A bit ago I was describing books in a conversation with some folks I care about. As happens sometimes, I flub up a bit — I’ve been known to say that Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers K rather than James David Duncan or that Kuyper founded the Free University of Amsterdam in the early 1900s (it was 1880.) Everybody knows it is a Matisse on the cover of the best-seller The Body Keeps the Score, not a Picasso, as I’m sure I’ve said. There are seven Chronicles of Narnia (although we can argue about the proper order) and nine Little House books (even if the last was published after Wilder’s death) and seven thick Harry Potter books. Or at least I think. After 42 years of bookselling, it’s a lot to keep straight.
But sometimes I don’t just make silly errors about book covers or titles but I hurt someone’s feelings, implying more than I should. And I really, truly, regret that.
Sometimes we joke about our wild diversity here at the bookstore (since some Christian bookstores play it safe and only carry items that their specific customer base approves of.) We say with a smile that one of our marketing mottos is that we have “Something to offend everyone”, but when it actually happens it can be hurtful. And we are sorry.
This week I’ve felt awful and it’s going to take a bit to explain it all. I want to tell you about the book I told them about and want to be careful since the potent title and style of the book, good as it is, could be off-putting to some. It is rather ironic, I suppose, that the book that got me in trouble as I seemed to insult our guests is one about learning to care for and love well those with very different political convictions. I guess I’m struggling with that. Maybe you are too. I hope you bear with me as I meander through what might seem like contentious territory.
(As an aside for those that enjoy these sidebar notes: I’m thinking very much about two richly wonderful books by Marilyn McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies and Speaking Peace in a Culture of Conflict. Both contain deep wisdom and model great grace and counsel that we speak even the hard truth the best we can. She also likes long sentences, but I digress…)
Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor Caleb E. Campbell (IVP) $18.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40
One person said we should think twice before promoting this new title but I think it is a very, very important book and while there are plenty of loose cannons around in our polarized political culture, and too many simplistic memes, this is no off-the-cuff, ill-considered jab.
Disarming… was written by an evangelical pastor who is heart-broken by the ways in which the gospel has been distorted or lost among some in his church, with some members more concerned about political vengeance and getting folks to hear their wild conspiracy theories than they are with faithfulness to ordinary Bible teaching and the ways of Jesus. In some places, in Sunday school classes where there used to be lessons about books of the Bible or Christian living, say, now some highlight the violent, camo-wearing Oath Keepers or how to remove books from the local library. Where Christian used to gather to pray for world missions, now some gather to pray against the government. This is a book, as you can tell, about the idolatry of far, alt-right (usually white) Nationalism and the toxic sort of extremism that is seen these days on the right side of the political spectrum. Disarming Leviathan is written by Rev. Caleb Campbell of Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona.
I read just a day ago the sure-to-be-infamous lines by a big supporter of the Trump Arizona campaign, Patrick Byrne, who talked about getting the “deep state” to drop its charges against an allegedly corrupt Republican election worker. Byrne threatened, repeatedly, that there will be “piano wire and a blowtorch” coming at them if they don’t drop the charges. This kind of anti-law and order stuff is pretty common among some Republican Party officials and supporters these days, so as shocking as it sounds — in the interview he admitted it was most likely a felony to suggest murdering a prosecutor, and used the F-word to describe his feelings about his stated intentions — it is not surprising. This is happening in Arizona, and there are militias and KKK-affiliates and dangerous neo-Nazi types there. The co-founder of a conservative PAC in that state said she would “lynch” a government official who oversees elections (which she said was a joke) so Campbell really is in the thick of it. He is, it seems to me, a brave writer.
Rather than jump right into describing the book, I’d like to ponder out loud a bit about the milieu in which it was written, circling around the topic before getting more directly to it. I hope you keep scrolling and follow along. I know you are busy and I’m presuming on your time and energy. Thanks.
For what it is worth, I came of political age in the late 1960s when political violence was in the air and it was scary. I used to say that whoever said the ‘60s into the early ‘70s were nothing but groovy must not have been there; the left-wing Weathermen made bombs and Daley’s cops pummeled protestors. The National Guard gunned down unarmed students at Kent State (and the Pennsylvania Guard killed an unarmed black visitor in York, near where we live.) Some of us recall the horror of cult-like groups such as the Manson Family and the way Patty Hearst was kidnapped and quickly programmed to become a far-left criminal. Many will never forget the horror of the anti-Jewish massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics. These were bloody, weird days.
