My God does not change.

Working through the grief of the complicity in sexual abuse coverups in the evangelical church that extend to the leadership in The Gospel Coalition and other high profile evangelical celebrities has been one thing. Then to add to that the- in some quarters phenomenal and unapologetic - evangelical support for a man who bragged about sexual assault, never apologized to those he spoke about (victims), and then yesterday smeared alleged victims who came forward to warn against him, is a last straw personally. I blew up on a few former friends this week. I was in the wrong for being toxic in my frustration. I can't undo what I did, and I can only move forward never handling it that way again. My language has been affected; I've excused things I've said because the evil I am seeing beggars belief and there are few words that are foul enough to describe it, or the betrayal I feel. Again, I am a child of God and do not need nor should I stoop so low. So I trust I can repent and grow in grace out of this, even if people cannot forgive me. I wouldn't blame them.

But to see that Ben Carson thinks we Christians have to set aside our Christianity to get things done in our nation, to hear that Jerry Falwell Jr. would still vote for a man who sexually assaulted women, and to see James Dobson and too many others so compromised they would insist Christians "forgive" an abuser (and also vote for him), is just too much. My blow up was to see Christians in a local church playing the God card of forgiveness and grace about Trump's most recent scandals, ostensibly because "he is a Christian" and who are we to judge, and on top of that one of them insisting that because they themselves had been sexually abused, the victims I know who were hurting over this narrative basically didn't matter. I was accused of lecturing someone who'd been there because I shared in one of my responses that people are hurting and it's not ok. I do not believe we all deal with things the same. I have been stalked and sexually harassed as well as groped once or twice in my life, though not abused as a child, but the pain we all carry is not redundant because of someone else's greater pain that they've managed to compartmentalize like their politics and their faith.

I knew Trump was an abuser the time he mocked a journalist on his disability. I could see the disdain for human life in his insistence on taking out the potentially innocents in a terrorists' family. I saw his willingness to switch, from politically correct sadness over the refugee crisis, to banning all Muslims capitalizing on a terror attack to appear strong, rejecting even the smallest child, with no remorse nor even fake sadness. He played to the callousness of the crowd, and used human lives to do so.  I've seen a friend whose son is disabled deal with horrific patronizing arrogance instead of humble empathy when he spoke out on his Facebook about how much the attack on the journalist hurts.  I've been told online to go back to the UK for putting my feelings about the way Muslims are being disparaged into personal life context.  I've seen a Facebook page, for a group of Christians who are knowledgeable on Islam and Muslim cultures, receive comments accusing them of a left wing and an implied pro-terrorist agenda, for loving Muslims and wanting to tell them about Jesus Christ.

What is most despicable is how so many Christians have enabled and lapped this up. How Franklin Graham could use his platform to smear all Muslims as potential terrorists on multiple occasions, a narrative I know to be untrue. I have missionary friends who are friends with Muslims, and most Muslims they know are just trying to live their lives and be good people. I grew up with Muslim friends, and their Sharia law is practiced at home and is not their expectation for a democratic society, and no they aren't using deception to further an agenda, any more than evangelical Christians may or may not be! The binary thinking I've seen among evangelical Christians who are otherwise kind and caring people- even towards those unlike them, and maybe even with those Muslims they encounter in real life- dismisses human beings as trash online or in unguarded conversations. They spew hatred in the name of God hiding behind their Twitter accounts, and justify it because some guy with a bought PhD from an unaccredited Christian university said that that was speaking the truth in love.  They then claim - when they get push-back for their bullying behavior- that the left is bigoted against Christians.   The world sees through this. Nominal Christians in journalism are sounding more discerning these days than evangelical Christians,who pride themselves on their love of truth. They have forgotten love.

It seems to me from all I've seen this year that Christians who compromise by sticking with Trump become mockers like him. They abuse people and play the victim when people respond to their flawed and even wicked twisting of Scripture, as well as all reason.  There is no reason to suppose they will improve if he were to win the election. They have chosen to follow his "leadership' rather than Christ. It is a grievous sin: idolatry.

There are Christian reasons not to vote for any candidate this year, sadly. There are moral reasons not to vote for most of them. The issue I have wrestled with before God is character and cultural direction, and I have accepted this country as not Christian and entirely ungodly, despite the evangelicals who think they can influence politics for good. One thing I don't think American evangelicals have woken up to yet is that this nation has been guilty during Republican presidencies of the evils of abortion, and God sees and weeps over that evil. He loves every single unwanted baby and not one of those lives is wasted. He is a good God. That doesn't excuse the vileness of abortion, but our nation is potentially guilty of more than killing innocent children in the womb. It has also rejected innocent children it could have helped: migrants, refugees, orphans who were born wanted, let alone families who just might have heard of Christ had they been more welcomed.

In all this, again, God is sovereign love, yet my point is the sin of the evangelical church in America.

In the rush to protect our children we have sacrificed our trust in Almighty God. We have been willfully blind and complicit with evil. Christians have grasped for political solutions of any color rather than getting on our knees and letting our paradigms be reshaped in the image of the true God of love.  If you make these statements, some evangelicals will protest them, but they do not want to acknowledge their systems that make it hard to speak openly, make mistakes, grieve, or disagree, and thus will not acknowledge their complicity, so nothing can be healed.

