HOW TRUMPISM CORRUPTED THE EKKLESIA

By Akin Ojumu

If you for one moment think that the turbulence that characterized the 1-term presidency of Donald Trump was nothing unusual, you are sorely mistaken. You’d be gravely wrong if you dismissed the tumultuous events of the last 4 years as politics as usual. The daily mayhem and persistent upheaval that marked the outgoing administration wasn’t your garden variety rumble in the jungle that American politics is known for. This wasn’t leftist liberals jousting with right-wing conservatives and it isn’t the laissez-faire capitalists duking it out with the social justice progressives. It was a fierce battle for the soul of the Church.

From the moment the soon to be ex-President descend the escalator in his eponymous Tower of Babel to announce his candidacy for the presidency of the United States of America, a massive spiritual earthquake tore through the Body of Christ causing a momentous destabilization of the spiritual tectonic plates, marking the beginning of a consequential seismic shift within the assembly of the believers. A bewildering transformation and a disorienting discombobulation came upon the Church. 

This cataclysmic event dislodged the foundation of the castles of wantonness, uprooted thrones of carnality, and shattered altars raised to idolatry. The brood of vipers, who have hitherto found a warm and comfortable safe haven deep within the Ekklesia, became exposed. Pagan priests and idolatrous priestesses who have found home within the Church became unmasked; men and women who through deceit and guile burrowed themselves into the hierarchy of the faithful had the veil yanked off their faces.

For a very long time these servants of Satan sat on high thrones within crystal cathedrals and they exercise dominion over souls in search of hope and life. They fed the Church on lies and the body of Christ grew fat on a steady dose of their unhealthy corrupting diet. They polluted the airwaves with false prophesies and poisoned the barren soil of lost souls with sensuous messages ineffectual in saving sinners. Their calling card is their adeptness at building pies in the sky and adroitness at peddling false hope. “Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving; the venom of asps is under their lips.”

These minions of Lucifer have, for decades, had their tentacles sunk deep into the heart of the Church infusing their pernicious contagion into the bloodstream of the Household of Faith rendering it weak, fatally wounded and left to struggle in the throes of death. Their deadly venom is deceit, and the overflow of their soul are enticing words that hold captive the hearer and lead many into perdition. They are wont to gush out toxic falsehoods like drunken sailors kicked out stumbling from a drinking tavern after closing time.

By their deeds and utterances, these impostors immersed the Almighty God into the toxic sewer of American partisan politics turning the Name of the LORD into a putrid stench, at the mention of which the sinful world gags, turns and runs away holding their noses in disgust. The LORD of Hosts is made into an unrecognizable political hack; the Elohim is reduced to a card carrying rightwing conservative QAnon partisan deity who hates leftist liberals, despises socialists, and detests Black Lives Matter and Antifa activists. 

None of these episodes was completely unpredictable. It should shock no one, this turn of event. This was the logical outcome of a wayward Church and it is the inevitable consequence of a compromised Corpus Christi. When the Ekklesia decided to deviate from its true purpose and turn away from its true calling, this was the certain repercussion. Called to be salt of the earth, the Body Christ became worms that cause suppurating ulcers to fester. Predestined to shine as light, the Church transformed into a black hole full of pitch darkness and where living light dies.

There cannot be harmony between Christ and Belial. Believers in Christ have nothing in common with unbelievers. Unequal yoking of believers with unbelievers was never going to bring about a great rebirth. In any partnership between wickedness and righteousness, evil was going to always have the upper hand. Light is bound to be snuffed out whenever it fellowships with darkness. 

When an entire segment of the Christian Church decided to confer god-like status on a sad pathetic morally broken narcissist, unalloyed idolatry was going to be the attendant fallout. Believing they can establish righteousness by edict, a religious movement powered by high-octane hypocrisy decided to form an unholy alliance with a godless soul. In a blatant display of spiritual infidelity, certain of the faith joined themselves together with a foul-mouthed braggart in an unholy matrimony. Convinced – albeit falsely – they are doing the will of the Father, they threw a mantle of holiness around the shoulders of a man full of perfidy and a darkened soul, and they crowned an unabashed blowhard king Cyrus the anointed one of God. 

