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Lost Sheep in the Church Podcast

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by Allison Nastoff

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My Attempt to Rescue Christians from Christian Nationalism <a href="https://www.lostsheepofthechurch.com?utm_medium=podcast">www.lostsheepofthechurch.com</a>

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January 21, 2025

Today Reminded me of a Song

On New Year’s Eve, my parents and I decided to rent Wicked from Amazon. It had just been released on video that day so it cost $20 but we all agreed it was worth it, and that was still cheaper than all three of us going to the theater. When the price comes down, I am going to rent it again and watch it with audio description because there were a few places where I couldn’t quite follow what was going on and it was difficult for Mom to describe. But I got the gist of it, and enjoyed the music, some of which I sang in choir.For our family who never supported Donald Trump, finding his amorality and narcissism repugnant, this month has felt strange. I love the way one writer I follow described it, like standing on railroad tracks knowing a train is going to hit you, but there’s nothing you can do about it. “I would link to it but I have read so much I cannot remember where I read it.) As I write this, Donald Trump has officially been president for one hour, so I guess the train is here. There is nothing really to say that hasn’t been said already, but I felt compelled to share some thoughts inspired by the opening number of Wicked that I believe will be valuable in putting this day in perspective and confronting Christian Nationalism, a political movement whose leaders are using Donald Trump to advance their agenda.It is in our human nature to want to leave a legacy, so perhaps the reason the position of President of the United States is so coveted by some, and campaigned for so nastily is because it offers the ultimate opportunity to leave a legacy unlike any other. In a sense, we all leave a legacy. If you are a parent, your legacy takes the form of the children you raise. In addition to passing on your genes, you pass down your values. If you are a teacher, your legacy is the students you inspire, and if you are lucky, former students will write you about how you left a lasting impression on them. If you were involved in your community, your legacy might be your positive attitude or kindness that inspired others. All these are wonderful legacies, but I once heard a sermon about the reality that the youngest baby at your funeral, in one hundred years or less, will also die, and as such, for most of us, our earthly legacies are not lasting. Most of us fade into the vast anonymity of human history. But as President of the United States, your decisions shape the course of U.S. and to some extent world history. Sadly, Satan takes advantage of this human instinct, this lust for power. Jesus, the perfection of humanity confidently resisted Satan’s temptation (Matthew 4:9) but no human government has ever been capable of fully resisting a bargain with the Devil. They don’t literally bow down and worship Satan of course, but they make decisions based on evil motives like holding onto power, or projecting strength via violence toward other countries, or oppression of their own people. We have never had, and never will have a perfect president because America’s earthly interests usually don’t align with Christ’s righteous standards, especially in the foreign policy realm. Every president panders to constituencies for whom it is politically expedient to serve, while overlooking the most marginalized, especially the extremely poor. I must say I am conflicted as to my opinion of Joe Biden. On the one hand, his big ego—which every president has, and perhaps is necessary to even seek a job as high-stakes as President of the United States—got him into trouble. That debate in June, with his declining health on full display, was painful to watch, and he exhibited poor judgment by choosing to run for a second term, and selfishness in waiting so long to drop out that there wasn’t time for a proper Democratic primary. But Donald Trump is only a few years younger than Biden, and while at surface level he seems more vigorous, he has shown significant cognitive decline over the years as well. So perhaps the shame should rest not on Joe Biden, but on our society who prioritizes superficial physical strength and vigor over content of character. Joe Biden may have had a big ego, but “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34) and whenever Joe Biden spoke, he radiated genuine compassion for anyone experiencing hardship, whether it was cancer, financial insecurity, or the loss of a loved one in combat or due to gun violence, this empathy forged through tragedy in his own life. By contrast, whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth, he spews forth cruel rhetoric against immigrants or political opponents, mocks people with disabilities, and helps people experiencing hardship only if it is politically advantageous. And yet evangelicals overwhelmingly chose him again, despite his abandonment of the prolife platform, a sign that he has no true convictions. They still believe his administration can be a tool for “taking America back for God”, despite Jesus’s warning that “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:18). Much like the Pharisees of Jesus’s day, Christian Nationalists seem to be interested only in legalistic, cultural Christianity, which bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus at all. Adding insult to injury has been watching all the charges dropped, despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption, and the sentencing in New York that wasn’t really a sentence at all. Ordinary people spend years in prison for far less serious crimes, and yet Donald Trump gets by with everything.But I was struck by the optics of Jimmy Carter’s funeral. Jimmy Carter, sadly and ironically, was treated similar to Biden by right-wing evangelicals. Jimmy Carter, another example of a man who was not perfect but lived out his faith, conducting himself with such integrity that he put his modest peanut farm into a blind trust, was scorned by evangelicals for, among other things, holding a summit on family policy that included LGBTQ families. But all hard feelings were left in the past, as even political opponents gave beautiful eulogies testifying to his integrity, his ability to negotiate peace treaties, and his legacy of service to the poor, building houses for Habitat for Humanity and eradicating diseases in third-world countries. Donald Trump attended this funeral because it wouldn’t look good politically if he didn’t, but his presence put the other dignitaries in awkward no-win positions. Depending on the political slant of the media outlet, Barack Obama was praised by some, and criticized by others for talking and laughing with Donald Trump. I couldn’t see the interplay for myself, but I imagine Barack Obama was trying to take the high road, going along with Trump’s banter, probably inappropriate for a funeral, to make the best of an awkward situation. Karen Pence, the wife of Mike Pence, was admired and rebuked, again depending on the slant of the media outlet, for snubbing Trump, which technically, if you take the Bible seriously, might have been wrong, but understandable from a human standpoint. After all, Donald Trump all but encouraged his supporters to hang her husband on January 6, 2021.Of course, only God is qualified to know the eternal destiny of Donald Trump, and we are all wicked in our own ways and would be condemned if it weren’t for God’s grace and forgiveness through Christ. But as I listened to the coverage of Jimmy Carter’s funeral, and the analysis of the behavior of Barack Obama and Karen Pence, I was reminded of a couple lines from the opening number of the movie Wicked: “A good man scorns the wicked. Through their lives our children learn what we miss when we misbehave.”Donald Trump may have skirted legal consequences for his actions, but I doubt he is genuinely happy. I have heard derisive laughter from him, in the context of mocking a political opponent, but never the genuine laughter aroused by a silly song, the cute antics of a child or the dog licking your face. In fact, he mocked Kamala Harris for her joyful laugh, viewing it as a sign of weakness. And when you are narcissistic, is it possible to have genuine friends? Big tech CEOs dined with him at Mar-a-Lago and have been involved in his transition, but it is clear they are flattering him because they want favors from him. Republican legislators are loyal to him because they want their party to stay in power. Leaders from other countries flatter him so that he will enact policies favorable to them. But does anyone genuinely enjoy passing an afternoon gulfing or enjoying a meal with him simply for his companionship, expecting nothing in return? Somehow I don’t think so. If I had children, I would love to point out how much joy he is missing out on in the absence of genuine friends, and his inability to laugh, how by being consumed with anger and thoughts of retribution, he is hurting others right now, but ultimately, as he lays on his deathbed, he may come to realize the person hurt most by his behavior was himself. And when he does pass on, I have no doubt the remaining living presidents and first ladies will attend his funeral out of respect, but given how he dehumanized them, will they be able to truly mourn him? And will history remember him kindly, or will he join the pariahs of history for whom any good they may have accomplished was overshadowed by the people they dehumanized? Has he yet contemplated these questions and felt a profound sense of loneliness?Christian Nationalism is a movement with a spectrum, so it would be unfair to paint all with a broad brush, but I see in the most ardent adherents to the movement an all-consuming anger and hostility similar to that of Donald Trump. They may have genuine friends, but only within their tribe of white evangelicals. They do not welcome immigrants despite the fact that Jesus was a refugee, and they seem to forget that Christ’s blood purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). With these Christian nationalists too, repentance is possible with God if they choose to let go of their pride and come to Christ for forgiveness. In eternal life, we will all learn in one way or another what joy we missed because we misbehaved in this life. But we can choose to start behaving better now. As the chaos and immigration raids commence once again, what if we Christians led the way in making the reputation of Christianity beautiful again by speaking up for the marginalized, the immigrant seeking asylum? What if, one community at a time, we could show the world what joy and flourishing they forfeit by choosing the path of nationalism, defined by hostility and resentment, instead of Christ’s path of inclusion and love? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.lostsheepofthechurch.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.lostsheepofthechurch.com</a>

