The other day, listening to the OnScript podcast, I listened to professor Iain Provan explain how to transition from a literal interpretation of the Bible to one one that literarily looks at the Bible. I wondered what this could mean?
Thankfully, scripture and the poetic imagination opens the door to answering that question but in reverse. As David Lyle Jeffrey puts it, the book’s purpose is to “explore some of the ways Holy Scripture has shaped the English poetic imagination…” (p. xii). Starting with Caedmon and walking us through Dante, Chaucer and others, we examine the influence of scripture throughout the world of English literature. The implications are profound: “God does not talk like a lawyer, philosopher, or even a theologian… Very often… he speaks like a poet” (p. 10).
The experience is transformative. Understanding the Bible itself as literature can move us away from that myopic way in which a “literal” reading removes the imagination itself from scripture. And through reverse osmosis, Jeffrey shows us that in fact, the original poet is God himself—perhaps all of the Bible (much like poetry) deserves a keen eye toward its refreshing form, synthesis and arrangement.
Jeffrey, of course, has a different project in mind. He opens up the world of literature to readings that may be forgotten or cast aside in modernity. Those readings root themselves in the Bible.
Yet, we do get lost in the project as a whole. The book is arranged as a series of somewhat discursively placed essays that open windows into discrete biblical passages and authors and it’s possible to miss the global view of Jeffrey’s thesis. This book might be better suited for the classroom than for casual reading. His Epilogue brings us back and is a beautiful lament on the diminishing Biblical literacy of students, teachers and literary critics. We are missing out on the truth of literature when we become so estranged from its scriptural roots and for this, I admire Jeffrey’s work.
Publisher : Baker Academic Publication date : April 16, 2019
I was enthralled by the first few chapters of Kristin Du Mez’ new book. Here was a sweeping historiography of Evangelicalism through the lens of gender. I was ready to enter my own deconstruction following the book but in the end, it’s just not that shocking, even if it’s fun as hell to read. Yet, as a critique of Evangelical Christianity, it’s unparalleled.
If you’re looking for a book that’s well written and explores the roots of our current “white Evangelical crisis,” then this is a terrific starting point. Just don’t expect a true history. I can see why so many academic reviewers have given this book and its critique of Christian nationalism, a platform and high marks to boot. I also see why the negative critiques of this book generally point to its lack of solutions to the problem of Christian nationalism among white Evangelicals. The response that many have is, it’s a history and that’s not the historian’s role. But it’s not.
It certainly is a controversial book. Michael Young’s critique is entitled, “When Activism Masquerades as History,” because Du Mez is relentless in her critique and less so in her creed. While I don’t have the stomach to sit her and deconstuct the endless critiques from Evangelical pundits, I am going to say that many of them are reactionary and wrong.
Du Mez’ book is a jeremiad of Evangelical leaders’ failings over the years and I’m happy to read it as almost prophetic. Like the Old Testament, it falls right into that Jewish tradition of critique from within, which N.T. Wright is fond of referencing.
The bigger issue, and I’ll be brief, if only to insert another voice into this discourse, is that Du Mez is captive to a serious problem: seeing history as being guided by a series of heroic individuals (or in this case, fallen heroic individuals). I am less convinced that her methodology is appropriate as a history, than those who spend their time wondering why she can’t see the bright side of Evangelicalism. What I mean is, do the case studies that Du Mez hits on really reflect Evangelicalism as a whole? Is she trying to say that each individual she highlights somehow led Evangelicals into the next iteration of their movement. The question needs to be answered because I am still unclear of Falwell made the moral majority or the moral majority made Falwell. That is something we never hear from Du Mez and it’s troubling… if she’s writing history. She’s not.
As a cultural critique, the book is perfect and we can stop pretending that it needs to be historiography. My assumptions going in were challenged and I felt renewed by Du Mez’ eloquent patchwork of historical snapshots. It’s more like a book by Randall Balmer than George Marsden, so let’s treat it as such and respond accordingly. I highly recommend.
