Tag: evangelicalism

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Politics Religion

Not Your Old-Time Religion

One of the most baffling, perplexing, even maddening questions of our time is how the “Christian right,” “the far right,” “the evangelicals” have become such a powerful political force and how on earth that movement has thrown its considerable clout behind such an unlikely standard bearer as Donald Trump. I have wrestled with this question, as have many others, for the past several years; and finally I’m ready to offer my answer: The “Christian right” has ceased to be a religious tradition and now exists only as a powerful political movement. In its current expression, evangelicalism bears no resemblance to a faith community except in its use of the Bible and religious dogma as weapons with which to clobber anyone who disagrees with them.

Let’s look at a little history which may shed some light on what has brought us to the place where we now find ourselves. Many of us would have little reason to care about the history of evangelicalism, what evangelicals believe, or whom they will vote for in the next presidential election. That all changed in 2016, when Russia and the evangelicals (the oddest of odd couples) chose our president. Evangelicals were the largest demographic group among Trump supporters in 2016, with 80-81% being the official number compiled from exit polls of self-professed evangelicals who cast their votes for Trump. Evangelicals continue to stand by their man, and a recent Public Opinion Strategies poll reports that 83% of them intend to vote for him again in 2020. Without this group’s overwhelming support, it’s highly unlikely that Donald Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today. Therefore, I think it behooves us all to take a closer look at who these people are who can’t get enough of guns, cruelty toward refugees, and the most unfit person ever to disgrace the office of POTUS.

Two religious groups in the United States which are often conflated are fundamentalists and evangelicals. According to NPR’s Steve Waldman and John Green, these two groups are not the same but do have certain elements in common. Evangelicalism is a broader movement, of which fundamentalism is a stricter, more conservative, far less tolerant subset. So I think it’s accurate to say that all fundamentalists are evangelicals, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. The National Association of Evangelicals’ website quotes historian David Bebbington’s summary of four core distinctives which define evangelical belief: conversion (being “born again”), activism (missionary and reform efforts), biblicism (the Bible as the ultimate authority), and crucicentrism (Jesus’ death as redeeming humanity).

Fundamentalist evangelicals also believe these four distinctives but add to them. Whereas all evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamentalists also believe in a literal reading of the Bible; not only, in their view, is the Bible the final source of truth, but they believe every story, metaphor, and poem are literal historic records. Fundamentalists are also, among other things, far more isolationist than other evangelicals. They take literally the New Testament command to “ come out from among them and be ye separate” (II Corinthians 6:17). “Them,” by the way, fundamentalists interpret to mean “the world”–which incorporates everyone who does not share their worldview. They cannot recognize the legitimacy of Catholicism as a Christian faith because it is so different in theology and practice from their own narrow view of what constitutes Christianity. An overriding attitude of judgment against even other evangelicals who take a broader view of certain subjects further isolates fundamentalists into a tight-knit community whose primary goal in life is to avoid being “defiled” by anything which contradicts their beliefs.

The term “evangelicalism” has defied precise definition or agreement on its origin, but many see its roots in early 17th-century changes in the church. Fundamentalism is generally seen as a late 19th-, early 20th-century offshoot that arose in response to social and academic developments such as Darwinism, liberalism, and modernism. Leaders’ attempts to articulate and define the non-negotiable core Christian beliefs resulted in the 1910 publication of a multi-volume set of essays, edited by Reuben Torrey, titled The Fundamentals. Those who accepted this distillation of Christian theology came to be known as fundamentalists.

This little history is greatly over-simplified but serves to provide a general framework for the rise of the movement which has now given us a reality TV show presidency. It’s important to add that not all who call themselves Christians fall into either of these two camps, evangelicalism and fundamentalism. These two just seem to comprise the vocal, disruptive element that has co-opted the modern Republican Party.

Fundamentalists have earned the reputation of being anti-intellectual because of their rejecting  Darwin’s findings and other scientific information which doesn’t coincide with their literal reading of the Genesis creation account and the great flood story among others. Witness their current denial of climate science, and no more needs to be said.

Fundamentalist thought has been widely influenced by leaders such as Dwight Moody, Bob Jones Sr., Jerry Falwell, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham. What all of these men have in common is their belief in a literal, inerrant Bible; their disdain for anyone who deviates from their narrow view and their dismissal of such people as  not “real Christians”; and their view that the United States is a Christian nation and should therefore be ruled by Biblical precepts–or should I say, their interpretation of Biblical precepts.

When asked how a group, which professes to believe in the literal interpretation and inerrancy of the Bible and labels themselves the sole upholders and defenders of Biblical conduct and morality, can so enthusiastically embrace and defend the likes of DT–who violates every moral principle they claim to hold dear–their only answer is that “God often used imperfect instruments in events recorded in the Bible.” No argument there. The Old Testament gives us King David, who lusted after another man’s wife while she bathed on the rooftop, sent his servants to fetch her, had sex with her, impregnated her with a son, sent her military husband off to the front lines where he was sure to be killed, and then married her. In the New Testament, we learn that David was an ancestor of Christ and “a man after God’s own heart.”

