That was a headline I saw the other day of quoting a woman arrested for her part in the riot at the Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6.  I didn’t read the article, so I don’t know if this was a real moment of self-awakening or simply an excuse to escape the charges against her.  I hope it is the former.

There’s no shame in believing a lie. It happens to all of us. Some people are great liars, telling us stories we desperately want to believe. The chance for healing comes when we begin to suspect that what we believe isn’t true. Most of us immediately feel embarrassed and are tempted to draw back into the lie to preserve our reputation. But the opportunity for growth always comes from exploring the possibility that we are wrong and have something wonderful to learn.

That happened to me when a good friend back in my pastoring days said to me one day, “Don’t you think that sermon you preached Sunday was the most manipulative talk you’ve ever given?”  Immediately, I felt defensive and wanted to argue. But this was a good friend, so I gave his words time to sink in and learn from them.

A friend of mine from the U.K. told me a story about one of the most audacious rebukes I’ve ever heard. After sharing something he was about to do, an older friend leaned in and, with a twinkle in his eye, said, “I love you too much to let you do something so stupid.” Fortunately, they were good enough friends that the younger man recognized the love behind the humor, and doing so saved him a lot of grief.

It’s no doubt the past election cycle has been a painful period for our country, no matter what side of the divide you’re on. Both sides characterized it as a fight between good and evil, God or Satan, saving the country or destroying it. I’ve hated most of the politics that have divided our families, pitted friends against each other, and caused an endless amount of anxiety and fear. One lady wrote me, “I have family and friends who I know to have good hearts, who raged against Trump and said they were praying for him to be assassinated, and family members who are leaders in ministry, holding out for the “Red Sea miracle” that was going to overturn the election and keep Trump in office a second term.”

But I do not come through this season discouraged. Instead, I’m hopeful. In a conversation Sunday, I was expressing how God has been opening their eyes to a better way of thinking that has caused them to question some of their earlier positions. That’s the only way growth happens. If we think we already know everything we need to know, we are in dire straits.

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself on a course through Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah. Almost every day, I read words and phrases in those ancient books that corresponded to the days in which we find ourselves. I am encouraged when the Scripture is as fresh as the morning’s news and so much more enlightening.

I realize the circumstances are very different. Israel was God’s people in a theocracy of his choosing, while we are a democratic republic being polarized by two political parties.  Still, I’m amazed at how specifically the lessons God was giving Israel apply in our context today.

Many people prophesied five years ago that Trump was a Cyrus figure, anointed by God to protect Christianity from the ravages of secularism. Even though I heard that from people I respected, I didn’t sense the touch of God on it, especially when it came from people pushing Christian Nationalism as a viable political matrix for followers of Jesus.  They also used it as an excuse to give Trump their unquestioned loyalty and not challenge or even acknowledge the unseemlier side of his character or his shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy.

Even though I didn’t think Trump was a modern-day Cyrus, I appreciate why many of my friends supported his policies and his judicial appointments. I was grateful for many of them myself, but not enough to ignore his deficiencies. I understand why Israel turned to Egypt and why besieged Christians turned to Trump. They may have their flaws, but they are not nearly as bad as the enemies we’re facing.

But the prophets of Israel who pointed to Egypt were wrong, seeking their help in horses and chariots instead of turning to God. By trying to save themselves, they resisted the work God wanted to do in them.  When the same leaders who told us Trump was our Cyrus prophesied with absolute certainty that Trump would win a second term, I was even more skeptical.  They were like football prognosticators on the football pre-game shows, telling us why our team will win.  They even had a 50% chance of getting it right and still missed.

When they were proved wrong, many of them doubled down on their error, prophesying the “Red Sea miracle” that would occur and overturn the election. That’s what fed some of the passion behind the January 6 attack on the Capitol. When they turned out to be wrong yet again, most still did not repent but blamed the church for not praying hard enough or deflected by telling people, “Who cares who said what; it’s time to win souls.”

Now, read these words from Micah for the prophets of Israel’s day and tell me they don’t apply equally well today for those who put their hope in a man rather than on God.

