Are We Reading the Same Bible?
Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with those who thirst for blood, Whose hands are full of evil plots, and their right hand full of bribes.
Today, in the Daily Office, the term we Anglicans use in reference to our daily morning, noon, and evening prayers, we read from Psalm 26 (quoted above) and Proverbs 15, which I’ll bring up shortly.
One of the things that has struck me in my reading of the Psalms is how poignant they are to our current situation in the United States. They speak consistently of wicked leaders and (in one of my favorite turns of phrase from the Book of Common Prayer translation of the Psalms) the “indolent rich.” It all makes me wonder if a daily regiment of reading and praying the Psalms will have a particular impact on one’s politics.
I mentioned the Proverbs above. One of the simplest daily scripture-reading practices that was ever introduced to me, and something I’ve done off and on since my Baptist days, is reading the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds to the day of the month. So today is the 26th, which means you’d read Proverbs 26. Like I said, simple. The Proverbs, like other instances of the so-termed “wisdom literature” ,of the Bible (like Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach/Ecclesiasticus) are partly compiled as a means for instructing men who would be in positions of authority. Sure they contain certain general, reflective examples of conventional wisdom (“the lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so the hearts of fools” from Proverbs 15:7 ESV), but they also give more pointed language to the kinds of men rulers are supposed to be. And in this sense, like the Psalms, the Proverbs sound surprisingly current (all references are from the ESV translation of Proverbs 15, which is appointed reading for today in the Episcopal Church).
A scoffer does not like to be reproved; he will not go to the wise. (verse 12)
A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (verse 18)
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. (verse 22)
Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live. (verse 27)
The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things. (verse 28)
Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. (verse 32)
Reading these verses this morning, as with many mornings, I can’t help but picture the current political figures in the United States (I will not call them leaders). I read the passage of Psalm 26 that heads this post and I think of the Secretary of Defense and I wonder how it is that he and I read the same Bible but come away with very different understandings of the messages contained therein.
But more than this, I ponder at the people who, confessing the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior, voted for this travesty in the first place. Yesterday I read about the new Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and how she’s a “religious zealot.” Since I grew up as an Evangelical, I can say with some authority that she’s clearly very convinced of her beliefs. She’s wearing her faith on her sleeve and obviously hoping to get people to convert to her brand of the Christian faith. I can sympathize with this. When I was an Evangelical, we would have championed Brooke Rollins as a kind of hero who was “not ashamed of the Gospel” (to quote Saint Paul). Setting aside the issues of the propriety or constitutionality of her sharing such overt Christian messaging on official US government communication platforms, one cannot deny that there’s a sincerity of conviction there. I recognize this because I was once like this. But what I cannot comprehend is how someone so sincerely dedicated to a branch of the Christian faith can excuse and even endorse someone like Donald Trump. How they can see him as the “Christian candidate.”
Either the answer is that they’re not actually reading the Bible (maybe particular selections of it), or there is an active practice of internally suppressing the truth in favor of expedience.
***
Look, I’ll admit something: I actually believe that Donald Trump is God’s will for the United States. But before you start hammering the comments, let me qualify this by saying that there’s a general assumption among Christians that “God’s will” means “positive experience.” The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was clearly God’s will and it was hardly a positive experience for the people of those twin cities. Same for the people of Egypt during the first Passover. Same for everyone not boarded up in Noah’s boat.
I believe that God allowed us to have Donald Trump as a kind of mirror for us to look at. As the man himself regularly suggests, he is America and America is him. He is the embodiment of the bits of America a lot of us either pretend doesn’t exist or have tamped down as a kind of “outlier” that doesn’t fit well into the sort of soaring aspirational language we heard at Barack Obama’s first inauguration.
Donald Trump is akin to what Quentin Tarantino was trying to accomplish with his film Django Unchained. Tarantino wanted Americans to be confronted with the evils of slavery in a visceral way. It might not have been strictly historical. It definitely made use of the tropes of exploitation cinema. But in the end it was an effective attempt at getting white America to have some modicum of emotionally connecting with the horrors that Black people faced and continue to face, rooted as the Black experience is in institutional slavery and the attendant white supremacy that fostered it. Donald Trump is like that, the version of America that is inconvenient to us but one that must be seen, acknowledged, and dealt with.
***
My understanding of salvation was deeply transformed by something Bishop Gene Robinson once casually said in a sermon. He was the first openly gay man to be elected and ordained as a bishop in not only the Episcopal Church, but the entire Anglican Communion of churches. He was once a guest at Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, my “home” parish (where I was confirmed and received in the Episcopal Church) and he once said that his election as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion occasioned the opportunity for the Church to deal with things we had been leaving to simmer. A gay bishop was a disruption, yes, but it demanded that we begin asking tough questions that needed to be asked.
It was from this comment that I realized Jesus does the exact same thing. I’ve spent the last decade plus articulating what I call the “Expository Atonement” of Jesus. The cross of Jesus, in part, exposes the depths of human wickedness, exposes what we’re capable of. The cross subsumes. It defines all actions of human wickedness and gives them a visible sign, an image (icon), upon which we gaze. By doing so, the cross lays bare the parts of human nature that we often pretend are exceptions. The ongoing life of salvation is one that is given to being exposed and laid bare (see Hebrews 4:12-13). This allows us to repent of these things and begin to heal.
I guess what I’m trying to get at with this is that there is a grace to MAGA, if we choose to see it. That grace (if this is the correct term) is that MAGA becomes an opportunity for us to actually confront and repent of our American sins. If we read the scriptures faithfully we cannot but see how the “Christianity” of MAGA is not Christianity at all. It is but another heresy of violence and exploitation that uses the language of Christianity for its own aims. It is a perversion of the faith that allows for the suppression of the clear teaching of the Bible in the name of political expedience or gain.
The cult that is MAGA can be the means to push actual Christianity to the surface.
***
The Psalms and the Proverbs paint a picture of the kinds of people that reflect God’s ideal leaders, people committed to a humble life of pursuing Wisdom. People like Donald Trump and the whole MAGA movement are the antithesis to this. Holding them up next to what is spoken of in the Psalms and Proverbs reveals this. The relief is stark.
It’s not enough to see the contrasts. Not enough to complain or lament. These people are where they are for our good, for our growth. In the same way diseases of the body give off signs in order to effect the healing process, MAGA demands that we begin a course of treatment. That treatment begins with repentance, followed by the gracious life of prayer and participation in the sacraments.
MAGA is a voice of reproof to us all. And as Proverbs this morning tells us, wise people welcome such reproof.
The Rev. Charles Browning II is the rector of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He is a husband, father, surfer, and frequent over-thinker. Follow him on Mastodon and Pixelfed.
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