An Open Challenge to Trump-Hating Evangelicals

Almost a decade in, and some of your voices are louder than ever. Where were you two decades ago, when you were quiet as world events gave us the demand for a true change agent?

Dear Trump-hating evangelicals,

These thoughts, sudden as they may seem, have been rattling around in my brain for about nine years with such stubbornness that they now demand to be let out. My late thirties brought me to divorce myself from ideological labels – I no longer choose the term conservative as the primary way of describing my political views (think accelerationist, pragmatist, Machiavellian for sake of accuracy), nor do I care for the modern American term, evangelical, to describe my faith views. For the record, I am a protestant Christian with little concern for denominational spats, legalism, or forced religiosity, with a strong proclivity to protect religious freedom for all.

The ironic thing about this treatise, which unsurprisingly (given the title) vents my frustration with Trump-hating evangelicals, is that some may not consider it necessary given the fact that Trump enjoys the support of evangelicals at levels no other President, not even the holy rolling George Dubya Bush, has ever known; however, among dissenters, the virtue signaling, whining, crying, and tsk-tsking has never been more obnoxious or so easily presented as it is today with modern messaging platforms and a media willing to amplify your sadness, bitterness, and frustration at what is an ever-increasing societal irrelevance.

Usually, when someone takes modern Pharisees to task, they are met with jeers, such as “Trump is your idol,” and in the event Trump endorses a bad candidate or does something that, if even for a moment, seems to go against his agenda (take this week’s actions on trade for example), their hissing compounds into an overflowing I told you so diatribe. My message today does not represent idol worship but should be seen as a summary of facts with a focus on political and religious hypocrisy that has held back much of the good the Christian faith should be able to unleash in America. I used an example of Christians eliminating injustice in their roles as citizens in a recent post in my personal journal criticizing weak pastors last month:

Every single one of these high-minded pastors has no problem not only railing against slavery (rightfully so) but going so far as to shame white men today for something they, nor their parents, nor their parents, and in many cases, their parents before them were alive to see in any capacity. Practically none of them will point out to their flocks that it was citizen outrage expressed through civic discourse and engagement with government that finally prevailed and moved the needle sufficiently to remove a great injustice from the young nation that had been with it since colonial times.

My journey into noticing the mass hypocrisy of evangelical leadership, and the willingness of the flock to be so easily misled, began in the 2015-16 timeframe, when the political buzzsaw named Donald Trump was making short work of the standard cadre of GOP figures (some of whom have come to grips with reality in the present day). At first, few took him seriously, so it was easy for people to sling stones like the other candidates were doing – especially about personal troubles, failures, divorces, or business dealings. The church my family attended at the time, Bayou City Fellowship in Houston, had previously done a good job of sticking to teaching and staying out of politics, and most of the congregation (overwhelmingly anti-Obama, as you’d expect given the location and demographics of the congregation) accepted that as understandable. This all changed when Trump emerged as the apparent nominee.

Suddenly, this church decided it was meant to discuss politics after all, even if it meant getting the baby-butchering, nation-destroying international crime queen, Hillary Clinton, indirectly elected. Their messaging on combatting human trafficking, a noble cause, took a back seat to how icky and mean Trump was, even if his proposals would decimate the efforts of human traffickers because they wouldn’t be able to get across the border, and his economic reforms would elevate the fortunes of the impoverished American minority working-class they loved to pray for and wish financial blessings upon from afar. They cared more about welcoming illegal aliens to our country than they did about alleviating the human trafficking they so casually collected vast sums of money to fight. When Trump’s Access Hollywood tape blew up, the pastor’s mother-in-law piped up:

“I’m one among many women who have been sexually abused, misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to…”

That mother-in-law happened to be Beth Moore, she of “pro-life from conception to grave” notoriety (yes, the Beth Moore). Her daughter, the pastor’s wife, would later go on to post this gem before running away from social media, confirming my suspicions of concealed left-wing radicalism in the church leadership:

Beth will be disappointed to know that she won’t be able to vote for any GOP candidates after Trump, either, because every boy who ever strapped on a pair of shoulder pads and buckled a chinstrap has made comments in the locker room like Trump did 11 years before the 2016 election. It shouldn’t surprise you that female members of this church, which became obsessed with racial grievance and white guilt, publicly took sides with Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser (going as far as to attend feminist rallies in Washington, D.C., and post about it online) and subconsciously backed an evidence-free approach to having any male in the future condemned, including their own sons, guilty of sexual violence just because someone said so.

