I met my first Young Earth devotee when I was 24 years old. I was serving Garnerville UMC (which was not far from where I grew up), going to seminary full-time, and working as a substitute teacher while also working for a contractor. I was also newly married to a medical student who was forced to drive 45 minutes each way to medical school (it got worse the next 3 years when I got moved to NW NJ – thanks church!), so you can imagine the insanity of our lives. I was provided with housing (which was mediocre at best) and utilities, as well as a small income. We had so little money that we qualified for welfare. So, I worked lots of odd jobs to make ends meet.
I got a job working one to two days a week with Jim, a local contractor with a good reputation. He was very involved in his church, so he found my story to not just be interesting, but a challenge. You see, Jim attended a fundamentalist micro-church, and his belief system was the opposite extreme of mine. He didn’t understand how I allowed my wife to have a career (allowed? sure…). He especially didn’t get my acceptance of people in the LGBTQ communities, a group his church believed to be unredeemable. They also believed the earth was somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years old, which meant that Darwin and evolution were of the devil. Dinosaurs? Roamed the earth when humans did. Adam and Eve? Real people and the only ones on earth, for a while. Oil deposits (related to the existence of dinosaurs)? Put there by God so we could use it. You might imagine our conversations, which never got angry, but led to some exasperation on both our parts.
The new speaker of the House of Representatives is this kind of Christian. He believes Jesus is coming in his lifetime. He supports Young Earth doctrine, theocratic (Christian) rule over America, the inferiority of women to men, and creationism. He is, from everything I have read, a good and faithful person. He is also a Christian Dominianist, which means that America – the entire world, in fact – must come under the control of Jesus whether they want to or not. As a practicing Christian pastor, I find his worldview to be frightening, in the very least. If you don’t see this as a danger to democracy, think again. It’s one thing if you are like my friend Jim, working, living your life, and practicing your personal religion. It is an entirely different thing when you are third in line for the presidency.
Evangelicals and Fundamentalist Christians used Donald Trump as a tool to get what they wanted; Trump did the same. But Mr. Trump is not a Christian and never has been a Christian, so his misuse of these churches – and their misuse of him – has been obvious. Mr. Johnson is a different story; he is a true believer who will stop at nothing to make America a place where people who believe differently from him will not be welcome. That means anyone who is not with him is against him. That means me, non-church attendees, Jews, Muslims, and all the rest. That isn’t being a follower of Jesus; that is someone training to be a tyrant. If you don’t believe me, read about it. We should all be ready to protect one another. His views aren’t just different, they are dangerous.
Prayer – Help us to live our lives well, God of all, so that we can keep each other safe from those who would use Your name for their personal agendas. All we want is peace. Amen.
The quote in this photo is from “Mein Kampf”.