David alone would make it pretty clear that, if all accounts are accurate, God’s not looking for perfection. But just to strengthen the case, we have Noah who celebrated safely landing the ark by getting passed-out drunk; Abraham who–impatient with waiting for God to fulfill the promise of giving him an heir–took the matter into his own hands and had sex with the maid; Rahab the prostitute, also in Jesus’ bloodline; Jonah who ran from God’s command to warn the people of Nineveh because they were wicked and, in his opinion, unworthy of God’s mercy; Matthew the tax collector, a profession generally thought to employ the scum of the earth; and Saul the persecutor of Christians who became Paul, the greatest missionary of his day for spreading the Christian faith. I think we get the picture.

Yet if the only thing that can be said in defense of electing a person to the office of president is that he’s no worse than a few people in the Bible, that’s some very thin ice.

What makes evangelicals tick? How can they be won over to a cause or a candidate? For one thing, they have long been conditioned to follow the rules out of fear: fear of hell (real flames here), fear of shame, fear of disapproval by bigger-than-life leaders, fear of ostracization. Donald Trump tapped into that fear in his very first speech, when he broad-brushed all Mexicans as murderers and rapists and continues to stir up fear to persuade supporters to go along with his cruel policies. Never mind that most mass shooters in this country have been white male citizens and we’ve done nothing to curtail gun violence, let’s build a giant wall to keep all of those Mexicans out because a few have committed horrible crimes. Fear is a powerful motivator.

Evangelicals have also been conditioned to accept their literal reading of the Bible over the hard evidence of science. The flood really happened, and the earth really was created in six days, just 6000 years ago–science be damned. Anything not specifically covered in the Bible can easily be  “proven” with a cherry-picked verse or two. Thus, the exclusion of LGBTQ people because . . . Leviticus. And some have validated their prejudice against black Americans with the story about the black race being descended from Noah’s son Ham, who was cursed for some not altogether clear reason and his descendants supposedly doomed to a life of servitude–to the end of time. Yeah, that really was taught.

With so much credence given to faith over fact, revelation over reason, is it such a stretch to understand why those same people would take the word of the person they’ve been told was sent by God over the words of fact finders, scientists, psychologists, journalists, and other smart people? Is it any wonder that they view all intellectuals with suspicion? With their conditioned response of separatism and superiority to those who see the world differently, of believing they’re the ones with the inside track to God, their blind loyalty to a criminal “president” shouldn’t be the least bit surprising.

Another characteristic of the modern evangelical and fundamentalist movements is their adulation of rock-star leaders. Although many outside those circles may know the names of only the most notorious–the Grahams, the Falwells, maybe the Joneses–ask any fundamentalist about Bill Hybels, Jack Hyles, Tony Perkins, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, and there will be instant recognition. Different groups will give more or less respect to different names, but the names are known and revered by at least some subgroups. These are the gurus whose word is truth, whose pronouncements set policy, and whose approval is oxygen to  their followers. [Update: Some of these names, such as Jerry Falwell Jr. have fallen out of favor since this article was written.]

Should it then come as any surprise at all when one of those esteemed celebrities puts his arm around a man who in no way represents their stated beliefs or anything they ever learned in Sunday school and says “This person is sent by God to protect and preserve our nation,” the masses accept that pronouncement as divine truth and follow that man as fervently as they follow the leaders who anointed him? Sadly, the leader who gets lost in the process is the one they profess to believe above all others: Jesus, who never endorsed any of this baloney.

Donald Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, gave the clearest statement of his Christian faith I’ve ever heard from a sitting president. And he backed up his words with a moral and scandal-free life, a ready knowledge of Christian belief, and even a spontaneous rendering of the hymn “Amazing Grace” at a funeral. Contrast that with Donald Trump’s mention of “Two Corinthians” as the only evidence of biblical knowledge he could muster on the spot. Yet President Obama is reviled by evangelicals as a non-citizen Muslim, and Donald Trump is hailed by “a significant portion of his supporters [as] literally . . . an answer to their prayers. He is regarded as something of a messiah, sent by God to protect a Christian nation” (Bobby Azarian, Ph.D., in Psychology Today).

The so-called “Christian Right” has ceased to be Christian. Although they claim unquestioned allegiance to the Bible, I’m going to venture a guess that most have not read much of the Bible; and the parts they have read are twisted to support preconceived beliefs. If they bothered to read the book they claim to follow, they would have run across a few passages which define what the Christian faith actually is. When your only reason for reading the Bible is to find support for what you already believe, you’re missing a lot.

If one wanted to know what the Christian faith is really all about, Micah 6:8 is a one-verse primer: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think locking children in filthy cages with no access to hygiene supplies, adequate food, human touch, or even a real blanket qualifies as justice, kindness, or a humble walk with God. Then again, these children are brown, so perhaps they’re excluded from the general rules? Somehow I can’t imagine those same fine Christian people looking the other way or sending their attorneys to court to defend such treatment of white children.

James 1:27 echoes Micah’s summary: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” “Care for the orphans and widows in their distress.” Yet allowing Puerto Rican Americans to languish in distress after a hurricane, desperate for the bare essentials of life, isn’t given a place on the “conservative” agenda. Nor are the children in the concentration camps or the families without health insurance or the minimum-wage workers who can barely exist on their paychecks and who would be wiped out by one unanticipated expense.

Then there’s Jesus’ own quick summary of what faith is meant to be. Asked by a Pharisee, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest,” Jesus responded: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40). “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, the whole Old Testament is summed up in 28 words, further reduced to “Love God and love your fellow humans.”

Jesus reiterates those points a few chapters further on, in Matthew 25. There he gives a metaphorical description of a judgment of the nations, in which the nations will be divided into two groups: sheep and goats. The sole criterion for the division is the way in which the nations have treated the disadvantaged, “the least of these.” The sheep are those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoner. The goats are the ones who have not done any of that. Those examples illustrate what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Notice the pattern here? What do all of these passages have in common? Each one defines faith as the acknowledgment of God and the loving treatment of one’s fellow humans. Nothing else. Nada. Not abortion, LGBTQ people, public bathrooms, right to bear arms. Nothing but loving God and loving each other. Anything added to those two distinctives is politics, not faith. It’s the attempt to weaponize faith as a means to gain power and control.

When fundamentalists formed not only their own churches but their own schools–pre-K through college–they made it possible to immerse a large enough population in their so-called theology to gain the numbers needed for the political clout they strove for. Today their information network has expanded to include news outlets, mainly one: Fox News. It’s like a virtual commune in which it’s possible to live and die without ever being exposed to any other ideas than those spouted by their powerful leaders. And just recently came this announcement:

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed legislation permitting Briarwood Presbyterian Church to establish its own police force for its church and school campuses. The law approved two weeks ago allows the Birmingham-based church to set-up a private law enforcement department to make arrests when crimes are committed on its properties. (Patheos.com)

Legitimate concerns about this move include the strong possibility that such a police force would lead to further cover-up of crimes like sexual assault, since the enforcers would be guided more by their loyalty to the church than by their loyalty to the law of the land.

It should be clear by now that the modern evangelical movement has divorced itself from every religious principle on which it was established and has devoted itself to the accumulation of political power. This phenomenon is nothing new. Theologian Richard Rohr says this:

“Christianity is a lifestyle–a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a ‘religion’ (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s ‘personal Lord and Savior’ . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

The Christian church has often stood on the wrong side of history. The church did not act to oppose either slavery or the many years of violence against the freed slaves and their descendants. Martin Luther King Jr., in a section of his well-known “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” delivers a strong rebuke against the white church in 1960s America:

I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel who loves the church, who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its Spiritual blessings, and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen. I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows. In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and with deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother.

Abuses of power in the name of religion are not new, but we must never cease to call them what they are. Today’s evangelical movement is built not on faith but on white supremacy and white nationalism. Why else would a grifting, immoral, cruel, ignorant white con man be revered while an intelligent, honest, morally upright, kind, generous black man is reviled? Why else would a pious Senate Majority Leader be allowed to get away with violating the Constitution in whatever way is necessary to continue promoting the “conservative” agenda of discrediting and destroying the legacy of our only black president?

Frank Schaeffer Jr., former evangelical leader turned reasonable person, author of numerous books and articles, offers this history of the modern evangelical-political movement:

The 1970s Evangelical anti-abortion movement that Dad (Evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer), C. Everett Koop (who would be Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general) and I helped create seduced the Republican Party. We turned it into an extremist far-right party that is fundamentally anti-American. There would have been no Tea Party without the foundation we built.

The difference between now and then is that back then we were religious fanatics knocking on the doors of normal political leaders. Today the fanatics are the political leaders.

You can’t understand why the GOP was so successful in winning back both houses of congress in 2014, and wrecking most of what Obama has tried to do, unless you understand what we did back then.

You see, in the late 1960s Dad published the first of many best-selling evangelical books. When Dad toured evangelical colleges and churches all over North America, I often accompanied him while Mom and Dad — unbeknownst to them at the time — were gradually being elevated to Evangelical Protestant sainthood. This meant that a few years later when Dad took a “stand” on the issue of abortion, a powerful movement formed almost instantly, inspired by his leadership, and the evangelical-led “pro-life” movement (and the religious right) was born.

(My Horrible Right-Wing Past: Confessions of a One-Time Religious Right Icon, published in Salon)

Opposition to abortion became the rallying cry for a group also described by Schaeffer: “Evangelical Christianity was now [in the 1980s] more about winning elections than about winning souls.”

Saving unborn babies sounded much more Christian and noble than barring black students from universities such as Bob Jones University and forbidding interracial dating. Make no mistake, though: it’s always been about white male supremacy and the fear of losing that advantage to the influx of other races. Underlying all of the noble-sounding rhetoric, the one-issue litmus tests, and the religious veneer is the belief that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville tragedy and the claim that the Civil War was not really about slavery.

People who follow the simple precepts of loving God and loving each other don’t defend the “right” to own arsenals of deadly weapons; don’t shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing we can do when the owner of one of those arsenals goes on a rampage and commits mass murder; don’t condone locking children in concentration camps; don’t laugh and applaud when an orange-haired cretin mocks war heroes, women who accuse him of sexual assault, handicapped people, the press, and anyone else who gets under his very thin skin; and they sure as hell don’t vote to elect that person to yet another four-year term as president. People looking for political power and the perpetuation of white nationalism do all of those things.

Let’s call it what it is.

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Politics Religion

Christless Christianity and Modern Politics

According to reliable statistics, 81% of white American evangelicals, in the year 2016, used their cherished voting right to help elect Donald Trump to the office of POTUS. I don’t have statistics to show how many of those who helped elect the boy president continue to support him, but it’s my personal observation that there’s little buyers’ remorse among the group and that they continue not only to support but to defend him and his execrable actions since assuming office on January 20, 2017. In the words of The Bard, evangelicals supporting and defending a person who in no way  embodies their professed beliefs is “like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh” (Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1).