However demoralizing Watergate was for many, Nixon was held to account in a bi-partisan way for his lies. Nixonian Republicans put country over party and joined with others to oust the crook. But within a decade or so, things changed and grew much more partisan; a few weeks ago I listed at BookNotes a few books about the rise in the last decades of the 20th century of the often violent far right — militias that made the John Birch Society that I grew up hearing about seem nearly quaint — and how the far right media amplified their voices. Grossly racist and deeply dishonest and often vulgar, Rush and other wannabe shock jocks provoked and pushed right wing populism further far out as the Tea Party movement turned increasingly violent. Newt Gingrich seemed respectable at first but was deeply flawed and became dangerous before even he was run out. Right-wing talk radio daily broadcast bizarre conspiracy theories beyond those promoted by Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, and, eventually, a troubled real estate mogul turned media star, Donald Trump.
You’ll recall how deceitfully Trump treated Barack Obama using racist tropes and rude comments about him not being a true American. As the animosity grew it seemed worse than the regrettable, infamous “Willie Horton” strategy pushed on an otherwise gentlemanly Bush in 1988. It was relentless. It got even more ugly after that, with his contentious slander against Hilary (who I was not a fan of, by the way) time and time again trying to prove she was grossly at fault with the attack in Benghazi; Trump continued to press untruths about that, over and over, knowing full well that the repeated investigations exonerated her. He seemed to love controversy and chaos; once elected he fired dozens of staff and grew uglier with his mocking of former prisoner of war John McCain and other former POWs, had dust-ups with Gold Star parents, continued to use nasty language about women. Conservatives were repulsed — from Mitt Romney to Condoleezza Rice to George Will to Al Mohler — but eventually many gave in. Regularly, President Trump made references to despicable players, from the Proud Boys to former KKK-Wizard David Duke to Vladimir Putin. The GOP has changed immensely since I was growing up (I liked Ike as a boy and my parents were decent WWII-era patriots, even if my dad for a while liked Goldwater.) My favorite political figure ever, who I visited in DC more than once seeking advice, was a Republican Senator (Mark Hatfield) who was a noble peacemaker and respected by nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle. There’s nobody around like him anymore.
It seems to now be a fact as plain as day, even if it sounds uncivil to say so, that Republican leadership and the MAGA movement on the ground has shifted from conservative and thoughtful and gentlemanly and traditional to raw and angry and revolutionary, too-often connected with corruption and meanness, not to mention bizarre Q drops and icky conspiracy theories.
When Trump tells his audiences to rough up the media, folks go crazy. When he repeats Q-Anon messages about a pizza restaurant in DC that is a hub for pedophiles, far right guys come in with weapons. When he doesn’t distance himself from his pal Alex Jones who said 9-11 was an inside job and that the horrible murder of children at Sandy Hook was a hoax and that Hillary Clinton murdered and chopped up people by the dozens, nobody speaks up. (Do they?) It is nearly inconceivable to me, I’ll admit, that Godly people can stomach this stuff but I’m willing to listen to those who may want to explain why they put up with it all.
This is what was hurtful in my remarks made while promoting this book the other day: I said that the Party has nearly capitulated to and often overlooks this kind of impropriety (to put it nicely.) I assumed that it is a matter of record, but to say so seems to imply that my good friends who are normal Republicans are asleep at the wheel, or worse. I implied, I guess, that they were complicit. I did not mean that.
I do not necessarily think that.
I am sorry this is awkward, wanting to applaud and commend this book that suggests that so-called Christian Nationalists are caught up in a monstrous system.
Disarming Leviathan is not suggesting that all conservatives or Republicans are mired in dishonesty and seduced by idols. Like Democrats or Greens or Libertarians or any other party loyalists, they may or may not be.
As one not affiliated with the Republican Party it may not be my place to ask these unpleasant questions and I do not mean to impugn the motives of customers I don’t know well, let alone those Republicans I like and love, who have not felt a need to distance themselves from the worst of the MAGA extremism.
