The MAGA faithfulās resentments, malevolence and violence are a form of moral ruin. So why have so many American evangelicals signed on?
Michael Gerson presents a thoughtful analysis of how right-wing, WhiteĀ āChristiansā in the U.S. seem to have embraced the OPPOSITE of what Jesus preached. It was great to read this article because it clearly states everything that has been so confusing to me for years about the right-wingĀ āChristianā devotion to Trump.
Christās revolt against the elites could hardly be more different from the one we see today. Conservative evangelicalism has, in many ways, become the kind of religious tradition against which followers of Jesus were initially called to rebel. And because of the pivotal role of conservative Christians in our politics, this irony is a matter of urgency.
Having known evangelicals who live lives of moral integrity and serve others across lines of race and class, I have no intention of pronouncing an indiscriminate indictment. But all conservative Christians must take seriously a sobering development in Americaās common life. Many who identify with Jesus most loudly and publicly are doing the most to discredit his cause. The main danger to conservative churches does not come from bad laws ā it comes from Christians who donāt understand the distinctives, the demands and the ultimate appeal of their own faith.
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This development deserves some woes of its own:
Woe to evangelical hypocrisy. Given the evidence of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, the corruption and sexual scandal at Liberty University, the sex scandal in the Hillsong ministry, the sexual exploitation revealed in Ravi Zachariasās ministry, and the years of sexual predation at the (Christian) Kanakuk summer camps, Americans increasingly identify the word āevangelicalā with pretense, scandal and duplicity. In the case of the SBC, victims (mostly women) were ignored, intimidated, dismissed and demeaned. Many of the most powerful Southern Baptist leaders betrayed the powerless, added cruelty on top of suffering and justified their coverup as essential to Christian evangelism. How can hearts ostensibly transformed by Christ be so impervious to mercy?
Woe to evangelical exclusion. In their overwhelming, uncritical support of Trump and other nationalist Republicans ā leaders who could never win elections without evangelical votes ā White religious conservatives have joined a political movement defined by an attitude of āusā vs. āthem,ā and dedicated to the rejection and humiliation of social outsiders and outcasts. From the start, the Trump-led GOP dehumanized migrants as diseased and violent. It attacked Muslims as suspect and dangerous. Even when evangelical Christians refuse to mouth the words of racism, they have allied themselves with the promoters of prejudice and white grievance. How can it be that believers called to radical inclusion are the most hostile to refugees of any group in the United States? How can anyone who serves Godās boundless kingdom of love and generosity ever rally to the political banner āAmerica Firstā?
And woe, therefore, to Christian nationalism. Evangelicals broadly confuse the Kingdom of God with a Christian America, preserved by thuggish politicians who promise to prefer their version of Christian rights and enforce Christian values. The political calculation of conservative Christians is simple, and simply wrong.
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[ā¦] This view of politics is closer to āGame of ThronesāĀ than to the Beatitudes. Nowhere did Jesus demand political passivity from his followers. But his teachings are entirely inconsistent with an approach to public engagement that says: āThis Christian country is mine. You are defiling it. And I will take it back by any means necessary.ā
By assaulting democratic and religious pluralism, this agenda is at war with the constitutional order. By asserting self-interested rights, secured by lawless means, this approach has lost all resemblance to the teachings of Christ. A Christianity that does not humanize the life of this world is not Christianity.
The theological roots of this error run deep. Evangelicals often think that being a Christian means the individualistic acceptance of Jesus as their personal Savior. But this is quite different from following the example of Jesus we find in the Gospels. āHe never asks for admirers, worshipers or adherents,ā Soren Kierkegaard observed. āNo, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.ā
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Gerson goes on toĀ āimagineā what Christianity would look like in the U.S. āif todayāsĀ believers were to live out the full implications of their faith.ā
Instead of fighting for narrow advantage, they would express their love of neighbor by seeking the common good and rejecting a view of greatness that makes others small.
Instead of being entirely captive to their cultural background, they would have enough critical distance to sort the good from the bad, the gold from the sand. This might leave them uncomfortable within their own tribe or their own skin ā but the moral landscape is often easier to see from the periphery.
Instead of being ruled by anger and fear, they would live lightly, free from grudges and ready to offer forgiveness ā thus preserving the possibility of future reconciliation and concord.
Instead of turning to violence in word or deed, they would assert the power of unarmed truth. They would engage in argument without slander or threats ā demonstrating not wokeness or weakness, but due regard for our shared dignity.
Instead of being arrogant and willful, they would approach hard issues with humility, recognizing that even the most compelling principles are applied by fallible men and women. They would know that people who esteem the same ideal can come to different policy conclusions ā and be open to the possibility of changing their own mind.
Instead of ignoring the cries of the ill, poor and abused, they would honor the unerasable image of God we see in one another. Believers donāt accept a society divided by rank or dominated by the illusion of merit ā they seek to subvert such stratification in constructive ways, to prioritize justice and common provision for people in need. [ā¦] Other noble religions and ethical systems come to similar conclusions. But for a Christian, one moment near the beginning of Jesusā ministry draws the distinction between B.C. and A.D. Jesus stood up in a Nazareth synagogue and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah: āThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lordās favor.ā
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Amen!
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Source for first three images; source for fourth image; note that all images were modified from their sources.
