Chicago-based Reverend Dr. Charlie E. Dates recently contended that white evangelical pastors who celebrated Donald Trump's presidency as a sign of God's favor must repent of "theological arrogance" and their "failure to understand Scripture in light of history." Dates, senior pastor of Progressive Baptist Church and Salem Baptist Church in Chicago, posted a video on Instagram on Thursday in response to pastors "namely, white evangelical—some of them associates of mine—pastors in Texas, Georgia, and in other places who want you to think, theologically, that God somehow intervened and delivered for America salvation in the inauguration of the 47th president."

"That's not Christianity," he argued.

According to Church Leaders, Dates quoted orator, author, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who distinguished between a Christianity "of this land" and a Christianity "of Christ" and said, "Between the two, we recognize so wide a difference that to be the friend of one is to be the enemy of the other."

"Some of these pastors would have you to believe that God somehow now is riding on the backs of their issues and their candidate," he said. "But the problem with that is that we get to cast God in the light of our political and cultural interest. We all want to do that."

"I have to ask you, brother pastor, where was God when my ancestors were praying to him through the 240 years of American chattel slavery?" Dates asked. "Where was God at the failed point of reconstruction? Where was God when my ancestors and my grandparents were marching to end a long night—73 years-plus of Jim Crow? Was he not present, or is he present now because the issues that you pick have come to prevail?"

"I want to tell you what they didn't tell you in seminary: Your theological heroes in America who claimed to get the text right were racist, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering rapists," Dates said.

"Your grandparents who would not march with my grandparents, under the guise of Southern Christianity," he said, "came to adopt philosophy given to them by the 'Moral Majority,' to tell them that abortion was the single greatest or solely significant issue facing the corruption of America."

The pastor further noted, "your only issues are sexuality and abortion," nowadays and claimed that the pastors he is rebutting against are not listening to "your Black and Brown brothers and sisters, who also have a high view of Scripture, who believe that Jesus Christ is only way to Father, who fundamentally believe that the gospel is the only message that can cure what it diagnoses."

"While you wave the banner of victory, that God gave us a great opportunity and now we need to repent," Dates said, "I need to wave that banner back at you and say, 'Before you call America to repent, you need to repent.' You need to repent, not just for your theological arrogance, but for your failure to understand Scripture in light of history."

Towards the end of his video, Dates contended that God has been on the side of the oppressed rather than on the side of "those in power."

And he came in power to "liberate us," he continued, "not only from the slavery of sin but also from the sin of slavery."

"So if you're going to poke at those issues that you preach solely before your congregation," Dates concluded, "call out the other issues and talk to Black pastors and Brown preachers who see this cultural milieu and moment differently than you do, not because they have a different Jesus, but because they made Jesus Lord and not the American flag."

Similarly, he wrote in the caption that his video is a "pastoral rebuttal to those who are sincerely seeking the Christ of The Scriptures and for those who are defending the faith against its misrepresentations."

"You should vote according to your convictions," he explained, "but to claim the results of this election and the day of this inauguration as the favor of God on America is the sorrowful historical succession of inaccurate and irresponsible theology."

Dates also clarified that neither the Democrat nor Republican party "fully represents the interests of Jesus Christ. They both fail miserably. My issue isn't with the parties but with the leaders of the Church who tie Christ to their candidate."

He further argued that what "we have seen this week," alluding to the beginning of Trump's presidency, is "not the Christianity of Christ so much as it is the Christianity of this land."

"Our nation needs both repentance and revival," Dates concluded. "May God bless the United States of America."

According to his website, Dates serves as Affiliate Professor at Baylor University- George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Wheaton College. He is also a contributing author to Letters To A Birmingham Jail and Say It: Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition, and is currently working on his first single-authored book on Christianity and Social Justice.

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