Publisher : Liveright (June 23, 2020) Publication date : June 23, 2020
Evangelical Christians have overwhelmingly thrown their support toward Donald Trump. Is this a tenable position for this fairly conservative camp of Jesus followers? It is possible that we now identify so strongly with this leader that when push comes to shove, we are willing to do anything to re-elect him out of fear for the alternative and devotion to the path we’ve chosen. When will we decide to break free?
Sheep Amongst Wolves
On the morning of October 9, 2016, the Evangelical world awoke to an unexpected surprise. I texted a friend: Did you hear? Wayne Grudem recanted his endorsement of Donald Trump. I was delighted.
The now infamous video of Donald Trump leaked and caused an uproar. You know the one. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.…Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything…” he said.
Even the Wall Street Journal reported Grudem’s defection from the coterie of Christian Republicans lining up behind Trump:
“I [Wayne Grudem] previously called Donald Trump a ‘good candidate with flaws’ and a ‘flawed candidate’ but I now regret that I did not more strongly condemn his moral character…I cannot commend Trump’s moral character, and I strongly urge him to withdraw from the election.”[1]
Grudem is the author of Evangelical Christianity’s most widely circulated systematic theology textbook. His stamp on the public brand of Evangelicalism is nearly as indelible as individuals like John Piper, Jerry Falwell Jr. or Tim Keller. While I have never found Grudem’s theology compelling or satisfying to read, I can at least credit him as a seminal figure in the Evangelical movement that I grew up in and still cling to.
Trump’s candidacy was lately testing my resolve to affiliate with Evangelicalism (and certainly with Republicanism). For all of its beauty and freedom, I was finding that so many of my mentors, pastors and faith leaders were willingly pinning their faith to a highly questionable figure. Where will this man take our movement? I wondered. What other foibles may come to light? (We have since come to learn there are many and we have had to defend each one with the same ferocity that we supported the candidate Trump—otherwise, our public proclamations, that God quite literally chose Donald Trump, would be wrong, right?)
Two weeks after Grudem’s anti-endorsement, he wrote another article. In that article, Grudem unexpectedly flipped:
“[…] I overwhelmingly support Trump’s policies […]. Again and again, Trump supports the policies I advocated in my 2010 book Politics According to the Bible.”[2]
The air came out of my already withering balloon. All of this had followed Grudem’s July 28, 2016 article, entitled, “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice”[3] (emphasis mine).
Confused? Me too.
On the one hand, Christians of my ilk told me, it’s not about Trump’s morality, it’s only about his policies. On the other hand, it was definitely about morality. Those castigating me for being a never-Trumper were not bothered by me from a political standpoint, they were bothered by my lack of “Christian character;” I could not join them in choosing the moral (good) choice and vote for the man who would protect religious liberty, steer us away from the moral rot of our society, and of course, deregulate and shrink the government. Not to mention, he was chosen by God. This whole choice, everything at stake in our world, was shoe horned into an unhelpful normative binary—Trump (good), Hilary (evil) / Trump voter (good), Hilary voter (evil). What is a (conservative) Christian to do when faced with this kind of dilemma?
Shrewd as Serpents
The main argument chosen by Evangelicals was: “I’m picking the lesser of two evils.”