But to set the stage for talking about this book we have to name the stuff it addresses and the language it uses about it.
Pastor Campbell’s book is not a critique of Mr. Trump and those who are still pushing the lies about the election or losing their opposition to those who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power by trashing the Capitol (now implying it was not really so bad, despite the footage of guys using a flag as a spear against police and the high numbers injured in the riot.) The book (and my column) certainly is not about Republicans, per se, but it is about the extreme ideology represented by the shorthand phrase of so-called Christian Nationalism.
It should be obvious to say that not all Republicans and not even all Trump supporters who identify with the MAGA movement are ideological extremists of the Q-Anon sort. Some pride themselves in being thoughtfully Christian (even if they still slander anyone to their left as “Marxist”, use the word “woke” as a mocking pejorative, and cite questionable sources like Breitbart News, The Epoch Times and the like.) There are those who are religious-sounding but in one way or another are adjacent to a far-right movement that seems close to fascism, as if that is kosher. We all know how Viktor Orbán, the dangerously strong autocrat from Hungary, claims he holds to Reformed theology, so there’s that. He comes to DC to speak with Republican leaders, at places like the Heritage Foundation and CPAC, so our times are, admittedly, complicated.
So if the shoe fits, I suppose, we invite you to wear it. If it does not, then you won’t take offense (right?)
I know and often say that good people can disagree about any number of things — and remain friends. I know and say often that good folks can certainly disagree about policy positions and speak about their differences with nuance and respect.
(Heck, I disagree with myself on some policy questions month by month and trying to be a Biblically-informed citizen on a whole array of policies causes me to be ill-at-ease with most Party affiliations across the political spectrum, feeling like an exile from all parties. That’s exhausting and painful, but is another post for another time.)
It is awkward, though, to introduce a book that suggests that some (many?) in this movement are captured by idolatry and that the best way to engage in good conversation is to introduce the gospel of Christ, rather than quibble about policy concerns or culture wars topics.
My point is that I am naming what should be seen as a non-debatable fact of our political reality these days. Despite horrible and deranged stuff from the left sometimes (and the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump a few weeks ago) it is clear that some Republican Party officials have given the wink to very bad people, including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and neo-Nazis and business charlatans. Many Red-state Congresspeople have used exceedingly incendiary language and are funded by very dark sources which do not bode well for our Republic.
Insofar as some of us are part of a party that is somewhat in bed with Q and the likes of Roger Stone and Alex Jones, we must ask about our complicity and integrity. There are many books asking just that these days and I’ve mentioned them before, from The Kingdom, the Power, the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta to The Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace by former Homeland Security agent, Elizabeth Neumann, and, of course, David Gushee’s Defending Democracy From Its Christian Enemies. Each asks about the role of evangelical Christians in the broader movement of the extremist, far right.
Disarming Leviathan does two things, though, that no other book does.
You see, while many sociologists, theologians, historians, and pundits analyze the ways in which self-identified people of faith have been complicit in touting MAGA’s more extremist views, Disarming Leviathan — again, written by a conservative pastor in Arizona — asks how we can minister to those caught up in so-called Christian nationalism. It is exceptional in this regard, well-written, readable, and practical.
He laments for a chapter or two, telling his story and bringing folks up to speed on the current discussions about church and state and far right ideology and Biblically-based foundations for civic life leading to Christianly understood politics. He is firm that the far right ideologies inspired by infowars and Q and white supremacists and para-military extremists are not just bad Christianity, but are simply not Christian at all, no matter how many praise songs they are blasting at their firing ranges and protest mobs. There. You. Have. It.
He is willing to draw a line in the sand and while he doesn’t want to sound judgmental or unkind, he suggests that those who deeply and consistently embrace anti-Christian ideology and language and worldviews, may not be, actually, disciples of Jesus at all. Or, more likely, they have some connection to the church (many, statistics tell us, self-described “evangelicals” actually do not go to church) and need to be shepherded, discipled well, invited to return to their first love.
Or, I might add, they might have such a bifurcated faith, such a dualism between their personal and public lives, that they don’t connect their Sunday love for Jesus and His cross with their far-right cultural warring. (As mega-church pastor Robert Jeffress put it, he doesn’t really care about Christian faith when it comes to elections!) Yikes! Talk about a disconnect! That is a problem, those who don’t even wish for “a seamless life” (to use the lovely phrase from the book by Steve Garber from the great little book by that title.)
