Last week I provided my favorite quote from Karl Barth. Let me here provide it again:

“Let me warn you now. If you make a start with ‘God and…’ you are opening the doors to every demon. And the charge which I raise against you I lay before you in the words of Anselm: Tu non considerasti, quandi ponderis sit peccatum! You failed to consider the weight of sin! And this is the sin: that man takes himself so very seriously.”¹

Barth said these words in 1935, shortly after Germany came under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. Remarkably, the German Church was not a hindrance to the rise of the Nazis but an asset! The German Christians devoured and savored the words of Hitler, even going so far as placing the Nazi flag on their communion tables. This relatively recent history is a chilling warning to the Church of Jesus Christ and any and all attempts to conjoin the words “Christian” and “Nationalism”. The Church is not immune to sin and idolatry. Just because the Church holds political power, or is in close proximity to power, does not mean that the actions of leadership are good or Godly. It is more likely a sign that the Church has lost its purity.

Trying to make disciples through nationalistic power is a bastardization of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus calls his disciples to exercise power, not from the top down, but from the bottom up. Not through control but through love, service, and sacrifice.

We famously read in Mark 10: “Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (Mark 10:42-45 NIV, emphasis mine).

It is in no way consistent with this Word to then try to grasp for political power in the name of Jesus. The Church has been given a different kind of power through which to work: the power of God, which reveals itself through love, service, and sacrifice.

Pastor Brian Zahnd puts it this way: “The power we are promised by our Lord is the power of the Holy Spirit – the power to love, forgive, and heal.”²

But why does the Church constantly find this power of the Spirit wanting? Barth’s answer from nearly 100 years ago is telling: “Man takes himself so very seriously.” We are tempted anew every generation to trust the power of man over the power of the Spirit, and this is our downfall, our doom.

Barth acknowledged that despite the remarkable coalition between the Nazis and the German Church, “there are many sincere and very lovely people among the German Christians.”³ It is not as if the German Church was filled with wicked and horrible people. Most if not all of them would have been horrified to see where the Nazi story led. Their error was not as obvious as racism, hatred, or violence (those were present, but subtly hidden by design). Their error was, as Barth put it, as simple as saying, “God and…”

Barth said, “For, if once you admit, ‘Not only God but I also,’ and if your heart is with the latter – and friends, that’s where you have it! – there is no stopping it.”⁴

The statement “God and…” is dangerous because it sounds holy. “God” comes first. It sounds Christian and biblical. Whatever follows the “and” must surely be blessed by God, right? But this is the trick of the devil: whatever follows the “and” is what we really care about and worship. “God” is simply the means to serve that end, a way to justify and bless the thing that we really care about.

When we say, “God and country,” we worship the god of country. When we strive for “Christian Nationalism”, we worship and serve our nation as god. “Christian” gets demoted to an adjective describing the controlling noun, “Nationalism”. When we say – and I hear this all too often – that President Trump is God’s chosen one – then Trump becomes our god. How many times have we heard Trump called “anointed?” Beware: “anointed” is synonymous with “Christ”. To claim that Trump is God’s chosen, anointed one is to claim for him a title that belongs to Jesus and Jesus alone. This is idolatry. It is pagan. It is demonic.

Do not get me wrong, there are many sincere and very lovely people among the MAGA Christians (and I mean this sincerely), but it did not keep them from falling prey to this error.

President Trump came to power in the United States not in spite of the white evangelical church, but because of the white evangelical church. We were not a hindrance to Trump but an asset. We have not been quick to critique his behavior and decisions, even when they prove inconsistent with the Word of God. We tolerated attitudes and behaviors we would never have tolerated from politicians on the other side. More often than not, the American church has defended him. The damning part about this for the church is that this has been done in the name of Christ. We have advocated Donald Trump as the “Christian” choice. Why? Because he shows evidence of the fruit of the Spirit? No. Because we bought the lie that Trump sold us: he would once again make this nation a “Christian” nation.

We thought we could make this a Christian nation without the hard, costly work of converting hearts and minds to Jesus through loving our neighbors. We forgot that Christians are made through the work of the Spirit, not through the work of politicians. We became impatient with the slow process of discipleship and, in our hurry, sought to “save” this country for Christ through human power.

In the process, “We” forgot who “We” are! “We” are not a people of a particular nation, we are the people of God, citizens of heaven. We are not a people divided by man made borders or partisan divisions. But how seriously has the church in America grown to take these fictitious lines! “America First” may make sense for someone who primarily understands their identity as an American, but for a Christian, it is blasphemy! It is to take more seriously the man made construction of a nation than the God created body of the Church.

The evangelical church in America lost sight of the power of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Let me ask: do you see this fruit in the current President of the United States? Do you believe that President Trump radiates patience, gentleness, and self-control? Has his time in leadership made the American people more loving,  peaceful, good, and faithful? If not, how could we ever have believed that someone without the fruit of the Spirit would have the character necessary to use the power of the President wisely?

This is not primarily a matter of policy: this is the matter of a dangerous coalition between the Church of Jesus Christ and a political leader.

What is the error at the root of all this? That man takes himself so very seriously. We naively believed that the power of man is greater than the power of the Spirit. We sought to spread Christianity through the power of the White House rather than through the power of loving our neighbor. We took human constructed borders more seriously than the borderless Kingdom of God. We sought human power so much that we turned a blind eye to obvious character flaws and vile rhetoric against our immigrant and refugee sisters and brothers. 

We failed to consider the weight of sin: that man takes himself so very seriously.

Let me clear: I do not equate our current President with Hitler. Such equations have been ubiquitous for decades and get us nowhere. Nor do I intend to claim that everyone in the MAGA movement is a Nazi. To put everyone in MAGA under such a banner would be unfair and dishonest. It is too easy and unhelpful to paint everyone who disagrees with us politically as stupid or evil — Nazis or communists. It is lazy and bears no fruit. We cannot so easily dismiss our neighbors, our sisters and brothers. I know many supporters of Donald Trump who are truly good, kind, and loving people.

The parallel I wish to draw actually has little to do with Trump and Hitler, or Nazis and MAGA. The parallel cannot be thrust upon others. We have to look at the parallel in the Church: the German Church of the 1920’s and 30’s, and American evangelicalism of the 2010’s and 20’s. Both churches took human power far too seriously. We started small enough. We said: “God and…” But in doing so we have opened the doors to every demon. The evil and destruction that we have opened ourselves up to, I pray, is not of the same magnitude as what we saw in Germany. It will likely not be the same demon released this time. But we have opened up the same doors.

Lord, have mercy.

1. Sanders, Fred. 2013. “‘You Are Opening the Doors to Every Demon’ (Barth circa 1935) – the Scriptorium Daily.” The Scriptorium Daily. May 31, 2013. https://scriptoriumdaily.com/you-are-opening-the-doors-to-every-demon-barth-circa-1935/. ↩︎
2. Zahnd, Brian. 2024. The Wood between the Worlds. InterVarsity Press. Pg. 97
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3. Sanders, Fred. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