The Cowardly Church of America and the Spiritual Evil That Has Infected Our Ruling Class

O America, America, the nation that kills millions and steals from the struggling! How often would I have gathered your children together as a parent gathers their child under a canopy of life and love, and you were not willing!

This is a heavy-hearted story. A critique of the Establishment; political and religious. Leaders who have rendered all things unto Cesar even as they mouth insincere words of trust in God.

Americans in positions of authority and power that we the people have trusted to serve us and our best interests. Not theirs alone. Not those who are abundantly wealthy. Not those who are amply powerful. This is a petition from the poor, a request from the working class, and a plea from the middle class to our ruling class. Buckle up it’s going to be a bumpy ride.  

I’m purposeful when I write to focus on God, not a particular faith. My primary mission is recognition of our spiritual nature in a very anti-spiritual world, not recruitment. I sincerely believe that everyone, and I mean everyone, is loved unconditionally by God. Trusting with a humbled heart that nothing can separate us from God including our self-pride, selfishness or spiritual Evil.

My opening paragraph might be considered inflammatory, sacrilegious, and even heretical by many people and many people of faith. This includes those who label themselves Christians. A shared label based on my experience and education.

While I struggle with what label I should ascribe to my faith (that’s another story), I am a follower of Jesus. I am graciously and loving saved through him. I believe he lived, he was crucified, and he rose from the dead.

Because I’m a follower of Jesus, I try and live his great commandment of living a Love centered life by treating other people like I would want to be treated. Words easy to understand but challenging to live. Those who follow this life of love are called to be a shining light in the world. Treating everyone with respect and dignity; kindness and generosity; compassion and empathy.

I also believe this is THE primary purpose and sole mission of the Church. A community of believers established by Jesus to share and live his great commandment of love with the rest of the world. The one and only original Good News.

I am not a prophet, priest or saint. Believe me, ask anyone who knows me, and they will at least chuckle if not laugh out loud at any saintly appraisal of Don. I have fallen short of living a Love centered life and will fall short again.

Repeated failure doesn’t mean I don’t try. And I try, oh my God do I try. But God never gives up on us and I will never again give up on God. I’m a child of God and a disciple of Love.

Consequently, I need to say something because I see something. Something really, really bad. Something I can only describe as Evil because it ain’t love of neighbor.

I perceive and participate in a nation that’s been captured by politicians and institutional leaders who don’t believe in an ethic of love your neighbor. Instead, living an ethic of selfishness, false superiority and subjectification of other people. Citizens in subordination to its leaders; subservient servants serving the state of Babylon.

Our government unleashing death and suffering across God’s good world. Our military industrial machine crushing other children of God. This is reality, not spin.

Decade after decade of endless wars, a deliberate inequality of wealth, skyrocketing physical and mental illness particularly among children. Heartbreaking homelessness, a failing educational system, approval and encouragement of chaotic lawlessness, escalating and unsustainable debt, and a deliberately destructive approach to people and our planet.

Every measurement of well-being indicates that the vast majority of Americans are worse off now than at any other time in modern day America. Our illusory two-party political system is meaningless and mostly irrelevant. Our establishment elites have failed, and they don’t care about you or your family.

The religious establishment; the Churches of America, are silent to this suffering and complacent in this corruption. The waters of justice dammed while a putrid pool of parasites feed off the righteousness of God’s children.

Our religious leaders no longer criticize our morally lost government and spiritually adrift ruling class. They are not the unmovable ethical foundation of Love that Jesus intended them to be in the world. Instead, they have become lemmings of the status quo. Pedaling fear, anxiety, falsehoods, fabricated compassion, divisiveness, and haughtiness while posting their boastful virtue on Facebook or YouTube.    

Wanting to be loved by worldly leaders and their temporal power; they live lives of fear, ignorance or comfort. Neglecting their mission to call on us and our leaders to repent. To live a truly Love centered life. The type of life Jesus was hated for and crucified for because he was not seeking the worlds approval.

They have relinquished their God given gifts of freedom and free thinking to the State. Obeying the “law of the land” they neglect the weightier matters of justice and mercy and faithfulness. They subvert the Law of Love and the Gospel of Peace. Shepherds in wolves clothing.

They have become Devil’s food; and I’m not talking about cake. Aligning their purpose and mission with our ruling class and fostering further discord among God’s children. Their ministry solely defined by being right or left of the culture wars. Humility absent; love no longer absolute.

Hypocrites who publicly criticize other Christians as opposed to being peacemakers. Dividing a house that shares a unified theological vision (The Nicene Creed*). Blind to the same perils and pitfalls of the early New Testament Church.    

Prophetic voices of faith that gave rise to the abolition of slavery and the long overdue reckoning of Jim Crow are silent. Pious people who once declared interventionist wars immoral and urged us to beat our swords into plowshares are quiet. Church leaders who once counseled us to lift the poor from poverty, to care for our children and elderly, to tend to the afflicted and to treat everyone as a child of God are mute.  

There are no calls to protest the wars we are funding and fueling. There are no cries to address the suffering of millions of people here in America. There are no prophets among our churches speaking out to hold our ruling class accountable.

There is no humble self-examination of why our churches are empty and in a death spiral. They are like vultures picking what meat is left on the bones of the dying. Spiritual scavengers and blind guides.

There is no interest or curiosity to ask why of themselves let alone other individuals or institutions. They are like obedient children as opposed to free thinking apostles. There is no petition to our leaders who have allowed themselves to be conduits for spiritual Evil as they smile and lie through their teeth.

Love is recognized by the fruit it bears, not in social media posts publicly condemning people with different points of view for their followers to view and validate. Followers of Jesus are obligated to help all people, including our leaders and one another to find the small gate. To discover the narrow road that leads to Life. To do unto others.

I believe that God sends us prophets and sages and teachers, even here in modern day America. But maybe like the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost they caught the last train for the coast. Maybe all people, including priests and pastors, have taken part in shedding the prophets blood. Maybe the Church will rediscover its mission and purpose. Proclaiming the good news, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming freedom for those held captive and releasing all of us from the spiritual darkness that is Evil including our leaders.     

*The Nicene Creed is a Christian declaration of faith that is the sole ecumenical creed as it is affirmed as dogmatic by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and mainline Protestant churches.