It's really simple.

I'm sick of my faith being hijacked by politics.
Do occasions arise in which my faith intersects what is going on in our society? Certainly.
But the invasion and abuse that has occurred within American Christianity over political division has done little to promote Christ's kingdom and much to further split His already divided body.

Who is ready for a ride!
This post is going to be part one of three. In part one I'm going to address the right-wing of politics, in part two I'm going to address the left-wing. I will finish this trio with a discussion of why I've chosen to no longer use political means. (Hint: #NoKingButChrist)
I want to open by saying that I don't have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I'm sure that a lot of you are going to trash me for this article, but before you do, at least extend the courtesy of reading the whole thing ... and the other two parts.
I see fascination, on all sides, for President Trump as a symptom, not the problem itself.
However, as I get to all sides, I have to start the process where my own process began. I hinted at it in my last post. It began with the abounding and unconditional support that the evangelical community, of which I'm a part, has given to President Trump for the last six years.
Now, the evangelical community isn't the only one caught up in this mess, I'll get to that in my next post. But I've got to start with what I know.

I'm going to admit from the jump, it was very difficult for me to process.
In the '90s, I joined the calls for President Clinton to resign over his adulterous scandal.

I was raised to believe that character matters.

I was part of the Moral Majority.
We were evangelical Christian, we were Republican, we were going to fix the country. Pro-God, Pro-life, pro-gun, pro-country. We sought and fought to elect candidates of character. We loved President George W Bush.

I called myself a "Reagan Republican".
On the issues we cared about, Dubya was right. We even supported his stance on ending our expansive international military efforts, also known as "nation-building".
I remember watching Election Night on TV. Vice-President Gore won Florida, then it was tossup. I got down on my knees and prayed that would change.

Yes, I literally did that and I'm ashamed of it today. At the time, I believed Dubya was our only hope for saving unborn children.
Into the early morning hours, Bush was up so I went to bed. I had a long day of work in Memphis the next day.
Needless to say, the outcome was back into dispute the next morning. It remained that way for some time. Eventually Gore conceded in early December. I remember the moment vividly because I watched it in the hospital.
I was at my wife's because she was having premature labor issues with our first child.

However, the events of 9/11/01 changed a lot for people like me.
We didn't blame the events only on the radicals who pulled it off. We blamed ALL Muslims for being unable to prevent from happening. We believed Muslims wanted and applauded the atrocity.

How quickly we had forgotten about 04/19/95!
I'm amazed how swiftly we blamed all Muslims and yet had not extended the same measure and standard of judgment for what happened on that day. Instead, we excused it as the work of a radical.
I was part of a growing and fear-driven chorus that wanted to close the borders and airports. We had to stop the Muslims from killing us and the Mexicans from taking our jobs and siphoning our resources.
Saving the unborn was put on the back-burner as we became virulently pro-death. We wanted the U.S.
military to kill any civilian in any country who dared not turn the "terrorists" over to us as we invaded their nations, confiscated their resources, and destroyed their way of life.
I was so entangled in the Christo-political, right-wing, moral majority empire I desired that I couldn't see the damage I was doing to the gospel I was preaching.

I was blind.

Then the scales peeled off.

Abu Ghraib.
Bewilderment, disbelief, and shattered faith ruminated over me like a raging torrent. We are the good guys, right? The good guys aren't supposed to torture people, right?! Then I heard about water-boarding at Guantanamo Bay as well.
These atrocities were being carried out by my agents of my government on my behalf. I'm sorry, but when you operate like the "terrorists" you become what you're fighting.
Our unequivocal, evangelical support for the War on Terror was, and still is, disgracing our gospel witness. We didn't care and we still don't care. We were afraid. We still are afraid.
Every week I see plenty of posts about how the evil Muslims are going to take over America and impose Sharia Law and how it is so great that our military is taking them on "over there".
It's disguised as an adultery test. Because men were allowed to get jealous of their wives and accuse them in the midst of the priests. The women had no right to the same and that isn't misogynistic at all!
I'm sad to report that the election of President Obama awakened a very dark element among those with whom I had once walked. I didn't vote for him, I voted for Senator McCain. But, I was surprised at the anger Obama's election stirred.

I'm not innocent.

I was angry as well.
However, my anger was directed at the government structure as a whole. I saw it as an agency of oppression that was only going to get worse in a Democrat administration.
I had mentally baptized Republican government, washing away all of the oppression in its policies for the sake of saving unborn children.
I figured the next four-to-eight years would be marked by tax increases, more government control over various sectors of our lives including gun control, and more oppression.

I wasn't wrong.

I was just angry for all the wrong reasons.
I gave full vent to my anger as a speaker at four TEA Party protests in my area.
I envisioned myself as a dynamic cheerleader rousing the troops against an oppressive agenda that included higher taxes, an empowered Federal Reserve Bank, Obamacare, amnesty for illegal immigrants, gay marriage, and abortion.
I was angry about what was happening to MY country. I had forgotten that I was just one of more than 300 million. It wasn't just my country, it was theirs as well, and I was determined to make life as hard for "them" as I could manage.