Campbell is very clear in stating that he is not saying that anyone in favor of the former President’s campaign is surely not saved. He has a full-page side-bar making this very clear. He does suggest that if they are dedicated to Christ and hold to the constellation of views that make up so-called Christian Nationalism they may not have gone very far along in their faith journey, haven’t studied Scripture or theology or haven’t been guided towards Christ-like spiritual formation. They have been influenced by something akin to propaganda by those who are not astute about solid, historic, Biblical faith. He tries very hard not to seem harsh and he is always inviting readers to grace and kindness and offers caveats and heart-felt stories. It is by far the most personal book about all this I’ve ever read, even more so than the excellent Red State Christians: A Journey Into White Christian Nationalism and the Wreckage It Leaves Behind by the fine and caring writer, Lutheran pastor Angela Denker.
Once again: our author is not some progressive outlaw smearing anyone who holds conventional doctrine or conservative social convictions nor is he unconcerned about the traditionalist values many hold when it comes to our quickly secularizing society. He’s a Bible-believing evangelical who knows that the Word teaches that we can discern a person or movement’s value by their fruits.
He tells (on page 50) of going to a workshop on “Biblical Patriotism” which included “Constitutional Defense” gun training where the largest conversation was about the question “at what point it is okay to shoot government officials?”
There is a lot of anxiety about big government out there and promoters of this movement imply that the faithful need to sign up for the “righteous army” in the coming good versus evil end-of-the-world battle. So, they imply, we should start practicing the killing now as we hone our skills of so-called Biblical citizenship.
It just may be that those who have been captured by the cult-like extremes of the alt-right aspects of this ideology, do not need talked out of their odd politics of grievance but more urgently need to come to really know and trust their Maker and His great love through accepting the good news of the saving work of Jesus the true Christ and to come to understand the Biblical teaching of the Kingdom of God. To put it crassly, these folks don’t need to reconsider their politics and vote against Trump, they need to understand God’s gift of salvation and come to more consistently follow the Biblical Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The very first part of this book explores the notion of Leviathan, a beast-like image in the Bible that conjures up the principalities and powers. It’s potent and good. My favorite full book on that these days is another we’ve touted, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies by N.T. Wright and Michael Bird (Zondervan; $22.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39.) Campbell is well-informed by this balanced, serious, Biblical orientation and it is helpful to read him as he exposes pagan nationalism as such, and the movement around it that is often nearly toxic. It is hard hitting but I think he assumes that most readers attracted to this book already understand something about how irreconcilable nationalism is with Christian faith. He names it and worries about those caught up in it and offers a sobering assessment of what we might call (quoting the National Association of Evangelical’s Matthew Soerens) the “heretical elements of American Christian Nationalism.”
If this is the case, that the more anxious extremes of the nationalist movement are engaged in heresy, then the answer isn’t only more civility and healthier political conversation (although civility in political conversation is always necessary and Campbell provides good guidance about that) but the answer is winsomely sharing the full gospel and the call to the cost of discipleship.
Yep, brazen and somehow hopeful as it may be, Disarming Leviathan is ultimately about evangelism. About outreach and being an agent of God’s reconciliation. About offering a better way.
Here is a very short YouTube clip of Caleb saying why he wrote the book which he describes as a “on the ground” guide to learning to reach those who have given themselves over to Christian Nationalism. Check it out but come back to keep reading, please.
Decades ago a hero of mine, Dr. Richard Mouw, wrote an early book entitled Political Evangelism. It is long out of print but I loved that book, one of the first I read about integrating a view of politics with the social ethics and perspective that emerges from Biblical teaching. I have since read dozens and dozens of other such books on nurturing the Christian mind when it comes to faithful political discernment and advocacy. But none of those books are about evangelism, as such, about calling people into a better story. Disarming Leviathan does not attempt to develop a full Christian view of political life or offer a detailed alternative to the alt-right movement. Rather, it explores how to effectively share the gospel with neighbors or friends or family who have embraced white Christian nationalism and its attendant mixed bag of values. It really is about “political evangelism.”