Here is God’s Message to the prophets, the preachers who lie to my people: “For as long as they’re well paid and well fed, the prophets preach, ‘Isn’t life wonderful! Peace to all!’ But if you don’t pay up and jump on their bandwagon, their ‘God bless you’ turns into ‘God damn you.’ Therefore, you’re going blind. You’ll see nothing. You’ll live in deep shadows and know nothing. The sun has set on the prophets. They’ve had their day; from now on it’s night. Visionaries will be confused, experts will be all mixed up. They’ll hide behind their reputations and make lame excuses to cover up their God-ignorance.” (5-7, The Message)

The leaders of Jacob and the leaders of Israel are leaders contemptuous of justice, who twist and distort right living, leaders who build Zion by killing people, who expand Jerusalem by committing crimes. Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder, priests mass-market their teaching, prophets preach for high fees, All the while posturing and pretending dependence on God.  (9-12, The Message)

Harsh words, indeed, and not all of them apply, but a lot of them do. Many of our religious leaders have failed in this time to invite our hearts to God and instead placed their hopes in the conventions of humanity. They allied with the wrong agenda, and even when their lies were exposed, they have refused to repent. Instead, they hid behind their reputations and made “lame excuses” to cover up their ignorance of what God was actually doing.

They fought to build their audience by pandering to what people wanted to hear, and many of them charge exorbitant amounts of money to take their “ministry schools” or be on their select mailing lists. We don’t need to blame them or exact a pound of flesh for their failures, but it ought to give us all an opportunity to say maybe these men and women shouldn’t have my ear. Maybe I got caught up in what I hoped to be right instead of what really was.

If you got distracted from your relationship with Jesus by the angst and anger of the politics of our time, now would be a good time to return to the Lord. We can freely participate in politics as citizens of the U.S., but we dare not put our hope there. Please don’t get caught up in the Biden hatred; it will only further crush your soul. All that is still humanity’s kingdom. We’re part of a more powerful kingdom that, even now, is infiltrating every corner of the globe. That kingdom transcends politics and spreads not as we fight each other but as we love our neighbor and, yes, even our enemies.

Remember, God’s salvation for Israel was not found in resisting Babylon but seeing him in their disappointed hopes and expectations. We can, too.  There may be rough times ahead, but one day a trumpet will blast from heaven, and voices will call out,

“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15)

Until then, we have only to remain faithful to him, to love as we are being loved, and to watch the hand of God move in the earth.  These are great days!

Last Sunday, I held a Zoom conversation with people who wanted to discuss some of the political climate we are in, especially as it has affected relationships with friends and family. We didn’t record it, so nothing to share there, but we had a great time talking about putting our hope in God’s kingdom, not the political parties that humans have devised. We had a lot of people share the trajectory of their journey from a strong partisan point of view, to a greater generosity toward people who don’t see the world the way they do.

One of the issues that kept arising in that conversation was about racial equity, and how to be a voice for positive change in an environment that is so politically charged.  One wrote me this after:  “I’d love another one on how and what we can do to be more racially conscious and helpful. When I speak up and I do, I’m making groups feel self-conscious and I’m a little ostracized…🤨”

So I asked Arnita, one of my co-authors on A Language of Healing, to lend her insight as an African-American woman as to how people from the majority culture can be more sensitive and helpful as allies in the quest for racial justice. This Sunday, February 14 at 10:30 am Pacific Time, I’m going to host another Zoom conversation with Arnita to help people explore how to have better conversations here.

This time, however, I’m going to limit the room to about 25 people so we can have more of an interactive conversation. However, I will also be streaming it live on The God Journey Facebook page  for those who would like to watch it. It will also be on that page for people to listen to afterwards, and we may even excerpt some of that conversation for a future podcast at The God Journey.

If you’d like to be part of that conversation let me know and I’m going to prayerfully select twenty-five people out of those who want to join us. This is not limited to the majority culture and I hope to have a good representation of people with brown and black skin with us as well.

