Pastors celebrating Donald Trump’s presidency as a sign of God’s favor to the United States need to repent of their “theological arrogance” and their “failure to understand Scripture in light of history,” said Rev. Dr. Charlie Dates in a video posted to Instagram on Thursday, Jan. 23.
“I want to offer to you tonight a response to some of the messages from, namely, white evangelical—some of them associates of mine—pastors in Texas, Georgia, and in other places,” said Dates, “who want you to think, theologically, that God somehow intervened and delivered for America salvation in the inauguration of the 47th president.”
“That’s not Christianity,” he said.
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Charlie Dates: ‘God Is Not on the Side of Those in Power’
Rev. Dr. Charlie Dates is senior pastor of Progressive Baptist Church and Salem Baptist Church in Chicago. In the caption of his video, he said, “I offer this pastoral rebuttal to those who are sincerely seeking the Christ of The Scriptures and for those who are defending the faith against its misrepresentations.”
“You should vote according to your convictions,” Dates said, “but to claim the results of this election and the day of this inauguration as the favor of God on America is the sorrowful historical succession of inaccurate and irresponsible theology.”
“To be clear,” Dates added in the caption, “I do not think that either party fully represents the interests of Jesus Christ. They both fail miserably. My issue isn’t with the parties, but with the leaders of the Church who tie Christ to their candidate.”
In his video, Dates quoted orator, author and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who differentiated between a Christianity “of this land” and a Christianity “of Christ” and said, “Between the two, we recognize so wide a difference that to be the friend of one is to be the enemy of the other.”
“Some of these pastors would have you to believe that God somehow now is riding on the backs of their issues and their candidate,” said Dates. “But the problem with that is that we get to cast God in the light of our political and cultural interest. We all want to do that.”
“I have to ask you, brother pastor, where was God when my ancestors were praying to him through the 240 years of American chattel slavery?” Dates asked. “Where was God at the failed point of reconstruction? Where was God when my ancestors and my grandparents were marching to end a long night—73 years-plus of Jim Crow? Was he not present, or is he present now because the issues that you pick have come to prevail?”