I’ve been thinking about how to write this post for days. On October 20, I had the most horrifying prophetic dream I’ve ever had, and it concerned former President Donald Trump and his Christian followers. I am certain the dream was an urgent warning from God. But I also know that many of my readers come from traditions that dismiss or at least downplay the possibility of God speaking to us through dreams.
I get that. That is why I am going to write this post from two angles: What I see and hear with my natural eyes and ears, and what I saw in the Spirit.
I want to start with something I heard last week in the small racial unity Christian fellowship group that I co-lead. On Zoom, I raised the subject of the midterm election on November 8 and the repulsive proliferation of race-baiting ads from Republican candidates in the Dallas-Fort Worth area—more on that later.
Two of my dear Christian friends, one African-American and one Asian-American, mentioned that they had thought of leaving either the United States or Texas. They knew we were about to elect white candidates who had little or no concern for the safety of people like them.
It took a while for their soft-spoken words to register with me. These are two of the most gracious, thoughtful, and Christ-honoring people I know.
There is a good chance you have sat next to people just like them in church.
They’re not sure it’s safe to continue living in Texas.
And we as white Christians continue to ignore their concerns. Worse than ignore—we name-call folks who amplify their concerns as “woke” and “radical leftists.”
Then we text them conspiracy videos.
Then we vote for candidates who refuse to rebuke the extremists, white supremacists, and conspiracy-mongers in their midst, make jokes about a violent attack on the 82-year-old husband of a political figure we despise, and talk in code about “law and order.”
Have you ever noticed that “law and order” only applies to Black and brown people, particularly when they’re demonstrating in the streets for basic civil rights? Did you ever hear Republicans talk about “law and order” when a violent, armed, 99-percent white mob staged an insurrection at the Capitol?
Now let me say this. I haven’t posted in this blog for quite a while, mostly because of a heavy seminary workload (Hebrew 2—need I say more?), but also because I’ve been wrestling with thoughts of the many Trump-supporting Christians in my life. Most of these people are kind, honest, generous—the type who’d listen to you, empathize, and pray if you had a crisis in your life. Many are pillars of their churches—the people who teach Sunday school, change diapers in the nursery, give faithfully to foreign missions, and pray in the power of God.
I appreciate these people. They have played a huge role in my life. And God has often reminded me that they are precious souls to him, each and every one of them.
That’s why it’s so inexplicable, incongruous, and just plain shocking that they unreservedly support a former president who is without a doubt the most divisive force in the American church right now.
Yet I was still searching in my heart for that middle ground.
Let me put this plainly: If you support Trump at this juncture, or any of his election-denying, conspiracy-spreading, race-baiting minions in the November 8 election, you have thrown every one of your Black and brown Christian friends under the bus.
And backed over them.
You have destroyed any prospect of racial unity in our churches—at the same time your pastors go into exhaustive exegetical detail about the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and the “mystery” of how Christ dismantled the hostility between the two ethnic groups of his time who despised and distrusted each other, Gentiles and Jews.
I am sorry to break the news, but there is no middle ground concerning Donald Trump and Trumpism. He and his ideology are thoroughly anti-Christian.
Don’t be fooled by his politically expedient support of certain parts of the evangelical Christian agenda, such as opposition to abortion.
That is a fig leaf. Don’t fall for it.
And yes, I am pro-life. Unborn as well as born lives.
Consider that when Satan tempts a Christian, he does not show up in a red polyester devil suit. No, the Bible says he comes disguised as an angel of light.
We need to exercise mature spiritual discernment, carefully examining the fruit of Donald Trump and his disciples. Here is the fruit I see:
Fear. Fear of our neighbors across town, fear of our neighbors across the border. Fear that someone will take our stuff. Fear that our freedoms, our rights, our privileges will be seized.
Then the wholesale hoarding of guns and ammo, because we’re terrified of…something. Something that, in our anxious minds, probably involves people who look different from us.
That, of course, is why you are seeing so many race-baiting political ads right now. These cynical political operators are speaking in Morse Code to our yellow core.
Let us respond instead with the words of Jesus Christ: Be not afraid. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.
