Kingdoms in Conflict
Colson taught conservative evangelicals how to gain and keep power, even as he acknowledged in the prologue that the power they gain will unmistakably cause the destruction of our country.
In 1987, Chuck Colson published a treatise on religion in politics entitled Kingdoms in Conflict [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987]. His book went largely unnoticed outside evangelical circles. Although it enjoyed wide circulation within mainstream evangelical thought, few people read the book beyond its prologue.
What Colson evidently intended as support for evangelical involvement in the political process – his words certainly were interpreted that way by his readers – serves as a deeply cautionary tale for anyone who takes his scenarios seriously.
That prologue alone should be enough to wake up Americans who are not part of the relatively small evangelical base courted by Donald Trump’s wing of the Republican Party, formerly known as the Tea Party. The irony of course being that those doing the wooing are rarely part of the very base they “love” – and in fact are considered hell-bound by that base. But I digress.
In the 1987 version, U.S. President Shelby Hopkins had come to the presidency through a series of non-political posts, including academic dean at Baylor University. “He had entered the political arena in the eighties when evangelical Christians came out of nowhere to become a major force in national politics,” Colson wrote of his fictional protagonist.
Hopkins had unified the GOP after evangelicals and “hard-liners” in the Republican Party split over politics and religion, renaming the newly reunited party The Christian Republican Party. (Is this sounding familiar?) He had filled his Cabinet with conservative evangelicals, including a distastefully stereotypical “Messianic Jew” named Hyman Levin. Hopkins kept a “well-worn” copy of the Bible on his desk. Staff meetings opened with prayer and Bible reading.
In short, the West Wing of Colson’s book resembles the West Wing that MAGA and its conservative evangelical base fervently prays for in 2024: One that embraces an exclusive, triumphalist version of Christianity, barring anyone from power who does not agree with their religious views.
And in this scenario, enter Armageddon stage right. Hopkins’ fictional presidency is faced with right-wing religious resurgence in Israel, led by a non-fictional and now defunct political party, Tehiya (Revival). Tehiya, Hopkins learned, planned to blow up the mosque on “Dome of the Rock” in Jerusalem, erect a Jewish temple in its place, and institute animal sacrifices, returning Judaism to its roots (so Colson – although politically ultranationalist, Tehiya never advocated destruction of al-Aqsa!).
Instead of doing what was best for the U.S. and taking counsel of diplomats and international leaders, Colson’s protagonist sought answers in what he perceived to be biblical prophecy. The fictional president, a Texan with a voice like God, studied the gospel of Luke and the prophet Ezekiel to find an answer to the “Temple Mount” dilemma.
When a more pragmatic advisor told him the people of the United States did not elect him to be their crystal-ball gazer, but rather “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Colson’s president replied that he had made his position clear during the campaign, that he had told Americans he would “seek God’s will,” and “that God is the ultimate defender of this nation and its Constitution.”
The advisor continued his protest. “You can’t let one view of Bible prophecy influence you. Your job is to protect the nation – and everyone’s religious views. I mean, we’re talking about war and peace, Mr. President, not church.”
The president shook off the advisor’s counsel, declaring his belief that the man had been “blinded by people who want to keep God out of anything that matters. The way separation of church and state has been used is just a cover-up for secularization.” He then declared that his interpretation of end-of-the-world eschatology was not his view. “It’s what God has to say so clearly in the Bible.”
As events continued to escalate, Colson’s President Hopkins stayed the course, convinced that it was right and proper to allow Armageddon to take place. Even though the plans to blow up the al-Aqsa mosque were not condoned by the Israeli government in Colson’s fictional prologue, his evangelical president deemed intervention to stop the extremists’ terroristic act as anti-Israel.
While cloaking his rhetoric in pro-Israel sentiments, the fictional president clearly did not act in the best interests of the nation of Israel, much less the best interests of the United States of America. Rather, his sole consideration: Fulfilling what he perceived to be biblical prophecy regarding the last days.
When I ran across Colson’s book, written thirty-seven years ago, I was stunned by the correlation to what is taking place on the ground, right now, in the Republican Party. Candidates speak of the U.S. Constitution only in terms of religion, super-imposing their religious beliefs onto a secular document. A very narrow, specific form of religion controls their political process. These candidates seem unable to accept the possibility that their interpretation is flawed, that their credo does not represent the whole truth.
Indeed, they seem to forget that “faith” is a belief not based on proof, that by the very definition of the word, it means something that is not absolute or unshakable. Their own Bible says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” a quote they seem to think reads, “Faith is the substance of things not to be questioned, the evidence of things that may not be discussed.”
Since Colson’s prologue ends with the destruction of the al-Aqsa mosque and the direct implication that the president’s actions initiated Armageddon and the destruction of the world, one would think that his 32-page story would be understood as warning against mixing politics and religion, that it would give pause to evangelicals entering politics, as they would understand their conflict of interest, the “kingdoms in conflict” that Colson referenced in the book’s title.
Instead, evangelicals see President Hopkins as the ideal. They understand Colson’s treatise as encouragement to join the political process, bringing with them the well-worn Bible and last-days eschatology that Colson accurately depicted.
