I had Christian models to help me see what good Christians looked and acted like (none of whom looked or behaved like the man elected to the presidency last night). Furthermore, because of my conversion I was enabled to receive a higher education in general arts and theology, both of which heightened my keenness to do better throughout my life. As my life progressed I more and more grew in the gift of discernment. That is to say, I could smell a boat load of rotten fish from miles away, and therefore could avoid both boat and fish (sleep with dogs and you'll get flees). Excuse the mixed metaphor?

But last night that whole reality was turned on its head, when America elected a man who is a political Elmer Gantry, a carnival pitch man, and in his own words, "a strong Christian."

This strong Christian received the endorsement of a vast majority of American Evangelicals, some of whom compared him to Cyrus and King David. Some of whom prayed over him and prophesied that he would be president. Is this the beginning of a new Utopia, the Millennial kingdom come to earth? Well, to hear some Christians speak, you'd think so. But if this is so, why do I think of the Babylonian Captivity and Germany in that fateful year 1933, and not "the city built on a hill"? Throughout the election campaign I heard him say that he would make America "a heaven."

He mixed his messages with Messianic-like phrases, and spattered them with the negative tropes from white supremacists. And he dredged up the very worst emotions in his followers, while frightening the living daylights out of America's allies and trade partners. I won't go into his disgusting behavior with women. And I can't find one evidence of the Holy Spirit in his life, words, or actions. Although he did keep producing an old, moth eaten Bible that his mother gave him when he was a small boy. Can he even recite the Lord's Prayer?

I won't attempt to sing Hilary Clinton's praises, because my issue is not with who won and who lost.

My concern is that there is something very rotten in Western Christianity. Something very diseased in the Evangelical churches (so called). Why, I'll even confess that I'm a follower of political campaigns, and come by it honestly, having grown up in a family of Social Democrats (on both sides). But I've never witnessed anything close to this before.

The world looked on as Donald Trump frothed at the mouth and stopped time and again to announce that Christian America was backing him (when he started dropping the names of the Graham family two days ago, that really tore it for me), I felt physically ill. Coming from his lips it sounded like an obscenity. I mean, as a young Christian I volunteered at Graham crusades, and I volunteered with Child Evangelism Fellowship. I even met Billy Graham during the World Council of Churches in Vancouver in 1983. In fact, I almost knocked him over as I was rushing out of the front door of Regent College, and he was entering, disguised in a trench coat and wearing a tweed cap, so as not to be recognized on the street. My point is, the world is watching this political dog and pony show, and hearing Donald Trump proclaiming the fact that he's a strong Christian, and they're seeing other Christians enable him is this farce. "You shall know them by their works."

I guess my ultimate point is this, I didn't realize that I could verbally and physically abuse women, not pay taxes, cheat others out of millions of dollars, mock the disabled, claim that Hispanics are sub-human, praise world dictators, subvert the democratic process, and still be a "strong Christian." I must have been home sick on the days they taught that at seminary.

This is not about politics. This is about speaking up for the integrity of the Gospel of God through Jesus Christ. This is about warning everyone about the seductive assaults of the "Principalities and Powers." Because I am very much afraid of this "new gospel" being broadcast in America today. If we accept the premise that God is in control. in the face of this election's result, be very afraid! Because it smells more like judgment than blessing.

I will leave you with another quote from another of my former professors: "Christians must recognize that they are not only a minority on the globe but also at home in the midst of the followers of non-Christian and post-Christian faiths. Perhaps this will prepare us to see how inappropriate and preposterous was the prevailing assumption, from the time of Constantine until yesterday, that the fundamental responsibility of the church for society is to manage it" (John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus).

Yours in Hope,

Brian

Brian McGregor-Foxcroft lives in Victoria, BC, Canada, and is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and Regent College. Members of his family were on the Charter given by King Charles II to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His family was a prominent Puritan family in Boston, with Thomas Foxcroft a pastor of First Congregational Church and a friend and colleague of Jonathan Edwards, and George Foxcroft, the second postmaster general after Benjamin Franklin.