It was “in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians” (Acts 11:26).
This verse of Scripture struck one side of my brains just as the other side revolted, “They are not Christians!” This simultaneous scriptural recollection and cerebral revolt occurred as I thought about certain Americans who say they are Christians. At that moment, I was thinking of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson; but it quickly enlarged to persons other than he.
Michael Friday
Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell, in clear response to the express desire of a third certain person, have completely neutered a Senate bipartisan bill that people from both sides of the divide have touted as the most substantive action in decades for the southern border. It would have done something about the fentanyl poison that lands in America.
The bill also allocated desperately needed aid to Ukraine and Israel — although I have significant problems with what Netanyahu would have done with that aid, and with the fact that Palestinians also need aid, not only of a financial kind.
One TV personality lamented that Johnson, McConnell and all the Republicans who killed this bill were more than just tacitly supporting all the ruthless and murderous strongmen a certain dangerous American celebrates. No one claiming Jesus as Lord — that is, a Christian — would support murderers, which is what Johnson and McConnell and this band of bill-killing Republicans are doing. They are telegraphing to Xi Jinping, Hamas, Ali Khamenei and Vladimir Putin that they can do whatever they want with Taiwan, Israel and Ukraine. None of these men have any compunction against murder, genocide, wanton violence, neighbor-invasion and conquest, and brutality.
Would Acts 11 declare these Republicans as Christians?
“Under the judgment of Acts 11, McConnell stands naked.”
McConnell already has two strikes against him. Both sides of my brain remind me this is the same man who in one year decided 300 days before an election was too close to confirm a Supreme Court nominee, and who, the very next year, thought 30-plus days wasn’t too close to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. This is lying and thievery — twice. No one, following Jesus, could simultaneously be a decided, deliberate, destructive liar and thief. Under the judgment of Acts 11, McConnell stands naked.
I went back to Acts of the Apostles chapter 11 to see what prompted Luke to say at the point he did, that it was in Antioch the (nick)name was first applied. There isn’t much verbiage there, but the little that is there is telling.
First, I see phrases such as they “turned to the Lord” and they were “added to the Lord.” These are statements of allegiance. A true Christian’s allegiance is only, totally, completely and unreservedly with “the Lord” Jesus. It is clear that too many Congressional Republicans and too many white “evangelicals” hold allegiance to a certain American who is not Jesus (and who is not even president or elected to anything — a loser by electoral and judicial definition), to the extent that people actually call that man the “Orange Jesus.”
True Christians reflect Jesus values and never capitulate to the whims of anyone else that hurt everyone else. Whoever does that is not a Christian; yet, this is precisely what many Republicans are doing, and they are egged on by many people who call themselves evangelicals. Their allegiance is demonstrably not to Jesus. Are they Christians, then? Not by the sentiments of Acts 11.
“True Christians reflect Jesus values and never capitulate to the whims of anyone else that hurt everyone else.”
Next, I see that “the grace of God” was among them. This is a statement of affirmation. Where the grace of God reposes in people, such people shall be rendered and affirmed as gracious, unoffensive, cooperative, genuine and good. Does the grace of God repose in people who hold governmental power, who repeatedly do nothing with that power to ease the suffering of their people and who, instead, serve themselves and their rich friends with that power, or cede it to an immoral, twice-indicted, 91-felony-charge-facing, civil court-convicted rapist and fraudster, to whom they hold allegiance? No. They can’t be Christians.
Is that God’s grace we see in always-bellicose Jim Jordan with a knowledge of sexual assault cloud over his head? Was that God’s grace in Marjorie Taylor Greene when she stalked and taunted David Hogg, a survivor of a school mass shooting, or when she terrorized a fellow Congresswoman, when she — along with Lauren Boebert, even though they themselves fight and brawl with each other — repeatedly bears false witness against her neighbors? No. Is this Christian? No. Greene may be a “Christian” nationalist (and so also might “Christian nation” “revivalist” Josh Hawley); but that’s not who Luke describes in Acts 11 as Christians.
Finally, I read that the Antiochene Christians met regularly to learn the way of Christ. This is a statement of application, meaning those who learn the way of Christ seek to apply it to their own living. It is, simply, the readiness to do anything Jesus would have done, beginning with work.
Jesus once declared, “I must work the works of him who has sent me while it is day.” This Republican House has done the least work a House has ever done in the last two generations (they’ve passed only 27 bills compared to 248 in the last Democratic-led House); and yet these people are being paid with my tax dollars and yours!
This is the fundamental definition of thievery; and any thief — especially those who work for the state — who encounter Jesus, stop stealing, and then give back four times what they stole. A little man named Zacchaeus told me so.
Yet, this isn’t what Mike Johnson, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik and nearly 450 Republicans (and to be sure, some Democrats) in both Houses are doing with public money. Poverty, guns, inadequate health care, and homelessness are among the biggest killers of Americans; and now women and girls are being forced to carry the vile seed of their rapists to viability and consigned to lives of absolute misery thereafter, while the Congress does nothing — no work — while people die or are consigned to die. This is not pro-life. This is not Jesus. This is not Christian. By the markers of Acts 11, they could not be defined as Christians.
Let it not be forgotten that “Christian” was a nickname applied to people formerly known only as “disciples.” Disciples follow the lead, example, “way” and values of their leader. As I look at Mike Johnson, Mitch McConnell and 400 Americans in the House and Senate who say they are Christians (some even proudly saying “I am a Christian nationalist”), I see people following the aforementioned “Orange Jesus” and his sordid and worthless values instead of Jesus of Nazareth.
No. Being disciples of that man and not Jesus, they are not qualified to be called Christians. Neither are the so-called “evangelicals” who keep giving them power despite the mischief and sins they commit, qualified to be called Christians. Their “fruit” (by which Jesus said we shall know them) condemns them.
Michael Friday serves as executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of Greater Indianapolis and is author of the book And Lead Us Not Into Dysfunction: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, of Church institutions and Their Leaders. He has served Baptists in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and the United States.