January 2, 2025

We Were Made to Crave Drama

When my siblings and I were growing up, we learned that the phrase which irritated our parents the most was “I’m bored.” Perhaps to parents—understandably—this phrase seems to imply ingratitude. We were very fortunate, and thus had more toys than we knew what to do with indoors, and outdoors, we had a two acre yard, complete with a swing set and basketball hoop. They would run through the list of all our entertainment options, and all of us learned at some point to figure out how to amuse ourselves and quit whining, or else they would give us housework to do. During our childhood, Mom and Dad claimed there was so much work to do they were never bored, and now that they are retired, they say they don’t understand how their peers complain of being bored once they retired. Between errands and house maintenance, they say they are keeping as busy as ever.I remember one summer day in particular when I was eight years old. Mom and Dad were both at work, and my sister (six years older) was babysitting. I was a bit of a weird kid, a little more introspective than most kids my age, and that day, it was starting to occur to me—though I didn’t quite know how to verbalize it at the time—that what I was feeling was not boredom in the sense of having nothing to do, but a deep, abiding restlessness, a nagging sense that there had to be more to life than the endless school years of pointless worksheets, followed by summers of silly craft projects, children’s books and playing on the swing set. I wanted to do something real, something exciting, something meaningful. In other words, I was already contemplating in a childish way that universal human question: what is the meaning of life? Unable to articulate verbally exactly what I was feeling, I remember whining to my sister, “I want to do something I have never done before.” “Then do something you have never done before,” my sister said in a tone that clearly indicated annoyance with her little sister. I don’t remember how I ended up passing the time that day, but for the most part, I let the subject drop for the remainder of my childhood. Maybe the feeling would go away once I grew up and was allowed to do real work that made a difference in the real world rather than pointless school work that would be thrown into the recycling bin at the end of each semester. But in the adult world, I would discover that most jobs, though they may occasionally present opportunities to make a lasting difference in the world—or at least for one starfish as the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.stephbruce.com/blog/2020/3/18/the-starfish-parable">parable</a> goes—are mostly bureaucratic and ultimately pointless. And thus this restlessness is like a lifelong virus. It can be masked somewhat, but this side of heaven there is no cure. During the school year, children relieve its symptoms by rebelling—misbehaving in class or deciding not to do their homework. (I will neither confirm nor deny that I was one of the kids who decided not to do my homework.) During the summer, they mask it by passing the time doing a craft project, playing on the swing set, or escaping into a silly book or video game. During their working years, responsible adults like my parents learned to accept, and taught us kids to accept that the mundaneness of everyday life is an unavoidable reality. They intuitively lived out a modern take on the book of Ecclesiastes. The most you can hope for from life is a job that pays a fair wage, with a good company where your coworkers are pleasant and your boss treats everyone fairly. Despite what TV or social media might lead us to believe, it is actually extremely rare for people to land a job getting paid to do what they love. You go to work to pay the bills, keep your nose to the grindstone while you are there, come home and cherish time with family, finding time to pursue what you enjoy on evenings and weekends. That is a good life. Unfortunately, less responsible adults mask their restlessness by living beyond their means, doing the bare minimum in their jobs, indulging in shallow entertainment like reality TV, or self-medicating with junk food, pornography, drugs or alcohol. Middle-of-the-road adults like myself cope with boredom by getting overly excited anticipating man-made holiday traditions—singing Christmas music in October. As I write this, it is December 26 and I am coping with that annual post-Christmas malaise I feel every year. The week of Christmas, but especially Christmas Eve and Christmas Day always feels like a slice of heaven on Earth, as all society pauses from the routine of work to eat special food, play board games as a family, pack into church and sing joyful Christmas songs, and I have always found it difficult to come down from that emotional mountaintop and resume ordinary life.And since the reelection of Donald Trump, I have read some fascinating commentaries arguing that boredom at the societal level may explain the “burn it all