Righting America

by Rodney Kennedy

Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, was the focus of this righting america interview. And for Kennedy’s most recent sermons and articles, see theprogessivepreacher.com.  

Robert Jeffress, pastor of Dallas’ First Baptist Church and Fox News contributor, is never at a loss for words. He invents sound bites in his head for public consumption. The more outrageous, divisive, and hate-suggestive, the better. Jeffress is a Texas-sized “red meat” kind of guy. 

And he has been a gusher of misleading claims on behalf of President Trump for more than a decade. Historian John Fea has dubbed Jeffress one of Trump’s “court preachers.” Texas Monthly headlined him as “Trump’s Apostle.” 

His latest bit of rhetorical “rare steak”: “It looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches about the role of government than the pope has.”

Since I inhabit a world where credentials still matter, I have to point out that Pope Leo XIV has a Master of Divinity degree and a Ph.D. in canon law. To state the obvious, he is a man very well acquainted with the Bible. 

On the other hand, Trump is not.

Trump knows less about the Bible than an Amish second grader in Ohio. The man “knows neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). 

Yes, Trump has been a Bible salesman. He held aloft a copy of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, upside down, in a photo op outside an Episcopal Church in Washington to claim that God supported his attack on peaceful protestors. But he is not a man of the Bible. 

When Mr. Trump was asked what his favorite Bible verse is, he managed to say, “an eye for an eye.” This puts Mr. Trump in league with a host of biblically illiterate Baptists who when asked by the pastor at Wednesday night supper, “What’s your favorite Bible verse,” blurt out “Jesus wept.” 

Trump seems more like the character in the movie “Metropolitan” who confesses that he has never read the Bible, “but I have opinions about it.” While Trump has denied keeping a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf by his bed, the idea is more plausible than him having a Bible by his bed. 

More than this, Trump doesn’t speak the language of the Bible. Trump’s vocabulary has no biblical footprint. He fills his rambling speeches with hyperbole, untruthful, often incoherent claims. He mixes in threats, profanity, outrage and constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery unrelated to the Bible. 

Then there’s Rev. Robert Jeffress, and his very unproblematic and politically convenient reading of Romans 13:1-7:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there Is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval, for it is God’s agent for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the agent of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s agents, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

Here’s the case Jeffress makes for the meaning of Romans 13: “Look, the godly principle here is that governments have one responsibility, and that is Romans 13 …. avenge evil-doers. God gives government the power of the sword, of capital punishment, of executing wrong-doers.”

Jeffress views the Bible as self-interpreting. For Jeffress Romans 13 settles all arguments about Trump’s border wall, the deportation of all immigrants, the DACA program, the war with Iran, the desire to imprison leading Democrats and remove all Muslims from the US.

Romans 13 serves as Trump’s template for doing whatever he wants to do. Blow up fishing boats in the Caribbean? Romans 13. Invade Venezuela, take the president of the country hostage and return him to the US for trial? Romans 13. Bomb Iran and kill Muslim school children? Romans 13. 

And here’s the irony. Interpreting the Bible for himself, Jeffress misreads a biblical passage while attempting to prove Trump knows his Bible. 

On the other hand, Pope Leo reads the Bible in the context of the Church. He assumes Scripture can be interpreted only in the context of an “interpretative community” – the Roman Catholic Church. The Church is prior to Scripture. The meaning of Scripture is not left to common sense, not left to individual, private interpretation. Scripture is interpreted in light of the Church. 

The Eastern Orthodox Church also insist Scripture and tradition reflect all readings. Georges Florosky, in Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, argues that “Only within the Church is it revealed as a whole and not broken up into separate texts, commandments, and aphorisms.” 

The Episcopal Church centers interpretation in Scripture, Tradition and Reason. United Methodists add Experience to the three-legged stool of Anglican belief. 

Anabaptist theologian James McClendon adds, “The church, as the apostolic community, necessarily reads (in community) the apostolic writings, the Old Testament, and the New Testament.” 

Scripture has no original, fixed meaning. Scripture. Texts of Scripture do not have a single meaning limited to the biblical era. Scripture has multiple possible meanings. Faithful interpretation of Scripture involves participation in a Church where the Bible is read in community. 

Jeffress and his fellow MAGA preachers waving their verses of Scripture in the air look like the prophet of Baal, I Kings 18 tells the story: “They limped about the altar that they had made. “At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud!’ As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response” (I Kings 18:27, 29).

Jeffress has a narrow, restrictive reading of Romans 13. He rips it from his larger context of Romans 12 – 13 to construct his own personal view of evil and the government’s role in stamping out evil. Jeffress strays far from the opening of Romans 12 – “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1 – 2). 

I find Jeffress utilizing an interpretative framework exposed to subjectivity and arbitrary methods. Historian John Fea says, “The problem is that Jeffress defines the evil from which the government should protect us according to his own reading of the Bible.” His reading of Romans 13 sounds more like the MAGA evangelical playbook than an honest understanding of Scripture. 

Jeffress’ reading of Romans 13 has nothing of Paul’s insistence the present era is passing away,  Paul’s proclamation that “Jesus is Lord” not Caesar, Paul’s assertion that our true citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and that every ruler and authority and power as being done away with in preparation for Christ’s reign (I Corinthians 15:24). 

Ironically, Jeffress reads Romans 13 through a Constantinian lens, marrying church to state in an authoritarian, cruel and coercive system. Nothing could be less Pauline. Paul and the Church had no desire to take the state or replace the Emperor or want a Christian to be the Emperor. That would be a far too conservative politics. 

Instead, Paul preaches the ceaseless, exuberant good news. There’s been a break between God and the pagan world, the power of Christ and the Pax Romana, the lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar. As Stanley Hauerwas puts it, Paul “does not see in Christ one religious option among others. He sees in Christ nothing less than the whole of creation and all of humanity under God’s final judgment and grace. . . . Paul is uncompromisingly focused on a single, incomparable, final, and exclusive theological reality which constitutes, includes, and determines all other reality: Jesus Christ.” 

A new reality formed in the resurrection of Jesus. A new mode of being was created even though Caesar was still on the throne. The new order is one of peace, persuasion and working out the perfect will of God. 

Jeffress turns a blind eye to how often government is unjust and cruel. Jeffress’ argument crashes against the politics of our modern democratic nation where authority derives immediately and ultimately from the people. What Romans 13 does so admirably is point out that no government, including Trump’s one-man rule, is a law entirely unto itself. Ultimately, Romans 13 tells us, “God is God and we are not.” 

I conclude Jeffress is wrong at every turn. He asks Romans 13:1 – 7 to carry a weight it can’t lift. The New Testament never approves of Caesar in any form. 

Pope Leo not only knows far more about the Bible than President Trump (it was not a fair contest), but he also knows far more about the Bible than Rev. Jeffress. The Vicar of Christ trumps the Apostle of Trump.