And despite Colson’s prologue, he himself expounded on the theme of “spiritual power.” In Chapter 23, he calls on “Christians” (read, evangelicals) to expose government as an impostor. In Chapter 24, he cited the Philippines as a positive example of spiritual power (that chapter alone underscores the fallacies of his work), stating that they “believed more in the power of prayer than in the power of politics.”
Chuck Colson cut his teeth on political shenanigans. Long before his role in Watergate and the subsequent cover-up that left our country shaken and disillusioned, he was master of dirty tricks. By his own admission, he orchestrated smear campaigns and organized lies and innuendo against John Kennedy and other Democratic contenders.
He claimed to have left that life behind once he was “born again” – and indeed, for a few years, Colson eschewed politics and focused his vast talents on worthy causes. While I disagreed with his methodology, I applauded his initial tackling of topics like prison reform, recidivism, prisoner education, and the like. When working on those issues, he mostly stayed out of the national spotlight and kept a (for him) low profile.
But power-grabbing apparently was an addiction he could not control. In Kingdoms in Conflict, he taught conservative evangelicals how to gain and keep power, even as he acknowledged in the prologue that the power they gain will unmistakably cause the destruction of our country. Read that again. He taught conservative evangelicals how to gain and keep power, even as he acknowledged in the prologue that the power they gain will unmistakably cause the destruction of our country.
I understand (sort of) why conservative evangelicals would be willing to do that. They believe so strongly in their version of the “last days” – that all this bad stuff has to happen before an eternity of peace and joy can occur – that they are willing to sacrifice everything and everyone to achieve it, even to make it happen.
What I don’t understand: Why conservatives who are not evangelicals do not comprehend that Colson’s book is a blueprint for the conservative evangelical movement, not for conservatives. Those who exist outside the narrow circle that Robert Jeffress so perfectly defined in his Mormon/cult rant against Mitt Romney in 2012 have no standing in the world inhabited by Chuck Colson and his Donald Trump & Company successors.
Conservatives like Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, Newt Gingrich, Arlen Specter, Joe Lieberman, and John McCain — even Donald Trump himself! — will always be outsiders to Colson’s base (update for 2024 – names may have changed, but principle has not). Even those who claim deep spirituality, but who do not embrace evangelical tenets, don’t “get it.” Abortion and gay marriage may be the hot buttons that Colson’s base uses to entice voters who are Catholic, or LDS, or Missouri Synod Lutherans to vote for their candidates, but they are not and cannot be its inner circle, its evangelical circle. For evangelical true believers, Catholics, LDS, and Missouri Synod Lutherans are going to the same hell reserved for Jews, Muslims, and the followers of Reverend Moon. Just ask Mister Reverend Jeffress.
Real conservatives – those whose religion does not encourage an apocalypse as part of its long-term political strategy – should be the one calling the shots. For the sake of power, they have ceded control to Colson’s base, likely because that base has proved that it can deliver votes.
We need authentic, non-Armageddon-inducing conservatives to take back the reins and put a stop to the nihilism that Colson’s base is inflicting on the United States of America, on our homeland. We need rational voices on both sides of the aisle if we are going to find solutions. We need people in power who want the United States of America with all its religions, ethnicities, and traditions to survive.
We must remind Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Kevin McCarthy, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, and their evangelical cohort that they were elected to serve the USA and our constitution, not their religious beliefs. The laws of the country, the ethics of their profession, demand nothing less. If they wish to put doctrine above law, creed over country, they must step down. Or, we must impeach them for not upholding their oath to the Constitution of the land.
Those of us who are not evangelical or who strongly believe in separation of church and state must heed the clear signs that Chuck Colson penned in his roadmap.
Read the book! It’s all in there.
Postscript: Colson or rather his publishers exhibited an unethical propensity to edit out inconveniences. In the original 1987 version of the book, Colson lauded the government of the Philippines for their implementation of the theocracy he envisioned. When that government descended into chaos and corruption, that chapter mysteriously disappeared.
Similarly, after the election of the quasi-evangelical George W. Bush – from Texas – Colson or his publisher quietly changed the president from Texas to one from Oklahoma.
I have not kept track of all editorial changes to Colson’s book. That could be stuff for someone’s PhD.
I will say, it smacks of the utmost hypocrisy and dishonesty. A hearty mea culpa would have been far more appropriate.
© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please message me for permission to quote. And of course, please feel free to share!
Originally published September 15, 2012, republished here with only minor tweaks. Sadly. I had hoped we would have made a great deal more progress away from Colson’s vision of government by now.
Instead, we have Project 2025.
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if you want a blow by blow of Project 2025 and what it would mean for our freedoms. The authors of that Trump vision for America are the logical heirs to Chuck Colson’s addiction to power in the name of God.
Ugh. Thank you for this, Denise. I would never willingly pick up the book on my own; I appreciate your explication. I had been puzzling for some time what gave rise to the intensity of the Evangelicals pushing Trump. I now see that it is the same sort of zealotry that drove the religious wars in medieval Europe, fundamentalist movements in the middle east, and planes flying into New York skyscrapers. There is almost nothing in this world more noxious than religious chauvinism and certainty. And Chuck Colson is still an underhanded scoundrel in my opinion.
Tangentially I am reminded of Madeleine Albright’s book “The Mighty and the Almighty.” She observed that wars are never so internecine as when waged for religious reasons.