down” mentality of so many that allowed for the rise of Donald Trump. In his book, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy, Tom Nichols quoted George Will who remarked in 2020 that “Affluent societies are often gripped by a hunger for apocalypse, a wish for a great struggle that could give drama and deeper meaning, a frisson of risk to the otherwise dull rhythm of life in a country that meets almost all of the needs of its population, at almost all times, and entertains them continuously while doing so.” Tom Nichols adds that “Democracy at its best is boring, and when a society becomes attached to the idea that boredom is a burden that government should alleviate, the attraction of politics beyond the edge of reason becomes a matter of entertainment rather than of justice or even of necessity” (Page 67). Tom Nichols wasn’t writing specifically to Christians, but we are no better. In a November 13 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/11/next-four-years-donald-trump-russell-moore-election-2024/">editorial</a> in Christianity Today, Russell Moore remarked, “What we call politics these days offers people a sense of meaning and purpose, an interruption to the dead everydayness of life. A jolt of adrenaline can feel almost like life—for a little while.” But ultimately, news cycles full of political drama only leave us feeling burnt out and distract us from the truth, that this manufactured political drama is temporary, fleeting and pitiful.But the fact that we are discontent and bored with this life isn’t in and of itself a problem. In fact, for true Christians, it is a good thing, a sign that we recognize we were made for another world. As Augustine famously said, we were made for God and only He can fulfill what are restless hearts are longing for. And as Russell Moore noted later in his article, “You are meant to have a life of drama and adventure and excitement. Politics—of the left, right or center—can’t deliver it. News cycles can’t replicate it. For those of us who are Christians, we already have it. We need no Jungian hero’s journey. We are joined to the life of Jesus of Nazareth. His story is our story. Our lives are hidden in Him” (See Colossians 3:3). In other words, it is okay to long for drama, adventure and excitement. It is just that in our fallen state, we are prone to looking for this drama and excitement in all the wrong places.Still to this day after an especially tedious day of work, I can lapse into doubt and wonder, if only I had been able to land one of my dream jobs I longed for all my childhood—a reporter for a newspaper who would fill the hearts of dishonest politicians with terror and dread, or a paid singer in a fabulous choir or Broadway production—I wouldn’t feel this restlessness. But King Solomon had the ultimate dream job, king over Israel, the global superpower of his time, and yet many scholars believe he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes full of depressing rhetoric such as “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Ecclesiastes ultimately points to Christ, the only one who can redeem this fallen world and offer what our restless hearts long for.Our hearts should break for those who do not believe in Christ. They do not know that peace that passes understanding from a Father who forgives their sins and promises eternal life, and thus they are more susceptible to despair when life throws them curveballs because in their minds, this life, and this broken world, is all there is. But even for those who have accepted Him, life can feel pointless sometimes. God requires even his followers to endure the mundane tedium of everyday life, toiling at a job we don’t particularly enjoy because it is in the ordinariness of everyday life that our sincerity and commitment to our faith is tested. God also uses ordinary life, especially adversity, to cultivate character qualities that we will need to accomplish his true purpose for us. When we are first introduced to Joseph, he is a rather arrogant teenage boy, boastfully sharing his dreams that indicate that his brothers, and one day even his father would bow down to him. What his brothers did out of jealousy was wrong, but God used the experience of slavery, and what I am sure were long, tedious years in prison, to cultivate patience and humility so that when he was promoted to a prestigious position by the king of Egypt, he was prepared to exercise the authority he had been given for God’s glory, whereas if he had been given this position without first experiencing years of adversity, he almost certainly would have misused this authority, concerned only with his own worldly power.Though Scripture doesn’t say so, Moses would have had plenty of time while tending his father-in-law’s sheep day in and day out for forty years, to lament his impulsive and foolish decision to kill that Egyptian whom he witnessed beating a Hebrew slave. By God’s providence, he was rescued from the river as a baby by the pharaoh’s daughter and was raised in