This partially explains the vacillation in Grudem between Trump support and Trump distaste. In my opinion, moral choices are more difficult than principled, pure political choices. Perhaps we can excuse Grudem for his lack of clarity. It’s much easier to compartmentalize our political actions away from our views of morality and faith (at least, sometimes). Furthermore, there was a lot to weigh that October and not a lot of certainty about America’s future. For instance, this was also an inflection point for the politically correct movement sweeping across college campuses—one year prior, a viral video of a Yale student yelling at her professor on the college’s green was seen by many of us. The professor’s sin? His wife (a lecturer at Yale) had sent an email encouraging students to feel free to wear whatever they choose on Halloween, untethered from its potential to offend. The professor’s wife wrote:
Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious … a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.[4]
But electing a leader is never as simple as we want it to be. A leader is a representative of us as a people. America’s political system does not split power between a head of state and a constitutional monarch. In England, at least the monarchy can stand independently for the inherent character of the country, freeing up the Prime Minister to be somewhat independent as a political actor, rather than as a symbolic figure. Neither is this the type of monarchy or kingship that we find in the Old Testament. For instance, King Cyrus’ subjugation of the Kingdom of Judah was foisted upon the Hebrew people. So there is no direct analogy to our predicament, biblical or otherwise. In the Old Testament’s case, obviously render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Yet, in the United States, we have an altogether different political system. Americans have choices. We live in a constitutional republic and exercise indirect control of not only our head of state, but the moral heart of our nation.
I’m not digressing here. This is something that really resonates with Evangelicals! To understand us, you need to understand how frightened we are of losing the battle over speech—the word, “evangelical” itself is comes from the word “messenger.” The crisis at Yale was boiled down to a battle for free speech on liberal arts campuses. The backlash from Yale’s student body was strong (as you can see from the video); so strong that the recorded encounter was not even against the author of the upsetting message, it was against her husband. The lecturer resigned and eventually, so did her husband. The video, emblazoned upon conservative news sites and spotlighted on television broadcasts, understandably sparked outrage and spooked recalcitrant Evangelicals. And it was not isolated—events at Brown and Georgetown gained national publicity around this time as conservative-leaning speakers were shunned or run off campuses. We (Evangelicals) were determined to end the reign of political correctness and reclaim our birthright in the White House, a Constantinian moment for a people on the verge of total repression. Along comes a brash, unfiltered, tweet-spewing heap of Capitalistic “success,” Donald Trump. Be shrewd as serpents we thought.
We live in a constitutional republic and exercise indirect control of not only our head of state, but the moral heart of our nation.
Our president more than a political leader, he/she is a symbol of the American people. Do you disagree? I am curious to know what you would (or did) find yourself thinking during Bill Clinton’s impeachment. I can say that many Evangelicals who are able to make the political / moral leader separation in 2020 could not in the 1990s. Bill Clinton was not fit to be president after his complete moral failure in the oval office. It’s unnecessary for me to go into the various religious leaders who called for his resignation or impeachment (many of them in the Evangelical camp). We all know this happened and we will tie ourselves in knots to explain why 2016 and/or 2020 is different from 1998.
In choosing this political, moral, and ideological leader, we generally get two choices. Yet, reducing an election down to a moral binary simply to fit our broken two-party political system is not going to satisfy the moral demands on each of us as torch-bearers of virtue in the 21st century. That is heartless pragmatism if you ask me. Do you actually think Jesus Christ could have voted for either of Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump? My heart tells me He would not even have voted. It would be a step in the direction of compromise for someone who cares not of the kingdoms of this earth.
If we run the two choices through our moral framework, we end up with two very unsatisfying results. You can vote for Hilary and a very questionable track record of honesty and integrity as a public figure (not to mention her marriage to a highly problematic public figure). Or, you can vote for Trump and essentially endorse a very problematic track record of honesty and integrity as a business person and now, a political leader.
Two ethically dubious choices aside, they cancel out each other’s morality and we look to their policy choices, I guess. This is Grudem’s approach: choose the lesser of two evils.
Grudem knows that Trump is not a good guy and that this choice is lose-lose. He knows that the election is ultimately a moral failure—that is why he allows himself to publicly flip-flop from endorsement to anti-endorsement to endorsement in the space of three months. This is also the actual reason for Evangelical disdain of never-Trumpers. Get off your high horse! They say. Vote for the candidate who will protect your religious liberty and appoint supreme court justices to do the same. Bonus: abortion might be abolished and churches will remain tax exempt. Double bonus: the candidate will push back against political correctness and protect gun rights.
