I find faith very hard to cling for many reasons but most especially when I hear someone claim to be so special that God moved the trajectory of a bullet aimed right at their head to keep them alive while someone close to them died. At the same time, when I heard this sentiment from Trump’s lips I was reminded once again of just how close the tie between Evangelical certainty and pathological narcissism actually is.

As I look back over the years of my experience with God and faith in a favorable force of love in the world, I cannot help but grasp that I too spent years living life as a spiritual narcissist. I know the term sounds extreme, but once you see a thing, you can never unsee it. From the day I came to a personal faith in Christ, it was a given that, I chose, I found, I was loved, I had a plan from God to follow. As a result, quite unaware of it, I was being schooled in narcissism and everything around me strengthened it. I now have a very difficult time seeing religion as anything but a journey of narcissistic devotion that has led us to this place in our collective American history.

It’s ironic because Jesus was particularly upset by religious narcissists. I think it’s why he told his followers to give in secret and to pray in secret. Knowing God and living life in response was not contingent on secular affirmation. Today’s Evangelical not only responds almost solely to secular approval it seems to crave it. No place is this more evidentiary than it is in the worship of Donald Trump by the Evangelical Church.

It’s a broad and wide tent encompassing charismatic Christians, Southern Baptists, hardline dispensational fundamentalist and all kinds of offshoots. In every way Donald Trump’s pathological narcissism has been the great unifier of the Evangelical movement. His pathology was fertile soil for insecure and frightened Evangelicals in a world moving at light speed especially the elderly and most especially those with a lot of money.

As a complete outlier, almost entirely unknown by the average Christian, Trump came on the scene and they were led to embrace him. After first abhorring his personality and behavior, they were soon led to imagine that he was some kind of redeemed reprobate and would lead them into the promised land. I watched as believer after believer bought in. It was incredible to me that he would become the “pro-life” candidate, the chosen of God candidate and the list goes on.

This post is about politics because sadly, that is what faith has become, political. As a result it has accomplished one thing…the exposure of the narcissistic nature of American religion. It is about our collective imaging that we are better than others because we are exclusively right.

The hard core truth is that Evangelical Christians have lost their first love. Donald Trump was simply very lucky. God did not save him because he’s anointed and special. Evangelicals are going to either take over like the forces described in The Handmaid’s Tale or they are going to actually see God and experience a holy breakdown.

That would change the world.