How did this happen? “Christians” who profess to believe in the Bible as a literal, inerrant, God-breathed guidebook for the human race elected a thrice-married, adultery-committing, foul-mouthed, uncharitable , lying, swindling, Putin-loving, crotch-grabbing, over-sized child who shows little evidence of having read their Bible and no evidence of making any attempt to live by its precepts.

It’s a fair assertion that without the votes of white evangelicals, Donald Trump would not be sitting in the Oval Office today, so it’s also fair to ask how on earth hundreds of thousands of people would abdicate every belief which they profess to hold dear to help elect someone who is the antithesis of those beliefs. When the alt-right and the Christian right are on the same page, it’s clear that something is rotten in the state of Christendom.

Documentation for much of my information on this subject is personal experience. I was raised in the evangelical tradition; so I have first-hand knowledge of the thinking, beliefs, and lifestyles of the group. It’s also important to note that although all evangelicals profess to be Christians, not all Christians are evangelicals. The evangelical, also known as fundamentalist, tradition exists within mainstream denominations—with heavy concentration in the various Baptist groups—but they are right of center within their denominational theologies.

Most of us would have little reason to care what this subset of Christianity is up to or why they think the way they do were it not for their increasing influence on politics; and since their political actions affect us all, we have good reason to spend a little time delving into how the evangelical mind works because that thinking has played a large role in creating the situation that currently threatens the stability and future of our nation. Their political clout began with the merger between evangelicalism and the Republican Party, which happened in the 1980s. During my youth, I was consistently told that Christians should stay out of politics; church was church, and government was government.

Two changes have occurred, however, over the last several decades. First, there is little distinction in the evangelical mind between religious beliefs and political or philosophical positions. When evangelicals take a position on any subject, it becomes a part of their theology. Take climate change as a prime example. Evangelicals I know scoff at the scientific evidence proving climate change is real and is being caused by human activity as if those who do believe the findings of science are infidels. Second, their beliefs have become more and more detached from the Bible, which they claim as their infallible guide. The result is a systematic theology which is based on cherry-picked parts of the Bible but which stands in direct contradiction to the book’s broad themes and consistent principles.

To win the vote of an evangelical Republican, one need only state opposition to two things: abortion and homosexuality. Both are, in their view, anti-biblical (though they’re rarely mentioned in the Scriptures and never in the way they are cited) and are core issues which allow no room for negotiation. Crotch grabbing and Russia colluding are not related to those two core issues; therefore, crotch grabbing and Russia colluding become tangential subjects, dismissed as annoying obstacles to pursuing their goals of revoking Roe v. Wade and marriage equality. Never mind that the Bible, in its wholeness, says far more related to sexual assault than to abortion or homosexuality, because I daresay most of these avowed adherents to “the whole Word of God” have never read far beyond the cherry pickings which are used as the underpinnings of their beliefs.

A third subject necessary to an understanding of the Christians who elect, support, and defend a morally degenerate “president” is something called the “Rapture,” which they confuse with the second coming of Christ. Theories on how the world will end have abounded ever since the world began. Evangelicals believe that the end of time will be initiated by an appearance of Jesus Christ in the clouds. Jesus will take all of the people who believe the way they believe out of the world, bodily, and whisk them off to heaven in order to spare them from the devastation and destruction about to be wreaked upon the earth. Once the Christians are safely out of the way, the antichrist will take over and things will get really grim for 7 years. At the end of that time, Jesus will establish a long period of peace on the earth. There’s lots more to it, but that’s the short course.

The reward for believing as they do and for accepting the ridicule of those who don’t believe as they do is that they will in the end be vindicated. Jesus will come down and stick it to all of those critics, and the whole of humanity will have to admit that the evangelicals were right all along. They will also be the chosen few who will get to spend eternity in heaven, while doubters will burn (literally) in hell: a great pit filled with “fire and brimstone.”

This belief is supported by the usual string of cherries picked from various parts of the Bible, but the exclusivity of it gives the “true believers” privileged status. They are “in this world but not of this world.” Their other-worldly view allows them to detach themselves from such concerns as whether mentally ill people buy guns or the “president” likes to sexually assault women or a foreign adversary interfered in our presidential election on behalf of the guy who won. All that is important in their view is how these things fit into the “prophecies” of the Book of Revelation, which is probably the most misinterpreted book in all of the 66 of the Bible.

Any world event, however negative to those who live in the real world, is seen through the evangelical glasses only in terms of what it contributes to the fulfillment of those so-called prophecies. So it is possible to see Donald Trump as having been appointed by God, because God is going to use Trump to advance God’s plan of bringing God’s kingdom to Earth. I have personally been told that I needn’t worry too much about concerns for the future, because Jesus is going to come back before those things happen anyway.

Jessica Rettig, in an article titled “The Religious Ties of the Republican Party,” interviews Daniel Williams who explains the history of the merger between religious conservatives and the Republican Party. According to Williams, who also wrote the book God’s Own Party: the Making of the Christian Right, conservative Christians first latched onto the GOP during the 1970s. Although some movement was seen during the Eisenhower years, the major momentum occurred during the Nixon and Reagan eras. Since “the evangelicals were looking for a party that would champion what they viewed as moral values and their interests in the Cold War and the Republican Party was also looking for potential voters,” it was so to speak a marriage made in heaven: win-win. Williams goes on to explain how both the Cold War and opposition to Islam strengthened the political power of Christian evangelicals. They saw the federal government as “acting in the interests of God by fighting against communism internationally and by rooting out communist subversives within the country.” He adds, “In many ways, the war on terror became the new Cold War for evangelicals.”