Pharaoh’s palace where he would have received a world-class education, only to be sentenced to a boring life tending sheep. But God would use the patience, gentleness and perseverance cultivated while tending sheep to rescue his people from slavery in Egypt and lead them to the Promise Land.In the apostle Peter’s day, all Jewish boys typically studied Scripture until around the age of 15, but the dream job was to be chosen to be a disciple of a Rabbi, who would train them to become rabbis and lifelong scholars of Scripture themselves. But only a select few boys made the cut to be discipled by a rabbi. Most were told to return home and learn the family trade. But through years of hard, unglamorous work fishing, and mending the nets, Peter learned important skills that Jesus would repurpose to make Peter “a fisher of people.”The reality is that in this fallen world, all jobs to some extent are tedious. None of us will find that magical job that fills the God-shaped hole in our hearts. In my case, I have heard interviews of former Broadway performers who say that performance schedules were so demanding they practically burned themselves out, not to mention that by the end of a production’s run on Broadway, they may have performed it hundreds of times. They know how to paste on a smile so the audience doesn’t know, but in their hearts, they are so sick of performing their role they can hardly stand it. In my mature moments, I know my job working in a call center isn’t really pointless. Occasionally, people will tell me that speaking with me brightened their day, and I have even had a few opportunities to inspire and encourage senior citizens experiencing vision loss. And most likely, God is aware of people for whom I have made a difference that I am unaware of at this time. So as we embark on this new year that is sure to be full of political drama, I pray that all Christians, myself very much included, will listen to the Bible instead of cable news or political podcasts, the Holy Spirit rather than social media. Instead of praying for a more exciting job by my standards, I need to pray that His will be done, and that he might help me recognize and appreciate the foretastes of Heaven he gives us all the time, like the wonderful fragrances of flowers or cookies baking, conversation and laughter around the dinner table with my parents, or a song so beautiful you could cry. And even on particularly tedious days, those days we all have when nothing seems to go right, we can still find abiding, internal joy in knowing that one day, we too will be resurrected to dwell with Christ forever in a fully redeemed creation free from the curse of sin, that life of drama, adventure and excitement we were really made for.That Reminds me of a Song: When I was seven years old, Mom ordered a collection of John Denver albums that was released to commemorate his tragic death in a plane crash just a few months prior. Immediately, I too fell in love with his music, and Mom and I spent many happy childhood hours listening to these albums together. But my absolute favorite of these songs has always been <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/iOzCoXznfNo?si=P1w1ojIKPa5lPasb">Wild Montana Skies</a>. I have always been fascinated by its aura of mysteriousness. It tells the story of a man whose mother died the summer after his birth, but her prayer as she nursed him, and the refrain of the song was a prayer for practical needs—a home, the love of a good family, a wife someday—but also that he would have a fire in his heart, a light in his eyes, the wild wind for a brother, and the wild Montana skies. His uncle raised him, gave him a good home, but he never quite fit in: “There was something in the city that he said he couldn’t breathe. There was something in the country that he said he couldn’t leave.” I remember turning this song over in my mind at seven years old, and I still ponder this song today. In a Creative Writing class, I wrote an essay reflecting on this song. Perhaps the city is a metaphor for conformity, resignation, dashed hopes and dreams, whereas maybe the country is a metaphor for freedom, and the life God intended for us. There is no mention of God in this song: his mother prays to Montana. But this song came to mind again as I wrote this post. Perhaps there is Christian symbolism in this song. Perhaps we need to find the courage to not fit in, to flee the “city” with its petty political drama, its shallow concept of entertainment and its culture of striving for things that will never satisfy our restless hearts, and live differently, taking seriously the truth that we were meant for another world. The song never definitively answers the question of whether Montana ever gave this man the fire in his heart, the light in his eyes that his mother prayed for, but these prayers can be answered in Christ. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.lostsheepofthechurch.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.lostsheepofthechurch.com</a>

