An Evangelical, Trump-Voting Minister Calls for Accountability

Methodist Voices on January 20, 2021

This call for accountability for President Trump was written by, the Rev. Dr. Arthur Collins, a conservative elder (minister) in the Indiana Annual Conference.  He has an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary and a PhD from Indiana State University.  In addition to blogging about the state of The UMC, he writes a lot about church history — especially the English church tradition, language, and Scouting ministry.  He plays several instruments badly, can cook like nobody’s business, and has been married for 47 years to a very patient woman.

This article originally appeared on his personal blog under the title “To Those who I am Proud to Call my Friends.” Reposted with permission.

UM Voices is a forum for different voices within the United Methodist Church on pressing issues of denominational concern. UM Voices contributors represent only themselves and not IRD/UMAction.

When a spiritual leader loses his way and fails publicly and spectacularly, it can prompt a number of things in those who believed most strongly in him. Some refuse to believe what is plain for everyone else to see. They say it didn’t happen. They say it didn’t mean what you think it means. They say that somebody else did it. They say somebody else provoked it. They say other people did it worse. Ultimately, they say, it didn’t matter. They may even say whoever got hurt had it coming. And all the while, through this whole progression, what they are really saying is, I didn’t do this. Don’t blame me. And don’t tell me that my hopes are dashed. Some never recover their faith after this. And some have their faith left in a twisted, poisoned state.

I could cite you example after example. It happens. Beloved leaders, in whom people have invested so much, are subject to the same temptations as everyone else. Some of them have deeply hidden places that are broken. All of us fail, and some of us who climb the highest fall the farthest. It happens. And those of us who are left in spiritual leadership, who know only too well that if circumstances were different it might have been us in that situation, are left to help pick up the pieces.

That means holding brothers and sisters to account. Not in anger, but in sorrow: it gives us no joy to deprive someone else of place or authority, but someone has to do it. We had a bishop fall from grace in spectacular fashion and resign, once upon a time. Then he thought better of it, and tried to take back his resignation of his orders. At the clergy executive session that followed this, his petition was turned away. The presiding bishop said, “Sometimes you have to say to someone, ‘We love you too much to let you get away with that.’”

Helping pick up the pieces also means reaching out to those who have been hurt by the leader. It also means reaching out to those who were his biggest supporters. It means dealing with uncomfortable things, painful things. And some people will refuse to let go of the pain. Those who do may take a long time to process it. They may blame you for telling them the truth. They may blame you for being no better than the one who let them down. Oh, yeah, been there, done that.

What is true of spiritual leaders is true of political leaders. We on the right are going to be dealing with President Trump for a long time. This has nothing to do with the Democrats, whose ideas are no more attractive today than they were a few weeks ago. This has to do with us. I am not ashamed to say I voted for Trump on November 3. Given the facts and prospects on that day, he was in my eyes a better choice than Joe Biden. He lost. I’m sorry to say it, but he did. Now, I’ve lost elections before. It’s not fun. But you adjust yourself to the new reality and deal with it. President Trump didn’t do that. He dug in his heels and began to claim all sorts of things that just weren’t true. He went on to try to force reality into a mold it wouldn’t bear. And finally, he tried to intimidate the Congress into keeping him on, even though he lost. And those who believed in him the most – people who have walked a long way with us, on our side – bought into his crazy thinking.

I have been inundated for weeks by friends sending me prayer requests, urgent “share this now” social media bursts, etc. Rational people, good people, people who love America and who love Jesus and who want to stand up for all that is good and true. They couldn’t believe their hero lost, that we lost, that America would be lost. They were clutching at straws. And some of them got caught up in some very ugly business. For there are always a few trolls under the bridge. The left has theirs, and we on the right have ours. (Some just enjoy the mayhem and switch sides from time to time.) And the denial on our side allowed some of those to take over and lead a lot of good people to do something terrible – or to excuse it. And here we are.

I appreciate many things that President Trump has done. But he has now done a very bad thing. Those of us on our side have to hold him to account, to say, This cannot pass. This doesn’t mean the left has won; this has nothing to do with them. This is about us. We have to hold each other accountable, not in vindictiveness, but in sorrow. We have to live in the truth if we are to have anything to offer our country. And once Trump is gone, as he will be gone in a few days, then we have to sit with each other. We have to talk about the things we love, the things that brought us to where we are. It may take a long time.

But the work goes on, and our country needs us.

Editor’s Note: the picture above is of a gallows constructed by some of those at the January 6 pro-Trump protest that turned violent, with some participants reportedly chanting “hang Mike Pence” because of seeing the conservative Vice President and former Indiana governor as somehow being a traitor to the conspiracy-theory cause.  This guest column is reacting against – NOT endorsing – such violent rhetoric, symbolism, and actions.