Desperate attempts to smother the cry for racial justice. This is God’s call—God’s movement. God’s timing. God’s way.
Racial justice is of him.
I speak that to you as from the heart of God.
Do you know why it looks crazy right now? Because white Christians like you and me have abdicated our role in making God’s justice a visible reality in this country.
Then we trash the people and organizations that step into the vacuum we created.
Look in the Bible—when God’s people neglect their responsibilities, he allows even the heathen to step in as instruments of his justice. Then things get really messy.
But his purposes will not be thwarted. This is God’s season of justice for people of color, especially African-Americans. They have cried out to him for 400 years and have consistently extended grace to their white brothers and sisters, with little response.
I mean little godly response. We have responded: through slavery. Through the terroristic violence of Jim Crow. Through fire hoses and gunshots and snarling dogs.
Through today’s attempts to curtail voting rights. Through reviling the poor. Through lifting up abortion as the only moral issue of significance, then ducking behind it when our Black and brown brothers and sisters beg for a just a cup of cool water.
Now God is moving. He is not fooled by our words, by our practice of standing up a few Black people in front of our praise team, by our support of Herschel Walker. He is looking at our deeds. We can get with his move of justice or get swept away—into obsolescence, irrelevance, and increasingly diminished enjoyment of his blessings (while we blame others).
Racist dog whistles. I am white, and I hear the political messages loud and clear. Every non-Republican Black or brown candidate is a radical, a cop-hater, a sex-offender supporter, an instigator of violent street protests, and the vanguard of a ravenous Black and brown horde that will flood across our borders if we don’t build a big wall right now and arm ourselves with enough assault weapons to blow each other literally to pieces.
I already mentioned the phrase “law and order,” which only applies to Black and brown people. That’s a racist dog whistle. Our ears as white people are tuned to its frequency. We know exactly what Trump and his minions are saying. We feel it right in our yellow bellies, and we approve.
Have you noticed who comes running when they hear Trump’s racist dog whistles? Oath Keepers. Proud Boys. White supremacists.
We claim we don’t hear the racist dog whistles, but they hear loud and clear.
I repeat: There is no middle ground.
Now let me tell you the gist of my dream, for those who have ears to hear.
I saw Donald Trump presiding over the most horrific, vile, and disgusting act of violence upon a woman that I have ever seen. He was not necessarily president, but he was in charge. This woman—just an ordinary white woman—had been caught in adultery, and she was being executed publicly in the most excruciatingly bloody and violent way imaginable. It was a public spectacle, recorded by the news media. People thronged about, giving their approval.
“It’s the 10 Commandments,” one person I know told me.
I couldn’t bear to look at this and staggered away, in utter disbelief that Christian people I knew and loved could actually watch this and be OK with it in any way.
As I made my exit, I came across a group of Christian women. I told them what I’d just witnessed. I looked into the eyes of a spiritual leader I know, and she just gave me a look. She didn’t say anything, but I knew what that look meant. She was going to support Trump anyway. It didn’t matter what anyone said.
Then I turned to the entire group. “Raise your hand if any of you have committed adultery,” I said.
A couple women raised their hands—including the spiritual leader. That was a little surprising.
“Now raise your hand if you committed adultery in your heart,” I said.
This time everyone else raised their hands, including me.
Then it was over. The horror of this dream woke me up. I was deeply shaken.
It was as if the deceiving spirit of an antichrist had seized the souls of the Christians I so loved and respected, God’s own elect. If that were possible.
I sat up in bed, recorded the dream, and thought about my response. My husband was out of town, but I spoke to him later that day. We agreed the dream was a warning from God—a trumpet blast. We had to respond somehow. There was no opt-out, gray area, or middle ground, even though we are both politically conservative and pro-life.
We made a decision: As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
We refuse to vote for any slave of Donald Trump. That rules out every single election-denier, race-baiter, and conspiracy-spreader.
If that means we vote for a bunch of lightweights, so be it. Though I wish to point out that not all of the Republican candidates are election-deniers, race-baiters, and conspiracy-spreaders. Do your research.
Don’t go looking for the guy in the red polyester devil suit. Because this time the Devil looks just like you and me.
