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Coziness with Pharaoh: The New Right’s Political Idolatry
Sins flow from sin; and sin fundamentally stems from idolatry, worshipping the creation instead of the Creator.[1] This dynamic is no less true in the realm of political governance. Let’s get to the gist.
Idolatry and its Forms
Paul is explicit: the taint infecting creation stems from the Imago Dei worshipping creation instead of God, the Creator.[2] As a result, man seeks to “be like God.”[3] When this occurs as the truth is exchanged for the lie, worship tends to gravitate toward and settle upon two objects: The individual (the Self) or the collective (the State).[4] History records trends vacillating between both – expressive individualism, as well as Statist totalitarianism.[5]
The Swinging Idolatrous Pendulum
Decades ago, some thoughtful Christians understood how pietism and dualism undermined the faith and allowed evil to proliferate. Francis Schaeffer sounded the alarm, calling Christians to thoughtfully and faithfully engage the public square to expose, oppose, and foreclose evils such as abortion and political tyranny.[6] And, Christians of various theological stripes began to “grow up” and see their collective responsibility to engage the culture and act publicly like salt and light.[7] Pietism began to wane. Fast forward.
Met with some political successes coupled with the rise of the New Right, engagement came to mean: obtain power, that is, the levers of the State, in order to “reward friends and punish enemies.”[8] And the manner for doing so signaled that some folks, including Christians, had placed an “expiration date” on the fruit of Spirit. This takes a page from Pharoah’s playbook. Winning – and only winning – matters; the means of doing so not so much. Denizens of the New Right, including so-called Christian Nationalists, rationalized this ethical shift because “they [supposedly] know what time it is.”[9] This move embraces a crass lust for State power and little more. The State, under this construct, is increasingly conceptualized as a savior instead of a servant, as Paul designates it.[10] That calculus is not simply mistaken; it is theologically dangerous. The State didn’t die for sins, nor atone for them, and therefore cannot be savior. Christ is the one and only savior.[11]
While many Christians would never profess such a crude precept that the State saves, they sadly are increasingly operating in terms of it, especially given the rise of the New Right which proposes Statist political solutions.[12] This comprises rank idolatry in most cases and should be resisted and repudiated by every faithful Christian. Yet this temptation is not new and periodically recirculates; and it’s like a bad odor that hangs in the refrigerator even after its moldy source has been trashed.
The New-Old Problem
Recall that God’s people yearned to be like other nations, rejecting God’s prophet and instead installing a political redeemer, a potent king:
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD.[13]
This “ask” God characterized as a rejection, not of His prophet, but of Him, rooting their demands in false worship, that is, idolatry:
And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.”[14]
God’s prophet reminded the people what having a salvific king would impose: slavery, not salvation –
So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”[15]
Despite this impending harsh political disaster, the people would not recant, nor repent:
But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us,[16]
And why – for what reason – did the people seek a king “like the other nations”. Their confident clamor is telling:
that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”[17]
Recall that this is being said by a people whom the Lord personally delivered from tyranny and personally fought – and destroyed – their Egyptian enslavers. God HAD gone out before them and HAD fought – and decisively won – their battles. And, yet, they now wanted nothing to do with the One who saved them by fighting for them. Instead, they put their chips on an untested political power and imbued him with salvific expectations.
This is what idolatry does and it’s alive currently today. Instead of looking to Christ, people look to Caesar. This is a practiced pattern among God’s people too. In other words, the Left enjoys no monopoly on Statism. The Right, including Christians on the Right, are just as susceptible to this form of false worship. Recall that in the 1st century it was the religious conservatives – the Pharisees – who boasted “we have no king but Caesar.”[18] Pharoah casts a long shadow, a shadow that again darkens things today, including in the Christian ecosystem.
The Idolatry of State in the New Covenant Era
We see the idolatry of Statism arising among professing Christians and within the Christian church as early as the 1st Century. The congregations in Pergamum and Thyatira worshipped idols.[19] Many commentators argue that the Beast of Revelation is a political tyrant who was worshipped.[20] Nero fits this description well.[21] The angel who served as John’s prophetic tour guide corrects the apostle, putting it directly and simply, calling him to “Worship God! [not a created being]”[22] The object of our worship matters; it’s the whole enchilada, including our political chips and salsa.
