Like Judas, Trump Insists God Is On His Side-- How Many Evangelicals Actually Believe Him?

That video above is Bob Dylan and Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, singing one of my favorite songs of his, “With God On Our Side” (which hadn’t been released yet). Down at the bottom is a cover by Wire Train, one of the bands on my old indie label, 415 Records. Great version— and this clip has all the lyrics shown plainly on the screen. Trump should have watched it before he went down to Miami on Friday to rally evangelical voters. All the regular fare you get at any of Trump’s standard hate rallies— but tailored specifically for evangelicals, who he fears are starting to slip away from his grasp, something that would spell the end of any chance he has for a second term.

Democrats, he insisted are “radical” leftists pursuing an “extreme, anti-religious and socialist” agenda… Evangelicals, Christians of every denomination and believers of every faith, have never had a greater champion in the White House-- not even close-- than you have right now. Together, we’re not only are we defending our Constitutional rights, we’re also defending religion itself, which is under siege. Every Democrat candidate running for president is trying to punish religious believers and silence our churches and our pastors,” he hectored the most easily gaslighted sector of the population.

And then came this from his speech-writer: “I do really believe we have God on our side. Or there would have been no way we could have won.”

Really? God’s on his side? The lyrics of the Dylan song are all about how we Americans believe that God will invariably side with us, leaving no need to question the morality of wars fought and atrocities committed by our country. Convenient  Dylan is certainly attempting get across a sense of historical sickness which might not be comprehensible to Trump or his evangelical supporters. A little too abstract maybe?

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Ever read ‘em? You should, carefully. Evangelical voters should too. Know any you could send them to?

This morning John Pavlovitz wrote about the kind of Christians who are still followers of Jesus-- Christians are Supposed to Care About People--and those who only claim to be. He wrote that as a result of "decades immersed in the Christian tradition both personally and vocationally, I thought I had at least the gist of Jesus. Now I think maybe I’ve been doing this wrong all these years. For my entire life I assumed something that perhaps I shouldn’t have: I thought Christians were supposed to care about people. Not necessarily agree with them or believe what they believe or even like them-- but see them each as specific and unique image-bearers of the divine, to want and to work for Shalom for them: wholeness, happiness, peace, safety, rest. I grew up believing that one of the markers of a life emulating Jesus, was a heart capable of being broken at the distress of other human beings around you: when they are hungry and hurting, when they are homeless and afraid, when they grieve and feel alone, when they believe they are unloved and forgotten, when tragedy befalls them and when injustice assails them. These things are supposed to move the needle within us if Jesus is present."

• I never once see a Jesus brandishing a “Don’t Tread On Me” bravado in the face of dire need.
• I don’t see him lecturing the poor and the afflicted to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
• I can’t find him inviting war or celebrating bloodshed or reveling in loss of life for any reason.
• 
I don’t encounter him trolling those who express sadness or worry or struggle.

• I don’t see Jesus tossing off a defiant middle-finger contempt for those who came seeking refuge in him.

• I see no arrogance that inflates his worth at the expense of someone else’s.

...If you profess to be a follower of Jesus, I’m not concerned with your politics and I don’t care about your doctrine. I’m not interested in the Scriptures you can recite or the prayers you utter out loud. Show me a working theology of empathy. Show me that you actually give a damn about people: not just Republican people or American people or Christian people or white people-- but the disparate parade of human beings in every way you encounter them, in every condition they arrive, with whatever backstory they’ve lived through.

If you tell me you’re a Christian, be someone who, like Jesus-- looks at the crowds and has a compassion for them that propels them into proximity with their pain.

Because if you aren’t deeply burdened to live from a place of expansive, sacrificial, selfless love toward your neighbor, not moved to alleviate anguish or reduce suffering, not compelled to leave people better than you found them-- honestly I’m not sure what the point of calling yourself a Christian is.