The day the white evangelical movement decided to hitch its wagon onto the Trump train, a poisonous arrow, Trumpism, was aimed and shot straight into the heart of the Body of the Christ; it was a day that marked the acceleration of the fragmentation of the Ekklesia. Unwittingly, they let Trumpism, a metastatic malignant cancer, to spread within the hallowed grounds of the Church. When Trumpism metastasizes, wherever it lands dies a painfully excruciating death. 

Ever since, pretentious piety and crony capitalism has become the order of the day. Cruelty and mendacity are exuberantly celebrated from the pulpit. The Household of faith is filled with gushing glorification of arrogance and violence. Out the window goes any condemnation of racism, white supremacy, nepotism, and greed. In this new era, loving our neighbors as we would love our own selves became a sing song of suckers and weak minded fools. The prayer "Thy will be done" changed to "Thy will be done by the strong man in whom we trust." 

In a display of severe cognitive dissonance, the white evangelical movement became consumed with establishing a Christian Caliphate here on earth through a violent Christian Jihad led by an angry, hate spewing, murderous mob.  With self-righteous indignation, the purveyor of rancor formed the spiritual wing of the violent insurrection against the US Constitution and they constituted the prayer battalion in the coup d'etat against the government of the United States. With such a huge hole in our Gospel, it is no wonder that the witnessing of our faith rings so hollow.

The first salvo in battle for the soul of the Christian Church was fired the moment American evangelicals planted the flag of Trumpism in the heart of the Body of Christ. The Ekklesia is at war with itself. Men and women who have compromised their faith are systematically destroying the Church from within. Having no depth of true knowledge, they offer up fluff which they pass for sound doctrine. Profoundly lacking in real substance, they resort to exoticism, esotericism, mysticism, and conspiracy theories. 

The Church is thus lame and wounded; it is haunted by division, weakened by ignorance, enamored with spectacular showmanship, and captivated by spellbinding sensationalism. Countless charlatans boast of being oracles of God, unsavory characters profess to utter prophetic declarations fresh from the throne of Yahweh, and a great horde of undiscerning souls with itchy ears lap it all up falling for the lies that gush out from Hades. 

The Book of Jude spoke of these enemies from within:

“But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.”

As a consequence of widespread deceit and wishy washy diluted gospel, the assembly of the believers is packed with men and women looking for easy answers to the world’s complex problems. A raging epidemic of failure of imagination sweeps across the Body of Christ. There is a widespread suspension of critical thinking, avoidance of  searching curiosity, and celebration of blissful ignorance.

The result of this seismic upheaval is a sweeping cynicism inimical to the spiritual well-being of the faithful of God. A paroxysm of unbelief sweeps through the nations. Worldwide, there is a massive desertion of the Church as congregations bleed members in alarmingly huge numbers. Disillusioned Christians, young and old, are left dumbfounded as they watch those who claim to be Christians unabashedly promote a cruel self-absorbed pathological liar lacking compassion and incapable of feeling other people’s pain.

For all the damage and destruction done to the Church by the embrace of Trumpism by the evangelical movement, there is some upside to make one glad. This was the moment in which the world’s fake Pastors, aka “Fraudstors” became unmasked. Without the fallout of their unholy fraternization with pure evil, it is conceivable that the conglomerate of false prophets would never have been exposed for what they really are. So, it is a thing of joy that the nakedness of these impostors and snake oil salesmen, who go to and fro deceiving and misleading captive souls, have been laid bare for the world to see.

When the history of this time is written, it would be remembered as the era of the unraveling of the Christian Church. Future generation will point to this generation as the ones that sold out the faith for a seat in the corridors of earthly power and those who gave up on the good fight of faith for a morsel of worldly goods. History, we know, is never kind to such a kind.