Don't Trust Wobbly Towers

Trust in Christ Alone

The late Stuart Briscoe, the first senior pastor of my home church, liked to tell the story of how, before becoming a pastor, he worked at a bank. One day, a phone call came in that the boss didn’t want to deal with, so he told Stuart, “tell them I’m not here.” Stuart refused to comply with this request, so the boss grudgingly took the call. When the boss expressed his displeasure to Stuart after the call, Stuart explained that his loyalty was to God, and the Bible explicitly forbids lying. Furthermore, earthly loyalty is fickle, and therefore if someone is willing to lie for you, they would also be willing to lie about you someday under the right circumstances.

God sprinkles all of our lives with small loyalty tests that I, a sinner, will be the first to admit I don’t always pass, and I’m sure Stuart Briscoe fell short on occasion as well. Will we worship God, or will we worship wealth, worldly pleasure, or career achievement? Will we reflect God’s love by loving our neighbor, or will we only love ourselves? In school, teachers give us textbooks and lecture notes to study, and then give us quizzes to test our knowledge. On a cosmic scale, God does the same thing. He gives us Scripture and the Holy Spirit to teach us how we should conduct ourselves, and then allows the world to throw temptations at us to test our character. Sanctification, the fancy theological word that describes the process of dying to sin, is a lifelong process. We will all fall short at times, and no one fully escapes the burden of sin this side of heaven.

When Christian Nationalists opposed Bill Clinton in the 1990s, arguing that character matters, they had a valid point. We should all, regardless of our profession or socioeconomic status, be people of good character. But character is especially critical for people who hold political positions which present people with unique kinds of temptation, especially the temptation to become addicted to, or corrupted by a perception of God-like power. One stroke of the pen can impact the lives of millions of constituents, or alter the course of history. But what distinguishes citizens of this world—which I believe Christian Nationalists, wolves in sheep’s clothing ultimately are—from true Christians is that true Christians recognize that character always matters.

Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah) understood this. I think if I were in Shadrach, Meshach or Abednego’s situation, I would have, in my human worldly nature thought, at least for a split second, “would it really be a big deal if I just fell down and worshipped Nebuchadnezzar’s  silly gold image, the loyalty test he gave all of the officials in his court, to avoid a painful death in a fiery furnace?” But because Daniel and his friends resolved to be loyal to God alone, God gave them wisdom beyond their teenage years and they understood that if they conformed in this matter, their integrity would be compromised and before long, they would take the easy road of conformity in every situation until they were full-fledged friends of the world, and because Babylon worshipped other gods, and Babylonian values were contrary to God’s values, they knew that conforming to Babylonian culture would make them enemies of God.

Our pastor pointed out another detail in this passage that is often overlooked. The image that Nebuchadnezzar set up was nine feet wide and ninety feet tall. The pastor encouraged us to go home and try to build a tower ten blocks high with sugar cubes or dominoes. A tower with a 10 to 1 ratio is wobbly, unstable. It wouldn’t have taken much for Nebuchadnezzar’s statue to come tumbling down and crush anyone lying prostrate under it. It is possible Daniel and his friends refused to worship the image, not only to protect themselves from defilement by the world, but because they literally didn’t trust that tower. They wanted to be ready to run if it started to topple. All worldly loyalties are like that tower. Career achievement, or wealth, or access to power may seem like magnificent, strong towers at first, but if we worship these things, they will one day crush us, betray us. The pastor pointed out that when God commands us to have no other gods besides him, this is not because God struggles with insecurity. It is because he loves us and doesn’t want us to be crushed by things that are temporary when our heavenly citizenship is the only thing that will endure forever.

It is unbiblical to draw direct parallels between events that took place in ancient Israel, and the United States. While we have been uniquely blessed, enjoying a level of freedom and prosperity unprecedented in human history, God never entered into a covenant with the United States. A remnant of Christ’s followers will be salvaged from every nation, including the United States. But ultimately, we are just another worldly empire that will one day be abolished (Daniel 2:43-45). Some Bible scholars have speculated that the feet of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, made of a mixture of iron and baked clay, represent the United States, but others disagree, and in any case, such speculation is unproductive. We may not be the last empire, but numerous passages in the other prophetic books, and the New Testament confirm that in God’s perfect time, all earthly empires will pass away.

