This is a thoughtful, yet naive, piece by David French in the NYTimes. My take on the subject is very cynical.
In other words, revival begins with the people proclaiming, by word and deed, “I have sinned.”
MAGA Christianity has a different message. It looks at American culture and declares, “You have sinned.”
I say naive, because he proclaims himself to be an Evangelical Christian, while failing to see the obvious. Condemning others has always been the core tenet of the Evangelical movement. He’s clinging to his own vision of the religion, as embracing acceptance and forgiveness as taught by Jesus, that doesn’t exist in practice.
“Join us or die” is the mission of Evangelical Christianity. That death is supposed to refer to a person’s soul being denied a home in Heaven. But today it means hating and harming those who don’t love Trump. So, the central precept is actually, “agree with us or be destroyed.” What Trump has done is make it okay to be much more vocal with what they have always been about.
As I have said before, I saw all of this coming fifty years ago, albeit not with Trump, when I was part of Campus Crusade for Christ, with “Crusade” being the operative word. Self-proclaimed Evangelical Christians aligning themselves with Trump is proof they are about politics, not religion. The few of them, like French, who are discomforted by this are struggling with a feeling of cognitive dissonance that I remember all too well.
We had a weekend retreat with a Christian Fellowship group from another college. They were part of Intervarsity, an organization that was similar to, but not the same as, Campus Crusade for Christ.
Ahead of the gathering, we were cautioned by our CCC campus rep that Intervarsity had some “liberal beliefs” that weren’t scriptural, according to Campus Crusade’s founder, Bill Bright. That was one of many red flags that ultimately led me to reject Evangelical Christianity before graduating from college.
There’s an aspect to my “faith experiences” during college that I have long resisted talking about. I may, but probably won’t, get into it here, as “this material is intended for mature audiences.” I hinted at it obliquely in an old post: