Dear friend,
I want to say something tonight that I have been holding back for too long.
Not because I was afraid of saying it. Because I wanted to say it carefully. Because the people I am about to write about are not my enemies. Some of them are men I have respected for decades. Some of them are men I have called friends.
But I am an old man with a limited number of Wednesdays left. And I have run out of patience for careful silence on something Scripture speaks about with complete clarity.
So tonight I am saying it plainly.
There are pastors in America who will answer to God for what they did not say.
Not for what they said wrongly. For what they did not say at all.
Before I show you what Scripture says about this let me place something in your hands.
I wrote a guide called They Tried To Stop Him: What The Bible Says About Donald Trump. I wrote it partly in response to exactly what I am about to describe tonight. Because I looked at the silence of the Church and decided I was not going to add to it. You can find it by clicking on the image below:
Alternatively, you may find it here: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
Now let me show you what God says about silence.
In Ezekiel chapter 33 God spoke to the prophet about the role of a watchman.
He said this. Son of man I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel. So hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.
A watchman. Someone placed on the wall specifically to see what is coming and warn the people below before it arrives. Not after. Before. When there is still time to respond.
And then God said something that I want you to read very carefully.
When I say to the wicked you will surely die and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin. But I will hold you accountable for their blood.
I will hold you accountable for their blood.
Not the blood of the enemy. The blood of the people the watchman was supposed to protect. The ones who did not know the sword was coming because the man on the wall saw it and said nothing.
God does not call that neutrality. He calls it accountability. He says plainly that the blood of the people who were not warned is on the hands of the man who chose silence.
I want to ask you something directly.
When did your pastor last say his name from the pulpit?
Not as an endorsement. Not as a political statement. Just — acknowledge that something is happening in this country that Scripture speaks to. That the faithful people sitting in those pews every Sunday are watching things unfold that the Bible described in advance. That the silence from the front of the room is not wisdom. It is the watchman seeing the sword and saying nothing.
I have been with the Church for fifty years. I have watched this silence spread across American Christianity like a slow frost. Quietly. Without drama. One careful pastor at a time deciding that the cost of speaking was higher than the cost of staying quiet.
They were wrong about the math.
The cost of staying quiet is paid by the people who needed to hear the warning and did not.
I want to tell you what the silence has produced.
It has produced a generation of faithful Christians who feel completely alone in what they believe. Who sit in pews every Sunday surrounded by people who share their faith but not their willingness to name what is happening. Who have been told so many times by the silence of their leaders that the things they are watching are not worth addressing from the pulpit that they have started to wonder if maybe they are wrong to be paying attention.
You are not wrong to be paying attention.
The watchman is wrong to be silent.
In Isaiah chapter 56 verse 10 God described the leaders who had failed their people in exactly this way.
Israel's watchmen are blind. They all lack knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They cannot bark. They lie around and dream. They love to sleep.
Mute dogs.
That is God's description of the religious leaders who saw the danger coming and chose sleep over warning. Who loved their comfort and their reputation and their nonprofit status more than they loved the people God had placed in their care.
Mute dogs cannot warn anyone of anything.
I want to be clear about something.
I am not asking pastors to endorse a political party from the pulpit. I am not asking them to become political commentators. I am not asking them to do anything that is not already their explicit Biblical responsibility.
I am asking them to be watchmen.
To tell their congregations what Scripture says about the signs they are seeing. To name the specific forces that are working against the things the Bible calls good. To stand up at the front of the room and say plainly that what is happening to this country has a Biblical framework and that faithful Christians are not crazy for being alarmed by it.
That is not politics. That is the job.
The job that God told Ezekiel he would be held accountable for if he did not do it.
Now I want to tell you something about the pastors who are silent.
Most of them are not evil men. Most of them are not stupid men. Most of them are frightened men.
They are frightened of losing members. Frightened of losing donors. Frightened of the IRS and the Johnson Amendment and the social media pile-on and the accusation of being political that will follow the moment they say anything specific enough to matter.
They have decided that the personal cost of speaking is too high.
But they have not counted the real cost. The cost that God described in Ezekiel 33. The blood of the people who were not warned. The faithful Christians sitting in their pews who desperately needed someone in authority to tell them they were not crazy. That what they were seeing was real. That Scripture had something to say about it.
That is the cost the silent watchman pays. Not in comfort or reputation or donor relationships.
In accountability before God.
I want to tell you why I wrote They Tried To Stop Him: What The Bible Says About Donald Trump.
Not because I wanted to be political. I am a bishop. Politics is not my mission.
I wrote it because I looked at the silence of the American Church and felt the specific weight of Ezekiel 33 pressing on my chest. Because I am an old man with a limited number of years left to say the things that need to be said. Because I decided that adding my voice to the silence was something I could not do and still look God in the eye at the end of my life.
I wrote it because the watchman who sees the sword coming and says nothing is not neutral. He is accountable.
I did not want to be accountable for the silence.
The guide is the clearest thing I have written. It says what I believe Scripture says about this moment and the man at the centre of it. Without apology. Without the careful language designed to offend no one that ends up meaning nothing.
If your pastor will not say it you can read it for yourself. And then you can share it with the people in your life who are sitting in pews every Sunday wondering why nobody at the front of the room will name what they are watching.
You can find it here: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
I want to close with the end of Ezekiel chapter 33.
Because God does not leave the picture with the mute dogs. He describes what the faithful watchman does. The one who actually speaks. Who actually warns. Who pays the cost of saying the thing that needs to be said regardless of what it costs him.
Verse 7. Son of man I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel. So hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.
Hear it. And give the warning.
That is the whole job. Hear what God is saying about what is happening. And then say it. To the people who are waiting for someone to say it. To the ones sitting in the pews wondering why the room is so quiet.
I hear it. I am saying it.
I hope your pastor starts saying it too.
God bless you, friend. The sword is coming. You deserved to be warned.
With you in prayer always,
Father Thomas
This week I want you to do three things:
One. Read Ezekiel chapter 33 verses 1 through 11 this week. The whole section on the watchman. Read it slowly. Then ask yourself honestly — who are the watchmen in your life? Are they watching? Are they warning?
Two. Share this letter with your pastor. Not aggressively. Not as an accusation. Just — I read something this week that I wanted you to see. Let the letter do what it was designed to do. Maybe it will be the thing that moves someone from silence to speech.
Three. Read They Tried To Stop Him this week: https://fatherthomasletters.com/products/they-tried-to-stop-him-what-the-bible-says-about-donald-trump
I wrote it because I refused to be a mute dog. Read it because you deserve to hear what the silent watchmen in your life have not been saying.
P.S. If you want to go deeper on anything I have written, everything is available at fatherthomasletters.com/products — including The Signs Are Here, which maps today's headlines directly against the specific passages that described them, and the Father Thomas Prayer Card Collection, which many of you have told me you return to every morning. Take a look when you have a moment.