Is Nothing Sacred?

At the inauguration of Donald Trump today, with Joe Biden sitting right behind him, Franklin Graham opened his prayer by saying, “Mr. President, the last four years, there are times I’m sure you thought it was pretty dark, but look what God has done. We praise him and give him glory.” Even though I agree with Graham about much of the “darkness” of the last four years, to say such a thing in that moment, when given the unbelievably weighty responsibility of representing the one true faith to millions, is distasteful, to say the least.

To be perfectly clear, if a pastor giving the opening prayer at Biden’s inauguration four years ago had said the same, I would also consider it distasteful, though less surprising. Many of the denominations associated with the political left in our country abandoned theological orthodoxy for political action well over a century ago, via the Social Gospel and other movements. That’s what makes this type of behavior from a conservative evangelical all the more egregious—only we will display the bold-faced hypocrisy of badgering our opponents as theological heretics while also forcing the gospel to take a back seat to worldly political desires.

I’m sure that many conservative Protestants would consider my taking umbrage with the statement to be hyperbolic, but I would argue that they’ve become desensitized to having our faith fused with partisan politics. For decades, our faith’s most prominent personalities have treated the most holy subjects irreverently, by subverting them for political ends. Graham had an opportunity to be an exemplar of the grace and peace we are undeservedly given by our Savior—an example for the millions of people watching yet to understand, or perhaps even hear, the gospel. Instead, he opened his time by being a jerk to the people sitting right behind him, assuring that anyone sympathetic to them would tune out before he even started with his prayer.

I will never go Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and everything that flows from it, is nonnegotiable for me. I will remain a theologically (and generally politically) conservative evangelical Protestant, but I am really tired of the public personalities associated with my theological tradition taking the most important and best news in the history of the world—news that supersedes all the machinations of men—and turning it into a secondary topic, behind their petty political beef.