The Politics of Fire and Brimstone
A Black Eyed Story
American journalists reporting on any American institution—most especially our government—should first know this: the church will always be the church because it has always been the church, and America built its church long before it wrote its Constitution and long before it built its union, and like any other American institution, the church, first and foremost, was built to protect other American institutions, forever and ever, as long as America and the church both shall live, ‘til death they do part.
Find an audio reading of this Black Eyed story above.
If a political journalist or analyst wants to be of any worth, it would greatly benefit them to spend just as much time wading in the holy waters of Christian culture as they do in the press gallery on the Congress floor or roaming the halls of the Capitol. They should attend worship services not just as spectators angling for a story, but join the fellowship. Evangelical, Southern Baptist, Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Non-Denominational, Mormon. They should be washed in the blood of the lamb of all of them. Because as Saint Paul put it, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him…”
They would learn that the foundation of the church is built on Paul – the poured-concrete word on women, on same-sex relationships, on child-rearing. Jesus’s words on money, loving enemies, and welcoming the stranger, are immaterial and intangible - perhaps trapped in the Church attic, absorbed by the asbetos-riddled insulation, largely forogotten. But if those spores of Jesus’s words every escaped, their effect on the church would be deadly.
They should go back and listen to the sermons of prominent figures from 17th century Puritans to stump-preaching hush harbor gatherers to tent revivalists to televangelists to mommy bloggers to mega church demi-gods. They should read all their books – especially the ones published during the rise of the Moral Majority and during the Obama administration. They should dig up every church doctrine and creed and statement of faith, visit all the church schools and universities and seminaries, and go to all the conferences, and sit with each and every designated Christian-worldview therapist.
I’m so tired of listening to bright, brilliant, multi-degreed, ivy league fellowed and tenured brainiacs who pop-up on newscasts and podcasts as political experts. I’m tired of these pundits talk-talk-talking about politics without first and foremost talking about the church. I’m tired of their head scratching and their wondering why and their befuddled expressions at the behavior of far-right Christian soldiers. I’m tired of these mentalists, well-endowed in published articles and books, pulling out the words of Jesus (and Dr. King if it’s Black History Month) and firing them at conservatives as proof of their hypocrisy and stupidity. They don’t understand that their rubber bullets are useless. A good man or woman of God loves nothing more than to be maimed. They welcome the scars—in the name of Jesus!