Evangelical “Salt” Now Tasteless
Matthew 5:13 – 20
Last week, the Gospel lection contained the Beatitudes. I claimed Jesus expects us to live the Beatitudes and the entire Sermon on the Mount. Not as a set of ideals. Not a bunch of beliefs or doctrines, but as actually, bodily, material living.
I make this claim because the sermon on the Mount is the form of the life of Jesus. Here is what the deeds of Jesus look like in words. The man and the message are identical.
Leaving behind the Beatitudes I feel like a man boarding a ship for a long journey and I’m looking back at my home not wanting to depart. But the lectionary waits for no preacher and now we must consider Matthew 5:13 – 20.
Jesus tells us exactly who and what we are. We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jesus here constitutes us as a people. You cannot live the Sermon on your own. One grain of salt has no value.
Besides, we are not even sure what it means to be the salt of the earth. At the minimum, being salt means we add flavor to life. I am afraid the Christian brand in America has “lost its taste.”
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under “
The gospel is a matter of taste. The kingdom of God is a banquet meant for strangers, foreigners, aliens, and enemies. The psalmist cries, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 34:6). “The Israelites called it manna; it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Exodus 16:31)
When preachers insist “God hates,” Christianity has lost its taste. When Christian leaders claim empathy is a vice not a virtue, Christianity has lost its taste.
As Job asks, “Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt?” (Job 6:6). Job compared taste in food with taste of words and calamity.
Is there any wrong on my tongue? Cannot my taste discern calamity? (Job 6:30). Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes food? (Job 12:11).
Junk food curses the American body. Too much salt. Too many preservatives. We know it is bad for us and we eat it anyway. High blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, heart problems multiply as we consume the junk food and words.
God has given us heaven’s food, manna, to sustain us in the wilderness of life. Instead of the junk food of culture, the Wisdom of Solomon claims God gave your people food of angels, and without their toil you supplied them from heaven with bread ready to eat, providing every pleasure and suited to every taste (16:20)
The unknown author of Hebrews, surely not a Calvinist warns, “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit” (Hebrews 6:4).
When we worship God with all our senses, taste and smell are often ignored. Not among the Jews. The sweet smell of incense. The taste of the paschal lamb. Not among the Catholics. The bread of life. The wine of salvation. The swinging of the thurible with the burning of the incense symbolizing the prayers of the people rising to heaven.
I am convinced Baptists don’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper regularly because we are afraid of the bodily, material, fleshly, physical nature of our faith. My upbringing trained me to avoid matters of the “flesh.” We were told not to preach money, sex, or politics. I never understood why the preacher should avoid the most interesting subjects in the world, the subjects on the lips of church members constantly. And still they have the nerve to call us boring.
Why then do some expressions of Christian faith leave a “bad taste” in the mouth? The salt, and by salt, I mean church, has become tasteless and tacky. The evangelicals among us have embraced a crude, tasteless bully as our nation’s leader.
Our president is feeding us junk political food like the McDonald’s Big Macs and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken he consumes.
Too many churches have become the junk food franchises of religion. The Seven Mountains Dominionists are serving huge dollops of a post-millennial belief that God wants “Christians” governing all aspects of American culture. Junk food. Robert Jeffress and David Barton feed people “Big Macs with super-sized fries” claiming America was founded by evangelical Christians as a Christian nation. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and a majority of our founders would be shocked by this false claim. Paula White told a lie so huge when she was trying to salvage the 2020 election for Trump that people are still making fun of her. “Angels are coming from the coast of Africa and South America she screamed as she repeatedly shouting, “I hear the shout of victory!” She made more sense when she was speaking in tongues. Evangelical leaders in Oklahoma are trying to pass a law to make it a criminal act for churches to feed, clothe, and care for anyone who is not a citizen. That really turns Matthew 25 and the Good Samaritan on their ears.
Plato compared rhetoric to “cookery” – the equivalent of junk food – and much evangelical noise passing for preaching deserves Plato’s scorn. Too much evangelical preaching is akin to a religion of a Big Mac, KFC Popcorn Nuggets or an overcooked steak smothered in Heinz Ketchup.