Bayou City wasn’t alone. Preening evangelicals around the country passed around every fake news hit piece, completely unconcerned that the same would happen to them if they were ever the man in the arena or in a place of prominence to impact the world for good. From their pulpits, the Russell Moores and John Pipers of the world were unable to discern why Americans wanted their industries back, justice for all, the borders closed, and raging global conflicts ended, and chose to mimic the Pharisee of Luke 18:11 by making it all about how racist everyone else supposedly was. This further distanced me from hypocrites who had no qualms about supporting establishment character George W. Bush, who inflicted the following upon America over 8 years:

· Two unwinnable conflicts (one of which I served in) costing American lives, treasure, and legitimate military readiness

· The birth of the mass surveillance state

· Collapse of traditional family values

· Economic collapse

· Entrenched globalism and erosion of American national sovereignty

· Crippling national debt

· All perfect conditions to bring about the rise of Barack H. Obama

You modern-day Pharisees rarely raised a single dissenting point about our sons and daughters being shipped overseas to fight in conflicts that our leaders knew we would never win and could never win given the state of the world today and the willingness of American lawyers to lock up soldiers who fired the first shot out of an abundance of caution. You refused to ask questions about why these conflicts began in the first place, and to investigate who was lying to us. You raised money to supposedly fight for the unborn and shifted gears to oppose Trump because your blind guides in the political sphere told you he wasn’t a true conservative, a real Christian, or sincere in his beliefs.

That President you hated went on to appoint justices who struck down Roe v. Wade and while you were most likely asleep at the wheel just last week, President Trump cut tens of millions in federal funding from the slaughter mill insidiously known as Planned Parenthood. Posers would be wise to understand why Samuel said to obey is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22), because you’ve been content to hear what your ears want to hear over all these years while ignoring the actions of a man. You’ve told your congregations they’re racist for not wanting to import tens of millions of unassimilable foreigners into our cities, further impoverishing the minorities you pretend to champion, all while being unable and unwilling to put the newly arrived guest families in your own homes. You’ve wanted human trafficking to end but without any action on the gushing wound of our southern border that may cause you to be called racist by the left-wing radicals you desperately crave approval from. You fear men, not God.

Only people unfamiliar with what they claim to believe could continuously oppose someone so consistently without cause. I tell those who hold different political viewpoints all the time that I don’t care if they have a different view as long as they know why they believe what they believe and can defend those views. I have no respect for those who parrot what Taylor Swift, or some cable news talking head, tells them to say. There is always fair and justified criticism of any presidential administration – but with this administration, it isn’t valid or remotely understandable to decry decoupling America from things that are killing our country that many in your circles have avoided for decades while hiding behind tax shelters.

David was described as the man after God’s own heart, yet the Bible records many of his own acts of wickedness – from the Bathsheba scandal, to covering up that indiscretion by having her husband killed in battle, to his numbering of the troops that brought a plague upon the people. No one in their right minds in evangelical circles would impugn David’s character, because he was still chosen to be the starting point of the royal line of Christ. Demanding the appearance of piety, while disregarding obedience to the cause of justice, is why so many are struggling to connect with churches today. Remember, this letter isn’t to evangelicals in general – it is to Trump-hating evangelicals who have gone along to get along with people who are destroying the cause of individual liberty in an increasingly dark world. You are supposed to be the leading light, not heads of peanut galleries echoing the words of liars who wish to enslave our people.

This piece isn’t meant to be ugly for the sake of being ugly, nor have I misconstrued the words of anyone mentioned here. It’s all out there, plain as day for everyone to see. The church is meant to shape the world, not to be shaped by the world, and until those evangelicals who point fingers and repeat state-approved lines to discourage their flocks from citizen engagement cease this hypocritical behavior, we will languish and teeter on the brink of a worldwide serfdom because those who knew better chose to dither while the world around them burned.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. Matthew 5:13, Berean Standard Bible

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.