastor Wilson precisely because he’s winning. Pastor Wilson is cultivating an optimistic, victorious culture in Moscow, whose impressive cultural output includes church planting, a classical Christian school, a publishing house, nationally distributed television programs, and other Christian Media.”

Let me address some things about Clary’s incredibly flawed premise for this book right off the bat- Christians, and particularly Evangelical Christians simply ARE a minority in America. They have ALWAYS been.

It is significant that Nones (those with no religious affiliation) now outnumber Evangelicals on an almost 2-1 ratio. To appeal to Christians to live as a faithful minority isn’t calling them to abandon anything it’s simply calling them to acknowledge reality.

Secondly, it doesn’t appear to cross Clary’s mind that the decline of American Christianity might be because of the very attitudes and theologies he supports. The Southern Baptist Convention has lost over three million members since it’s height in 2006.

It has been estimated that at best 1/3 and at worst 2/3s of children raised in Evangelical households have walked away from the faith with many citing the very parenting they received as a factor. Conservative Evangelical supporting Republicans have held Presidential power for 26 of the last 56 years as opposed to 18 years for Democrats. Republicans now hold every single branch of the Federal Government and have supermajorities in numerous States. One honestly has to wonder what Clary defines as “losing” in this moment in time.

Finally, Clary’s hero worship of Doug Wilson as a “winner” is utterly disqualifying. Wilson was deemed unfit by his own church. Wilson enabled the sin of a pedophile. Wilson is a known racist who’s racism has opened the door for Nazis, yes literal Nazis, to find purchase in the church. Wilson and his “denomination” openly preach a form of semi-Arianism. Wilson teaches baptismal regeneration. Wilson is a repugnant misogynist. Doug Wilson is not a “winner” he is a heretic. And even in his first chapter Clary is proving himself one as well.

I simply do not know how ones squares, “a half-Christ who always bears the cross, never wears the crown, and calls us to follow his example of losing” being somehow bad when that Jesus said explicitly that following him would require taking up a cross daily (Matt. 16:24). The Jesus who said one had to be like a little child (dependent, needy, no rights, no status, no power) to be a part of his kingdom. How does one square a “theology of winning” with a Jesus who told his followers that they would be mocked, mistreated, despised, rejected, and persecuted just like him? To reject that aspect of Christianity is to literally reject the life and character of Jesus that he himself commanded his followers to imitate. There’s a word for that.

The H Word

You might be wondering why some book written by some guy published by a relatively obscure publisher matters. It matters because the current President of the SBC Willy Rice endorsed the book saying, “Loser Theology is fantastic. This is such an important work. I pray God uses this as a prophetic call… this is the corrective call we need to the misguided counsel that celebrates the demise of cultural Christianity while we whisper about truths that demand to be proclaimed with boldness.” The leader of the largest Protestant denomination in America just praised a book I would argue is openly heretical.

Similarly the Barton’s Wallbuilders is important because they are involved with the effort to put the 10 Commandments in schools. They are also behind the push to get the Bible taught in public schools. Wallbuilders is partnering with TPUSA, Heritage, and Hillsdale College to offer public schools social science and American history courses.

This matters because Al Mohler who authored the recent push to further limit the role of women in the SBC also openly partnered with Doug Wilson. It matters because a prominent leader in the PCA Kevin DeYoung who in the past has flaccidly criticized the “culture” coming out of Wilson’s orbit partnered with Canon press to have his books streamed on their platform. It matters because openly racist and I reiterate, people partnered with open Nazis, are not just endorsing Willy Rice but this framing of “loser theology”.

The influence of the Bartons is also significant. What Christian Nationalism offers people is an alternative gospel. It tells people that what makes them close to God is the fact they are American. In order to be “saved” they need to hold political power and ensure that the totems are displayed and the mantras are said. The promise of this “gospel” isn’t connection to God but a comfortable life. What the Barton’s offer isn’t just an alternative (false) history, it’s an alternative religion. When churches invite the Bartons or those like them they are essentially inviting priests of a false god to come in and set up altars to that God in the sanctuary.

Castles Built on Sand

It isn’t that there is merely falsehoods being promoted, nor that outright heresy is being ignored for political convenience. It’s both a question of whose kingdom is ACTUALLY being advanced and how many people we are willing to be hurt by false religion. One of the things that I’ve consistently asked about the American Evangelical culture is, “Where’s the Fruit?” Where is the patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control? I’ve asked along with James, if our ideology/theology doesn’t make us look like God what good is it? No matter what societal good we think we will gain if we have to lie to achieve it are we acting like God? How can God possibly want something for our neighbor if it requires us to abandon one of the fundamental aspects of his character to get it? If we cannot get what we want socially or politically without deception whose “kingdom” are we really advancing?

Similarly, if our cultural prominence require we abandon the nature of the savior we purport to love who would ever trust us? How is “winning” more important than our witness? If we cannot draw people to God (as we supposedly have been drawn), but must FORCE them to worship and submit, what does that say about the God we supposedly worship?

I’ve been a part of cults that were built on lies and false promises. I’ve “submitted” in order to receive the promised “blessing” that never came. I’ve seen how it isn’t just the disappointment of the promise never coming to pass, but the allowance of abuse and mistreatment that wrecked churches, homes, parents and children. Turning a blind eye to heresy causes others to fall away from the faith, it causes children to be abused, it causes women to assaulted, and in the end people reject the truth because whatever may have been true was surrounded by lies. And that’s just on an individual level.

The ”exvangelical” movement exists because children and earnest new Christians encountered patriarchy, authoritarian parenting, and an education that was built on propaganda. I can only wonder what the culture at large does with American Christianity when it fully reckons with how much those trying to influence it now are doing so based on lies. What happens when the “nones” finally lose their cultural patience with a minority that cannot accept that fact? One of my biggest fears now is what will happen when those who have orchestrated this current MAGA “Christian” movement are gone. The Evangelical church in America is going to be unrecognizable in twenty years because a generation of power obsessed fools will be gone (more next week). Calling out false religion, no matter who is promulgating it, isn’t just about loving our Christian brothers and sisters that they might not be deceived. It may be required so that we offer something that is true in the backlash that comes from the rejection of what is false.

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