Tucker Carlson Exposed the Church’s Fear A frightened church is very easy to lead. Tucker Carlson recently said that many Christians wanted a protector in Donald Trump. Whatever one thinks of Carlson, that line might be exposing something revealing in the American church. Fear has a way of making believers reach for protection before they ask what faithfulness requires. That is why this moment in America is so dangerous for Christians. Under fear, a man excuses what once disgusted him. Once fear gets into the bloodstream, almost any kind of harshness starts to look like strength. And that is where Jesus stands in our way. When our Lord opens His mouth in Matthew 5, He does not give His disciples a strategy for preserving influence or a playbook for cultural retaliation. Jesus does not give His disciples a strategy for controlling their enemies. He teaches them how to live when wronged and how to walk through a world that will misunderstand them, mock them, pressure them and sometimes hate them. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” (Matthew 5:38). That line had been twisted by the religious teachers of the day. What God gave as a principle of public justice, they turned into a private license for revenge. They took the measured scales of justice and traded them for the hot pleasure of getting even. Jesus pulls the knife out of that lie. “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil” (Matthew 5:39). Christ is not setting justice aside. He is forbidding the bitter instinct for personal vengeance and teaching His people to live without the craving to strike back. That word lands right in the middle of American Christianity. A great many believers say they are standing for righteousness and some of them are. Yet somewhere in all the noise, a different spirit has started moving through the church. It is a spirit of quick contempt. It is rude, suspicious, easily provoked, hungry for humiliation, eager to crush an opponent rather than win a soul. Fear dressed up as conviction is still fear. The church in America is tempted to believe that survival depends on finding a protector powerful enough to guard our place. The New Testament keeps pulling our eyes elsewhere. Christ does not teach His people to panic when the world turns hostile. He calls them to holiness and teaches them to bear witness to another kingdom. “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). “Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matthew 5:41). These are not words for cowards. They are words for people so anchored in God that they do not need revenge. Christ is describing a soul that cannot be baited into becoming worldly in the very act of denouncing worldliness. He is describing a people who would rather suffer wrong than stain their witness with spite. That is where many of us have lost our footing. We have watched the country change. We have seen laws shift, morals erode, speech coarsen, and hostility toward Christian conviction grow bolder. Those dangers are real. Christians do not have to pretend otherwise. Justice still matters. Truth in public life still matters. What children are taught and what a nation honors still matter. Public justice and law matter. The state has real responsibilities before God. Yet the Christian heart must never confuse justice with personal malice. The believer may stand firm, speak plainly, vote carefully and contend earnestly, but a man who borrows the world’s sneer will soon start looking like the world. Jesus presses further. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy” (Matthew 5:43). Then He says what no frightened tribe wants to hear: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). That command tears through every politics-first version of Christianity. Love your enemies. Not surrender truth. Love your enemies. Pray for the people who would gladly push your faith to the margins. Do good to those who despise your convictions. Bless those who curse you. Speak truthfully, stand cleanly and leave behind the sour thrill of treating opponents like prey. Why? “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Picture that. Morning light spilling across the porch of a man who mocks Christ. Rain settling into the fields of people who use God’s name as profanity. Bread on the table of families who never bow their heads in gratitude. Breath in lungs that will spend the day denying the One who gave it. And still the sun rises and the rain falls. Still God is kind. Jesus says that God is your Father. Then this is the family likeness He expects from His children. The church loses her beauty when she forgets that. A church can keep its slogans and lose its witness. It can cling to its tribe and lose the tone of Christ. It can preserve a political identity while its spiritual aroma turns sharp and cold. The world already knows how to hate…how to curse, mock, caricature and strike back. When the church does the same thing with a cross around its neck, she has not become bold. She has become ordinary. There is a reason Jesus closes this section with words that tower over the whole chapter: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). That is the mark before us. We are meant to look like our Father. And here is where every honest Christian has to stop and lower his eyes. Who has loved enemies like this? Who has prayed for persecutors with a clean heart? Who has kept his tongue from the acid of contempt and moved through this angry age with steady holiness and no mixture of fear? Few of us have. That is why the end of this article cannot be a command to try harder and do better. The end must be Christ. Because the One who said, “Love your enemies,” did exactly that. He was reviled and did not revile in return. He was struck, mocked, falsely accused, spat upon, crowned with thorns, nailed to wood outside the city walls, and in that hour He prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). The world gave Him hatred. He answered with mercy. The guilty drove in the nails. He opened the door of pardon with His blood. This is the gospel for a frightened church. Our hope is not finally in a protector who can preserve our rights. Our hope is in a Savior who forgives our sins, kills our fear and remakes our hearts. Jesus did not come merely to improve our tone. He came to rescue rebels, cleanse the bitter, humble the proud and give new hearts to people who have loved power more than holiness. At the cross, fearful sinners can be forgiven. At the empty tomb, fearful sinners can be changed. The church in America needs less panic and more holiness. The church must come back to Christ, repent of fear and hatred, repent of looking so much like the world while claiming to oppose it and feel the steadying power of the gospel again. Because when a man knows that Christ has loved him at his worst, he can stop grasping for a worldly protector. He has already found his refuge.

The distinctive appearance of the razorbill (Alca torda)