Losing Our Religion review: Trump and the crisis of US Christianity
Christianity and the “powers that be” have weathered two millennia, their relationship varying by time and place. Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to the cross. Emperor Constantine converted. Henry VIII broke from Rome and founded the Church of England. In the US, the denominational divides of protestantism helped drive the revolution and provided fuel for the civil war.
In his new book, the Rev Russell Moore opens a chapter, “Losing Our Authority: How the Truth Can Save”, with the words “Jesus Saves”, followed by a new historical tableau: January 6 and the threat Donald Trump and the mob posed to democracy and Mike Pence.
“That the two messages, a gallows and ‘Jesus Saves’ could coexist is a sign of crisis for American Christianity,” Moore writes.
Heading toward the Iowa caucus, Trump runs six points better among white evangelicals than overall. As for the devout Pence, a plurality of white evangelicals view him unfavorably.
Moore is mindful of history, and the roles Christianity has played: “Parts of the church were wrong – satanically wrong – on issues of righteousness and justice, such as the Spanish Inquisition and the scourge of human slavery.” He is editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, a publication founded by Billy Graham. Losing Our Religion offers a mixture of lament and hope. In places, its sadness is tinged with anger. In the south, the expression “losing my religion”, popularized by REM in a 1991 song, “conveys the moment when ‘politeness gives way to anger’,” Moore explains.
Moore’s public and persistent opposition to the election of Trump set him apart from most white evangelicals and would lead to his departure from the
Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
“The man on the throne in heaven is a dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking ‘foreigner’, who is probably not all that impressed by chants of “Make America great again,” Moore wrote in spring 2016. “Regardless of the outcome in November, [Trump’s] campaign is forcing American Christians to grapple with some scary realities that will have implications for years to come.”
He was prescient. Graham’s son, Franklin, threatened Americans with God’s wrath if they had the temerity to criticize Trump. At the time, Moore was president of the SBC ethics and religious liberty commission. His politics forced him to choose. He opted for Christ and his convictions. He joined a nondenominational church.
His new book is subtitled “An Altar Call for Evangelical America” but it aims for a broader audience. It contains ample references to Scripture, but also to the journalist Tim Alberta, Jonathan Haidt of New York University, Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, and Robert Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute, a liberal group.
Of white evangelicals, Moore quotes Jones: “Their greatest temptation will be to wield what remaining political power they have as desperate corrective for their waning cultural influence.” Welcome to the culture wars, and to what Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic has called the coalition of restoration.
Against the backdrop of rising Christian nationalism and January 6, Moore reads the writing on the wall. He is troubled by the shrinking gap between Christian nationalism and neopaganism. “The step before replacing Jesus with Thor is to turn Jesus into Thor,” he observes. Moore found the presence of prayers in “‘Jesus’s name’ right next to a horn-wearing pagan shaman in the well of the evacuated United States Senate” disturbing, but not coincidental.
The Magasphere and Twitterverse bolster Moore’s conclusions.
“President Trump will be arrested during Lent – a time of suffering and purification for the followers of Jesus Christ,” Joseph McBride, a rightwing lawyer who represents several insurrectionists, tweeted last March. “As Christ was crucified, and then rose again on the third day, so too will Donald Trump.”
Caesar as deity. We’ve seen that movie before. McBride, however, did not stop there.
Hours later, he tweeted: “JESUS LOVES DONALD TRUMP. JESUS DIED FOR DONALD TRUMP. JESUS LIVES INSIDE DONALD TRUMP. DEAL WITH IT.”
Three-in-10 adults in the US, meanwhile, are categorized as religious