Nothing is quite so scary as that which is undefined.I learned that as an Evangelical child.There’s a verse in the gospel of Mark—I’ll use Mark because it’s the earliest, by consensus—that reads, “Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.”Now, that was heavy stuff for a kid.There was an unforgivable sin.Naturally, the mind goes to what exactly blasphemy against the Holy Ghost might be.I hadn’t learned much about context by the point, but Mark places this statement right after the good people of Capernaum accuse Jesus of casting out a demon by the power of Satan.In context the unforgivable sin in stating that what comes from God is of the Devil.By extension, vice versa.Keep that in mind.
A few chapters later Jesus is describing sin again.This time he lists: “evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.”If you read the news these characteristics sound very much like the repeated and continued behavior of 45.Jesus himself cites this as evil—and here’s where it’s important to remember the unforgivable sin—to claim that such things come from God is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.Yet Evangelicals are doing precisely that.Every time they exonerate Trump and his ground in behavior that for any other human being would be condemned as “sinful,” they are committing the unforgivable sin.And they’re not even scared.
When I was a child, Evangelicals took the Bible seriously.It was more important than anything—even railroading anti-abortion judges through to the Supreme Court.Little known fact: Evangelicals of the 1950s supported abortion.Since that time they’ve lost their faith.And their mind.Sucked into a political activism controlled by forces they don’t understand—if any man have ears to hear, let him hear—they committed the unforgivable sin that kept me awake countless nights with the fires of Hell roaring in my head.I set aside the gospel of Mark and scratched my head.How’d we come to this?A nation, one might say a house, divided against itself.The kind that Jesus, again speaking of Satan, declared could not stand.No wonder Evangelicals avoid the Bible these days.It is a very scary book.