Preying for Who?
DEI for Christians
Show Notes
Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works.
Amity: At two National Prayer Breakfast events President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new task force, “The Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” to be headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.”
As the name suggests, its purpose is to: “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.”
A few hours later President Trump signed an executive order putting this plan into action. The use of government authority to support and endorse a specific religious group has caused controversy with both secular and religious groups.
With unresolved military conflicts around the world and heightened domestic unrest, why is this an issue? A task force to address the largely imaginary discrimination against the world's largest religion? We are subjected to a daily erosion of rights: the elimination of DEI programs, the curtailing of women’s reproductive rights, the curtailing of rights for trans people, and replaced them with a thing like, “Christian Acceptance Day,” and rhetoric about the place of Christian faith in American life. Trump argues that he wants his new task force to, “bring God back.”
Lemuel: Bring God back from where? Where has God been?
First I have to assert that this is not Christianity. It is not the job of the body of Christ to oppress the needy. The current evangelical church is embracing a counterfeit version of the Gospel, with the mercy, compassion and love of God excluded.
Salvation, in Jesus teaching, is not easy to achieve. It requires sacrifice, and devotion. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives a chilling picture of the Christian, “Day of Wrath.” This is the judgement day when God sits as righteous judge over the quick and the dead.
In describing the day of judgment, Jesus draws a parallel to sorting sheep from goats. He describes God as a king, sorting sheep to right and goats to the left.
Amity:
“Then the king will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my father ; take your inheritance., the kingdom is prepared for you since the creation if the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me.”
Then the righteous will say, “Lord, when did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go and visit you? “
“The king will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Matthew 25; 31-45
Lemuel: This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Immediately following this is the righteous king of the story condemns those on his left to a judgement prepared for, “the devil and his angel.” When those people ask what they have done to deserve this, Jesus starts with, “I was hungry and you didn’t feed me…”
Jesus is not in the habit of condemning people to hell. In fact, he mentions damnation comparatively little. You will find more mentions of hell in any given church any given Sunday. Jesus brings it up to demonstrate what God values, and what earns salvation. He also makes it clear what demands damnation, and it is exactly what passes as Christianity in the conservative movement.
Show compassion and mercy, humanity, and love. If you do not you are cursed to the eternal fires prepared for those beings who rejected God before the world began.
Bring God back? God is everywhere. In the church, yes. In the homeless person. In the Trans Kid. In the unwed mother. In the convict. God is in your queer neighbor. You can’t bring God back; he hasn't gone anywhere. He’s starting you in the face. He’s been staring you in the face everyday.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-prayer-breakfast-30ff6f55a2e3c7b8643a15e7b158537d