Amy Hawk

Amy Hawk’s Judas Effect: How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power tells her very personal journey that led her from being a devout member of an Evangelical church to deciding to leave her church as a result of the increasing Trumpification of her church and it’s congregation.

During the past few years there have been a number of other books talking about how devout people found their churches abandoning Christian principles in in order to promote the agenda of Donald Trump. Amy Hawk’s show more book is the most personal and effective of these.

Amy did not join a church until she was well into her 20s but when she did she became an enthusiastic student of the Bible and was eventually leading Bible studies for others. She has been very conservative politically her entire life and had been taught that “’the world’ could not be trusted to see things clearly, because they didn’t have the Holy Spirit to guide them.” This all changed with the election of Donald Trump.

She initially became bothered that church leaders that she had previously trusted were sweeping Trump’s abuses and lies under the carpet. She felt that those leaders were betraying “everything the church had previously taught.” She was also disturbed by what she saw happening to members of her congregation and tells about listening to a friend sing a beautiful song about love and care a few hours after she had posted a hate message about immigrants.

The breaking point came when a visiting speaker from the regional Assemblies of God spoke in the church but began with a pro-Trump tirade. She got up in the middle of his sermon and left “before I vomited all over the chair in front of me.” At that moment she decided that she no longer belonged in this church.

Soon after Trump was inaugurated she had watched a TV series about Scientology which started her on a reading project to understand cults and the personalities of the people who lead them. She identified those people as the “false Messiahs” discussed in the Bible saying that those people have a lot of charisma but “hides behind a more agenda at the same time it sues bullying, exploitation, and abuse tactics.” She then explains how Trump fits the definition of a false Messiah and the evangelicals that follow him as being part of a cult.

The next set of chapters deal with particular Trump behaviors that had upset her and which she felt that church leaders should have condemned. These include Bullying, Misogyny, and the outright lies that he told. Although some evangelicals argued that Trump was sent by God, she felt that was impossible considering how ungodly he was.

During this time she still remained devout but remained outside of any church for many years. The last chapters of the book read more like sermons trying to move evangelicals back to an orientation on Jesus and away from politics. As a happy ending, she finally finds an Episcopalian church where she once again felt at home.

The book is wonderfully written with her deeply felt personal story combined with summaries of her extensive research. Because I was driven to read the next chapter, I found the book difficult to put down until 2 AM when I decided that a little sleep was essential. Casting the characteristics of Trump in a religious light was particularly eye-opening for this reader. Although I have read many of the books she sites as sources she provided a fresh perspective for me to understand his character.

Non-religious people will be happy to know that the book is not at all preachy. Religious people will be happy to know that she is not only very respective of her religion but she is also very knowledgeable about the Bible and there are countless bible verses quoted in the text.
The only annoying thing about the book was that she uses one of the modern translations that try to translate the text into modern popular language. Although I would have preferred her using the Revised Standard Version, her choice was probably wise since it would be more readily understood by members of the Evangelical community.

This is a book that should be read by every member of a US-based church although many will feel personally challenged by the book’s message that moving Trump into the church is really turning away from Jesus. Finally, I confess to secretly wishing that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson would read the book since he would very much challenged by it. The book would also be interesting for people interested in current US political trends. show less