But as the pastor discussed Nebuchadnezzar, I couldn’t help thinking of the similarities between Nebuchadnezzar and a certain former president who wants to be president again. He also likes to use loyalty tests. Before he appointed anyone to his cabinet, he could do a preliminary loyalty test of combing the internet to see if they had ever criticized him in the past. If so, they were deemed ineligible, and if someone sang his praises in an editorial or interview, they were appointed, even if they were completely unqualified. Once appointed, this former president would test their loyalty by demanding they engage in unethical or illegal conduct. It is not our place to judge where people loyal to this former president stand with God, but even from an earthly perspective, I think it is reasonable to speculate that those who realized they needed to run from the wobbly tower of loyalty to Trump and do the right thing (recuse themselves from presiding over an investigation, testify truthfully before a bipartisan Congressional hearing, fulfill their constitutional duty to certify election results that even Trump-appointed judges ruled were legitimate) while they may currently be experiencing a metaphorical fiery furnace of vicious social media posts, demotion from prestigious positions, even death threats, they will ultimately be treated kindly by the history books, whereas those who remain blindly loyal to Trump may be enjoying their access to power now, but will never be trusted once Trump is out of the picture, and history will remember them as cowards.

The repercussions of Christian Nationalist pastors and politicians loyal to Trump have already proven devastating. When pastors like Robert Jeffress decided to get behind Trump, they acknowledged that his character was the complete antithesis of the example set by Christ, and their own exacting moral standards for people in public office. But they reasoned, Christianity in America was under siege by secular liberal elites and Godless government bureaucrats. Perhaps by abandoning Christian virtue and electing someone mean and tough, a “fighter” who could be used by God just as God used pagan kings in the Old Testament, this nation could be saved.

But this way of thinking is the definition of hypocrisy, and Jesus had no mercy for hypocrites (Matthew 23:13-15). And this hypocrisy is only crushing the Christian cause in America, dividing churches, causing pastors who try to speak the truth to leave the ministry discouraged, causing lifelong Christians to abandon the faith because they have been so wounded by this hypocrisy, and preventing good people—some of whom are my friends and family—from accepting Christ because the influence of Christian Nationalism has become so pervasive in our culture they don’t realize this kind of Christianity bares no resemblance to the teachings of Christ. I would also argue this way of thinking is a form of blasphemy. The God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who can command a storm to subside (Luke 8:25), the God who conquered death, does not need a “fighter” to preserve his church through worldly political power and legislation. He actually doesn’t need us at all, as John the Baptist warned the pharisees and Sadducees when he said “I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). But God invites us to be “Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20), and the defining feature of Christ’s heavenly kingdom is radical love. I am still a work in progress who doesn’t have all the answers, cannot fully comprehend what such perfect love looks like in every situation the world throws at us. But an excellent place to start would be running as fast as we can away from the wobbly tower of Christian Nationalism and resolving to be loyal to the real Jesus. When Nebuchadnezzar witnessed God saving Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace, even this capricious Pagan king came to respect God, and promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon. And if we American Christians, who are called by Christ’s name, will humble ourselves and pray and seek his face and turn from our wicked ways, then will God hear from heaven and forgive our sin and…he won’t heal our land because he never entered into a covenant with the United States, but he might heal our churches, and Christ’s reputation in a watching pluralistic society (a play on 2 Chronicles 7:14, which Christian Nationalists, especially Mike Pence like to quote out of context).

That Reminds me of a Song: The song that came to mind while writing this isn’t explicitly a Christian song, but I have sensed God speaking to me through the practical wisdom of country music, and I cannot think of a more fitting song for the theme of this post than Aaron Tippin’s You’ve Got to Stand for Something.” The narrator is a son, imparting wisdom from his father. I pray we might let this song be a rallying cry for all of us Christians, to stand for Christ so we don’t fall for worldly things that will only betray us, to never compromise what’s right, to uphold our family name, our family being the family of God we were all adopted into when we committed our lives to Christ.