A Juneteenth Sermon by Gary David Stratton
A national leader at odds with a minority group. A smoldering culture war igniting into violence. A ruler invoking the God of the Bible to hold together a crumbling alliance.
Washington, D.C., on June 1, 2020?
Actually, no.
The events above occurred in ancient Israel around 1000 BC. The national leader was not Donald J. Trump, but Israel’s first divinely installed king, Saul the Benjaminite.
God’s Regret
The remarkable incident concludes with one of the most powerful and perplexing God-statements in the Bible:
“I regret that I made Saul king.” (1 Samuel 15:11)
Perplexing, because of the theological questions it raises about God. How can a God who knows everything regret the outcome of a divinely instigated action?
Powerful, because it reveals God’s deep commitment to the dignity of human causality. No matter how you resolve the theological problems in the statement, you cannot do so at the cost of one of the Bible’s most profound truths. Even in a theocracy, God does not promote men and women into positions of power with carte blanche approval of their actions.
Since 2016, many on the religious right have insisted that God chose Donald Trump as president of the United States to forward a righteous divine agenda (generally cited as a conservative judiciary and the protection of religious liberties). While such a politicalized claim seems suspect outside of a theocracy, what happens if you follow through on the logic of that argument?
Even if Trump was God’s hand-picked candidate four years ago, divine regret over making Saul king in 1000 BC raises a critical question for Bible-believing Christians in 2020: Are there factors that might lead God to regret Trump’s presidency today?
Divine Standards for a Failed State
According to Nahum Ward-Lev, God’s pronouncement of a morally “failed state” always results from two factors: idolatry and injustice. They are two sides of the same coin. As Andy Crouch asserts, injustice is the result of humans “playing God” by dominating others for personal benefit or the benefit of family and friends. Idolatry goes one step further by seeking to promote self-interest by bending the will of a god.
Idolatry is, therefore, both the worship of a false god: “You shall have no other gods before me… nor bow down to its image,” and the worship of the true God in a false way: “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain” (Exodus 20:3-7).
It is this second form of idolatry that got King Saul into trouble. He performed a religious act—a ceremonial sacrifice—not to worship God, but to prop up his failing leadership. Samuel, the prophet, speaking truth to power, confronted Saul with the news that God now regretted making him king precisely because “To obey is better than sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 15:22)
Donald J. Trump
How does Donald Trump measure against the biblical standard of idolatry? Not well. Holding up a Bible in the middle of a national crisis for no other apparent reason than a political photo-op would have made King Saul proud. It is a brazen example of the idolatry of “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” It also meshes perfectly with Trump’s lifelong commitment to what appears to be his true god—greed—which, according to the Bible, is idolatry (Ephesians 5:5).
This type of idolatry is also deeply connected with injustice. King Saul was not only an idolater; he also cruelly oppressed and butchered the Gibeonites, a minority group living among the Israelites. God condemned this injustice so severely that the crimes Saul perpetrated against the Gibeonites continued to bring divine judgment upon Israel long after Saul’s death (2 Samuel 21). When faced with Saul’s rampant oppression, the God of the Bible insisted “Gibeonite Lives Matter.”
How does Trump measure against this biblical standard of justice? He has refused to do so much as hint that black lives matter (let alone capitalize the words). In recent months, the president did too little, too late to address the unjust enforcement of the law that led to the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and countless other African Americans; refused to admit even the possibility that historic discriminatory government policies contribute to African American poverty; denied data warning that African Americans and other minority groups are dying from COVID-19 at three-times the rate of whites; supported voter suppression against black (and Latinx) citizens in numerous states; blocked the removal of confederate generals’ names from U.S. army bases; then tear-gassed and called for the “domination” of peaceful protesters.
To be fair, injustices such as these did not begin with Trump, nor are they likely to end with him. Systemic racism against persons of color is our nation’s original sin. Yet, like Saul’s sin against the Gibeonites, such injustices are the responsibility of not only the leaders who commit them but also the leaders who inherit the consequences of such crimes.
This makes Trump’s dereliction of duty to uphold the Bible’s standard of other-centered justice speak so much louder than his act of holding up a Bible. When asked a few days later for his plan to address the nation’s systemic racism, Trump predictably conflated idolatry and injustice with his response, “We’re going to have the strongest economy in the world.”
It all smacked eerily of the Hebrew prophets’ words (quoted by Jesus) when they faced leaders trying to hide their injustice behind religious trappings: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8).
Faith or Politics
Does this mean God regrets Trump’s presidency? That’s impossible to say for certain. Yet, the very Bible Trump held aloft on June 1 seems to point in that direction.
And if God has regrets about Trump, what are Bible-believing men and women to do?
Deny? Justify? Excuse?
Or will we follow Samuel’s example—express our anger in prayer and lament, and then speak up against idolatrous and unjust actions, statements, and policies wherever we find them!*
Politics is, by nature, a self-centered process. We vote for those candidates we believe best serve our self-interests.
The faith of Jesus is an other-centered endeavor. We act to serve the best interests of others. If evangelicals refuse to speak now, then we have sacrificed our faith to the idol of political self-interest.
White evangelicals helped vote Trump into power. White evangelicals are now accountable to God for his actions.
Regardless of who you voted for in 2016, or who you plan to vote for this November, white evangelicals must embrace our prophetic responsibility to speak truth to power now.
It is time to listen to and follow the leadership of the African American community as they join the Hebrew prophets in declaring: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.” (Isaiah 10:1-2)
Anything less and God will regret our inaction.
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* You could start by just going to a protest (while wearing a mask and using hand sanitizer, of course!). There is almost certainly a peaceful Juneteenth celebration in your city today.
Gary David Stratton, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow for the Association of Biblical Higher Education. He serves as professor of spiritual formation and cultural leadership, and dean of the school of arts and sciences at Johnson University (TN & FL), as well as grant administrator and chair of the Lilly Endowment funded Future of Hope youth theology institute serving student leaders from Knoxville’s under-resourced high schools.