Campbell does a great job in explaining how to best go about sharing the gospel with people and in this case he says we have to study what missiologists teach us about culture and context, about listening and maybe finding common ground.
That is, if a missionary is going to a foreign land to share Christ’s love and the good news of His Kingdom, she has to learn the stories and values, traditions and customs, symbols and metaphors used by that particular culture. Cross-cultural relationships are always complicated and we sometimes don’t pay adequate attention to cultural and religious assumptions that color stories and values. The patterns of our thoughts and the habits of our hearts are greatly shaped by stories and epic myths, informed by secular liturgies — remember what Jamie K.A. Smith taught us in You Are What You Love?
Caleb Campbell calls us to do this sort of cross-cultural, deeper-level, missiological study of our contemporary political landscape. If we want to present a better story of the meaning of life and a plausibly more wholesome political vision we will have to be astute in knowing how to tell the story of Christ and His grace in a fresh way. Can we be missionaries to so-called Christian nationalists? It is going to take some thinking and gracious relationship-building and Disarming Leviathan has done a great job starting our education and offering guidance for our conversations. If you are interested in a fairly quick read examining from a balanced Christian perspective this dangerously autocratic and extremist movement, with the hope of reaching out to its adherents, this is a really great place to begin.
WE MUST LOVE PEOPLE
However, as important as it is to learn about the symbols and myths and values and stories of a subculture, we also have to really care for the people, to in some ways (I am saying this to help you understand the book, not quoting him exactly) see their stories from the inside. We cannot win folks whose stories we utterly disdain. We need to listen; to care, to offer and receive hospitality. We need to show empathy and respect.
Like Paul in Athens, Greece, on Mars Hill (in Acts 17) we have to be fluent enough to know something about what it is they are looking for with their false gods.
(By the way, a really, really good read on how idols work in the human heart is Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller. I really recommend it, even as he explores the seductions of money, sex, and power – and “the only hope that matters.” More about the idols of our public lives is “Here Are Your Gods”: Faithful Discipleship in Idolatrous Times by Christopher Wright. Much heavier, in terms of deeper-level political idols showing up across the political spectrum see the exceptional Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies by David T. Koyzis. )
In Acts 17 Paul did not yell at them and at the end of his message they invited him to come back for more discussion the next day. Isn’t that brilliant? He was a wide reader and apparently read the poetry and even false religious tracts of the Greco-Roman world, well enough to be able to engage the hipsters in the Areopagus and invite them to dialogue. It is a great story of winsome, contextualized missional apologetics.
Can we do that effectively with the far Christian right if we don’t love them?
And that is another major point of this book, that we must share the gospel with lost neighbors and those sucked into harmful political visions, by caring for them as people. He longs for “gentle restoration” not winning arguments or defeating a viewpoint. “The people we are trying to reach are not our enemies,” he reminds us.
The subtitle of Disarming Leviathan says much of it clearly: we must love our nationalist neighbors as neighbors, as friends. Without condescension, we have to care for those whom we have reason to believe have lost their way. We don’t do this because we disapprove of Mr. Trump or because we can’t stand the conflating of our beloved gospel with such nasty political rhetoric. No, we do it because we love people and desire for them to know the goodness of the full gospel. We need heart-level conversations about the gospel and that always happens best in a culture of love, with a posture of care.
He invites us to reflect on “the art of table setting.” Transformation, he notes, “starts in the heart.”
Although Campbell has chapters about the emptiness of American Christian Nationalism and exposes the dark spiritual power behind the far-right extremists, some of this many of us may already know. Still, the first part is a refreshing, personal, at times even tender summary. The best chapters that set this book apart are on “engaging our mission field” and, importantly, a chapter called “Preparing Our Hearts for the Work.” Read them honestly and slowly. He also offers what he calls a “field guide” to these sorts of contextualized, careful conversations. Some of this “humble subversion” includes reflections on fairly high-level missionary strategies about cross-cultural evangelism, but it also is fairly common sense stuff, too. He applies it all nicely to our contemporary ideological contexts and conversation partners that you can imagine as your own church members, your own relatives, your own work associates, your literal neighbors right up the street. Disarming Leviathan is wise and practical and very highly recommended.
