The Golden Calf

Last year I made the effort to read the Books of Moses.  I wanted to see what I was missing in this steadfast devotion to Donald Trump that Evangelical Christians continue to have.  Is he really the second coming of Moses?  Or, is he Aaron, Moses' brother, who forged a molten calf from all the gold offerings of the people demanding he make a god for them to worship?

This is a pivotal chapter in the Bible, Exodus 32, as it shows the anxiety and greed among the Israelites, who thought Moses had abandoned them.  I'm not sure where they got all that gold, other than to plunder the Egyptians before they left, but we shouldn't examine the Bible too closely.  As Maimonides would tell us, the Books of Moses are largely allegorical.  It's the lessons these stories impart that we should be concerned about.

We have a very restless Evangelical Christian base these days.  For decades they have been told the second coming of Christ is nigh, and many of them have been preparing accordingly.  Some have even gone into seclusion fearing the Rapture will soon be upon us.  They are so wrapped up in the Book of Revelations that they take virtually every cataclysmic event, natural or man-made, as a Biblical sign.

This seems to be one of the few books of the New Testament they take to heart.  For the most part, they turn to the Old Testament, the Books of Moses in particular, as their guiding light.  Hence, you get the term "Old Testament Christians."

Their's is a decidedly Old Word interpretation of Christianity, driven largely by fear of God.  Certainly in reading the first five books of the Bible you can well understand this fear.   It was a wrathful God, who demanded complete and total devotion.  He wasn't going to let any golden calves stand in his way, as he saw these as pagan symbols.  His demanding path was the only way through the "wilderness," and his Israelites spent 40 years lost in the Sinai before finally reaching their promised land.

Aaron was dealt with pretty harshly, as were all the idolaters.  Something Evangelicals should take note of, as Trump is the Golden Calf.  He is a pagan symbol hastily forged from fire to give the restless masses something to worship in place of God.  This has become all too apparent in the way televangelists demand their online parishioners to follow Trump.

Fortunately for Evangelicals, we have had these golden calves before and survived them.  We will survive Trump too.  The only question that remains is whether they will recognize their foolishness or simply sublimate it in another phony zealot, who cons them into believing he is the chosen one.

The problem lies in the nature of Evangelism.  It is a sect formed on the singular belief Christ will return within our lifetime.  It was a sect that rose out of the Third Great Awakening in the mid 19th century and has many variants.  Mormonism is perhaps the oldest among them, but you also have Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and a whole host of other denominations that are impossible to keep up with these days.

It was a "religion" of convenience in the South, as it allowed slave-owners to justify their slave holdings, while Evangelists to the North became staunch abolitionists.  From the beginning, this "church" characterized by speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor in feverish delight, believing firmly that God was possessing them, split in numerous directions.  It still has many divergent paths, so to characterize Evangelicals as a monolithic faith is wrong.  However, the great majority of them have a strong religious conservative bent, vote Republican and have allied themselves with Trump come hell or high water.

The reason is quite simple.  They are staunchly anti-abortion, believe in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and believe the body should not be defiled in any way.  For years, these religious conservatives saw themselves politically as Democrats, but when the Democratic Party became increasingly liberal in its views in the 60s and 70s they turned to the Republican Party, which welcomed them with open arms.

The Moral Majority was born in the late 70s, largely in response to Roe v. Wade, and rallied behind Ronald Reagan in 1980, despite the only committed Evangelical Christian being  Democrat Jimmy Carter, an ordained Southern Baptist minister.   They rallied behind Reagan not out of faith or conviction, but rather political necessity.  They needed someone who would fight for their religious convictions.  Carter was too tolerant.  He believed in a separation of church and state.  He wasn't willing to challenge the heinous Supreme Court ruling that sanctioned the murder of unborn children, not that he had the power to do so.  These radical new Evangelicals were willing to accept all of Reagan's moral shortcomings as long as he promoted their religious conservative agenda.  Hence, a new power pact was formed, or rather strengthened, as Reagan was the perfect pitch man for this blend of religious conservatism and corporate greed that would come to characterize the 80s.

You would think this was a match made in hell, not heaven, as we read in the New Testament that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.  Actually, it is an old Talmud saying that Jesus apocryphally coined.

Prosperity theology was born out of the televangelist era.  It is the belief that the more you give the more you get back monetarily.  Televangelists have become amazingly adept at luring money out of your bank account and into theirs.  Jerry Falwell, the creator of this Moral Majority movement, was one of the best at the game.  He was so successful he was able to create a university, if you can call it that, which is now one of the largest universities in the world with a huge online student body that dwarfs its Virginia campus.

Falwell realized like the Mormons had long before that you have to inculcate the Word of God into gullible young minds, and what better than a university to rival those secular schools that had been steering young minds away from God.  It is a university now presided over by his son, who is one of the most staunch defenders of Donald J. Trump.

Televangelism and megachurches are huge financial generators these days.  These pastors live lavish lives that would make Robin Leach drool with admiration.  Jerry Falwell Jr.'s net worth is estimated at $100 million.  Granted, it is only a small fraction of what Donald Trump is supposedly worth, but it is vastly more than any of his parishioners can ever imagine earning in their lifetimes.

That doesn't stop parishioners from believing that the more they give the more they will get back.  They continue to donate their hard-earned money to these supposedly non-profit televangelists with the hope that something good will happen to them, as Oral Roberts would say at the end of his television sermons every Sunday.  He too built a university in his name.

It's the golden calf all over again.  These poor parishioners are allowing themselves to be fleeced because of their impatience to see the golden world of heaven within their lifetimes.  It's not enough to be promised a key to the pearly gates upon their deaths, they want to rise to heaven on gossamer wings above their sinful neighbors left to endure God's wrath below.  A spiteful faith that God himself dealt harshly with upon Moses' return.

The saddest part about all this is these gullible parishioners end up voting against their own best interests.  This power pact doesn't favor them.  It only favors the rich, which very few of them are.  They can only look as their pastors get richer and richer at their own expense, writing off those lavish homes, fancy cars, yachts and jet airliners as church-related expenditures, but something they will never be able to share in. 

I really don't know how we get past this impasse, as these parishioners have become very politically active, delivering votes for these phony zealot politicians at the local, state and national level.  We do need some kind of watershed event to turn the tide.  What it is, God only knows?