The quote, attributed to Lincoln, goes something like “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.” Once upon a time there was a bench in the Lincoln Memorial Gardens along Lake Springfield with that quote on it. I would see it every time I hiked through the Gardens that were just a baseball throw away from the subdivision where my family lived.
Throughout the Gardens there are benches with Lincoln quotes (or there were – the current administration may have required the quotes to be removed to get federal funds for upkeep). It might be fun to sneak into the Gardens some night and find that bench and install another one right across from it with the quote carved into it, attributed to many but most famously to P.T. Barnum, that goes something like, “there was a sucker born every minute.”
On my hopeful days I could sit on the Barnum bench and contemplate the Lincoln bench and on my cynical days, or a friend might call them my “reality” days, I could sit on the Lincoln bench and contemplate the Barnum bench.
The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament part of the Bible is less PC than the Barnum quote, “Only simpletons believe everything they’re told! The prudent carefully consider their steps.” A gentler proverb says it like this, “It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.” Both versions are encouraging us to check things out, ask questions, pay attention, consult multiple sources.
Jesus, of course, weighs in with his own proverbial statement, “Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.”
The whole Bible narrative starts and ends with a warning that there will always be those who will do their very best to deceive or fool or mislead the people of God. Whether it’s a snake in the garden or an angel of light, Jesus said, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many.” And Jesus said, “For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones. See, I have warned you about this ahead of time.”
I’ve spent 40 of my 61 years following Jesus. And back in the 80s, we were on high alert for deception. I’ve lived through modern church warfare over drums in the sanctuary and the stories of rock n roll beats that summoned demons. I was there when we set fire to piles of music albums because of their “ungodly and deceptive lyrics.” We invented cancel culture so we could influence the market and get books banned and pulled from libraries – or burned. I was there for the sermons and books that called psycho-therapy demonic and deceptive. We marched against the Smurfs (obviously representing dead people and necromancy with their blue skin) and we spotted the evil deception of the Teletubies and warned parents against letting their children watch this obviously demonic show.
And let’s not even get started on Harry Potter.
This “war against deception” was a huge part of 3 decades of following Jesus for me. Then, when Mitt Romney ran for president, I was more than a little surprised when Franklin Graham had the Mormon church taken off the Graham Evangelism Association website list of cult groups to avoid for their deceptive teaching. It was at that point I realized that we evangelicals had all been worried about the wrong thing. The downfall of the evangelical Church wouldn’t happen because First Baptist had a Thursday morning yoga class but because we were so overcome with fear that we would follow our basest instincts to find a different kind of savior.
A few Saturdays ago I listened to Kristin Kobes Du Mez connect the historical dots that got us from there to here. She shared the story of her publisher asking for something hopeful at the end of her book, Jesus and John Wayne. In the end, she could only offer this line, "What was once done can still be undone." And then, she told us, came the 2024 election. The phrase, it turns out, did not age well.
As an enneagram 5 and someone who is very probably on the autism spectrum somewhere, truth and facts and reason are very important to me. A little bit of inconsistency in a story really scrambles my eggs. I can’t just pass over it, no matter how much I want to. I envy, but do not understand, people who can listen to a sermon or read a book or hear a podcast in which details don’t line up, in which a narrative has obviously been arranged to put the storyteller in the best possible light, who don’t suddenly find themselves stuck and obsessing over these deficient details.
These are some of the aspects of my internal wiring that make this season so challenging for me. It feels, to me, like I’ve moved from a hyper-vigilant story we all agreed on to a “believe whatever Fox news tells us” story. It feels, to me, like we’ve moved from a story of laws and rights into a story about wealth and power. It feels like the evangelical family that stood for truth and justice is now ready to play fast and loose with both as long as we feel at the center of the story. Greed and power over others is, as Gordon Gekko predicted, “good.”
In 1987, Oliver Stone directed Wall Street. In a pivotal speech in the film, Gordon Gekko sounds like a prophetic voice for our times.
‘On the way here today I saw a bumper sticker. It said, “Life is a bitch… then you die”.
…well ladies and gentlemen, we’re not here to indulge in fantasies, but in political and economic reality. America has become a second rate power. Our trade deficit and fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. In the days of the ‘free market’ when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the shareholders.
…
I am not a destroyer of companies, I am a liberator of them. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, greed is good. Greed works, greed is right. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all its forms, greed for life, money, love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind — and greed, mark my words — will save not only Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA…Thank you.”
If you haven’t seen the movie, you may not know how evil and deceptive Gekko is. You may not realize, based on contemporary rhetoric, we are not supposed to support his vision.
Several weeks ago, I went with a friend to see and hear Stanley Hauerwas at Duke University at a special book launch. Hauerwas delivered one of his classic observations – we use the word “war” instead of “murder” or “mass murder” because it’s easier for us to argue in favor of the necessity of war rather than the necessity of mass murder. Just think of the way in which World War 2 involved followers of Jesus on both sides who set aside their kingdom relationships in order to follow their perceived Nationalistic loyalties and murder each other on the battle fields of Europe. Nationalism is a deception. A powerful deception and it’s working hard today.
So is Mammon.
So is power itself.
And there are some of us who see this unfolding because you can’t fool all the people all the time. For those who see what’s happening, who are connecting the dots, we’re feeling incredible distress as we see irrevocable damage being done and a Church, once attuned to – even hyper focused on – deception, seems to be in collusion with the powers and principalities that, like in the Old Testament story of King Ahaz, has aligned with the very powers determined to take away their future.
Normally, someone who has read this far and is aligned with the American right will feel compelled to shout something like “the Dems are no better!” as if I’m writing a defense of the Democratic party here. I am not. I don’t think there is salvation in either or any of the American political parties. The point of the Church, evangelical and otherwise, as I understand it, is that we are supposed to be a prophetic voice, crying in the wilderness (because they have always killed the prophets in the halls of power) “It doesn’t have to be this way!” and “There is a better way!” We are supposed to be, I think, a prophetic demonstration of another Way. When we see people at the margins being used and abused, we are supposed to be advocates and not accomplices to the harm being done to them.
Most of all, we must not fool ourselves into believing that wrong is right.
“Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” - Abraham Lincoln
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This is so powerfully said. It’s hard to put into words the kind of dissonance that comes from watching something you once trusted lose its way. You captured that feeling perfectly—the tension between wanting to hold onto hope and seeing clearly how fear, greed, and power have twisted the story we were supposed to be telling. The reminder that the Church is meant to be a prophetic voice, not a political tool, resonates so deeply. Thank you for writing this. It’s not easy to say these things out loud, but it’s necessary.
Fellow enneagram 5 here! When you say,
"Normally, someone who has read this far and is aligned with the American right will feel compelled to shout something like 'the Dems are no better!' as if I’m writing a defense of the Democratic party here."
I think (or at least I hope) you realize that for every one person who says they've learned that the political right isn't synonymous with Christianity, and really means it, there are usually roughly five or so people who begin the same way, and then draw the bad conclusion that the political left is synonymous with Christianity. So if you anticipate right wingers reacting that way, it's because we're waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But it didn't in your case (refreshingly!). I'm a former libertarian. Now I guess I fit somewhere on the right. But I also hate that the "right wing" position is opposed to helping the oppressed and marginalized. I don't think that will work too well for the right in the long run, but more importantly it's just not a great moral position to hold on either side of the political aisle.