Sunday Stretch: Vol. 52

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

A quick housekeeping update/celebration. Today’s Sunday Stretch marks 52 weeks - or one full year - of Sunday Stretch posts together! That means the full archive of Sunday Stretch posts are available at Substack for the past year. If you’d like guidance on past Bible texts, you can use the search function to find those posts. I am so grateful for our community here together and the chance to study, pray, learn, and hope!

Let’s get to this week’s texts …

Cyrus II, monument in Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Bible Stories

Isaiah 45:1-7

Is. 45:1    Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus,

whose right hand I have grasped

to subdue nations before him

and strip kings of their robes,

to open doors before him—

and the gates shall not be closed:

² I will go before you

and level the mountains,

I will break in pieces the doors of bronze

and cut through the bars of iron,

³ I will give you the treasures of darkness

and riches hidden in secret places,

so that you may know that it is I, the LORD,

the God of Israel, who call you by your name.

⁴ For the sake of my servant Jacob,

and Israel my chosen,

I call you by your name,

I surname you, though you do not know me.

⁵ I am the LORD, and there is no other;

besides me there is no god.

I arm you, though you do not know me,

⁶ so that they may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is no one besides me;

I am the LORD, and there is no other.

⁷ I form light and create darkness,

I make weal and create woe;

I the LORD do all these things.

I have to confess that I read this passage and almost immediately lost focus, right away, in verse 1. The Prophet Isaiah, speaking as God’s messenger, calls upon King Cyrus of Persia as God’s anointed one. That Cyrus of Persia (known today as Iran) would be called God’s anointed one by a Hebrew prophet of the land of Israel was as remarkable in Isaiah’s time as it sounds to our own modern-day ears, shell-shocked and pained as we are in the midst of a new war and bloodshed of so many innocent people in Israel and Gaza.

Upon reading this passage and the name King Cyrus, I was also immediately taken back to the more-recent past, when I was writing and researching the first version of Red State Christians. As I began interviews with prominent GOP politicians and conservative Christians regarding the 2016 election of Donald Trump, I often heard people cite the “King Cyrus theory.” This theory, which I wrote about in Chapter 2 on abortion and Chapter 7 on the “evangelical intelligentsia” suggested that Trump, a non-practicing Christian who had been divorced twice, might be America’s King Cyrus, a political leader who advanced the causes of God’s people despite not being authentically “one of them.” I most often heard this theory advanced by people you might consider conservative “elites,” prominent politicians and Christian leaders, often highly educated and holding positions of influence in religion, politics, and government.

It’s interesting to me that this “King Cyrus theory” is not one you often hear anymore from anyone in defense of Trump. Our country’s political landscape has changed a lot since 2018, since COVID and the murder of George Floyd and the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, all of which I wrote about in the updated version of Red State Christians. Since all of these changes, most conservatives no longer feel compelled to offer biblical or academic theories in defense of Trump. Positions have hardened, and Trump no longer needs to be compared to biblical figures; he has become one in his own right for many of his supporters.

So what, then, do we do with this text today? I am reminded of the words of the Prophet Isaiah just 10 chapters after this one: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” - Isaiah 55:8

God’s ways are not our ways. God often does work through those who may not give direct