There is nothing more dangerous than, more threatening, more destructive, eviler, than the marriage of Empire and Religion. When the brutal military machine of the empire becomes inspired and sanctioned by the fervor of religious conviction the results are heinous – crusades, inquisitions, genocide, slavery, wars, dictators, oppression, injustice – all perpetrated by people convinced they are carrying out the work of God. 

Singing worship songs and waving flags, embracing conspiracy theories, and endorsing the least Christlike man ever to be President, whose policies are the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus, a strange civil religion emerges draped in the language of Christianity. Its agenda: Build walls, militarize the police, permit all to carry guns and kill if they “feel threatened,” produce more fossil fuels, destroy the environment, criminalize abortion, whitewash history, reject science, ignore public health, support autocrats and dictators, tromp on the rights of the oppressed, blame the poor, prioritize America at the expense of all others, control the media, and deny truth. 

Militant, it destroys the immigrant, attacks intellectualism, joins hands with tyrants, and seeks to return society to a mythical time of white innocence and a very real time of white supremacy. Babylon threatens to swallow Lady Liberty. Sea and land monsters empowered by the satan are rising. Soon the red horse will charge. 

“Come out of her my people! Join the way of the Lamb – the way of self-sacrificial cruciform love, the way of the eternal upside-down kingdom where enemies are loved, transgressors forgiven, cheeks are turned, and crosses borne.”