November 12, 2024

Forgive Them

Well readers, all I can say is I guess I am naïve. I still genuinely believe everything I wrote last week. No election, not even this one, is of eternal spiritual significance. God is sovereign over everything, so ultimately, all things will work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purposes (Romans 8:28). But I had a good feeling in my heart that Kamala Harris would win. Like all of us, she is a human who would not have been able to be completely faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness, but at least our country would be led by someone who has genuine compassion for people other than herself and wouldn’t undermine the way of Jesus in everything she says and does. I knew all the predictions that the election would be close, but since 2016, I have learned to be skeptical of polls. I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, and I was shocked that he won via the electoral college despite all of his racist, misogynistic and crude remarks which I am sure would have ended the campaign of any other candidate, but somehow didn’t affect Donald Trump. I also felt embarrassed to call myself Christian when I learned that 81 percent of my fellow white evangelicals voted for him. For a brief time, I felt a sense of shock, of mourning on behalf of our country. But because he did not win the popular vote, I could console myself with the belief that technically, most of my fellow countrymen were decent people. After a couple days, I was able to pick myself up and carry on with life, and join those willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe when campaigning was over and the reality of actually being president hit him, he would be humbled, and he would grow into the position. These hopes were quickly dashed, as it seemed we woke up every day to a fresh dose of chaos, dangerous rhetoric or cruelty. I felt a sense of relief on November 7, 2020. Though the election was still disturbingly close, a decisive majority of Americans came to their senses and elected a sane, compassionate adult for president. Maybe our country’s fascination with Donald Trump was like a fever that had broken. Then January 6 would prove it hadn’t. Even as the pandemic trauma gradually faded into the rear-view mirror under competent, adult leadership, Donald Trump never faded from the news cycle, and everyone I talked to seemed exhausted. Surely when the rubber met the road and people stared at his name on their ballot, they would remember the chaos and trauma his first administration wrought, his campaign rhetoric that was even more violent, crude and unhinged than it was in 2016 or 2020, the warnings from people who worked in his first administration that he admired fascist dictators, and there would be no guardrails this time around, they would not be able to vote for him. But they did, and this time, he even won the popular vote, making it a fully legitimate win. So I woke up Wednesday morning to a déjà vu feeling, my innocent faith in the goodness of most people called into question.The prayer guide I mentioned last week had three parts, and Wednesday was supposed to be dedicated to prayers for our political enemies. But that morning, my parents and I weren’t ready for that. We vacillated between sadness and anger, even ruminating about how much we were looking forward to seeing Trump supporters getting what they deserve, when his policies end up hurting them. As a writer, I also felt discouraged, not so much for myself but on behalf of the talented scholars, journalists and Christian activists whose blogs I follow. I am not fond of social media and am too introverted to be an effective marketer of my writing by appearing on podcasts or doing speaking engagements, so while I am grateful to all 18 of you subscribers, I never expected my writing to make a difference in the outcome of this election. I write because I sense God calling me to write, and I trust that somehow, someday, He will use it to reach someone. But I grieved for scholars, reporters and Christian activists whose blogs have thousands of followers, who practically drove themselves to exhaustion in the months leading up to the election touring the country trying to be a prophetic voice, begging Americans to follow their better angels. Ultimately, none of their efforts made a difference, and it briefly made me wonder if the very act of writing was pointless. But we cannot “become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). The prophetic books are a case in point that God does not judge us by the results of our efforts. That is out of our control. He judges us on our obedience to his call on our lives. I also remembered that if the written word had no power, authoritarian leaders all through history wouldn’t find it necessary to ban books or persecute journalists. I don’t want to be overly dramatic. For the time being, writers don’t have to worry about outright persecution in this country. But the same cannot be said for writers in Russia whose leader Donald Trump admires, and the Washington Post’s decision to cancel their endorsement of Kamala Harris was alarming to me. I pray that if persecution comes to these shores, I will find the courage to speak the truth through the written word as my act of resistance.But on Saturday, I felt ready to go through the prayer guide. Loving our enemies doesn’t mean we cannot be angry. In fact, Scripture encourages us to be honest with God about how we feel toward our enemies (Psalm 109). We just cannot allow ourselves to linger in this anger. Otherwise, we are no different from the world to which we are called to be salt and light. Even Pagans, tax collectors—and loyal Trump supporters—are capable of loving those who love them, and being kind to those that are kind to them (Matthew 5:46-47). Not only that, but when we overcome evil with good, we metaphorically heap burning coals on the heads of our enemies (Proverbs 25:22, Romans 12:20-21). For a modern-day example of what Paul meant by this, I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s commitment to