Jessica Rettig wrote her article in 2010. More recently, Sarah Posner published an article titled “Amazing Disgrace” on March 20, 2017. Posner begins by posing the question “How did Donald Trump—a thrice-married, biblically illiterate sexual predator—hijack the religious right?” Well, that’s just what we’ve been wondering! Rettig says that Russell Moore, “a prominent leader in the Southern Baptist Convention,” began noticing the evangelical trend toward Trump even while many still dismissed Trump’s candidacy as a bad joke. Although Moore “had positioned himself as the face of the ‘new’ religious right,” he of course understood the old religious right’s mindset. In his book Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel, Moore writes, “The church of Jesus Christ ought to be the last people to fall for hucksters and demagogues. But too often we do.”

Posner goes on to say,

“As Trump continued gaining ground in the polls, Moore began to realize that the campaign represented nothing short of a battle for the soul of the Christian right. By backing Trump, white evangelicals were playing into the hands of a new, alt-right version of Christianity—a sprawling coalition of white nationalists, old-school Confederates, neo-Nazis, Islamophobes, and social-media propagandists who viewed the religious right, first and foremost, as a vehicle for white supremacy.”

In Posner’s own words, “The religious right—which for decades has grounded its political appeal in moral ‘values’ such as ‘life’ and ‘family’ and ‘religious freedom’—has effectively become a subsidiary of the alt-right, yoked to Trump’s white nationalist agenda.” Once again, we’re looking at the disconnect between the avowed adherence to the Bible as the “infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God” and the failure to understand and practice even the most basic precepts of that book. The alt-right represents human nature at its most degraded, yet these “Christians” have philosophically joined hands with that movement. In the world of oxymorons, nothing is more extremely ironic than “alt-right Christians.” Yet they’re real and they walk among us.

Opposition to Roe v. Wade has for a generation been recognized as what Albert Mohler calls “the catalyst for the moral revolution within evangelicalism.” Sarah Posner argues, however, that abortion was not the issue responsible for the creation of the religious right; instead, according to Posner, it was the IRS’s revoking of the tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University and other institutions that refused to admit non-whites, which happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Posner says, “It was the government’s actions against segregated schools, not the legalization of abortion, that ‘enraged the Christian community,’ Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich has acknowledged.”

Frank Schaeffer Jr., in his 2007 book Crazy for God, agrees that abortion was not immediately a concern for evangelicals; it was only after certain influential leaders “stirred them up over the issue” that evangelicals became politicized. Schaeffer argues that evangelicals have been “played for suckers” by high-profile leaders who have little genuine spirituality and much desire for power.

Sarah Posner writes this stunning statement: “That’s why white evangelicals were the key to Trump’s victory—they provided the numbers that the alt-right lacks. The alt-right supplied Trump with his agenda; the Christian right supplied him with his votes.”

If Sarah Posner and others are correct, the driving force behind the Christian right’s theology and politics is not really abortion or homosexuality—as they say—but deep-rooted racism and white supremacy. Here are a few facts:

“According to an exit poll of Republican voters in the South Carolina primary, evangelicals were much more likely to support banning Muslims from the United States, creating a database of Muslim citizens, and flying the Confederate flag at the state capitol. Thirty-eight percent of evangelicals told pollsters that they wished the South had won the Civil War—more than twice the number of nonevangelicals who held that view.”

Matthew MacWilliams is the author of articles in which he reports the results of his own research into traits which predict support of Donald Trump. He found the usual factors of race, income, and education levels; but those were insignificant compared to the “single statistically significant variable . . . authoritarianism.”

Although authoritarians can be found in all political parties, geographic areas, occupations, and religions, authoritarianism is at the very core of the evangelical religious philosophy; and it helps to explain the disconnect between their avowed adherence to the Bible and the reality of their anti-biblical attitudes and practices. For example, their concern for life is belied by resistance to reasonable gun control and unconcern for the poor—the people Jesus called “the least of these” and said that those who serve them are serving him.

In truth, many evangelicals follow strong leaders more than they directly follow the teachings of Scripture. To name a few of those leaders, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Sr. and Jr., Rick Warren, Franklin Graham, Bill Hybels, Joyce Meyer, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, and Beth Moore are far more likely to influence the beliefs and practices of evangelicals than is their own personal reading and interpretation of the Bible. In fact, their interpretation of the Bible has most likely been informed by one or more of those people and others who could be listed. And no evangelical with a normal human need to be accepted within one’s tribe would dare contradict the teachings and interpretations of their esteemed leaders.

If authoritarianism is indeed the main common denominator among Trump supporters, it is no longer a surprise to see evangelicals on that list. And there is no way to reason with this group, because in their minds all of their information comes directly from God, they are privy to things the rest of us who don’t enjoy VIP status are not, their leaders hold god-like authority, and then there’s the whole thing about Jesus coming back to wipe out everyone except them and show the rest of us that we’re the ones who’ve been wrong the whole time.