Innocent as Doves
I can definitely see a world where voting for Donald Trump could be an extension of one’s faith—I’m sympathetic to the view. In Ben Howe’s book, The Immoral Majority, he presents a theory known as a “graded absolutism.” In this approach, the right choice between two evils would be the lesser evil.[5] For instance, he says, James 2:25 praises Rahab for lying when hiding the spies sent to Jericho in the book of Joshua. James says, “And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” Likewise, Samson’s destruction of the temple and suicide was viewed as righteous in the eyes of God. Clearly, a moral choice can come in the form of an immoral act when the immoral act’s ends are ultimately a right action.
But Ben is quick to point out that in reality, God’s sovereignty would be effected through either a Trump or a Clinton presidency. My problem is that the base justification for voting for Trump was not about right versus wrong, it was about self-interest and power. We wanted power. We wanted it bad. It had been ours for years and we wanted it again.
We wanted power. We wanted it bad. It had been ours for years and we wanted it again.
If the choice were indeed one of the lesser of two evils, we would not be defending Trump’s obviously immoral actions to this day. We would detach ourselves from the president, recognize his failings and pray for new leadership in 2020. Instead, we have doubled down on a Trump presidency…in for a penny, in for a pound.
We have pinned our hopes as Evangelicals to a set of political aspirations. We have also unfortunately pinned them to a political party fraught with moral failure and in this case, an immoral individual.
Why? Fear. We are afraid of marginalization. Thankfully, the Bible offers some helpful guidance on this issue:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death / I will fear no evil / for you are with me / your rod and your staff / they comfort me.
Psalm 23, vv. 3-4
He will not let your foot slip– he who watches over you will not slumber;
Psalm 121:3
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. […]
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Luke 12:22-34
You, of course, know these verses. We all do. Fear is a universal problem and one that our God forcefully opposes. Fear drives humanity toward countless selfish acts. Most recently, we hoarded toilet paper out of fear so that our posteriors might not be dirty for the duration of Coronavirus. We also hoarded masks (despite the fact that masks are not a preventive measure for the most part in terms of protecting oneself; they are preventative for protecting others). We were out for ourselves.
Yes, even Christians did this. We are trained in the art of fear. We can try to deprogram ourselves but our culture embeds it into us. Our media consumption teaches to us to fear the “other”: those who are stealing our jobs, those who are persecuting our religion, those who are changing our health care and those who wish to take away our guns. So what about the oft-quoted verses above? Are they working within us to yield fruits of gentleness, calm, courage, hope and love?
“First, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind.”[6] writes Marilynne Robinson. “We hear a great deal now about the drift of America away from a Christian identity […] But no one seems to have an unkind word to say about fear these days, unchristian as it surely is.”[7]
Instead of vanquishing fear, we harness it to fuel our political rhetoric. The habit was learned after years and years of reckless criticism of liberals and the factionalism that Barack Obama did little to assuage. Whether it is partially his fault or not is another story and we are not going to engage in the fallacy of “whataboutism.” Turning to the present, we rationalize the goodness of a President who managed to get Jerry Falwell Jr. to pose in front of a Playboy magazine cover.[8]
What is it that Screwtape says to Wormwood? “Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind.”[9] Tortured fear and stupid confidence; I would argue we, as Evangelicals, are likely stuck in both. We are tortured by the fear that our way of life, our corner on the American tapestry is being rend from us (or has been). We are confident that Donald Trump is the answer. In Franklin Graham’s words, “[Donald Trump] may go down in history as one of the best presidents we’ve had.”[10] Wow. I’ve been religiously reading presidential biographies for more than a year now and it takes very little imagination to place Trump in the bottom half (at least) in terms of accomplishments.