Listen to pastor David Swanson, who writes,
This urgent and gracious book is an answer to prayer for those of us heartbroken by the power of Christian nationalism over our loved ones. Now we have a resource brimming with practical wisdom to equip us to approach family and friends with the liberation gospel of Jesus.
Or listen to the lovely and cheerful Bible scholar Carmen Imes (of Biola University) who notes that,
What I love about Caleb Campbell’s approach is he recognizes that Christian nationalists are neighbors who need discipleship in the way of Jesus. Caleb has taken the time to understand the movement from the inside and he offers practical ways to engage in substantive conversations without shutting people down. If you share concern that Christian nationalism distorts Biblical principles, then this book will show you what to do about it. It’s not enough to disagree. We need to engage.
I’ve read a lot of books on political views and philosophies and, lately, on the rise of the alt-right and its adjacent groups and movements, leading to the terrible attack on the Capitol. I’ve read books about those embedded with the KKK and another about the Proud Boys. I am baffled when I learn about the apparent religious affiliations of those involved in the nationalist worldview. (Geesh, even the murderous KKK view themselves as a Christian outfit!) How can we have meaningful conversations — about faith and truth and Jesus and church — with those caught up in this stuff? From eccentric, goofy loudmouths like Majorie Taylor Green to seemingly Christian intellectuals like Eric Metaxas to the brainy ugliness of neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, those you know and love are each different. Get Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor and start there. By the end you really will be helped in being humble and spiritually motivated with lots of empathy and care. It won’t be easy, but it may be the best way to move towards truly profound engagement and spiritual conversation.
Here’s what Campbell writes at the end of the first chapter. After a reminder that we will need “thousands of conversations at kitchen counters, cafe tables, and small group gatherings” and a word of caution that some of these encounters will not go well, he continues,
The seductive power of American Christian nationalism can consume those who give themselves over to it. The methods listed below are not guaranteed to bring about redemptive transformation. Only the living God can do that. Even now as you read, I invite you to pray that the Spirit of God will give you strength and guidance as you set out on this journey.
Amen?
Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity Joel Looper (Eerdmans) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99
I just finished this good book and I might write about it more, later. For now, it seems so germane and a helpful, deeper, study of the thesis assumed in Disarming Leviathan, so I wanted to highlight it briefly in this BookNotes. It officially releases in a few weeks but we unpacked it just yesterday and we are allowed to sell it now.
First: this is a somewhat more serious study than Disarming Leviathan but is still not an academic tome. It is readable and conversational in tone. Looper is a church history, political science, and theology buff who teaches at Baylor University; his previous (scholarly) book was Bonhoeffer’s American: A Land without Reformation which documents what Bonhoeffer wrote about the American religious landscape when he visited the US in the 1930s and explores how what we might call mainline denominational churches and their national leaders (like Reinhold Niebuhr) failed to take the gospel seriously enough.
Another Gospel hints at some of this nicely as Looper insists that the gospel of Jesus Christ should be our ultimate concern and therefore His church should be the central location of our whole-life formation.
In other words, our values and habits and politics and economic opinions, our sexuality and our voting and our relation to society, should all be informed by the ethos of the community of which we are a part. We are to be, of course, catechized and liturgically shaped by our church, enfolding us into the Body as we are transformed by our union with Christ. Dr. Looper sees the church as our true home and that the Body of Christ — His Kingdom — demands our most full allegiance. No Christian should pledge allegiance to any other thing. Although many US Christians reflexively put their hand over their heart to recite the Pledge to our flag, it seems that no serious Christian would disagree about Christ’s singular, ultimate, Lordship if you stop to think about it.
(For a lovely and not particularly controversial survey of this specific sub-topic, how we can be totally dedicated to Christ and yet be a patriotic citizen, see the very nice How to Be a Patriotic Christian by Richard Mouw (IVP; $17.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39) that reminds us that our love for our homeland is not a bad thing in itself and can be a way to show love to our actual neighbors in our place. Looper might wish for a stronger warning and renunciation of the state’s claims upon us but Mouw encourages a benign patriotism as long as we don’t elevate it to an idol or ultimate thing.)
