Why I don’t wish to jettison my identity as an Evangelical.
I consider myself a fairly progressive Christian. I’m not a fundamentalist by any means. Yet despite the conservative, nationalistic, basically bellicose movement of so-called Evangelicals in America today—that 80% of Evangelicals that proudly voted for and continue to support Donald Trump as President—I nonetheless don’t want to concede the identity or term Evangelical to those people. Even as a progressive Christian, I consider myself an Evangelical as I understand the meaning and root of the word “evangel.” The evangel or euangelion literally meant “good news.” The prefix eu- in Greek means “good” as in the idea of a eulogy in which good words are said about a person who has died. JRR Tolkien coined a word: eucatastrophe or “Good Catastrophe” to capture the sublime power and reality of the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus: Something so good, so salvific that it occurred with catastrophic effects destroying the power of death, and upending the reign of evil. I think of the evangel, or gospel of Jesus, as this. In this way, for me, authentic evangelicalism aligns itself with Jesus Christ Who came to lift up humans—all humans, not just white straight Americans—and save them from brokenness, rebellion, addictions, selfishness, pride, arrogance and their love of money (to name a few things). Moreover, Jesus came to save us for genuine compassionate works of mercy: feeding the hungry, clothing the ill-clothed, loving and protecting the young, supporting the marginalized in society, including those with sexual or gender identities not of the majority.
I don’t know why or how many (perhaps the majority) of people calling themselves evangelicals in America can support Donald Trump, or allege that he was or will be the “Christian candidate.” I was relieved to read the December 19th editorial by Mark Galli published on ChristianityToday.com in which he called for the removal of Donald Trump from the Presidency on grounds of his profound, continuing and unrepentant immoral and unethical behaviors. Galli expressed my concerns with the current climate. In answer to the current political and religious situation in America, it seems to me that the 80% Evangelical majority supporting Trump are not actually being “evangelical” in doing so, but really are supporting and believing in a type of American Civil Religion, and are imagining it as “evangelical.” When I studied history at Willamette University some 40 years ago, I read a book by Robert Bellah (The Broken Covenant) that explained what is meant by an American Civil Religion. An article from ChristianityToday.com explains the term:
In his seminal 1967 essay, sociologist Robert Bellah argued that the United States had "an elaborate and well-instituted civil religion," which existed "alongside of" and was "rather clearly differentiated from the churches." Also known as civic piety, religious nationalism, public religion, and the common faith, civil religion provides a religious sanction for the political order and a divine justification of and support for civic society and a nation's practices. It is the "state's use of consensus religious sentiments, concepts, and symbols for its own purposes." "As a system of established rituals, symbols, values, norms, and allegiances," civil religion functions as a social glue to bind people together and "give them an overarching sense of spiritual unity."
Civil religion involves beliefs (but no formal creed), events that seem to reveal God's purposes (most notably the American Revolution and the Civil War), prophets (especially Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln), sacred places (shrines to Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt; Bunker Hill; and Gettysburg), sacred texts (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address), ceremonies (Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day celebrations, and the pageantry of presidential inaugurals), hymns ("God Bless America" and "My Country, 'Tis of Thee"), and rituals (prayers at public events such as inaugurals and the beginnings of sessions of Congress and national days of prayer). By presiding over the nation's rituals and reaffirming its creeds, presidents have served as the prophets and priests of this civil religion. They have employed civil religion to unite Americans and to frame and win support for specific policies. ```https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-99/civil-religion-in-america.html
This employment of civil religion is being used by the Trump administration, and many within the Republican party to manipulate power and push through policies deemed “Christian.” It should be noted that many within the Democrat party use a different form of civil religion, at times, for their own purposes as well, although I would assert that in our current political climate the use of a particularly nationalistic, exclusive form of civil religion is being promoted by the self-proclaimed “sent from heaven” president. The issue of an American Civil Religion (ACR) goes back in history to the arrival and purposed immigration of the Puritans: to set up a society that would be a “city on a hill” for all the world to see. This way of looking at America borrows the idea of the chosen nation of Israel from the O.T. and applies it to our nation. Along with that transference of identity: America = Israel, came the Joshua texts, etc. that condoned the slaughter and annihilation of the Canaanites and other tribes of the region. The Puritans applied it to their relationships with most of the Native Tribes, and were able to justify the whole sale genocide of the Pequot Tribe in 1637 likening it to the cleansing of the land of Israel of false religions, etc. This sense of being special, and therefore a higher position in the world, is the essence of “Make America Great Again.” MAGA=ACR And modern day Evangelicals are falling hook, line and sinker with this formula, claiming it is biblical. But it is a misapplication/ misappropriation of Old Testament texts and images utterly devoid of the gospel and other New Testament stories of grace and humility.
Well, that’s what I’ve got for now. Blessings on you all.