Saviour-in-chief
Donald Trump’s Christian cheerleaders reveal the moral hypocrisy of the American Right
Donald Trump’s Christian cheerleaders reveal the moral hypocrisy of the American Right
In January, Donald Trump enacted some of the most oppressive visa, immigration, and refugee policies in the history of the United States. Those policies are an affront not only to American values, but also to the Biblical tenets that many Republicans claim to take as their inspiration. The Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, is replete with calls for the foreigner and stranger to be welcomed. Yet Franklin Graham, son of the iconic evangelist Billy Graham, backed Trump’s so-called Muslim ban and, in a Facebook post, praised the president for protecting his citizens.
It’s difficult to recall now, but not so long ago, Trump was regarded by the Christian Right as an enemy of the Almighty. Trump supported abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He was on his third wife, used profane language, had been accused of sexual assault, and seemed to have no problems whatsoever with the moral decay of God’s chosen United States of America.
Yet, in November, white evangelicals voted for the man in overwhelming numbers. Some conservative Catholic writers even debated whether Trump was “the new Constantine” — a reference to the first Christian emperor of the Roman world — and six faith leaders agreed to preach at his inauguration.
So to what do we attribute the white evangelical movement’s great epiphany, its political conversion on the road to Damascus? Answering that requires drawing some distinctions. The largest Christian population is, of course, Roman Catholic. Protestantism is made up of a number of denominations, but, broadly, we can split the Christian faith that broke from Catholicism in the sixteenth century along conservative and liberal lines. Liberal Protestants such as Anglicans, United and United Methodists, and many Lutherans and Presbyterians tend to have a more living, unfolding relationship with their faith — placing emphasis on Jesus’s love rather than the literal truth of Scripture. So on gay equality, reproductive rights, and immigration, their positions tend to trend left. As a result, the majority of liberal Protestants — as well as most black evangelicals — opposed Trump. Catholics were divided, as is usually the case. Conservative Protestants, however, are largely evangelical, and many believe in the strict interpretation of God’s word.
But none of this fully explains Trump’s almost complete and extraordinarily swift seduction of these white right-wing Christians. That’s because their vote, I would argue, was motivated not by doctrinal beliefs, but by the political and moral fetishes the group has nursed over the past half century. To put it bluntly, the Christian Right has a strange and quite nonBiblical obsession with what other people do with their genitalia.
Scripture never specifically mentions abortion, the Old Testament never refers to lesbianism, and the entire Bible brings up homosexuality — the word didn’t exist in the ancient world — only a handful of times. In fact, a number of theologians are convinced that there are Scripture passages that actually support same-sex relationships.
Yet many evangelical Christians in North America have made abortion and gay marriage the prism of their faith. A person is defined not by their commitment to neighbours, or acts of forgiveness and charity, but by a determined opposition to these “great sins” of modernity — a menu that also includes euthanasia and pornography.
Trump doesn’t say much about euthanasia, but he has suddenly become profoundly pro-life, even suggesting during the campaign that women who have abortions should be punished. He later backtracked on this, but anti-abortion blogs were full of praise for a man whom they saw as brave enough to speak truth to liberal power.
Because of his many statements expressing support for or indifference to LGBTQ issues, Trump found it far more difficult to perform a volte-face on the subject, so he surrounded himself with activists who
were proudly anti-gay and could “interpret” the leader to the masses. Oh, how eager to grasp that interpretation the masses were!
Even the more skeptical right-wing Christians who don’t buy Trump’s new persona know that he will likely appoint conservative judges such as Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and in some ways that’s more important to them than having a comrade in the Oval Office. It’s true that his refugee policy was denounced by a number of Christian groups that had supported him in the election, but I strongly suspect that, sooner or later, they will fall in line. Why? Because ultimately they want abortion to be overturned, same-sex marriage to be reversed, and socalled protection of religion legislation to be passed — all of which will allow Christians to discriminate against gay men and women in any number of ways. (It was reported that Trump had been preparing an executive order to roll back protections for LGBTQ people until urged otherwise by his daughter and son- in-law.) Accomplishing all of these goals will be a difficult, perhaps impossible task — even for the Supreme Court — but proponents of these changes will likely try. And Trump looks poised to support them. Remember, within three days of becoming president, he removed funding from any aid organization providing abortion education or facilities abroad. It was one of the first things he did.
One of the ironies of all of this is that Barack Obama, widely disliked by the Christian Right, was actually a man of deep Christian faith. He desperately wanted to reduce abortion rates, especially in innercity black communities, and he hoped to achieve this by making contraceptives readily available, providing good and modern sex education, empowering women, and working to reduce poverty. These policies have been staggeringly successful, but the Christian Right opposes sex education, has major concerns about contraceptives, and often stands against gender equality.
As for Trump’s personal life, the denial from his Christian friends regarding his un-christian conduct is remarkable even by fake-news standards. While Jesus doesn’t mention homosexuality, he is not a fan of divorce, and twice divorced is even worse. No matter, apparently. Trump’s attitudes toward women, sex, and morality were similarly downplayed. “We’re electing a president, not a minister” was the rallying cry. Yet it’s hard not to imagine these same people condemning a liberal or Democratic politician — Bill Clinton being a good example — who gets into trouble in those areas.
We see some of that hypocrisy in Canada, but what makes American evangelicalism different is its emphasis on exceptionalism. The belief that the US has a unique role to play in human history permeates much of American life, of course, but when mingled with ideas of predestination and being God’s chosen people, it overrides notions of mercy and humility. Thus the sweaty handshake between moral conservatism and hawkish foreign policy, gun ownership, and severe criminal justice. American Christian callousness is often so pronounced that being Christian has, alas, become a byword for intolerance. Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist pastor who preached at a private service for Trump on Inauguration Day, once called Islam an “evil religion” that “promotes pedophilia,” and accused Obama of “paving the way” for the anti-christ.
Christianity, however, is based on paradox. God on a cross, the powerful losing, the powerless tasting victory. As dreadful and painful as the Trump Christian experience may be, it has obliged some younger and more thoughtful evangelical Christians to question their church. These people are growing up with gay friends, know people who have had abortions, accept climate change as a self-evident fact, and manage to reconcile all of this with a God of love, grace, gentleness, and change. If the Left can listen to them, and if some meeting point can be found, there is a chance — though admittedly a distant one — that we could see a different voting pattern in an election or two.
In the meantime, Trump has grabbed conservative Christians by the, well, neck. Whether he is dragging them toward a New Jerusalem remains to be seen.
The belief that the US has a unique role to play in human history overrides notions of mercy and humility.