It is very sadly the case that in this particular area of moral concern, that of treating women with respect and validating their hurts and fears and injustices against them, that Christians have not been leading the way lately in the public eye, but have generally been observed to be on the defending side, protecting the abuse.

The Catholic church’s problems may be one example, but evangelicals have had plenty of scandals lately where they’ve been willing to bury justice for the sake of protecting the position of their power. And the president who, in modern times, is the least respectful to women is the darling and champion of evangelical Christianity. It would be a rank indignity for Christians to admit that they had been morally upstaged by liberals, who are generally seen as only one step up from demons, so there’s a lot of psychological pressure to push back hard against the validity of anything they have to say.

I think we’re well past the question of asking whether there’s any point trying to encourage the unsaved to show respect to women when, being unsaved, they have no reason to do so. We’re more at the point of asking why Christians are so obstinate and upset about the fact that the unsaved are asking why we don’t show more respect to women and feel the need to shout the unsaved down so vigorously. Rather than leading the charge into awareness of God’s heart, many Christians seem to be more concerned about leading the charge to shut up those voicing the concerns.

And it’s not only some marginal Christians who aren’t really Christians who are responding this way. Trump is the most popular president ever among evangelicals. That’s the data. That’s his strongest corner and those are many of his fiercest defenders. At some point in the past couple decades, when Evangelicals decided to get more political, they gradually came to identify being a Christian with being a Republican.

As has happened in every case like this in the past, this kind of confusion between politics and religion becomes a serious problem. Trump came along and hijacked the Republicans party. So he became the leader of conservatism and what it meant, and by the transitive property, he became the leader of Christianity. He’s the evangelical pope. He make a pronouncement and many Christians feel the need to get behind it and follow and defend him. Because that’s what being Christian means, being conservative. Within 24 hour of him coming out in favor of preserving confederate monuments, I was hearing Christians I know from Sterling, who have probably never even seen a Confederate Monument, suddenly defending their importance and the importance of preserving the noble history of the Confederacy. People who probably never even had a thought abiut them in their lives. But suddenly, they’re vigorously defending the honoring of the leaders of the pro-slavery movement, purely because they’ve come to identify their identity as people with Christianity as Conservatism as Trump. And in many ways they’re harder to budge on their views because they carry the force of religious conviction with them. To be against Trump or another Republican leader is to be against conservatism, and to be against concervatism is to be against Christianity and God. It’s hard to argue with that kind of leverage. On the flip side, it makes it very easy to not listen to anyone who speak out against Trump or some other republican. By being against them, you are an enemy of God. So why listen to the lies of the godless? That person isn’t a real person with legitimate concerns or questions or ideas, they’re the servant of evil! They’re a pawn of the dark powers that are trying to take down the self-appointed champions of Christianity…a bunch of politicians! And those champions have gone so far as to let Christians know that if you don’t vote for them and keep them in power and defend them, the forces of evil will triumph and God’s light will die in the world. Trump literally summoned a group of pastors and told them exactly that. He has positioned himself as the sole champion and defender of Christianity, yes, him! And lots and lots of Christians have bought it. And so they see it as their duty to defend him, even when he leads them in defending the victimization or denigration of women, or defending white nationalism. It’s their duty as Christians to be on his side, to be team players. The other side is the enemy, so we need to stick together and fight and silence any doubts. If recent history had tight us anything, it’s that the consciences of the unsaved can be awakened. And the consciences of Christians can be seared. And sometimes Christians can set the example of compromise and silencing the voice of justice and conscience, when it comes to our political leaders, when it comes to our pastors and priests. It’s all for the sake of the greater good, the mission. We don’t want to harm the work of the church, so keep silent about that. We don’t want to harm to work that politician is doing for us, so keep silent. We don’t want to hurt the ministry of that pastor or priest, so keep silent. When it does come out undeniably that a leader has done wrong, like with Steve at GCM back in the day, it really rocks people. It shakes their very understanding and identity. How could it be, with all the good that person were doing. He was the one who showed me what it meant to be a Christian, how can I reconcile that with what I now know? For me, I was very confused at the time by those reactions, but I understand better now. I always assumed people were fallible and my faith wasn’t staked on any particular person and what they did or thought or said. But for many people, that sort of thing is terribly important to them. That person was their idol, their example, their guide. How can you accept that they did something wrong, maybe even unrepentantly, and maintain your belief in all that? Sounds silly to me because of who I am, but to a huge amount of people that is not their experience.