If I am applying the biblical framework I’ve been taught and believe, I’d say that God has definitely used Donald Trump for good. I am not interested in making this article into a partisan tirade so I see very little value in a debate about Trumpian policies but let’s all acknowledge that each president can be praised for some of the work they do, no matter how loathsome we find them. Instead of tempering our assessment of Donald Trump, however, we continue to double down on the hyperbole. Two years after Franklin wrote the above, he said, “[…] God put [Trump] in this position […] We need to get behind him and support him.”[11] Well of course! God places every President in a position of power. I also believe that about each supervisor I’ve had, even the challenging ones. It goes without saying that God’s sovereign will rules over each and every presidential election. That does not mean that God thinks Donald Trump is “good.” It’s also an argument against making election decisions with fear as our motivation. There would be no need for Franklin in 2018 to continue his apologia of Trump from 2016, except that his original claim was off the charts laudatory. You cannot really backtrack something like that so he doubles down in 2018 and continues the wild assertions that 45 is fulfilling a biblical mandate. Our fear drove us into this decision and now we are slaves to it—we have gone so far that we cannot extricate ourselves from identification with the broader Republican party. Thomas Kidd puts this really nicely in Who is an Evangelical?: “White evangelicals’ uncritical fealty to the GOP is real, and that fealty has done so much damage to the movement that it is uncertain whether the term evangelical can be rescued from its political and racial connotations.”[12]
We fear a future as powerless, ineffectual Christians who will be attacked from every side by a relentless army of “social justice warriors” and coastal elites. We become servants of the future and forget about the present. Screwtape says, “[The Future] is known to [humans], so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.” The amorphous future is where Evangelical Christians have lost the battle for their souls. We battle phantoms conjured up by our media, our pastors, our families and our friends. Pew polls indicate that while we concern ourselves a little about President Trump’s personal conduct, we are pleased with how he has furthered our interests.[13] He is living up to the promise, assuaging our fears and giving us hope for the future. Ben Howe writes, “It’s not that [Trump supporters] can’t acknowledge that something that Trump did or said is sinful. Its that when he errs, they seem to feel obligated to shield him from consequences in service of the greater good they imagine he serves.”[14] We are winning. Our fear is subsiding. Therefore, we think, God is watching over us.
The only problem is that we have lost something critically important to us: we no longer value morality.
Growing up in an Evangelical Midwestern home, “morality” always helped to make the distinction between a personal relationship with Christ and nominal Christianity. This was because I grew up in a sharply divided Catholic / Protestant region of the country. There were German towns and there were Scandinavian towns. Or in other words, there were Catholics and there were Lutherans. We jibed Catholics for being overly concerned with ritual—white-washed tombs I suppose. You go to church, receive the Eucharist, attend confession and otherwise live life without the all-important process of sanctification really taking root (I should mention that there is some very old-school Catholic v. Lutheran prejudice in this view). Protestants, on the other hand, had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Right action was not faith itself, it was the outpouring of faith and the fruit of sanctification. Morality grew out of our relationship with God and thus was important in the sense that it reflected our inner hearts. In so many cases, morality was also purifying our hearts. The process of sanctification was a two-way street—you make moral choices because you have the Holy Spirit working within you and you make moral choices in order to have the Holy Spirit working within you. Although, “right choice” is never required to precede salvation and you are not saved by works—that message is the very heart of Protestantism. You receive the grace of salvation, accept it and now you practice something called morality (and to connect with more ancient ideas, I would argue that morality is the ethical application of what is being cultivated underneath, that is, virtue). The faith was dynamic, real, and growing, rather than ritualistic and compulsory.
The only problem is that we have lost something critically important to us: we no longer value morality.
This became very real during Bill Clinton’s impeachment. I was told that Clinton was not “fit” for the presidency. It was not because he was a bad president (thought plenty of people believed that to be so, as well). It was because he committed a moral failure. That moral failure indicated his underlying failure of faith. Our nation’s acceptance of that moral failure indicated our Christian nation’s underlying failure of faith. In a Jamesian sense, the fruits of and evidence of a real and living faith were just not there.
