11 thoughts on “Trump and the Church

  1. The three things that stood out to me in this article: Trump polling as more Christian than Pence, the Trump the Son of Man book, and the Let’s Go Brandon hymn. So I looked into them. In the poll, Trump beat Pence by one point, within the margin of error, and I’m sure some of those surveyed had never heard of Pence. The book thing, I can find almost nothing about the author or the book online. He had previously published a book “The Five Gods of the Bible”, so unless the title’s a metaphor, he can’t be considered anywhere near the mainstream of anything. The last one, the Brandon hymn, yeah, that was pretty bad.

    One thing I don’t think you emphasized sufficiently is that most people don’t consider Trump a moral example. I don’t know if anyone does. They may admire his fight, but that’s it. Most of the Christians I’ve heard draw comparisons between Trump and the Old Testament era, which is when God accomplished His will *despite* the character of the leaders of Israel.

    Also, I should flesh out this thought before I post it, but here goes anyway: I don’t think the church (however defined) embraced the Republican Party. Fifty or even thirty years ago, all parties were Christian, because most of the country identified as Christian. The big change that’s happened is the rise of the Nones and their embrace of the Democratic Party.Report

    1. I think your last point is right in the sense that Christianity was the metaphorical water everyone was swimming in. Anecdotally I recall as a kid there were a few JFK pictures here and there around the Catholic school I went to, and to the extent any sort of partisan stuff was visible (and to be clear it mostly wasn’t) it was Democratic leaning. No one ever talked about it but I assume he was a big-ish deal for the young Silent Gens and old Boomers that still ran the school. In retrospect probably a lot of people there were lifelong Democrats that voted Reagan. The only political issue I recall much noise made about was abortion, but I don’t think the partisan lines were nearly as hard. You could still be a pro-life Democrat and pro-choice Republican (which I think most of the more upwardly mobile in the parish quietly were) and still be in good standing in a way that seems a lot less true now.

      Where I might disagree is on the issue of Evangelical Christians becoming a much more partisan force in the 90s, and seeming to very clearly align with the Bush I admin in a way I am not sure was true prior.Report

      1. Outside of abortion, it wasn’t like the Republican Party had to change to accommodate evangelicals. But W was an evangelical, and after Clinton a Southern accent wasn’t going to be enough.Report

  2. A lot of the points the OP raises are correct and spot on but the forest is being missed for the trees. The idea that Christianity has ever stood against authoritarianism and against this kind of behavior is a misguided one. When an ideology holds itself above rebuke and claims to be a timeless guide to hierarchical devotion that is eternally under siege from some evil “outsider” (often racial, religious, or political minorities) it is no surprise that hierarchical thinking takes root in its adherents. The moral majority was never about actual ethics, morals, or reflection, it was always about power, it was always about grievance. Hell, the Southern Baptist denomination was formed specifically becasue the followers were so vehemently against racial equality. These beliefs and behaviors aren’t bugs, they are features. Even in the passages cited the person who acts as you would say “immorally” are still charged to follow god FIRST, believe in Jesus FIRST, THEN we can worry about such petty things as your neighbors wellbeing. This is why the faithful are fine hurting LGTBQ folk or people of color; because they are actually following the bible correctly: Doing what they consider to be godly first and its up to everyone else to adjust accordingly.

    I don’t know how you can cite all of these religious tracts and writings and behaviors of believers and come away thinking that its individuals who are wrong and not the structure itself. I’m glad the OP is calling out the bad behavior, but we need to call out why this kind of bad behavior only seems to infect the religious – because thats where it comes from.Report

  3. The Evangelical embrace of Donald Trump is one of the best arguments for atheism I can think of especially because they keep on bending over backwards and looking for ways to state he is divinely appointed somehow. This is especially funny (in a lolsob kind of way) when they try to acknowledge his character and come up with analogies to King David and Cyrus.

    By contrast, Biden appears to be an extremely sincere Catholic and gets no credit for it because in the Evangelical Mind no one with liberal views can ever be sincerely religious.Report

      1. The Southern Baptist church I grew up in was explicitly against meddling in the government, because, and everyone said was obvious, once you entangled the church with politics, you entangled politics into the church.

        It has been rather astonishing watching this current journey, watching so many denominations and groups destroy themselves because they got bribed with anti-abortion politics, a thing which none of them even used to care about.

        Back when I was a teenager active in the church, and this was the ’90s, the church was already talking about how it was in trouble due to the fact that young people were not interested in it, and I’m pretty certain they haven’t become more interested since then.Report

        1. I had a friend years ago who pointed out regularly that “separation of church and state” was originally conceived to as much protect religious groups from state interference as it was to protect the running of government from religious-group interference.

          I mean, yes, lots of people hate the whole “no Nativity scenes on city public property” some places do, but I think those people would also hate being told “your particular denomination isn’t allowed here any more.

          Unfortunately right now to me, where I sit* it feels more like the church is meddling more in the government than the other way ’round. Or at least one very particular small arm of the Protestant Christian church.

          (*a so-called Mainline Christian bordering on being “Progressive” Christian, but also a college biology professor at a public university and someone who has LGBTQ people in her life that she cares about and worries for)Report

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