How The Christian Gospel Has Been Hacked

 

This Christian fundraising site states it is "a place to work
together with the body of Christ around the world to make
 a difference."

Among the many American and Confederate flags at the January 6 rally in Washington was a large yellow banner with the words, "Jesus Saves." That banner, according to Tom Gjelton, who covers religion and faith issues for National Public Radio, was among those carried by members of the mob that assaulted the U.S. Capitol and occupied and trashed it for three hours.

In a December 9 podcast, Eric Metaxas, the conservative Christian writer and radio host who emceed the rally, urged Christians to engage in war, if necessary, to overturn the presidential election. "What's going to happen is going to happen," he said, "But we need to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood because it's worth it." 

Then in his opening invocation at the Washington event Metaxas prayed that God would help them keep Donald Trump in office, saying, "We are here today to cry out to the God of heaven to ask him to have mercy on the greatest nation in the history of the world." 

According to the NPR report, one of the rally organizers, another Christian nationalist, had confidently declared that "God appeared to him in a vision and told him it's not over."

Army veteran Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the heavily armed Oathkeepers militia group that was among the thousand people who stormed the capitol building, had just told the crowd he wanted Trump to deal harshly with his opponents. "If he does not do it now, we're going to have to do it ourselves later in a much more desperate, much more bloody war," Stewart warned.

Three days after the January 6 insurrection, Pastor Darryl Knappen of Cornerstone Church in Alexandria, Minn. posted on Facebook. "There is a need in every one of our localities to have individuals, patriots, who are ready to arm up and be part of a citizen militia to protect our freedoms." This was accompanied by a photo of himself speaking from his church, standing in front of a cross.

In another development this week PayPal cut off its service to GiveSendGo, a faith-based  crowdfunding site, due to its having been used to raise travel money for some members of the Proud Boys and other groups and individuals who attended the January 6 rally. 

GiveSendGo was also used as a platform to raise money for the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with killing two protesters last August in Wisconsin, and for the defense of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, according to a recent article in the Washington Post.

What these individuals and groups have in common is that they all claim to promote the Christian gospel. Our failure to call them out as the imposters they are simply adds to the growing chorus of those who dismiss Christians as hypocritical and lacking in even basic moral values, much less upholding the teachings of Jesus. Even skeptics and atheists know this much about our faith.

In all fairness, a spokesperson for GiveSendGo insists it tries “to ensure that our services are not used to accept payments for activities that promote hate speech, violence or other forms of intolerance,” according to the Post, and that it does review accounts for such activity. But I fear that much of the damage this kind of enabling does to the Christian brand has already been done.

Am I saying that every supporter of President Trump is guilty of promoting violence, and that all who attended the January 6 event are equally complicit in causing death, destruction and sedition? 

No, I'm sure many simply came to pray and to protest what they sincerely (though mistakenly) believed to be a fraudulent election.

But all of us who are a part of the Christian movement need to rise up and clearly distinguish between the kind of gospel Jesus proclaimed and the heretical and false "gospel" linked to these proponents of violence. If we fail to do so, we will deserve the harsh judgement of a world increasingly scornful of the Christian faith. 

Here are links to the NPR Morning Report piece and to the one in the Washington Post:

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/18/957982008/some-christians-feel-its-a-god-given-mission-to-fight-on-trumps-behalf.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-place-to-fund-hope-how-proud-boys-and-other-fringe-groups-found-refuge-on-a-christian-fundraising-website/2021/01/18/14a536ee-574b-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html