We have this preoccupation with morality as Protestants because it is our Achilles heel. Free grace does not make sense to us and so we constantly offer explanations for the tension and mystery behind striving for something we do not need (morality) and something we are freely given (grace). We are saved by faith, not by action and so Paul’s words in Romans 6 ring all the clearer for Protestants:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?[15]
And it is normal for us to project our preoccupation with morality onto the rest of our society. It is our barometer of faith and faithfulness. Why not hold up our political leaders to the same test (where possible)? In N.T. Wright’s formulation, we practice this morality not for its own sake, but for the sake of living in a future kingdom where righteousness will abound. We look forward to an eternal dwelling place of right action and right thought, the deepest manifestations of our true faith in Jesus Christ and his sanctifying power.
What I am attempting to say is: we care about morality and that is because we care about what comes out of a person’s heart. And I think that’s right! We should care. Else, are we to continue to sin that grace may abound? No. We want our actions to reflect our underlying morality, the virtue we cultivate and which guides us (and is guided by us) as we draw closer to Jesus Christ. This is not a controversial claim. This is what it means to be a Protestant. Yet, as Ben Howe writes, “[…] we have taken to confronting immorality by becoming immoral. But because our immorality is intended to stop an objectively worse immorality, we reason that it is not immoral.”[16]
It’s essentially a form of moral relativism. In 2016, we used Hilary Clinton as our moral plumb line–easy choice, thought many Christians, I’ll vote for Donald Trump. If we actually cared about morality, both choices meant turning a blind eye to righteous leadership. In order to vote, we had to forget everything we once said about Bill Clinton and frown our way through a tough decision.
In 2020, I now detect a smile.
Morality in the Present
“[The Enemy] does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His idea is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or abet the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see.”[17]
It is strange to call for morality amidst a group of Protestants. Some would say that I’m stepping into Pelagianism, as if we can find leaders who are pure or cleanse ourselves of moral failure. Let me be clear, I’m not. I am, however, telling you that morality and virtue matter. They matter in us and they matter in our leaders.
And if I may, this is more than just about being “nice” people. To hell with niceness. This is about our collective role as the body of Christ. God calls us to be more than the binary choice that American politics offers us, Republican or Democrat. I look forward to the day when I tell others I am a Christian before I confess that I am a Republican. And I look forward to the day when I can confess that I am a Christian without then having to defend closed borders or tax cuts. When we support a singular party, or someone like Donald Trump, we are in actuality not simply supporting his policies, we support the man himself and the ideologies behind the party. Go ahead and vote for him! But end it there. Do not defend him. Do not defend Republicanism. Do not defend Trump’s obvious misconduct. Do not defend his callous heart. Do not praise him for his vulgarity in the guise of “straight-talk.” Defend the principles of Christ—caring for the poor and needy, healing the sick, generosity, patience, the dignity of life (at all costs). Care for the prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers etc. Jesus does not have a political valence to Him except to shun over identification with what amounts to ruling factions around Him. He is so clearly part of the political system of the Kingdom of God that he is essentially executed for undermining the political order.
I firmly believe Jesus Christ’s public rhetoric today would avert any identification with our political system. He was truly independent. When we over identify and build into our systems of identity the acerbic hatred of either camp, we begin to look a lot less like Christians and a lot more like Republicans or Democrats.
Just read this succinct exposition of our problem from the The Atlantic with an open mind (i.e. without casting it off as the “main stream media”). This beginning quotation is George W. Bush calling for national unity in combating COVID-19. Peter Wehner shared this story:
“In the final analysis,” [George Bush] said, “we are not partisan combatants; we are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God.” Bush concluded, “We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.”
That was too much for Trump, who attacked his Republican predecessor on (where else?) Twitter: “[Bush] was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”
So think about that for a minute. George W. Bush made a moving, eloquent plea for empathy and national unity, which enraged Donald Trump enough that he felt the need to go on the attack.
But there’s more. On the same weekend that he attacked Bush for making an appeal to national unity, Trump said this about Kim Jong Un, one of the most brutal leaders in the world: “I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!”
