This election has kept me in an almost constant state of anger and frustration. Why did Democrats nominate a fairly problematic candidate? Why did Republicans nominate a dumpster fire? Who can support Clinton without reservation? Who can support Trump at all? Perhaps most infuriatingly: why do 79% of white (churchgoing) evangelical Protestants say they’re going to vote for Trump? A third of the Republican base has no interest, so it seems, in character or principle when up until very recently (maybe, say, 6 months ago), it was probably their main interest. It was certainly in their interest when they wanted Bill Clinton impeached. Times do change, of course, and so does the decency of the evangelical movement, apparently.

I’ve only been a Christian for about 7 years; I didn’t grow up in the evangelical bubble. I was an atheist for all of high school and found evangelicals to be … the worst. Probably the biggest hinderance to my eventual belief was not even the fact that God Incarnate had to get nailed to a tree to make things all good; it was that politically evangelicals seemed to spend more time “protecting the sanctity of marriage” while getting divorces out the wazoo. I saw evangelicals Christians as bastions of American hypocrisy; their hypocrisy made it easier to attack them with relish. It wasn’t until I became friends with a loving group of wonderful Christians did my heart soften enough to listen to the gospel more openly. While I had certainly seen Christians be great people (my best friend since second grade has been a Christian the whole time I’ve known him), it was easier to write these Christians off as outliers. When you encounter a large group of people living out the gospel, it becomes harder to deny its power.

That is, until this election. This election has dredged up old hurts in the worst ways possible, reminding me that tribalism trumps (pun intended) Jesus, always. It reminded me that character is not something that you should have, but rather a word to throw around to hurt your enemies. It reminded me that non-Christians are somehow the enemies of American Christians. It reminded me that the Bible, despite my own beliefs, is not as God’s word the foundational text of human living and flourishing but instead a weapon for containing and/or destroying those who are “other”.

It’s certainly reminded me how “seriously” evangelicals take Matthew 28.

I am extremely thankful to God that His timing allowed me to know Christ 7 years ago as opposed to now. There is no way I could have stomached the grotesque evil that 79% of evangelicals are participating in; why would I listen to someone who preaches Christ and Trump at the same time? I don’t really care about the “but Hillary” rebuttals since they reinforce the tribalism narrative. I hope believers are really considering the damage they are doing to non-believers (and thus, the whole reason why we’re still on earth doing work for the Kingdom). I hope evangelical leaders like Eric Metaxas (who BLOCKED ME ON TWITTER for calling him out) can rediscover the gospel that it seems like they’ve been just peddling for years.

I’ll be blunt: this hurts. This election hurts. The evangelical support of Trump hurts. It makes all the stuff I’ve been taught feel like a lie — or at least a set of platitudes. I, and many other Christians, feel betrayed. The gospel feels dead.

But it’s not dead. It’s alive. God will show up. I really believe that.