To repeat, all evangelicals profess to be Christians, but not all Christians are evangelicals, and it is unfair to judge the whole lot of us by the actions of that one group. Micah 6:8 sums up Christianity for me:

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”

I still have some work to do; but I’m going to keep striving for justice, kindness, and a humble walk with God and let the fundies (fundamentalists) have their rules and condemnation.

As for what all of this means to the political future of our country, the mergers between evangelicalism and the Republican Party and between evangelicalism and the alt-right mean that this group of “Christians” will continue to wield political influence for the foreseeable future. I wish I could offer a solution, but that’s above my level of influence. All I can say is that understanding a problem is key to addressing it, so I hope this article sheds a little light that may help us as we go forward.

 

PLEASE NOTE: My purpose in writing this article was not to decide the genuineness of anyone’s Christianity; faith is a private matter, so other people’s faith or lack thereof doesn’t affect me and is therefore none of my business. It’s not my job to pass judgment on others, even though some others have passed the judgment that I am not a “real” Christian. My only purpose was to examine the political influence of a large group of my fellow citizens, because their influence on governmental affairs does affect me and IS my business. The truth is that without this group, we would not have the “president” we now have. That means they’ve affected all of our lives, whether we’re mainstream Christians, fundamentalists, or atheists. And that’s a scary reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Politics Religion

Evangelicals for Trump. Seriously???

Evangelicals find themselves facing a yuuuge moral dilemma this November. They can’t stomach the thought of voting for a Democrat, especially that woman. Yet their default candidate sends shivers up their spines every time he opens his mouth. Some are exploring third-party or write-in candidates, but others recognize the pitfalls of voting outside the two major parties, since so far no third-party candidate has ever won an election and there’s no way to be certain which major-party candidate will be more affected by third-party votes. What’s a god-fearing, self-respecting evangelical to do? For a number of them, the answer seems to be “rationalize.” Vote for someone who in every way violates your confession of faith, but construct arguments to make the wrong you’re about to do feel right.

Let’s face it: every honest person will have to admit to doing something in their life that has violated their own personal moral code. I admit I have. Sometimes the deed is the result of too much temptation and too little will power. Sometimes it’s a gross error in judgment. And sometimes we feel that we’re forced to choose the lesser of two evils, in which case we’re likely to be left feeling guilty no matter what we do because the lesser of two evils is still evil. Whatever the reason for our lapse, the resulting spiritual turmoil is painful.

So how does one make peace with one’s own conscience after having done something which has grossly offended the conscience? I would argue that the only honest way to proceed is to simply own the deed: admit it, accept your human weakness, seek forgiveness from anyone who has been hurt by your action, confess and seek forgiveness from God if that is part of your belief system, and then most important of all, forgive yourself. Then go on and live your life, believing you are still a good person, not damaged goods, who is still entitled to respect and is able to make sound moral judgments in the future.

I would also argue that the most dishonest and damaging way to make peace with a troubled conscience is to construct an argument that changes wrong to right. That approach leads one deeper into self-delusion and further from any connection to or understanding of truth. People who lie to themselves no longer see the dividing line between truth and falsehood. In Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet,” Polonius gives a long list of advice to his son Laertes, ending with the most important: “This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou canst not then be false to any man.” If Polonius is right, one who is honest with oneself can’t be dishonest with anyone else, isn’t it fair to say the opposite is also correct: One who is dishonest with oneself can’t possibly be honest with anyone else.

Evangelicals* (See note at end) have been doing battle with their consciences for over a year now, and that battle intensifies with every day we move closer to November 8. Some, as I mentioned before, are looking at third-party and write-in candidates; others are going to sit out this election (cowards); others are just going to swallow hard and vote for Trump because he’s the only Republican on the ballot. Then there are the most disturbing of all: the ones who are going down that dark, twisted trail of attempting to construct an argument that will morally justify their choice and quiet their consciences.

I mentioned one of those in a previous post: Wayne Grudem, whose article “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice” is being read, parsed, and widely refuted. Wayne Grudem is an influential evangelical theologian, professor of Christian ethics, author, and study Bible editor. Professor Grudem rationalizes:

He [Trump] is egotistical, bombastic, and brash. He often lacks nuance in his statements. Sometimes he blurts out mistaken ideas (such as bombing the families of terrorists) that he later must abandon. He insults people. He can be vindictive when people attack him. He has been slow to disown and rebuke the wrongful words and actions of some angry fringe supporters. He has been married three times and claims to have been unfaithful in his marriages. These are certainly flaws, but I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws in this election.

I’m still choking on “lacks nuance” and “I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws.” But moving on, in another passage he says,

But are you saying that character doesn’t matter?” someone might ask. I believe that character does matter, but I think Trump’s character is far better than what is portrayed by much current political mud-slinging, and far better than his opponent’s character.

In addition, if someone makes doubts about character the only factor to consider, that is a fallacy in ethical reasoning that I call “reductionism” – the mistake of reducing every argument to only one factor, when the situation requires that multiple factors be considered. In this election, an even larger factor is the future of the nation that would flow from a Clinton or a Trump presidency.

I agree with Professor Grudem that single-issue voting is narrow and disqualifies otherwise good candidates for a single disagreement. However, character is an overriding factor which encompasses who a person is, to what extent the person can be trusted, and the moral compass by which the person lives. That’s NOT the same as voting only on a candidate’s stance on immigration, guns, or abortion. There is NO way Professor Grudem can honestly reconcile his own description of Trump with his own belief system.