I'm not proud of those days.
It is what it is. I'm different now, by like a whole lot!
During that era I received a redirect from an atheist friend. I'm not telling his story today, just introducing Rodger Paxton into my story. He was in the Libertarian Party of Arkansas.
The only thing I really knew about libertarians at that time was that they were Republicans who smoked dope and killed unborn children.

I was wrong ... again.

I saw no need to jump into his worldview. I mean, he's an atheist so we have nothing in common, right?!
At his prompting I looked up the Libertarian Party platform. I was shocked that someone could believe in that much freedom. It was TOO much liberty for sinners, right?! We NEEDED government to reign in the scoundrels among us, right?!
Then the GOP selected Senator Romney to oppose President Obama in the next election.

Nope.

As an ultra-conservative, Romney's policies were anathema.
The closest party I could find was the Libertarian Party. Yes, the "baby-killers"!
Governor Johnson's platform was the most pro-freedom, small government on the ballot. He got my vote even though I wasn't on board yet with the libertarian philosophy. I couldn't reconcile the abortion issue.
A few years later, I was a full-blown libertarian and running for U.S. House, District 1 in Arkansas. I saw the government as an oppressor, regardless of the issue.
How can I ask the government to get involved in medical decisions like abortion, but not ones I was making concerning my kids?
The only consistent, small-government view, is that the government had zero authority in individual decisions. That didn't mean I agree with the decisions being made. It also didn't mean that I believed they were right or moral.
But I found it vastly more powerful and influential to come alongside those trapped in those decisions than to use the force of government as an agent of judgement.
Back to my campaign. My goal was to knock on as many doors as possible in hopes of swaying enough votes to swing the head-to-head race my way. I personally knocked on thousands of doors.
President Trump knocked on none.

Yet, most of the time, when I knocked on a door, I was asked what I thought of then-candidate Trump.
Trump was happy to be a conduit for the anger, bitterness, and resentment I had helped to stoke. Unfortunately for my campaign, I wanted nothing to do with pushing hate.
I was doing all of this ground and foot work, but my refusal to push hateful, spiteful, anger-driven policies was my undoing.

Trump's willingness to engage that fiery element won their hearts.

My faith took a hit.

Why?
Because so many of these homes were decorated with crosses, angels, and scripture. Yet, they wanted a political "messiah", that Trump was happy to become, to channel the energy of their anger, resentment, and bitterness.

This wasn't the faith I loved.
The evangelical right has been bastardized into a GOP voting block from pulpits filled with both the witting and the unwitting. I was a Southern Baptist pastor.
Yet, Christians were more drawn to the hate-filled, diatribes spewed by candidate Trump than to the "do unto others" and "love your enemies" that I was offering.
I would hear, "Government is different". I agree, it is, which is why I should never have sought to use political means to fulfill the purposes of Christ's kingdom
One of the low points for me was when a close relative, whom I love, raised their voice at me for the first time in our relationship ... over something involving Trump. That exchange hurt.
I was witnessing reasonable people suddenly transforming into the unreasonable. People who taught me about character and patience were suddenly willing to compromise to force their agenda on their timeline.
The same folks who railed at the evils of Slick Willy were baptizing Trump's.
I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum.

The same levels of fealty I witnessed for Trump on the right were matched by equal levels of venom on the left. I was trapped in the middle. My faith prevented me from supporting either side.
My next post will deal with what I see on the left that contributes to the deep divisions. Since, I don't come from that political perspective I wanted to start with that which I am familiar.
But to wrap this part up, I was drawn away from a right-wing faith because it felt compassionless and violent.
Sure, there is overwhelming compassion for unborn children, but very little compassion for anyone else.
I've watched absolute spite toward Muslims, immigrants, the impoverished, pregnant teens, the Black community, drug addicts, and anyone else who dares not get on the Trump Train rewarded.

I'm so glad that Jesus is different.
I'm so thankful the faith community pointed me to Jesus in scripture.

I'm heart-broken that I'm now the outcast for asking why we ignore Jesus' teaching and example as irrelevant for our time while hearkening to the ancient Mosaic Law as the answer for today.
I prefer compassion, love, and kindness toward those I find in distress.

“"Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd."” – -Matthew 9:36, NASB95
When Jesus saw people in distress, His knee-jerk reaction was compassion. If we love and imitate Him, our should be the same.
Instead, my right-wing, evangelical brothers and sisters have a knee-jerk reaction of accusation. I'm hoping posts like this one call them back to the simple faith practiced by our King.

Grace and peace!
If you liked this post, you just might enjoy my book, What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Transforming American Culture. ( http://www.markwest-author.com )

If you want to follow my journey, you can read each of the previous posts below:
You can follow @Mark4Libertas.
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