  1. Comment by Jeff on January 20, 2021 at 7:51 am

    Hmmm…

    A picture of a gibbet framing the U.S. Capitol. Headline: “An Evangelical, Trump-Voting Minister Calls for Accountability”.

    From these, the article content, and a months’ worth of other screeds on this site, I can only conclude that proper “Accountability” in IRD’s dreams might come to fruition in the public hanging of President Donald J. Trump and somewhere between 500,000 and 75 million of his supporters from a gibbet on Capitol Hill?

    Oh my goodness. Well, you know where I live. Come and get me. Best of luck to you. May GOD have mercy on all our souls.

    Meanwhile, I shall not keep silence about the evil and fraud and murder and destruction that has stolen my beloved country (and seduced you and so many others).

  2. Comment by Al on January 20, 2021 at 8:38 am

    Really – articles such as this do not help at all. Agree with Jeff.

  3. Comment by Herb on January 20, 2021 at 9:35 am

    I, too, voted for Donald Trump twice. Given the same choice I would do it again.

    That being said, accountability, as addressed in the article, has nothing to do with public hangings. That type of overheated hyperbole is part of what got us in this mess.

    Accountability, for me as an evangelical Trump-voter, is simply to own that he wasn’t perfect and was in fact quite flawed. It means accepting Joe Biden’s victory with grace and dignity. And it means praying that the conservative movement leans more fully toward leaders combining conservative thought and exemplary character.

  4. Comment by Dick on January 20, 2021 at 9:40 am

    Also agree. Fter four years of pillaging by the left, why do we now find a need to destroy Trump? This letter was best left unsaid publicly.

  5. Comment by Jeff on January 20, 2021 at 10:08 am

    Herb,

    >> It means accepting Joe Biden’s victory with grace and dignity.

    The validity of Rev. Dr. Collins’ (and your own) conclusions hangs by the gossamer thread of the “truth and integrity” of the 2020 election.

    If there *were* such a thing as a Biden *victory*, please trust that I *would* accept it with grace and dignity, as I accepted the unholy but valid election results in 2008 and 2012.

    There was no Biden victory; only brazen fraud and theft. I shall never call evil good, and good evil. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, and theft is one of those works.

    I do, as you suggest, “own that [Trump] wasn’t perfect and was in fact quite flawed”. Among the sons of men, only Jesus is without flaw. My support for the President is not for his personality, but rather for the FRUIT for the Kingdom that his time in office has brought forth. “By their FRUIT ye shall know them…”

    Blessings

  6. Comment by Dan on January 20, 2021 at 11:50 am

    How about a truly bipartisan, objective election integrity commission to provide facts about what happened in 2020 and what we can do to ensure that every legitimate voter gets one vote and that this can be verified, traced, and audited. If the clowns in DC would get behind this I believe almost all of the 75 million Trump voters would abide by the results. Instead we get lies, deception, and our trust in government institutions and leaders sinks to new lows. This new rush to wokeness by evangelicals is unseemly, at best.

  7. Comment by Philip on January 20, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    You guys do realize the image is a gallows the insurrectionists constructed when they stormed the Capitol two weeks ago? The author isn’t calling for public hangings. He’s using the picture to demonstrate just how out of the control the rejection of reality by certain Trump voters has gotten. People like Lin Wood and other Trump surrogates did call for public hangings or fire squads for the Chief Justice, former Vice President Pence, and other Republicans who recognized Biden’s victory.

  8. Comment by Gary Bebop on January 20, 2021 at 1:30 pm

    The author needs to re-read Romans 2:1 . . . slowly. The irony here is that The United Methodist Church has long failed to insist on accountability for its own hierarchy, the storied ones at the very apex of supervisory architecture. The dodgiest of arguments were used to frustrate and circumnavigate church law. These arguments were vaunted by our elite brahmins and labeled “holy disobedience.”

  9. Comment by John Lomperis on January 20, 2021 at 3:34 pm

    Thanks, Philip. Apparently, some did not read the actual caption on the picture above before commenting. For the sake of being abundantly clear, I have added a note at the end of the article.

  10. Comment by Jeff on January 20, 2021 at 4:01 pm

    John, please.

    The origin of the picture was obvious.

    When paired with that headline, equally obvious is its intentional double-entendre usage as a finger in the eye of supporters of our President, Donald J. Trump.

    You could have chosen from literally thousands of pictures depicting the actual crime of breaking and entering the Capitol. Any of them would better fit the author’s premise that there was a wrongdoing for which Trump should be held responsible.

    Yet you chose what is in reality merely a symbolic expression of free speech but cleverly serves another evil and chilling purpose in your meme-style rhetoric. Shame on you for doubling down on it!

    I would ask “why”, but I already understand why.

  11. Comment by Jeff on January 20, 2021 at 4:52 pm

    Pretty rich calling for accountability from someone that refuses to keep his own house accountable. How about we start with holding the heretical UMC bishops accountable?