Here’s an Evangelical Statement of Faith, taken from the National Association of Evangelicals, http://nae.net/statement-of-faith/. Of course, individual groups will add to or alter the list in accordance with their personal interpretations, but I think this list is a pretty basic general summary.

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have no way of knowing what Donald Trump believes concerning the first three items on the list; of course I could comment, but I’ll resist. I’m most drawn to the fourth and fifth. Can anyone honestly argue that someone who attacks and vilifies women, immigrants, people with disabilities, people who were captured in war, Gold Star families, an opponent’s wife, an opponent’s father; who boots a mother with a crying baby from a rally; who has described his own daughter as “hot” and said he’d date her if she were not his daughter; who is being sued for child rape; who condones and incites violence; who proposes banning entire people groups from our country—that this person exudes the spirit of one who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit or who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit or who is living a godly life? That’s too big a stretch for my imagination!

And how about the last item on the list: “the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Has Professor Grudem’s “flawed candidate” done a single thing to promote unity since he launched his campaign? Or has everything he has done promoted division and discord? Of course, Mr. Grudem would argue that Hillary Clinton is even more flawed in regard to Evangelical standards, but the title of his article is not “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is Better than Voting for Hillary Clinton.” It’s “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice,” and I think that statement cannot be argued without compromising one’s evangelical beliefs.

http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564

Then as I was still reeling from Professor Grudem’s article, I came across another article this morning, this one written by an unnamed author, “To the ‘Never Trumper’—A Biblical Case for Trump.” The author introduces herself thus:

I fit the classic profile of a “Never Trumper.” I am a highly educated, staunchly theologically and politically conservative pastor’s wife, who plans to one day homeschool her children. I even want to be a “Never Trumper.” I really do. It sounds so principled, so brave, to be a political nonconformist who refuses to buckle under the weight of societal temptation, or fall under the spell of the big mouthed billionaire with his lofty promises for a better future. I CANNOT, however, allow myself [to] ignore the principles laid out in the Word of God for situations such as the political debacle Americans have unfortunately found themselves in.

Her tone throughout the article is confrontational, her logic is confusing at best, and the accusations she freely hurls at Mrs. Clinton are unsupported. As the title suggests, her target audience is voters in the “Never Trump” movement, which means she’s speaking to Republicans who don’t like Donald Trump. Unlike Wayne Grudem (whose article she references at the end of her own), this writer does not deny any of the negative charges against Trump; in fact, the above quotation suggests that she agrees with those charges, as does this one:

I would first ask you to remember that we are NOT electing Trump to a sacred or ecclesiastical office. We are electing him to a political office. If this was a question of placing Trump in charge of my church or Christian organization, you would have to hogtie and hold me down in order to get me to vote for him. I am not arguing for Trump’s morality here.

I am simply stating that in this specific office, as President, he has gone to great lengths to demonstrate that he will protect and champion the rights of the American evangelical if he were to be elected, even if he does not personally embrace those values. . . . He has even organized a “faith advisory committee” comprised of some of the most respected Christian leaders in America.

Note that she has omitted how Mr. Trump will “protect and champion the rights of the American evangelical.” Could it be because he has never told us how he intends to carry out any of his “plans”?

Going on to address the “lesser of two evils” that we’ve heard so much about, she says:

The difference is that one “evil” has promised to do his best to protect your right to worship freely, and one has promised to do everything within her power to suppress them. You may argue that Trump will turn tail and act against Christians once elected. You are absolutely right. He could. We can be CERTAIN, however, that Hillary will do her best to destroy what little sense of decency we have left.

Am I the only one who missed the parts of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign speeches where she says she plans to suppress our right to worship freely and to destroy our sense of decency? And I’m curious what “them” is in line 3, that says Mrs. Clinton has promised to “suppress them.”

There’s more:

Never Trumper…get over yourself. This isn’t about your personal likes or dislikes. This is about the future of your children. If you aren’t willing to overcome your personal chagrin that an outsider could come in and do your job for you, then you have no one to blame but yourself when Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected.

Following that statement is a list of things which Never Trumpers will have lost the right to complain about if Mrs. Clinton is elected: the right to act as a martyr when she comes after your right to speak freely about issues such as homosexuality and the exclusivity of the Gospel; third-trimester abortions; future liberal supreme court rulings; your pastor being imprisoned for hate speech crimes; losing your right to bear arms and having to fret about the safety of your family.

I admit I am disturbed by third-trimester abortions, but I guess I fell asleep during the time Mrs. Clinton was talking about destroying our sense of decency, imprisoning our pastors, and taking away everyone’s guns.

And finally, here’s the wrap-up:

I am not arguing that Trump is a great man.

I am not even arguing that Trump is a good man.

I am arguing that in the words of Christ Himself, God can use an individual that is “not one of us” to further His purposes and protect His people.

I am arguing that in this time, and in this particular circumstance as the only nominee for Republican Party, Trump is the RIGHT man to serve as President of the United States.

So it seems this author is admitting that Donald Trump is all of the awful things we know he is but believes Jesus can use him anyhow to protect and defend us. I’d like to know a little more about how anyone can know that Jesus is behind a political candidate, but I guess I’ll have to wait for her sequel.

