Posted on April 2, 2025 by Steve Harper
Business as usual is over. This is so with respect to many areas of life. It is true for those of us who claim to follow Christ, and for the Church, his body.
We find ourselves descending rapidly into a deep darkness, propelled by those who prefer darkness to light because their deeds are evil (John 3:19-20). It is impossible to know how far down things will go; all we know for sure is that we are already in a darkness deeper than many of us have known in our lifetime. The collision between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of this world is blatantly obvious and pervasively dangerous.
Jason Stanley’s book How Fascism Works identifies key aspects of authoritarianism–all of which are being enacted by the Trump administration. Their brazen demagoguery (dangerous bullying) is appaling.
I have begun reading again Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship [1] because we are in a time when this cost is being required of us as it has been all the way back to the time of Jesus’ first disciples (e.g. Acts 17:6-8).
Within weeks of Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer knew that German nationalism (as Hitler and others were promoting it, including some Christians) was antithetical to the way of Christ. Making Hitler godlike was idolatry.
Well, here we are again. And the need for resistance is once again incumbent upon us. As in Bonhoeffer’s time, the core of the resistance will be among common people. Too many who have the authority to take action against evil have sided with it–which just happens to be the textbook definition of imperialism.
The prophetic call, “Choose whom you will serve” is one extended to all of us. If we have decided to follow Jesus, there is no sitting it out. Neutrality is a vote for the advance of demagoguery.
The first creed, “Jesus is Lord” was a decidedly anti-imperial declaration, and those who affirmed it paid a price for doing so (Hebrews 11).
To enact our baptismal vow “to resist evil in whatever forms it presents itself’ was, and still is, the cost of discipleship.