The Day After, Part One

Once again I worked long and hard on a blog post that ended up sitting in my drafts folder. It has been over a year and a half since that fateful day in January 2021, but it is once again in the news, so it seems like an opportunity to finally share what I have wrestled with and pondered for so long. Some of it may no longer be relevant, but I feel compelled to share it anyway. 

I've never had a hangover, so I'm not sure what that experience feels like, exactly. But waking up on January 7, 2021, to the brutal reality that people like me (white, Evangelical, conservative) stormed the Capital, pushed past Capital police (some who had been waving "Back the Blue" flags just a short time before), bringing chaos and confusion in their wake, disrupting Congress and resulting in the death of a 14-year military veteran and a Capital Police officer of 12 years. Some claim that Antifa provocateurs were ultimately responsible, but other reliable eye-witness accounts challenge that claim. Even so, I can't quite believe what happened on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. I wish it was not true. 

It seems that many who converged on Washington DC for that cold Wednesday in January went with pure motives. They believed the rhetoric about voter fraud and stolen elections. They were suspicious of the admittedly biased mainstream media panning what they felt was news. They were holding out hope that perhaps the prophecies about Trump serving a second term were accurate. People I know were watching and waiting to see if those pronouncements would come true. They did not. They will not. 

The biblical test for a prophet sent from God is 100% accuracy (Duet 18:20-22), as in 100% right, always, every single time; never missing, not once. Often, modern prophecies are generic enough to give the one making the pronouncement some wiggle room. But this was a very specific prophecy, declaring that Trump would serve two terms. And when he lost the popular vote in November 2020, the story was adjusted to fit a false narrative. Prophecies somehow continued to be contorted, regardless of the obviousness of the fallacy. Now, however, there is no wiggle room. The prophecies are false. The liars are revealed. God did not send them.  

The whole situation makes me think of Jeremiah after the people of Judah had been taken to Babylon as captives. A false prophet was whispering lies of hope in the ears of those most desperate for some of glimmer of it; the ruling class, the elite, "all but the poorest in the land" (2 Kings 24:14). Those newly dispossessed of their privilege were looking for anything on which to cling as they experienced the consequence of failing to humble themselves, pray, seek God's face, or turn from their wicked ways (2 Chron 7:14), their religious piety notwithstanding. 

Jeremiah had been directed by the LORD to "make yourself straps and yoke-bars, and put them on your neck" as an illustration of what was going to happen, not only to the king of Judah, but also to the the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. The message was, "Now I have given these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant... All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson..." and to Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, Jeremiah spoke clearly, "'Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people and live... Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are saying to you, 'You shall not serve the king of Babylon,' for it is a lie that they are prophesying... I have not sent them... they are prophesying falsely in my name..."(taken from Jeremiah 27, ESV). 

Hananiah was one of those false prophets. He said, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, which Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, took away... I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the LORD, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon" (Jeremiah 28:2 ESV). Jeremiah wasn't afraid to speak truth in the face of such outright lies. He did so boldly, "'Listen, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says the LORD: 'Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have uttered rebellion against the LORD.'" (Jeremiah 28:15-16, ESV). Sure enough, that same year, Hananiah died. 

What follows, just eleven verses after the announcement of Hananiah's death is a beloved passage Christians treasure today. It is Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (ESV). That verse, so full of promise, was given in the midst of darkness, at a time when the captives in Babylon truly had no hope left. It was preceded by the harsh explanation of their new reality. Living as exiles in a strange land, bereft of their comforts, luxuries, and privilege, the words of Jeremiah's letter must have been devastating,

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon; Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. Rather, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare... Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:5-9, ESV). 

Then, God announced, through Jeremiah, that the Children of Israel would be captives in Babylon for seventy years! That literally meant every adult who could comprehend the contents of the letter was going to die in captivity. They were never going home again. Then God said that He knew what He was doing, it was for good of His chosen people, and they still had a future. I'm not sure about you, but dying in captivity in a foreign land knowing my children would never see the land I called home does NOT sound like much of a future. It is much worse than the prospect of people we may disagree being in charge of our country for the next four years, leaving our privilege and comfort mostly intact... But that is the context of that oft-quoted and much-loved passage. 

Now back to the false prophets who predicted a second Trump term. I think a big part of the problem is nationalism that has become conflated with Christian faith and practice. One has become synonymous with the other. They are not the same, even if we humbled ourselves, prayed, sought God's face, and turned from our selfish, wicked, idolatrous ways. The harsh reality is, we are still going to lose our privilege and convenience. We have, in a way, hammered the nails into the coffin... Christianity does not define life in the US anymore. And, the growing percentage of those who don't identify with organized religion often see us as irrelevant, insincere, obnoxious, and potentially dangerous (Monaco). That message was strongly reinforced as mobs generally associated with white Evangelicals stormed the Capital Building (it doesn't matter if they were actually Evangelicals or not - the association has been made). 

So many have expressed shock at the events of January 6th. In fact, even the chief of the Capitol Police admitted to not being adequately prepared for a riot, based on past experience and the expectation that a majority white crowd would not devolve into a violent mob. That assumption proved to be incorrect. Check out Part Two of this post for a sobering explanation of why such an assumption is no longer appropriate.