Her “argument” is, of course, sprinkled liberally with cherry-picked Bible verses because no self-respecting evangelical would dare debate those. If you want to “prove” something, just pick a verse–any verse.

https://lastchanceamerica.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/to-the-never-trumper-a-biblical-case-for-trump/

So far, the only “moral” arguments that have been advanced in favor of electing Donald Trump as president are based solely on the facts that he’s not Hillary Clinton and he’s not a Democrat. I saw a comment on social media this week calling the Democratic Party the “Party of Satan.” And most evangelicals I know, even if they don’t use such strong language, seem to agree with that statement at least in sentiment. It goes without saying that the standard bearer of the Party of Satan must then be Satan herself, which also seems to be a widely shared sentiment among evangelicals. That neither of those judgments can be substantively supported has not deterred any of those who continue to piously proclaim them.

Okay, I get it. You will never vote for a Democrat, especially not that Democrat. If the Republican Party nominates a hamster, you will swallow hard and vote for the hamster because it’s a Republican. Whatever! But can we at least be honest? Do whatever you have to do to be at peace with your conscience. Vote for the person who in no way represents your moral code if you feel you must. But puh-leeze spare the rest of us the ridiculous mental gymnastics of trying to convince yourself that what you’re doing is in harmony with your stated beliefs. It’s not.

 

*Note: I belong to the Christian faith, but I am not an evangelical. I am a mainstream Protestant.

 

 

 

Categories
Religion

Time to Come Out of the Bubble

Since my undergrad days in college, this has been one of my favorite quotations from John Milton:

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”

“Fugitive” means on the lam, living in seclusion, hiding. “Cloistered” means isolated, closed off from the outside world and ignoring its existence and its influence; monasteries and convents are cloisters. “Virtue,” of course, is the best human qualities—those deserving of our respect and praise. But Milton says he cannot praise or respect a fugitive, cloistered virtue: that which is exemplified by people who live in isolation, who listen only to those who agree with them, whose every moment of life is spent in a controlled environment. And why does he not praise that kind of goodness? Because it’s never met its adversary, never “sallies out” or leaves the bubble long enough to see firsthand who its opponents are. It’s “unexercised”; it’s never flexed its muscles against a real opponent—just shouted from its safe little hiding place, reinforced by those likeminded people who share the cloister.

Milton says such people “[slink] out of the race,” the arena where the prize has to be won. And he says “that immortal garland” is available, but it comes at a price. You can’t win it from the safety of the sidelines; it can be won only by enduring the “dust and heat.” You’re going to have to get dirty.

Remind you of anyone you know? In the last few decades, this quotation has come to mind often as I have witnessed a group of people who in my opinion exemplify this description perfectly and who as a result have lost much of their effectiveness: evangelical Christians. Let me hasten to say I am a Christian, so I look at this subject not as an outsider but as one who loves the Christian faith and feels the wounds it is inflicting upon itself. In the eyes of those outside our faith, we’re all the same, even though of course in reality there are wide and deep differences among self-identified followers of Jesus.

I recall a good Christian friend telling me her husband—an ordained minister—was hesitant to attend certain Bible studies because “there are too many Christians there.” Obviously, he was also a Christian, but he recognized the pitfall of spending all his time exchanging affirmations with likeminded people. One does not learn to argue a case by speaking only to people who are already on one’s side. When you’re ready to exercise your faith, flex your muscles a bit, you have to talk to those who don’t share your view, AND you have to listen to them. Really listen.

Yet I know many people today who never “sally forth” from their cloister and enter the arena where the real race is taking place and where the prize is available to those brave enough to enter the fray. Their only news sources are Fox News and a few others approved by the grand poohbahs of evangelicalism. They have their own books. They have their Rush Limbaughs and their Glenn Becks who whip them into a frenzy and make them believe they’re staying informed. They have their own schools and colleges from kindergarten through baccalaureate—and beyond when possible—to protect them from hearing anything which contradicts their world view. And for the last few decades, they’ve had their own political party. Democrats are a tiny minority in most churches, and they’re usually viewed with great suspicion.

These Christians think they’re “fighting the good fight,” but in reality, they possess few effective weapons because all they ever listen to is what they already believe to be true, and the only people with whom they regularly interact are people who already think and believe exactly as they do. The evidence cited for their arguments is almost exclusively passages from the Bible, which are utterly wasted on their opponents. I taught my writing students the principle that evidence has to be accepted by the audience or it’s worthless. Think about it. If someone does not accept the Bible as an authority, you could quote the whole thing, Genesis to Revelation, and your audience would still be unconvinced because in their minds it’s not a valid source. So you can assume a huffy superiority and condemn the audience as ungodly people unworthy of your time, you can retreat into your cloister to pray they will eventually see the light and accept the Bible as proof (Good luck on that!), OR you can educate yourself (“sally forth”) on material whose validity is accepted by your audience. You don’t have to change your position, just know how to make someone see your point and maybe change their mind. I know that takes a lot more work, but it also has a better chance of winning you that “immortal garland” of success.

Time to come out of the bubble and into the arena. Live in the real world. Accept that the world has changed and that no one has all the answers to every situation. Accept that no one has a monopoly on knowing the mind of God. Read. Think. Talk to some people you don’t agree with and maybe don’t even like. Learn from them. And then just maybe you’ll win a prize or two.