Conversion to authentic Christianity requires revision of everything, including one’s politics.
Authentic biblical Christianity exchanges human allegiances for the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). Change of this kind is the essence of what the Bible calls ‘repentance’ (Greek: metanoia)—a complete “change” (meta) of “mind” (noia)—the replacement of ephemeral objects of worship—whether physical statuary or mental concepts—for authentic worship of the true living God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).
Commending this “higher calling,” the Apostle Paul instructs: “Set your minds on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).
Immigration into the kingdom of God entails a comprehensive change of citizenship, a completely new political identity. Biblical Christianity celebrates the change in acknowledging that God has “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).
Politics is Paul’s subtle but certain rhetorical analogy. In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul instructs the Philippians of their newfound citizenship in the kingdom of God, a citizenship that supersedes the previous honors they’d known as citizens of the Roman Empire. The Philippians’ citizenship in the kingdom of God eclipsed the ius italicus status that Augustus once conferred upon them in honor of Philippi’s contributions to Augustus’s civil wars against Brutus and Cassius, Antony and Cleopatra.
Surpassing the advantages of alliance with Rome, union with Christ initiated a new covenantal alliance with God, whose gift of eternal citizenship called for a conduct in the here and now that prefigured how life was to be lived in heaven for eternity. Authentic worship of God enabled by faith in Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit was Christianity’s ethos as it reflected the true character of God, their exclusive king (Philippians 1:27). Such lives “conduct themselves” in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the politic “politeuesthe” of the gospel “euangelion” that Christians were to authenticate in their daily lives (Philippians 1:27). Biblically, this is what true evangelicalism looks like.
This change of citizenship, Paul continues, comprehensively reorients lifestyle for the sake of authenticating the gospel of Jesus Christ, “tou euangeliou tou Christou,” whose call to a humble life of obedient sacrifice (Philippians 2:5-11) contrasts categorically with the “might makes right,” “right of conquest” global politic that dominated the ancient world’s successive global empires.
In contradistinction, the Philippians’ security, Paul disclosed, was not their political alliance with Rome, but their union with Christ, their true Savior and executor of eternal ‘citizenship’—“politeuma” in the kingdom of heaven (Philippians 3:20).
That Rome interpreted such statements as politically subversive explains both Paul’s imprisonment when he wrote Philippians and his eventual execution as an enemy of the state. Paul was beheaded for violating a political autocrat, Caesar, whose narcissistic propaganda exalted himself as “Savior,” “Son of the Deified One,” “Father of the Fatherland,” trailblazer of peace (“Pax Romana”) and champion of the Roman “gospel” (euangelion).
Propagandizing politics spread imperial religion through imperial images and inscriptions on coins, mile markers, town monuments, imperial cult temples, and ubiquitous imperial statues—one contemporary archaeological estimate being that more than 50,000 statues of Augustus once pervaded the Roman empire.
The canonical authors admonished that Christians not compromise with politically oriented manmade religion—an utterly anti-Christian abomination (Revelation 13:18).
Few today respect the biblical origins of the term evangelical due to preoccupation with the term’s contemporary social and political connotations. Still fewer honor its origins in the Greek language, where the term derives from euangelion, the term pre-Christian Jewish translators chose to translate the Hebrew word, basar, in passages later Christians would preach as fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 40:9, 52:7, and 61:1, for example, translate basar with euangelion as the history altering “good report” of God’s arrival to save his people from imperial bondage.
Reinforcing these thoughts, the extra-biblical backgrounds of euangelion in Aristophanes (5th Cent BC), Xenophon (4th Cent BC), Cicero (1st Cent BC), Josephus (1st Cent AD), and Plutarch (1st-2nd Cent AD) chart a linguistic trajectory in which euangelion consistently signifies good news of political triumph.
The term euangelion, from which we get evangelical, had politically loaded “kingdom” connotations in Old Testament contexts that made it fit for translating Jesus’ declarations of the kingdom of God: “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel” (euangelion; Mark 1:15).
Jesus’s call to repentance in Mark 1:15 shares the same pastoral motive as Paul’s in Philippians; namely, via repentance, listeners may evade the collapse of ephemeral earthly empires by subordinating earthly citizenship to eternal citizenship in the kingdom of God and by exchanging worship of human potentates for the worship of the true living God.
This biblical understanding of euangelion thus invites perennial contrast between gospel truth and gospel fraud—between Jesus’ actual fulfillment of the gospel and Caesar’s pretentious propaganda.
Through it all, behavior is the badge of true citizenship. “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16-20). “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth,” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied,” “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:5-9).