When we instead functionally ascribe worship to creation, and in particular to political leaders, it spawns bad consequences: As Wright and Bird note:
“When leaders are venerated as “God’s choice” – religious adulation – any critique will be treated as either treason or blasphemy”[23]
And, if we are honest, we see this disturbing trend growing today among pockets of the New Right, even among Christians.[24] This lust for power, craving access to the inner circle,[25] never satisfies, but always enslaves. The corrective words of John prove just as potent and important today as they did in the first century:
“Little children, keep yourself from idols.”[26]
We MUST render to Caesar the things that are his; worship is NOT one of those things.[27] The State is a servant, not a savior. Let’s stop acting as if it were the latter.
[1] Romans 1:25
[2] Id.
[3] Gen. 3:5
[4] For an in depth exploration of this dynamic, see, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Christ, Caesar, and Self (2016), https://www.lulu.com/shop/jeffery-j-ventrella/christ-caesar-and-self/paperback/product-22589926.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqVmKWuUU-04Cmd76fb3Zit3Sl_qMFvLsFLUdJeeaurb_pIwNt-&page=1&pageSize=4
[5] See, e.g., Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (2021); and Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 (2013)
[6] See e.g., Schaeffer’s Chrisian Manifesto (1981) as well as his How Should We Then Live (1978) and The Great Evangelical Disaster (1984).
[7] Matt 5:13-15; the rise of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority (1979) coincides with this call to action as did Dr. D. James Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America (1996) and broader still, the Christian legal movement: The Rutherford Institute (1982), The American Center for Law and Justice (1990), Alliance Defending Freedom (1994), et al Part of this awakening stemmed from realizing the collective abdication and failure of evangelical culture. See, e.g., James B. Jordan, Editor, The Failure of the American Baptist Culture – A Symposium (1982)
[8] Jeremy Carl, Reward Friends, Punish Enemies, https://americanmind.org/features/what-trump-should-do-if-he-wins/reward-friends-punish-enemies/. But compare, Daniel Larison, “Rewarding Friends and Punishing Enemies” is a Gangster’s Motto, Not a Foreign Policy Rule, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/rewarding-friends-and-punishing-enemies-is-a-gangsters-motto-not-a-foreign-policy-rule/
[9] The Authoritarian Code-Phrase “Do You Know What Time it Is?” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/o-you-know-what-time-it-is-post-liberal-conservative-authoritarian-code-phrase-trump.html. This tweet-based politics also betrays something close to Gnosticism.
[10] Romans 13:4
[11] Is. 43:11; see also, R.C. Sproul, Jesus: The Only Savior, https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/jesus-the-only-savior
[12] See e.g., Conservative Josh Hawley introduces bill to raise federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, [capitalization in original] ww.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/12/josh-hawley-bill-raise-federal-minimum-wage/84154243007/
[13] 1 Sam. 8:4-6
[14] 1 Sam. 8:7-9
[15] 1 Sam. 8:10-18
[16] 1 Sam. 8:19
[17] 1 Sam. 8:20
[18] John 19:15
[19] Rev. 2:14, 2:20
[20] Rev. 13:1, 4, 12; Rev. 14:9, 11; Rev. 16:2; Rev. 19:20
[21] For a popular treatment, see Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Beast of Revelation (2002)
[22] Rev. 22:9
[23] N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers – Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (2024), 131
[24] Consider the attempt to venerate POTUS by Ambassador Huckabee – this seems eerily close to political idolatry. https://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/local/white-house-amb-mike-huckabees-text-to-president-donald-trump/501-cecdf9d7-e1aa-426b-a9fa-b84c77485531. It’s one thing to assert such sycophantic rhetoric; it’s quite another to actually believe such rhetoric. Both are foolish, and it’s a toss-up as to which is worse.
[25] C.S. Lewis, The Inner Ring, https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
[26] 1 John 5:21
[27] Mark 12:17