Missing the Forest for the Trees

 I don’t understand this type of thinking at all.

Listen, I am not a supporter of President Trump. As I have said before, policy wise he has been a pretty typical president. He has done some good things and he has done many bad things.

To see President Trump and his supporters as uniquely evil seems bizarre to me. What makes President Trump and the support he has received different?

Rather than being something new, I think what Donald Trump and his presidency revealed is the divided loyalty many American Christians have. The loyalty that we have is often split between Jesus (and his church) and Nation (and political party). 

I believe one of the big questions the American Church, in all of its different flavors, needs to wrestle with coming out of COVID and the 2020 election cycle is: "Where does your loyalty reside?"

“Trumpism” isn’t any more dangerous than all the other ways our loyalty gets divided, and to act like it is means we downplay the more seductive and subtle ways Christians loose their first love.

I know for me, as a libertarian, one of the things I need to be on guard against is the idol of personal liberty and individual rights. It is easy for me twist those ideas with what it looks like to follow Jesus. 

We need to heed the warning of Revelation, to come out of Babylon, and remain loyal to Jesus.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees. 

American Christians have a loyalty problem, and those of us who serve in leadership in various ways in different Christian communities need to continually call people back to their first love as we continue to resist the urge give our loyalty away to lesser causes.