Then, Sunday night, sitting at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial for a town-hall interview with Fox News, Trump complained that he is “treated worse” than President Abraham Lincoln. “I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen,” Trump said.
By Monday morning, the president was peddling a cruel and bizarre conspiracy theory aimed at MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a Trump critic, with Trump suggesting in his tweet that a “cold case” be opened to look into the death of an intern in 2001.
Must every issue become partisan? Stop blaming the media and start thinking about yourself, your relationship to media and what it means to be an independent thinker and an independent follower of Jesus. I think Tim Keller is a great example of someone we can look to on this point. “[W]hile believers can register under a party affiliation and be active in politics, they should not identify the Christian church or faith with a political party as the only Christian one.”[18] The Church in the United States simply cannot ally with one of the political parties in a way that preserves its freedom to be GOOD. Keller writes, “Increasingly, political parties insist that you cannot work on one issue with them if you don’t embrace all of their approved positions.”[19] He’s right.
Fear. It drives our political affiliations. Fine. Should it drive our faith?
So why do we find ourselves in certain political groups? We certainly have a natural affinity for worldviews that match our upbringing or that accord with our belief systems. That is fine. But what is driving what—is your faith driving your politics or is your politics driving your faith?
Jonathan Weiler, a professor at the University of North Carolina, writes, “Of the many factors that make up your worldview, one is more fundamental than any other in determining which side of the divide you gravitate toward: your perception of how dangerous the world is. Fear is perhaps our most primal instinct, after all, so it’s only logical that people’s level of fearfulness informs their outlook on life. In his book, Why We’re Polarized, Ezra Klein picks up this thread. He argues that we can really predict your political affiliation based on your openness to new experiences (inversely, based on your fear of new experiences).[20] Fear. It drives our political affiliations. Fine. Should it drive our faith?
I do not think that I am ready to allow Republicans, Democrats or others dictate my belief in the very thing that holds our universe together. You can try and diagnose the state of my soul based on me not voting for Donald Trump if you’d like—that seems like a worthy use of your attention if only to prove my point. My salvation is certainly not tied to either choice and when I enter the ballot box in October, I will merely be selecting a ruler for this nation, which will one day pass away. The choice is so much less than a litmus test for who I am in Christ but, as in all things, only if I let it be such a small thing. Render unto Caeser. I am glad to say that I voted for neither Trump nor Hilary. It was a personal choice and I think it fits with Tim Keller’s quote above—no party can satisfy my heart’s longing for God’s justice in this world and neither candidate even came close. I think we are better than this. Thomas Kidd write, “Perhaps I am naïve in to hope that there remains a core of practicing orthodox evangelicals who really do care more about salvation and spiritual matters than access to Republican power.”[21] Let’s prove him right.
Perhaps I am naïve in to hope that there remains a core of practicing orthodox evangelicals who really do care more about salvation and spiritual matters than access to Republican power.
Thomas Kidd, Who is an Evangelical?
Vote for Trump. Vote for Biden. Whatever. Just go into that ballot box with the magnitude of the decision in the right order of priority. You are not battling for the soul of America. You are battling for the fruits of the spirit to pour out of you. You are not battling the immigrants coming into the United States. You are battling for compassion in your own life. You are not battling for welfare cuts. You are battling for generosity. You are not battling for free speech. You are battling to take every thought captive for Christ. You are not battling for America, you are battling for your place in the Kingdom of God.
I am calling us to attend to our hearts, now, as people who have nothing to fear. The psychological dimension of our political choices shows me that, as Evangelicals, we allow our minds to be taken captive not by our faith in Christ but by whatever alternative media we see as “objective.” Of course, that is another story for another time.
Final Thoughts
What I do not want as a takeaway is that politics don’t matter. They do. They just don’t matter as much we think they do.