  12. Comment by Jeff on January 20, 2021 at 4:55 pm

    “You guys do realize the image is a gallows the insurrectionists constructed when they stormed the Capitol two weeks ago?”

    Since there seems to be a severe lacking of civics education, POTUS is both head of state and head of government. Congress is neither of those things. It is legally and logically impossible for POTUS to “insurrect” himself.

  13. Comment by John Lomperis on January 20, 2021 at 5:03 pm

    Claiming anyone here intended on putting a finger in the eye of Trump voters is a rather unserious misrepresentation. The author explicitly says he voted for Trump!

    Actually, we could not have chosen from “any” other public pictures of that dark day, as most of those are copyrighted, which greatly limits what’s available.

    Dismissing those particular pro-Trump protesters constructing a gallows as “merely a symbolic expression of free speech” with no connection to the storming of the Capitol or the reported “hang Mike Pence” chants is simply neither honest nor serious nor remotely responsible. Peace.

  14. Comment by Thomas F Neagle on January 20, 2021 at 5:29 pm

    MOST easy to pile on Trump now that he is gone.

    Rats, meet sinking ship.

  15. Comment by betsy on January 20, 2021 at 6:20 pm

    I voted for Trump twice. The first time I did it reluctantly. but given the choices I felt like I had to. The second time I almost did not vote at all because I wanted a completely different set of choices. I have my own questions about the 2020 election with its unusual number of mail in ballots that introduced an unknown dynamic. I know for a fact that two people received mail in ballots they never requested. However, when multiple attempts failed to produce substantiated voter fraud, I knew it was time to accept the election and move on with our lives. Time will reveal the truth about Biden. Just because he “talks well” does not mean a thing.

    I would like to see an article about the past 4 years that just does not just focus on Trump but also deals with the abysmal response Democrats had to his legitimate election and the non-stop demonization of those who voted for him. Trump did not singlehandedly create this divide, his election revealed it. Nobody can unite this country until people stop talking past each other and name and acknowledge our differences and learn to respect each other as fellow human beings despite our differences.

    Welcome to America’s new reality!

  16. Comment by Jeff on January 21, 2021 at 12:54 am

    >> “Dismissing those particular pro-Trump protesters constructing a gallows as “merely a symbolic expression of free speech” with no connection to the storming of the Capitol or the reported “hang Mike Pence” chants is simply neither honest nor serious nor remotely responsible. Peace.”

    LOL, John! An ad hominem name calling attack that (without support) labels my comment dishonest, flippant, and utterly irresponsible — followed with the single word “Peace”. Absolutely BRILLIANT rhetoric to close a discussion with authority, brother! I must try it sometime soon.

    That’s not exactly the way Jesus nor Paul used the word ‘Peace’, but what the hey, you’ve got a Harvard MDiv and Jesus and Paul… well… they don’t. Am I right? Bravo!!!

    But maybe what you really meant to say was “Shut Up”. At the cost of typing a few more letters and adding only slightly more abrasiveness, “shut up”, unlike “peace”, has the advantage of honesty and transparency. If that’s at all important to you.

    I have a feeling that those of us who speak uncomfortable truths in the Biden era will be hearing “shut up” (and its Harvard variants) often. Some will obey, some of us won’t.

    Peace. In the true, not the Harvard, meaning of the word.

  17. Comment by Philip on January 21, 2021 at 12:10 pm

    Jeff you said,

    “Since there seems to be a severe lacking of civics education, POTUS is both head of state and head of government. Congress is neither of those things. It is legally and logically impossible for POTUS to “insurrect” himself.”

    So let me make sure I understand what it is you’re saying here. First, it sounds like you’re actually placing responsibility for the storming of the Capitol on Trump. Is that actually you’re applying? If so, I wholeheartedly agree. I’m just surprised to actually hear a Trump supporter admit it.

    It’s the next part of your argument that runs into trouble. See you seem to be under the delusion at the president, even a lame-duck one, has absolute power as head of state and government. The Founding Fathers would take issue with that claim. There’s a little thing called the Separation of Powers, which grants independent and complementary authority to each branch of government. The legislative branch is by design co-supreme with the executive and has checks on the executive. Under no circumstances does Trump or his mob have the authority to overthrow them or use force to halt their proceedings. If you truly believe Trump is responsible for the storming on the Capitol, you’ve just provided the best argument for his impeachment. Thank you.

  18. Comment by Jeff on January 21, 2021 at 12:26 pm

    No, Phillip, nothing in my comment places blame for the “insurrection” on Trump, and you know it. As to the “separation of powers”, that does not change the fact that POTUS is still head of government and head of state. You and many other liberal trolls seem to be under the mistaken impression the Speaker of the House is some kind of Prime Minister a la the UK. To continue the civics lesson, in the UK, the Queen is the head of state, but the Prime Minister is head of government. In our system, POTUS is *both*. Congress is neither. Finally, on the 6th, Congress was actually “under” the jurisdiction of the Executive while VP Pence was presiding. So again, it is both legally and logically impossible for POTUS to “insurrect” himself when he is both head of state and head of government–and the Executive Branch is presiding over Congress’s session.

