In my last post, I included this paragraph: The opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear, and the fear of the world that fostered an anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-developmental Christian faith is being exploited today by Christian nationalists, political leaders who use their faith as a weapon and pretend to be scriptural authorities (yes, I am looking at you Mike Johnson), and by mega/MAGA-church pastors. A few people wrote to me asking what my reference to Mike Johnson was about, so I thought I would respond.

Last week Johnson asserted that our scriptures say nothing about how we should treat strangers, immigrants, or refugees. He went on to jerk Romans 13 out of context with a purely conservative spin to say we should all see our elected leadership as a gift from God. Two swings. Two misses. But this is a symptom of a larger dysfunction. If I need an electrician, I don’t call a plumber. If I need a dentist, I don’t turn to an optometrist. If I need theological guidance and biblical elucidation, I don’t go to a poorly informed politician with an ax to grind.

Were we to follow nothing but the Golden Rule – doing unto others as we would have them do unto us – the whole immigration nightmare we are causing would cease to exist. Old Testament lawmakers, prophets, and poets join New Testament authors like James and Paul, to reinforce Jesus’ own very explicit instructions on how we treat strangers. Immigrants, foreigners, asylum seekers, refugees, displaced and dispossessed persons all biblically fall under the umbrella of strangers. You have to work really hard to avoid these teachings, but the easiest way is to carry a Bible around without ever opening it.

But some choose to open it to use it as a weapon rather than a tool. They see it as a malleable pool of words and phrases that can be manipulated to do great harm. They avoid actual life implications in favor of platitudes and judgmentalism. A number of years ago a gentleman summed it up beautifully at a district gathering in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. While talking about Beloved Community and the importance of social justice to include all people, this man jumped up and accused the leadership of “forcing a liberal agenda by ignoring scripture.” I proceeded to identify numerous scriptures that indicated God’s insistence on social justice until the man interrupted saying, “I could care less what the Bible means; all I care about is what the Bible says!” How can you possibly argue with reasoning so sublime?

Don’t ever listen to anyone explaining Romans 13 out of context from Romans 12 & 14. Marcus Borg wrote way back in 1973 “A New Context for Romans 13,” and his thinking today is completely mainstream, not fringe. Essentially, the challenge to Christians was to stay focused on God and not get sidetracked worrying about worldly leaders who come and go. People ask me why I am not more upset and bothered by Donald Trump and I tell them that while I feel he is antithetical to every known Godly value, but he is nothing but a blip on the screen in the grand scheme of things. Will we be cleaning up the mess currently unfolding for decades? Yes, but in the long run God is still in charge and nothing we can do on earth can defeat the will of God. Romans 13 reminds me to focus on the future that God is unfolding for us instead of lamenting and regretting the mess wayward humans are currently creating. Let’s face it, there’s nowhere to go from her but up. In no way does Paul instruct people to become mindless sycophants and boot-licking drones regardless of what some GOP pseudo-theologians might try to fool us into believing. But this is the toxic reality of so much that is presented as Christian in our culture; to justify non- and anti-Christian behavior by misquoting, misinterpreting, and twisting scripture to say what it was never intended to say.

Biblical study is not hard, but it is demanding. Our scriptures were not written in modern colloquial English, not framed in a modern-post-modern technological society, not written from the perspective of modern Western values and enlightenment moralities. Our scriptures are not socialist, capitalist, communist, or populist. They were written in a contextual miasma of Greek democracy and Roman republic interpreted through Jewish communalism, during a period of incredible philosophical and ethical discovery and debate, but in a volatile, violent, and destructive environment. Unless we understand why the scriptures were written in the first place, we cannot possibly interpret and apply them with any legitimacy in the present.

So, bottom line. Don’t look to politicians, celebrities, singers, athletes, tech moguls, oligarchs, and talk show hosts for spiritual guidance, theological explanation, or biblical clarification. And don’t just take at face value anything a pastor or preacher might tell you (including yours truly). Authentic theological inquiry, serious biblical study, and true Christian discipleship should actually raise more questions than provide easy answers, and the deeper you dig, the better off you will be. The unexamined life is not worth living. The unexamined faith may end up doing a lot more damage than good. (I’m still looking at you, Mike Johnson…)