Assumptions one makes about reading the Bible have a profound impact on the picture of God a Christian will develop in his/her mind.  Conservative Christians generally assume that the Bible is God’s inerrant word, which implies that all utterances in the Bible come from God and carry equal authority.  That is problematic because both theology and ethics undergo significant changes in the biblical narrative, and trying to reconcile differences becomes a task that requires a great deal of creativity.

As an example, one dominant Old Testament belief is the idea that pain, suffering and misfortune are divine punishment for sin and well-being is reward for godliness.  A careful reading of the New Testament shows that Jesus does not subscribe to this belief (For example, he told his disciples that blindness is not punishment for sin in John 9:3).  However, if they are confronted with a statement such as the one in John 9:3, those who believe in biblical inerrancy will not simply abandon the Old Testament belief in divine punishment for sin, but will try to find a way of reconciling it with Jesus’ position in some manner.  Unfortunately, this means they are Bible-centered even though they may claim to be Christ-centered.  That is not the same thing.

One conservative Christian who became famous for interpreting suffering as divine punishment is the Christian Right leader Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority in 1979.  After the 9/11 terrorist attacks which resulted in the death of 3000 people, he said:

“The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], People for the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say: ‘You helped this happen.'”

Also, reacting to the destruction caused by the aids epidemic, he said:

“Aids is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

This kind of thinking is popular among right-wing Christians, and the two examples above show that it is used as a weapon against people they do not like.  For themselves or for people they like, the emphasis is on being rewarded for virtuous behavior.  Accordingly, some white evangelical leaders recently declared that Trump was saved by God from a bullet because he was on the right side of history.  Trump himself, who is not believed to be particularly religious, reportedly said:

“It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will fear not, but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness.”

I do not blame Trump for giving credit to God for being alive after the shooting.  However, when he urges his supporters to “remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness,” he is obviously claiming that God has vindicated his cause and declared that all his political opponents are on the side of wickedness.

Of course, I do not think theological statements from Trump carry any weight.  I am more concerned about evangelical leaders who agree with him.  For example, Sarah Jones reports the following:

“‘GOD protected President Trump yesterday,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed in a tweet before comparing the shooting to George Washington’s ‘miraculous’ survival after a ‘gunfire ambush.’ Steve Bannon said that Trump ‘wears the armor of God.’ The Evangelical minister Franklin Graham told Fox News that “God’s hand of protection” was on Trump. The former president ‘is truly blessed,’ tweeted Governor Greg Abbott of Texas.”

To this, Jones adds:

“A reasonable person might wonder why God blessed Trump and not the children of Uvalde in Abbott’s own state. Abbott’s God appears selective, even cruel. Trump’s purpose is to live; the children’s, to die. But then Trump is special, at least to the right.”

The statement made by Pastor Robert Jeffries, a longtime Trump supporter, in a sermon to his congregation, is particularly interesting:

“‘What happened yesterday is also a demonstration of the power of almighty God,’ he said, as the congregation began applauding. ‘I mean, what happened was inexplicable apart from God. God spared him for the purpose of calling our nation back to its Judeo-Christian foundation.’”

As I said earlier, bad things happening to people these evangelicals do not like are divine punishment for wickedness, and good things happening to these evangelicals are rewards from God.  What about bad things happening to them?  Ironically, on July 19, a fire severely damaged the sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas Church where Jeffress is the senior pastor.  Fortunately, there were no injuries.  Was the fire divine punishment for some sin?  I doubt very much that Jeffress would look at it that way.

Reacting to comments made by evangelical leaders on the attempted assassination of Trump, Shane Claiborne denounced their theology in an article published in Religion News Service with the title God Did Not Save Trump.  His article is reviewed in the rest of this post.

Claiborne starts by making it clear that he is glad Trump is alive, and believes God is glad as well.  Then after listing some of the statements made by Trump’s evangelical supporters, he writes:

“Theology — the attempt by our finite minds to try to make sense of a God who is infinitely bigger than our imaginations — can be tricky. But in this case it’s not that hard to see that there is something wrong with a theology that says God intervened to save Donald Trump, which implies in an awful way that God redirected the bullet into the person who was killed at his rally, or the two people who were grievously injured.”

Claiborne’s central belief as a Christian is a fact that is unequivocally stated in the New Testament: God is love.  After quoting Scripture to support his claim, he says:

“Scripture also makes it clear that love is kind and good and gentle. Love always protects and forgives and makes room for mercy and grace. Love advocates for life and human flourishing.

If God is love, and I’m convinced God is love, then God certainly wants all of us to live and flourish, and it breaks God’s heart every time we hurt or kill one another. Murder is always wrong, going all the way back to the inaugural murder of Cain and Abel.

With this in mind, we can be sure that God did not save Donald Trump but not the person killed by mistake. God did not save Trump, for that matter, but not the kids at Sandy Hook or Uvalde. God did not save some of the Israeli hostages but not the others. God does not want thousands of kids in Gaza to die.

God is not a monster. God did not want people to be killed on Oct. 7 or Jan. 6 or last night in Butler, Pennsylvania. God is the author of life, and God is on the side of life. God wants us to live and flourish.”

The biblical narrative has plenty of material that presents God as an angry and vengeful deity that approves of violence.  But the narrative leads to Christ, who is the final word on matters of theology and ethics, and God, as revealed by Christ, is loving and hates violence.  Those who do not read Scripture in that manner misunderstand the message of the Christian Bible.  After talking about God’s nature and character, Claiborne has strong words about careless theology:

“If the final product of our best theological attempts to make sense of the world leaves us with a version of God that is less kind, less loving, less just, less compassionate than we are, then there is something wrong with our theology.

If our theology lands us with a version of God that hates all the same people we hate, excludes all the same people we exclude, kills all the people we want killed and saves all the people we want saved, there is something wrong with our theology. That kind of thinking recalls the old saying, ‘God created us in his image, and we decided to return the favor.’

Any theology that puts God, rather than sinful human beings, behind a gun or a bomb is bad theology.

I believe this is precisely why Jesus came — to show us what God is like and what love looks like … with skin on, in the flesh. Jesus is unmistakably nonviolent. Jesus is the greatest champion of life that has ever lived. He enters a world full of violence and exposes, absorbs and subverts it at every turn.”

In support of his declaration that Jesus is unmistakenly nonviolent, Claiborne refers to the incident, when Jesus was arrested, in which Jesus’ disciple used a sword to cut somebody’s ear in an attempt to defend his master.  Jesus strongly rebuked his disciple, and since that particular circumstance was probably the best possible case that could be made for using violence to defend the innocent, Claiborne concludes that violence can never be justified.  In that, he is in agreement with the new vision of the Catholic Church as I have discussed elsewhere.

Claiborne concludes with the following:

“There is no place for political violence in America from any quarter, but especially for any of us who choose to follow Jesus. Jesus shows us another way than the sword or the bomb or the gun — a way to interact with evil without becoming evil. Peter learned, and any of us who dare follow Jesus must also learn, that we cannot carry a cross in one hand and a weapon in the other. We cannot serve two masters.

The recent assassination attempt should cause us to consider how combustible our country is right now, so divided, so angry, so fearful. It should cause those of us who believe in God to take a closer look at our theology.

If our theology does not make us more loving, then we should question our theology. In the words of theologian Barbara Brown Taylor, ‘The only clear line I draw these days is this: When my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor … Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.’”

I happen to fully agree with Claiborne on this matter, as should be evident from many of my writings.