American evangelicals have made God in an American image and forgotten that all the gods of the nations are idols, but our God made the heavens.  They don't see their place in the world as in just another nation, but they think of their nation as the best, and that culture influences their evangelicalism in an unhealthy manner.  It has for years, not just in 2016.  The rhetoric I have experienced this year alone, about race and religion in context of the humanity of the other, has caused me to consider whether I can have my children around Christians who are Trump supporters. I have no problem with my children being exposed to the world if I teach them the truth at home. But to expose them to lies, about God and people, right in the local church, is unthinkable. Cultural sin is insidious in American evangelicalism. This is not a bashing of the movement, it is an observation from someone who grew up elsewhere and knows the sins of that culture too, about a warped theology. Americans love leaders and celebrities, and have remade the humble servant King as a warrior who is comparable in sacrifice to the American soldier.

That is blasphemy.

Indeed there is something noble and even Christlike about giving one's life to save another, but our God is only a warrior for truth and love, not and never American materialism, dreams, values, attitudes, nor interests. Christians are a peculiar people, strangers here, even in America, because we actually love one another. When love is absent there can be no true Christianity. When victims of sex abuse are un-repentantly smeared as slanderers, that is not Christian. When the hurts of privilege and race are diminished by believers in the privileged group, that despises the God who made us all. When Muslims are rejected as rapists and terrorists instead of loved as people, that is ungodly. All of this is sin. As a foreigner in the world it hurts me deeply, and I have been sinned against personally by rejection. How much more is it an offense to God to sin against people as many in the American evangelical church have done without pity nor remorse?

I believe it is time for judgement to begin at the house of God. This election is less an indictment on our nation and more one on the white evangelical church's compromise and failure to deal with sin. This compromise extends overseas in abuse apologism, shutting down of grief, and promoting of pastors who un-repentantly cover up abuse.  Too many evangelicals have rather put people out or pushed them out than been honest and accepted they don't have all the answers. Pastors and leaders have been allowed to and allowed themselves to play God in situations they should rather have fallen on their face before God about, having called the authorities and rebuked the oppressors. This has been supported by compromised Christians whose values are arguably lower than the world's. It is thus no great surprise when a Christian defends an abuser in politics. It is still a great sin though.

I said the following in my Facebook, and the rest below are links to articles I very much agree with, even where I might disagree with the authors on small points of theology or the place of the USA. The purpose of the church is to be salt and light in a dark world, not to be setting that aside to embrace the darkness to make a fake light. It is impossible to bring light out of darkness unless you are God. And we sure are not.  We most certainly need Him.

From Facebook:
Made the mistake of logging in tonight. Just horrified at the abuse apologism I have seen this year. I haven't been the kindest person myself, and for that I am sorry.  I will attempt to stay offline and reduce my access to news on the election. Voting early so my part will be over soon. I don't think I can be part of an evangelicalism where Trump's behavior can be excused as "just politics" or "a morality issue".  His abusiveness should be rejected and resisted by believers, per the Scriptures, especially since he has claimed to be a Christian.  I don't know how to express my hurt at the silence of professing Christians when it comes to a bullyculture I don't want for my kids' generation that I've seen Trump encourage.  What twists the knife are Christians I can't talk to honestly because they actively support that bully.  It seems many Christians prefer bullying to Christlike leadership. It can reel me in and I lash out as a bully. I know a lot of people are hurting and angry on all sides, and I'm probably not the only one to have been unhealthily angry.  I know there is forgiveness with Him. I also hurt because I've lost a masters' course, many friends I thought were wise about abuse, and any illusions I had about institutional church being a safe place where sin would never be tolerated.  It's a huge grief. If I stay online, I'm going to say more things I'll just regret. But I will never regret standing up this year against bullying, abuse, fascism, and blatant disregard for precious human lives.  I may yet decide to deactivate Facebook entirely after this election, whoever wins.  I may entirely revamp my friends' list to people who know me that I can trust. I dunno yet. We will see how it plays out. But I will say this is classic abuse dynamics: when you get angry at evil, people are way more upset that you did it wrong, than that there is wrong that needs to get addressed. It hurts. This whole year hurts. The evangelical church has hurt me. I do not belong.

I would add this now:  I do belong to Christ. My God will not and has not changed. He is right here: I AM THAT I AM.

At this point the only thing to do, having said and done most of what I can do this painful, evil year, where terror seems to have won out, is to stand firm trusting Him alone.

To that end, please read:

https://medium.com/@jonathanhollingsworth/evangelicals-are-supporting-a-sexual-predator-its-not-the-first-time-f7bdcdeca01c#.vens1hyea

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdLe5fbVw0d12MtiYcJCf-hLDjpr7AdiYTIkMBttqdLuTQbg/viewform

http://theresurgent.com/an-open-letter-to-the-christian-right/?utm_content=buffer2aad1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

https://engagescriptures.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/if-any-of-you-are-without-sin-trump-and-evangelical-illiteracy/