I am making my way through the Old Testament and have come to the end of 2 Kings. In Chapter 22-23 there is the story of Josiah, who became king of Judah when he was only 8 years old.

When he was 18, he issued an order that the Temple be restored. In the cleaning out of the Temple, the high priest found a Book of the Law (probably Deuteronomy). When the book was read aloud to Josiah, it tore his heart in repentance. To show that outwardly, he tore his clothes. He led the nation in fasting and repentance. It pulled them back together as a nation for a brief period of time.

In the Bible I am using, I have a post it note that says this:

National religions struggle to stay meaningful.

I just wish I knew what I had been reading at the time when I wrote that note!

As I’ve read the historical books of the OT again, I am reminded anew that everything American conservative Christians think about “the Temple” and it’s place in the “end times” is just truly messed up. We put a huge significance in our “rapture theology” that the Temple MUST be rebuilt. Jerusalem is central! We miss the point.

The temple was NOT God’s idea. He tolerated it. His presence was moveable. To put the temple in a fixed place was just doing what every other nation did in that period of history. It was to fix the nation on the seat of power: the king. They used religion as the excuse to get people to come worship… which meant a good time to tax people (again). God’s presence was NOT like that and he made it clear.

But that is the way of national religion. You don’t unify people by saying, “God bless the Republican Party!” (or the Democratic Party). You unify people by saying, “God bless AMERICA.” (And then we mean, “Well, it’s truly US to who are in power, so God bless US.” Those other guys just don’t love Jesus like us.)

We invoke GOD. We don’t invoke our desire for power.

National religions struggle to stay meaningful.

What we used to do is say things like, “America needs a revival!” (Funny we don’t say that much anymore, and we certainly don’t use words like “repentance”, unless we mean the other side we don’t like and they need to repent.)

What we didn’t get in saying that (I say this personally) is it meant, “We need America back in the comfortable way that didn’t bother me or inconvenience me as much.”

We invoke God to induce people to vote. Then, we make sure that’s ALL they do… just vote. And yes, “It’s the lesser of two evils” and we keep people asleep that way.

The sick Christian Nationalism we’re mired in showed up this past week in the first “Republican” debate. The question was this: “If Trump were convicted in a court of law and he was the Republican nominee, would you support him?”

Immediately a couple of candidate hands shot up in support. The crowd cheered. Once the other candidates heard the cheering, their hands shot up. (Only one hand did not go up.) Most of them were not leaders. They were the sheep and the crowd was dictating to them what to believe and how to act.

This is a crowd that stood and pledged allegiance to the flag before the “debate” began. Then… against that flag… they cheered for the possibility of a convicted felon who conspired to overthrow the Constitution when he didn’t win the last time being elected president anyway.

That is a religion. It’s not Christianity, though so many of them would cloak themselves in that shroud. It’s a cult. Built around a man. But they invoke GOD to try and sanctify the process.

National religions struggle to stay meaningful.

The Kingdom of God is not built for use as a national identifier. It is built to be an operation that transcends every form of government, every form of economics, every form of oppression, every form of fake religion that tries to unify people.

We are seeing a resurgence of a failing group trying to hold on to their vestiges of power use “religion” as the unifier. It is sick to watch. And it needs to be continually called out. Even if no one is listening. The record needs to be left as a witness.