  19. Comment by Philip on January 21, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    Jeff,

    I’m not the one who brought up Trump’s role, you did. I called the attack on the Capitol an insurrection and you seemed to take issue with that and said Trump can’t commit an insurrection against himself. If you don’t assign Trump any responsibility for the attack, I don’t why you’d find the need to say this. The point is people claiming to support Donald Trump attacked the Capitol and tried to stop the certification of the Election. Those are the facts. In fact, we now have reasonable suspicion to believe if they had gotten to the FORMER Vice President or members of Congress, they might have murdered them. That is the definition of an insurrection and the people responsible need to prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

  20. Comment by Rebecca on January 22, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    Most of the comments here are right on target. I agree with forming a committee to examine the election for signs of voter fraud. I saw videos where it sure looked like voter fraud, and no one has really done anything except say to look away, it isn’t what you see.
    Also, there are videos of the Capitol riot, and it was no insurrection. Many of the people who “stormed” the building were actually let in by the police, and they were unarmed. An unarmed woman was killed by an officer, and an officer was killed by a heavy object being thrown at him. The other three who died, died from natural causes. Out of hundreds of thousands of people at the event, only a few hundred participated in any bad behavior. The politicians, of course, jumped on it and made political use of it to further what they had in mind all along.

  21. Comment by Loren J Golden on January 23, 2021 at 11:45 am

    This rancor and division over politics has to stop, for it is tearing the Church of Jesus Christ apart.  Politics is being made over into an idol.  Donald Trump is being held up to be the Lord’s anointed, as if he, and not the Lord Jesus, were the one in whom we are to place all our hopes, as if he were the one whom the Lord has called to set things to rights in this land, as if he were the one who could “make faith great again”, as one yard sign crassly put it.  And we have one individual who over and over again is saying to posters on this website, “God have mercy on your soul,” to anyone even mildly criticizing Mr. Trump, as if doing so were regarded as rank heresy in the Lord’s eyes.  This rancor and division over politics has to stop.
     
    The Apostle Paul wrote, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Rom. 12.18)  Likewise, James enjoins us to tame our tongues and refrain from using intemperate language.  “But no human being can tame the tongue.  It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” (Jas. 3.8-10)  Yet when one of the IRD directors posts some responses, trying to calm things down, his “peace” is inflamed by intemperate language to be interpreted as “shut-up”, and he is personally attacked.  Brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be so.  This rancor and division over politics has to stop.
     
    In His high priestly prayer, the Lord Jesus prayed for His Church, not only His disciples who were with Him, “but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Jn. 17.20-21)  And elsewhere He warned, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.” (Mt. 12.25, Mk. 3.24-25, Lk. 11.17)  Truly, there is nothing less worthy over which the Church should be divided than secular politics.  The Church of Jesus Christ is called to the business of preaching salvation in the name of the Crucified and Risen Savior to a world lost in sin, and division and wrangling over politics not only distracts from that mission, it very seriously impairs the Church’s ability to fulfill that mission, as the world watches on and sees rancor in the division in the Church, when the Church’s Lord calls her to peace and unity.  The Lord Jesus calls His disciples—then and now—to “love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn. 13.34-35)  Yet the bitter words spoken against brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with us politically do not demonstrate the love for one another that the Lord Jesus commands us to show.  This rancor and division over politics has to stop.
     
    And if it does not stop, then may the Lord have mercy on all our souls.

  22. Comment by binkyxz3 on February 7, 2021 at 2:25 pm

    So many inaccuracies by Collins, it would take hours to correct. Stop dabbling in politics, it’s embarrassing. This why I am no longer a Methodist and haven’t been for a long time.

  23. Comment by James R. Leonard Jr. on February 15, 2021 at 6:55 pm

    Like many, the author has been snookered (willingly?) by lamestream accounts (aka propaganda) of the “Capitol Riot”, the election results, and Donald Trump’s character. None of which are true. Being recognized as a “conservative” initially provided the author some gravitas – which is quickly lost due to a lack of research and deficient thought processes so common to liberal (marxist) ideology. There is no “there” to this article. It is built upon a shabby foundation to reach a shabby conclusion.

    The comment by binkyxz3 is telling. It is the future of Methodism, unless some true conservatives arise to redirect the church back to TRUTH and a biblical foundation. I’m sorry, but Mr. Collins fails the test as a conservative. In its drive to be a modern social justice leader, the Methodist Church is disintegrating and fading and will continue to do so, until it is a footnote of history.

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