The Christian Sins of 1/6

Recounting blasphemy, politics aside

Put out of your mind any of the politics of January 6th. Ignore the personalities at the center. Set aside even the violence. Let’s look only at what happened from a Christian perspective because the planners, participants, and reporters of the event all clearly understood it to be a Christian event.

False Prophecy

The 1/6 moment was a serious re-living of Isaiah 23. These are grievous sins, serious lies that show the souls of these false prophets lie in danger of hell itself.

Look at how rampant it was! — Over 150 “prophets” said Trump would win in 2020.

Another prophet Dyrud follows has assured him that “Trump is still our president” and is facing a moment much like when Moses and the Israelites fled Egypt and were not able to cross the Red Sea until God parted the waters for them. God will do something miraculous for Trump, too, Dyrud believes.

“I believe something dramatic is going to happen before Congress votes on those electors. Something very dramatic that will change the outcome of that vote … the holy spirit will enter into this situation and it’s going to be something very dramatic,” televangelist Pat Robertson told his Christian Broadcasting Network audience Jan. 4, on the eve of two days of rallies in Washington.

January 6th and the days leading up to it were filled with false prophecies by lying liars who need to repent of their lies. They deceived God’s people. Their souls lie in the balance. And they continue to lie:

“Others have dug in and prophesied a return of Trump to the White House,” said Beverley, who is affiliated with the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Texas and Tyndale University in Toronto.

The Bible reserves the strongest condemnations for these kinds of people:

“If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let us follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us worship them,’ do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. You must follow the Lord your God and fear Him. You must keep His commands and listen to His voice; you must worship Him and remain faithful to Him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has urged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the place of slavery, to turn you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. You must purge the evil from you.

Syncretism

The Q Shaman who was most pictured and most emblematic of the events of January 6th in the actual building reveals the twisted spiritual core of the whole day: a mingling of gods, when the God of the Bible says there should be no other Gods mingled with Him.

His “prayer” on the Senate floor was just as bad. And self-proclaimed Christians supported it!

Kelly would later praise the moment Chansley “consecrated (the Senate) to Jesus” in an interview with conservative website LifeSiteNews the day of the insurrection. He called the prayer the “ultimate statement of where we are at with this movement.”

Don’t miss that last sentence: the syncretism IS the highlight of the movement!

These people’s souls are on the brink of destruction!

Cult Participation

The movement on January 6th was deeply informed and shaped by Qanon. Joe Carter at the Gospel Coalition had a good explainer of the problems with Q. I will let him summarize:

Christians should care about QAnon because it’s a satanic movement infiltrating our churches.

Did you read that? Read it again. January 6th was planned, supported, and executed by a satanic movement infiltrating our churches.

A False Gospel

They came bearing crosses aiming to conquer.

Their hope was the exact opposite of the hope of the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel spreads by self-sacrificial love in the proclamation of what Jesus has already accomplished for us.

You cannot use the shed blood of Jesus for anything. You cannot “plead the blood of Christ” over objects, over systems, over governments, over buildings.

The blood of Christ was also important to another insurrectionist: Joshua Black of Leeds, Alabama, who can be seen standing directly in front of Chansley during the prayer wearing a camouflage jacket, his hands raised in supplication. Before he turned himself in to the FBI in the days after the insurrection, Black posted a pair of YouTube videos in which he explained his rationale for storming the Capitol.

“I just wanted to get inside the building so I could plead the blood of Jesus over it,” he said. “That was my goal.”

You cannot spread the Gospel with hatred, violence, anger, or the sword. Yet the first flag through the door of the Senate chamber was the Christian flag.

These people specifically thought they were doing God’s will AS CHRISTIANS.

Just as God instructed Joshua to march around Jericho seven times with priests blowing trumpets, Christians gathered in D.C., blowing shofars, the ram’s horn typically used in Jewish worship, to banish the “darkness of election fraud” and ensure that “the walls of corruption crumble.”

The Urgent Need for Repentance

I have seen a wide variety of “Christian” responses to January 6th, including condemnation, acceptance, support, defense of the participants, and ongoing worry about their treatment in jail.

I have not seen the most important thing: a call to widespread repentance for all involved in this grotesque deformation of Christianity.

Seriously — we who profess hell must believe these false prophets, syncretists, deceivers, and deceived ones are all in the danger of eternal torment! These people are deluded and are going to die in order to face a judgement that will not end will for them. All of them!

Their only hope is repentance.

The fact that we respond in a myriad of ways dealing with our political proclivities or national allegiances rather than calling for repentance first reveals that our citizenship is NOT in Heaven, as Paul teaches (Philippians 3:20) OR that we think these people should burn in hell (and thus the love of Christ is not in us) OR that we think nothing was wrong here — all of which are lies!

Want a prayer for the January 6th participants? Put your petty politics aside and start with this:

Prayer.

For them, unto salvation

For yourself, in repentance of whatever thoughts within you shift first to a partisan response instead of a Christian one.

For our nation, that our leaders would know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Yeah, But…

Is not applicable here. There is no violent act draped in the garb and language of my conservative Christian upbringing that so heartily welcomed such a variety of mortal sins and was so minimized by so many religious leaders nationwide. There is no comparison to anything in American Christian history: the hopes and fears of a whole year were met in this moment. Millions hoped this moment would end in success for those who went in doing the work of the devil at the behest of a satanic cult while bearing crosses and calling on the name of Jesus. This was an American Christian event, and reveled the rancid rot at the core of so much American Christianity.

I’ve heard January 6th called various things: Insurrection Day, Coup Day, riot day, whatever day.

I am going to call it Repentance Day. This is the only hope for me, for the church, and for America, that we repent and call others to likewise.