And the prosperity gospel preachers and the positive thinking preachers offering group therapy to thousands every week are hawking junk food with false claims. Did you know Grape-Nuts was originally sold “a food for brain and nerve centers?” Or that “Henry Heinz’s religious convictions inspired him to construct purity for his products. He sold his ketchup as wholesome and natural. Popular mass preaching bears all the marks of the same junk food mentality.
It is hard to be the salt of the earth when you are tasteless and add nothing of value to the flavor of the world.
And the most dangerous junk food in the evangelical pantry is old. It has been stored in dust-covered Mason jars until the tops were loosed by our president and its “white supremacy” spilled into our streets. “White supremacy is a poltergeist that has haunted every significant aspect of evangelical faith. Now the quiet part is said out loud. White supremacy has added rage, victimhood, hegemonic masculinity, carnivalesque worship, and nostalgia to the junk food menu.
Hegemonic masculinity is so ubiquitous among Calvinst Baptists as to pass for mainstream thought. The hyperauthentic masculinity of the “Theobros”, especially Doug Wilson, Moscow, Idaho pastor, has given white men the freedom to imagine a white male utopia where they have economic and cultural dominance. Wilson preaches against women having the right to vote.
This junk food preaching allows white male congregants to enact masculinist behaviors and to believe such gross practices are attractive, necessary, biblical and Christian. One has only to glance at a picture of our bare-chested Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth brandishing his Crusader tats to know how tasteless this has become.
When will we realize MAGA evangelicals are preaching and practicing the most insidious qualities of humanity? For example, listen to this prayer: “Please protect the ICE officers from wicked men and women who are violent lawbreakers,” prayed Andy Naselli, lead pastor of Christ the King Church in Stillwater, Minn., and professor of systematic theology and New Testament at Bethlehem.
“Father, please enable the government authorities who work for ICE to accomplish their lawful and moral mission: to ‘protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.’”
He went on to quote Psalm 58, asking God to break Walz and Frey’s teeth, to tear out their fangs, to make them vanish, to cause them to fail, to melt away like a slug, and to become like stillborn children. When preachers are praying for God to smite the people of Minneapolis instead of save them from violence, you should know we have a problem.
No person who really is “salt of the earth” would pray such gratuitously offensive rhetoric. Nor would they offer such twisted defenses of the most explicit form of ICE’s nefarious capacity to kill unarmed American citizens. If you think I shouldn’t preach this, then you need repentance. If you think this isn’t biblical, then you haven’t read your Bible much.
The people who are “salt of the earth” are living out of Romans 12:9 – 21
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly;[b] do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God,[c] for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Did you know these are the words that precede that favorite evangelical text of Romans 13? Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval, 4 for it is God’s agent for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority[a] does not bear the sword in vain! It is the agent of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.
Which one will you choose? Be the salt of the earth or bear the sword of vengeance? Just to remind you, Germon pastors who supported Hitler quoted Romans 13 during WWII.
Our only hope depends on the churches being the “salt of the earth”: We will not retaliate, hate, curse, lust, swear, brag, preen, worry, or backbite. These are not recommendations on how to be wealthy, healthy, and successful; they are the form our lives take when we are salt.
I believe churches often disappear into invisibility on Sunday morning. All week church members are immersed in the nastiness of politics and then on Sunday the priest and the people act as if nothing has happened.
Did you know that one of Scotland’s greatest preachers somehow preached every Sunday during WWII without ever mentioning the war? Dietrich Bonhoeffer said to be salt is a call for the church to be visible. For the followers of Jesus “to flee into invisibility is to deny the call. Any community of Jesus which wants to be invisible is no longer a community that follows him.”
Evangelical churches are attempting to be invisible by blending in with the surrounding political culture. The name given to such a form of Christianity is Constantinianism, a term that describes the strategy of Christians when they become an ally of Caesar. The true evil of Constantinianism is its belief that the true meaning of history is in the politics of the state and not the church.
Constantinian Christians no longer believe the Gospel is enough. Being salt is not enough; the sword must be wielded. Being peaceful is not enough; violence must be accepted. Having empathy is not enough; people must earn the right to be free.
I would rather be standing naked in the yard of a prison camp under the gallows with Bonhoeffer than in the “Temple of the King” or the worship of the FBC of Dallas or any of the mega, maga cathedrals of Christian Nationalism.