Professor Looper insists that in America, we have reversed the roles of church and state, or maybe as we say around here, we have the cart before the horse. The famed British thinker G.K. Chesterton said that America is a nation with the soul of a church, but Looper suggests it is actually the other way around — our churches have the soul of a nation! And that is not good. This illustrates his provocative thesis that many — and certainly the Trumpian MAGA movement — are proclaiming what St. Paul called “another gospel.” This will be a hard truth to speak to some, for sure.
The first part of this book is a study of Galatians and the various “other gospels” known in the early church and what the Biblical teaching about ultimate loyalty to Christ — during the persecutions and even after Constantine — meant for those who took up the cross to follow Jesus. He says that most knew they were paroikous — foreigners, as 1 Peter 2:11 puts it. Our civil religion has infected mainline churches and evangelicals, it seems, and we fail to put Christ first and want to feel at home with the surrounding culture. He doesn’t use this word, I don’t think, but we could say this leads to syncretism. Or accommodation, carving pieces out of our faith, slimming it down so it fits nicely with the surrounding culture. Such is the opposite of the rousing call to not allow the world to squeeze us into its mold spoken of in Romans 12: 1-2. Jesus says we are to be “in” but not “of” the world and this failure of seeing ourselves as those not at home here, non-conformed (or what MLK called maladjusted) allows us to form a too easily cozy relationship with the values and ways of the surrounding culture.
Looper helpfully draws on church fathers and ancient extra Biblical documents illustrating the radical posture the early Christian community had regarding their surrounding emperors and governments. He helpfully unpacks just a bit from Augustine’s magisterial City of God (that starts out reminding us we are pilgrims) and opens up the claim that we dare not baptize the national body. He looks at Puritans and the “city set upon a hill” language of the early colonists.
We must not, as some might put it today, wrap the Bible in the flag. Many of us have heard this stuff before but here it is punchy and serious and relevant, perhaps with shades of Stanley Hauerwas. This, he insists, is the rationale for resisting Christian nationalism: it erodes our trust in Christ and supplants the centrality of the role of the church in our lives.
To cite Paul, again:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who calls you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. (NIV)
Looper notes that his book which analyzes Scripture and church history (and includes an amazing chapter on Russian state nationalism under Putin) is polemical and intentionally provocative. Okay; it frankly isn’t that spunky. He thanks in the preface the conservative thinker Justin Lee, associate editor at First Things, where they have debated the culture war and the future of the church for years; Lee may not agree with Looper’s view of what most ails the church these days but it gives you a sense of who his conversation partners have been as he has struggled with the way American politics — and these days, more the Republicans than the Democrats — have distorted the gospel so very badly.
The opening pages of the book recounts verbatim an incident I know a little about.
Our old friend and customer Eric Metaxas, a proponent, now, of what Looper would say is a Pauline false or “other gospel”, was on a video show with then Pennsylvania Gubernatorial candidate, far-right Pentecostal nationalist, Doug Mastriano. (You may recall the stories about his involvement in a weird cult in Pennsylvania that used an AR-15 rifle in their actual liturgical worship.) They were on the phone with President Donald Trump, days after it became clear that he had lost the election. Although it was understandably contested at first, it became extraordinarily, unequivocally, clear that President Trump had not gotten enough votes to win.
Eric says, “This is the most horrible thing that’s ever happened in the history of our nation.”
After some banter with the President in which he says his reversal of fortune among the electorate was “the greatest scam in the history of our country”, Metaxas replies:
“We are going to win. Jesus is with us in this fight for liberty. There was a prayer call last night and you cannot believe the prayers that are going up. This is God’s battle even more than it is our battle.”
After the President comments about some court rulings, he says, “if we don’t win this thing, we’ll never be able to bring our country back.”
Eric earnestly replies that “I would be happy to die in this fight. This is a fight for everything. God is with us.”
This is the sort of language (Looper seems to be suggesting) that one uses about truly ultimate things, about religion. For Metaxas, this unhinged cause that is “everything” and for which he is willing to die. Not the cause of Christ, but overturning the election. Which he says is what God wants, so, for him, it is a religious-like commitment. You see?