this radical love is why television coverage of Civil Rights marches resonated so powerfully, even drawing white allies to the movement. If the black protestors had fought back when they were beaten, sprayed with firehoses, mauled by dogs, the world would have just seen a riot with the perpetrators indistinguishable from the victims. But when these protestors remained as innocent as doves even as they were beaten and mauled, public opinion for millions of Americans turned against these Southern police officers and Ku-Klux Klan members, and inspired many white allies, especially college students to join the cause of these protestors. And occasionally, perpetrators of evil who experience this radical love are moved to repent and come to Christ. Thus if I am really serious about rescuing people from the false teachings of Christian Nationalism, I must love my political enemies. Otherwise my pleas for them to follow the true teachings of Christ will have no credibility.Figuring out how to do this in practice will be an ongoing process that will take more than this one blog post to sort out. But I think a good place to start is by contemplating the words Jesus spoke when his enemies crucified him. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). This verse came into my mind on Thursday when I read <a target="_blank" href="https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/november-6-2024?r=1kbm69&utm_medium=ios">this article</a> detailing how all the efforts of honest reporters who tried to warn the country of the dangerous implications of a second Trump administration were no match against the right-wing media empire which traffics in disinformation and fear. In some small towns and rural areas of the country, right-wing propaganda outlets have even taken over local news. Even when balanced media coverage is available, vulnerable people—the lonely, the elderly, the cognitively impaired—can get drawn in by this propaganda and lose their ability to discern the truth. On top of that, many Americans get their news exclusively from social media. Since acquiring Twitter (X), Elon Musk has made no effort to crack down on bots produced by foreign adversaries seeking to divide us against each other, such that the day after the election, Twitter users reported a dramatic drop-off in followers, as the bots, having accomplished their evil mission, went away.As for the black men and Latino men who on the surface seemed to vote against their own best interests, Jonathan Walton offers an enlightening perspective in <a target="_blank" href="https://open.substack.com/pub/ktfpress/p/grief-and-what-to-do-after-the-election?r=1kbm69&utm_medium=ios">this live podcast</a> recorded on Wednesday. He believes that whiteness is not just about skin tone. It is an ideology based on a hierarchy of race, gender and class that even minorities can be drawn to in search of acceptance. So a black or Latino man might vote for Trump in search of acceptance based on their masculinity. Donald Trump clearly distinguishes “us” from “them”, and Latino men, due to their history of colonization, are susceptible to a mindset that says if they double down on toxic masculinity, patriarchy, vilify LGBTQ people, they will be treated better and not find themselves on the wrong side of an oppressive system. They will soon realize however that this insecurity was exploited to win their vote, and that authoritarians like Donald Trump don’t actually care about them one bit. This doesn’t mean excusing the sins of white supremacy, toxic masculinity, or resentment. But perhaps loving our enemies starts with an attitude of forgiveness which simply means letting go of any bitterness, or in my case, a sense of moral superiority that dehumanizes Trump voters, and acknowledging that as a college-educated, white woman living in an affluent suburb, I take my privilege for granted. As unimaginable as it seems from my pedestal of privilege, it is possible there are many Americans who need to be forgiven because they have been led astray by wolves in sheep’s clothing in the form of right-wing news outlets, and social media algorithms, and do not yet realize the grievous mistake they made. It is only through a posture of humility and mercy when Trump voters inevitably get hurt by his policies that these lost sheep have any hope of being rescued. If Jesus could forgive those who crucified him, I can forgive my political enemies.That Reminds me of a Song: All week, I have been thinking about the <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/BG-_ZDrypec?si=Y120oQdLZwZBu6zh">opening of Saturday Night Live</a> after the 2016 election, when the actress that played Hillary Clinton sang Leonard Cohen’s Halleluia, and then sounding genuinely sad but resolute, said, “I’m not giving up and neither should you.” You wouldn’t think of Saturday Night Live, and crying in the same sentence, but I found my eyes getting teary that night, as this opening so beautifully captured the shock and sadness those of us who saw Donald Trump for who he was, were feeling. And though Saturday Night Live is not known for its reverence of religion, the decision to sing this song was poignant from a religious perspective as well, a beautiful reminder that no matter how tumultuous and uncertain the times we are living through, and even though it feels as if all is going wrong now, we will one day stand before the Lord of song, and sing Halleluia. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.lostsheepofthechurch.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.lostsheepofthechurch.com</a>

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What is Lost Sheep in the Church Podcast?: My Attempt to Rescue Christians from Christian Nationalism <a href="https://www.lostsheepofthechurch.com?utm_medium=podcast">www.lostsheepofthechurch.com</a>
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates monthly.
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Does this podcast accept guests?: No, this podcast does not typically feature guests.

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