What is problematic is all of the ways in which our society has become politicized. Have you ever been asked for change by someone without a home? It’s easy to brush this off when we are alone but when other Christian are present, we always make sure to protect our moral image by saying something like, “I only give food to homeless people” or “he’ll just spend it on alcohol.” A small discussion on the political implications of welfare ensues. Both Christians move on nodding their heads in agreement.
That’s weak. I know it’s easy and rational but it’s weak. Giving a poor person money is not, at its core, a political issue. As with most policy decisions, there is first an ideology that must guide a policy. When we speak about political action, we should always check whether we are stepping first through the Gospel and then into the world. Not the other way around. We tend to politicize these kinds of issues because we want a solution. So much of politics offers detached, objective and simple solutions to our heart’s desire for wholeness in a world that feels fractured–politics is a salve on the pervasive brokenness and fear we face.
I once went to see Gustavo Gutierrez speak at a Chicago hotel in the loop. Toward the end of the discussion, a businessman in the back asked a question: what am I supposed to do about poverty? Give everyone I meet on the street a dollar? I’d be broke. The room, filled with rather progressive Christians (as you might imagine), went silent. I hate to break it to the conservative Evangelicals out there but that is how we should probably respond to such a question–with stunned silence.
I know that my own knee-jerk reactions tend a lot more toward the businessman than toward compassion. Yet, our first response to poverty should not be political or personal pragmatism. It should be heartbreak. Likewise, our first response to lewdness, deception, selfish ambition, vulgarity and callousness should not be celebration, it should be heartbreak. So let us put first things first and let God throw in the rest.
Occasional thoughts to follow.
Footnotes:
[1] Lovett, Ian. “Evangelical Leader Wayne Grudem Pulls Endorsement of Donald Trump.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 10 Oct. 2016, www.wsj.com/articles/evangelical-leader-wayne-grudem-pulls-endorsement-of-donald-trump-1476066325.
[2] Grudem, Wayne. “If You Don’t Like Either Candidate, Then Vote for Trump’s Policies.” Townhall, Townhall.com, 19 Oct. 2016, townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/19/if-you-dont-like-either-candidate-then-vote-for-trumps-policies-n2234187.
[3] Grudem, Wayne. “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice.” Townhall, Townhall.com, 28 July 2016, townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564.
[4] Stack, Liam. “Yale’s Halloween Advice Stokes a Racially Charged Debate.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Nov. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/nyregion/yale-culturally-insensitive-halloween-costumes-free-speech.html.
[5] Howe, Ben. The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values. Broadside Books, 2020, p. 201.
[6] Robinson, Marilynne. The Givenness Of Things. Little, Brown, 2016, p. 125.
[8] This was not worth putting in the body my article but here is a link to the story and the photo itself: https://nypost.com/2016/06/22/falwell-dismisses-photo-of-him-trump-and-playboy-mag/. That is Jerry Falwell Jr. giving a thumbs-up next to Donald Trump and to the very right, you guessed it, Donald Trump posing for Playboy magazine. But it’s okay, his policies are 👍.
[9] Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters: with Screwtape Proposes a Toast. HarperCollins Publishers, 2002, p. 75.
[10] Gstalter, Morgan. “Franklin Graham: ‘I Think God Was behind the Last Election’.” TheHill, The Hill, 15 June 2019, thehill.com/homenews/administration/448687-franklin-graham-i-think-god-was-behind-the-last-election.
[11] “Billy Graham’s Son: God Put Trump in Office.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2018/05/04/billy-grahams-son-god-put-trump-office/34543485/.
[12] Kidd, Thomas S. Who Is an Evangelical?: the History of a Movement in Crisis. Yale University Press, 2020, location 2120.
[13] “Americans’ Views on Trump, Religion and Politics.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 17 Mar. 2020, www.pewforum.org/2020/03/12/white-evangelicals-see-trump-as-fighting-for-their-beliefs-though-many-have-mixed-feelings-about-his-personal-conduct/.
[18] Keller, Timothy. “How Do Christians Fit Into the Two-Party System? They Don’t.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/christians-politics-belief.html.
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