Whether you want to join us in the room or not, if you have any specific questions you’d like Arnita and me to address, please send them in advance so we can give them our consideration.

I am giving first opportunity to those of you who were there last week but will also be inviting others as well.  I know everyone can’t be in the room with us but we are going to stream it live, record it, and possibly put excerpts in a future podcast of The God Journey.

I got this email last week, and it really touched me. I know this woman isn’t alone. Many have come through this pandemic and election season confused about what is true and how to deal with people in our lives who seem to have fallen prey to many of the lies that are disarming the power of his church.

My heart hurt for this lady and what she is going through, but I also admire the courage of her honesty and how to handle what’s going on around her:

Today, I got an email from someone I looked up to circulating a conspiracy theory about vaccines, and it kind of just cracked me open. I’m seeing the people who taught me to value truth abandon it or not even using the slightest bit of discernment as they circulate clearly problematic “information.”

I just don’t know what to do. It’s hurting me more than I expected. The isolation of this year is hard, homeschooling our three boys is hard, the political turn the country has taken has been deeply concerning. Watching what’s happening in the church is by far the hardest.

This year the church looks nothing like the church to me. I watched my Mom and her husband make fun of the black lives matter movement. I listened to my sister’s pastor preach against black lives matter for having points he disagreed with. I watched people I went to Bible school with mock George Floyd’s death and condemn the protests that followed. My entire family, right down to cousins, seem to have bought into the “rigged election” lies. With that comes political conspiracy theories using the name of Jesus. Now the vaccine conspiracy theories. Most of my family is wrapped up in this. I feel so sad and so tired. I feel brittle. Every day Jesus teaches me more how much He loves me, I’m completely 100% all in with Jesus, but for the first time in my entire life, I’m not so sure what to do with Christians. I don’t know who they are anymore. It makes me cry.

What I thought was, isn’t. The people I respected, I now do not. The people I trusted, I now do not. I don’t want to be part of a church that is a thinly veiled political party with spiritual window dressing. But I do want Jesus and all the He has for me, wherever that might be.

I’ve had quite an exchange with her and even interact a bit with this email on The God Journey podcast set to air tomorrow (February 5).  I wrote the blog on The Symptoms of Delusion to engage in this kind of conversation. If you are having some of the same struggles this lady is and would like to get together with some other people to talk about it, I’m going to hold an open Zoom conversation this Sunday, February 7 at 10:30 am Pacific Time.  Please understand me. This is not for people who take offense to her email and want to argue that the election was rigged, that Donald Trump is a modern-day Cyrus, that there isn’t racial injustice in this country, or that the vaccine is unsafe.  This is for those who want to have a different conversation — how do I navigate a Christian world I feel so out of step with? And, what might God be doing in our day through all of this that can give me hope?

And, if that doesn’t include you, please don’t feel judged or excluded from God’s life or my love.  This is a very trying time and rather than fight over the controversy on Sunday, we just want to talk to those who are feeling alienated from their friends and family who see politics very differently than they do.

If you’d like to join us, please email me and I will send you a Zoom link.  We’ll spend about an hour together and see what God does.

Also ——————-

I’m looking for ten or so people who are between 25 and 40 years of age with a sense that God has given you specific gifts to help equip others to live in his love in a bit more unconventional way than some of our religious boxes provide.  I already have a few in mind, but I sense there are some others who would like to get together weekly on Zoom and see where the conversation goes. This is not so I can teach you anything. I have no agenda or curriculum for you to follow, but just a willingness to walk alongside a few younger people while God is shaping something in their hearts.  This will be a chance for us to bounce questions and insights off each other and see what God does. I only want people who are already familiar with the passions of my heart from having read at least a few of my books or listened to a fair amount of podcasts.  I hope to encourage people who feel as if God is inviting them on a similar walk.

If you’d like to be considered, please email me. If I don’t know you already tell me a bit about yourself and why you would be interested in this kind of gathering.  I’m looking to start with about ten or twelve people so I’m going to be praying about who that might be off of the things you share with me.  If there’s more interest then I’ll have to see about starting another or what else God might have in mind.