In questions of politics, authenticity takes the form of an understood hierarchy of allegiance—with God at the top: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21)—i.e., taxes to Caesar, worship to God. There is no confusing of Caesar with God or political office for Christ: “Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father!” (Philippians 2:11).
The gospel of the kingdom of God prophesies God’s sovereign rule as coming to replace every human empire throughout history—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, Rome, and every successive empire to follow. The political deficiencies of empire after empire, satirized and parodied throughout the Scriptures, across historical generations and literary genres, exposed without interruption the narcissistic, bestial hubris of autocrat after autocrat—Pharaoh, Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Antiochus, Herod, and Caesar.
Recognition of and repentance from human juggernauts of power became the sum of biblical wisdom—what the Bible calls ‘the fear of the Lord’: voluntary, unconditional surrender to God followed by confession of sin and entrance, by God’s grace, into the kingdom of God through atoning union with God’s Son. This identity change involves more than citizenship. It’s an adoption into the family of God.
It is union with the Son of God by faith that makes one a child of God regenerated by the Holy Spirit to pray to God as to ‘our Father.’ Jesus’ death on the cross having achieved the forgiveness of sins, this new citizenship foresees the believer’s resurrection from the dead before ultimate consummation in the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19:7-10)—the eternal celebration of God’s comprehensive rule, which Christians are called to reflect through public testimony, authentic worship, and Christlike conduct.
Whether or not one believes this gospel, it most definitely is the message of authentic Christianity as revealed in the Bible—Evangelical Christianity’s authoritative canon for faith and practice.
I rehearse this essential Evangelical theology in this journalistic platform for the explicit purpose of differentiating authentic Christianity from the fraudulent practices and deplorable propaganda that daily characterizes the misconduct of President Donald Trump, whose self-worship and “Christian” nationalism definitively disassociate all things Trump from authentic biblical evangelical Christianity.
Categorically opposite Trump culture is the character of Jesus Christ, whose governance is built on laws that command love of God and love of neighbor based upon God’s original covenant relationships with Abraham and Moses, sealed by faith in the former case and articulated with precision in the latter through the Ten Commandments.
The prevailing message is that permanent abiding authentic covenant love from one’s innermost being is what substantiates one’s identity as a child of God. Proof of identity comes through authentic acts of love—love of God and love of neighbor. As the certificate of true citizenship in the kingdom of God, love, as Paul clarifies, “is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).
As professing representatives of God’s kingdom, it is the historic responsibility of God’s authentic people to keep leaders accountable for their fraud, especially leaders who associate with Christianity for political advantage! Donald Trump’s public portrayal of himself as Jesus is a biblical sacrilege worthy of ecclesiastical rebuke and disassociation from all things authentically Christian.
Who is keeping Trump accountable?
Or does Trump trump biblical authority? Have politically compromised church attenders repented in reverse by exchanging Jesus’ radical imperative to love one’s enemies (Matthew 5:44) for the self-gratifying entertainment of Trump’s denunciation of Democrats and other shared enemies, his promises to deregulate and thereby enrich the economy, his shared ethnic biases, “America-first” nationalism, simplistic platitudes, or all the above?
Clearly, Trump’s bullying tactics intend the fear of Trump, not the fear of God. Devoid of mercy, grace, and loving kindness for all humankind, Trump’s religion, whatever it is, disassociates him and his followers from authentic biblical Christianity and, most importantly, from Jesus Christ himself.
A synthesis of nationalism, counterfeit religion, tabloid entertainment society, and casino culture, Trump reduces all of life to a deal. “Life is a deal.” His politics are extrapolations from the casino—poker politics characterized by high risks, bluffs, and ill-advised tweets based on unbridled gambling instinct—brazenly indifferent to the casualties of war, the plight of the poor, the cost to the environment, America’s international reputation, the trust of historic allies, academic freedom, the advancement of medical research and health care, the separation of America’s three branches of power, global peace, and, most importantly, the plight of our children’s children, who will inherit the fallout of Trump’s bizarre legacy.
How categorically different is Jesus’ genuine manifestation of the kingdom of God. “They will know you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “if you have love one for another” (John 13:35; see also Romans 5:4; John 3:16; 1 Timothy 1:5).
For all Christians, especially Americans who profess Christian identity, the need of the hour is repentance from religious nationalism to authentic Christlike faith expressed in behavior that manifests the love and eternal wisdom of God.
The true evangelicalism of Jesus Christ “Seeks first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33)—an eternal kingdom ruled with justice, righteousness, and love—not obstinate, vitriolic hubris.