A few weeks later, Looper reminds us, there was the odd Jericho March where participants converged on DC and prayed and prophesied and spoke in tongues and listened to vile Alex Jones of infowars conspiracy fame and the disgraced Michael Flynn. On January 4th and 5th there were two more rallies where, as in Judges 6, they blew shofars and marched around the Supreme Court Building and the Capitol Building seven times. Some of these religiously-motivated citizens found their way the next day into the riot at the Capitol. We all have seen the ugly pro-Nazi signs next to posters about Jesus next to the scaffold that was to “hang Mike Pence” next to crosses and Confederate flags. Most of us have heard the weird prayer by Q-Anon Shaman, Jacob Chansley, once they had stormed into the Senate chambers. The crowd roared “Amen.” It’s no wonder The Atlantic’s writer called it “a Christian insurrection.”
What are the contours and essentials of the very heart of the gospel? Do those who say they’d die for this movement to reinstate Trump really believe that Christ is the Savior and our identity in Him transcends political opinions? Looper is careful, if blunt, citing remarkably bad theological statements by, for instance, Jerry Falwell and Robert Jeffress. He spends too much time dissecting the infamous theonomist Stephen Wolfe, and his much-twittered about The Case for Christian Nationalism. Looper is 90 pages in when he offers the penultimate chapter “A Gospel Politics” (which was good as far as it went but was less helpful than I’d have wanted) which lead to the more urgent and germane “Trump and the Gospel of America.” It is important and astute.
Obviously with his keen insights into Bonhoeffer and his passion for texts like Hebrews 11:10 (we work and wait for “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God”) and his use of phrases like “resident aliens”, Looper is not a progressive Democrat dissing his political opponents. He is a gospel teacher wanting God’s people to be clear about first things, about the very gospel itself. To those who are hardened to the gospel he hopes they can turn back to their first love. He assumes there will be a reckoning (“or what used to be called a judgement.”) Short of wide-spread repentance, there is no other way out of our current spiritual cul-de-sac.
Politicized evangelicals believe themselves to be fighting secularization, but Joel Looper argues that his fellow evangelicals are in fact making it worse: the church is secularizing itself by replacing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with cultural conservatism, and the church with the nation. No wonder people are walking away from the church! Looper calls those who have accepted Donald Trump as their personal lord and savior to return to the Jesus of the Bible. — William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University, author of The Uses of Idolatry
+++
TO PLACE AN ORDER
PLEASE READ, THEN SCROLL DOWN TO CLICK ON THE “ORDER” LINK BELOW.
It is helpful if you tell us how you want us to ship your orders. And if you are doing a pre-order, tell us if you want us to hold other books until the pre-order comes, or send some now, and others later… we’re eager to serve you in a way that you prefer. Let us know your hopes.
The weight and destination of your package varies but you can use this as a quick, general guide:
There are generally two kinds of US Mail options and, of course, UPS. If necessary, we can do overnight and other expedited methods, too. Just ask.
- United States Postal Service has an option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be a little slower. For one typical book, usually, it’s $4.83; 2 lbs would be $5.58. This is the cheapest method available and sometimes is quicker than UPS, but not always.
- United States Postal Service has another, quicker option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.70, if it fits in a flat-rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.50. “Priority Mail” gets more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
- UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. Sometimes they are cheaper than Priority. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.
If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Keep in mind the possibility of holiday supply chain issues and slower delivery… still, we’re excited to serve you.
BookNotes
SPECIAL
DISCOUNT
20% OFF
ALL BOOKS MENTIONED
+++
order here
this takes you to the secure Hearts & Minds order form page
just tell us what you want to order
inquire here
if you have questions or need more information
just ask us what you want to know
Hearts & Minds 234 East Main Street Dallastown PA 17313
read@heartsandmindsbooks.com
717-246-3333
Sadly, as of July 2024 we are still closed for in-store browsing.
We will keep you posted about our future plans… we are eager to reopen. Pray for us.
We are doing our curb-side and back yard customer service and can show any number of items to you if you call us from our back parking lot. We’ve got tables set up out back. It’s sort of fun, actually. We are eager to serve and grateful for your patience. We are very happy to help, so if you are in the area, do stop by. We love to see friends and customers.
We are happy to ship books anywhere.
We are here 10:00 – 6:00 EST / Monday – Saturday. Closed on Sunday.