1. Instead of “American Exceptionalism” Jesus would spend his campaign talking about a place that is WAY better than America.

Expressions of American Exceptionalism are absolutely essential to winning the Evangelical block– in fact, when leaders offer a self-critique on our own culture they’re often labeled as being part of the “hate America crowd.” Jesus, however, would spend his campaign the same way he spent his ministry: Talking about a culture that is far better than the one we find ourselves in.

The central teaching of Jesus’s ministry is the Kingdom of God. You can’t flip more than a few pages in the Gospels without seeing Jesus talk about it. When you see this, what you’re seeing is a candidate who is claiming there is something better that what you see around you– a Kingdom that is unlike anything in this world. His Kingdom is not an abstract Kingdom that exists only in the future, but an alternate culture one can live and experience right now— one that is WAY better than American culture.

But to preach there’s something better than America, and that we should change to become more like it? That would be political heresy.

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Honestly, I miss the days when being Evangelical meant you were a bearer of “good news.” I miss the days when this term meant you believed in the inspiration of Scripture, and that you believed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ– because in this way, I’ve always been Evangelical.

But these days? These days “Evangelical” is a political term where not even Jesus Christ himself could win their vote.