Amanda McDonald preached on Psalm 14 last Sunday.
Psalm 14 is a challenging passage.
1 The fool hath said in his heart, “There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”
2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.
5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
Amanda connected this Psalm with Christian Nationalism, a movement we’re seeing in the United States today.
She identified five premises that underlie Christian Nationalism:
- The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.
- U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.
- If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore. (talk about sense of self/embedded theology)
- Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
- God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.
30% of American Christians identify as Christian Nationalists. 80% of them believe in the prosperity gospel. This is the belief that God blesses the righteous with prosperity — and it also implies that those who are less prosperous are less righteous. “This leads to a message of guilt and shame for those that are marginalized, poor, and downtrodden,” Amanda pointed out, “which is the opposite of what Jesus taught.”
Christian Nationalists are twice as likely as other Americans to believe that political violence is justified to save the country.
Back to Psalm 14
The Psalm begins, “The [spiritually ignorant] fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” This might sound to us like a society that is not Christian, but as we keep reading the Psalm we see that it is actually about a society that fails to reflect its words with its actions.
“This society has committed repulsive and unspeakable deeds. God looks down to see if there are any who truly understand and act wisely. We are talking about a society of people whose corruption is eating up the people of God,” said Amanda. “Not American society, but a group of Christians in America who are using God to harm. This isn’t about a Godless or secular society, but about a portion of society that is more dangerous and insidious because it is found in the hearts of the religious.”
She pointed out however that the psalm ends with a word of hope. “It is a reminder that God is with the lowly and poor. It calls those who scheme against the poor ‘shameless evildoers.’ It reminds us that in the contradiction of human weakness and trust of the Lord, the lowly righteous understand the Lord in ways the oppressors never will understand.”
The final words of the psalm call for oppressors and the oppressed — both of which groups can include all of us at various times and in various situations — to rejoice together in the Lord.
A call to us
“We have to do better,” Amanda said. “We cannot stay silent in denouncing a twisted version of the gospel where God has ordained some to make others obey their interpretation of scripture. we have to kindly, but firmly speak and live into the truth of the gospel. Reminding our brothers and sisters that Jesus pulled in those from the margins, He showed grace and mercy to those that the religious law and leaders disowned. He stood against his own religious leaders when they became more worried with adhering to the law than they were about the human being they were harming.”
Declaration of Barmen
The Affirmation of Faith following this sermon was the Declaration of Barmen, a theological writing from 1933. Amanda chose sections from the declaration which are particularly relevant to Psalm 14 and to our lives right now.
The church is threatened by teaching methods and actions. This threat comes from the fact that the theological basis has been continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles. When these alien principles are held valid, the church ceases to be the church.
We must not keep silent, since we have been given a message of love to utter in a time of common need and temptation.
We believe the church is not meant to establish a dominion of some over others. We reject the false doctrine for the church to have ruling powers.
We trust in God’s power, through Christ, to uphold all things. We reject the false doctrine that the government should or could become the single totalitarian order of human life and fulfill the church’s role in society.
We reject the false doctrine that the church should become an organ of the government.
The church’s commission from Christ, upon which our freedom is founded, consists only in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people.
Amanda also called on us all to pray Psalm 14. Here are some resources on praying the Psalms:
Enjoy Amanda’s entire sermon in the video above. The service is the new First Worship service, held every Sunday morning at 9:00 in the FUPC sanctuary.