I recently watched what may now be, the rarest of occurrences on Facebook, a long-winded political discussion. Not just any discussion, but one partaken of by fervent Evangelicals. Naturally, I was the voyeur and only watched in silence. There’s a certain place for everything. If you and your family get into an argument one night and start telling each other how wrong they are, maybe there’s a place for that but you and your family don’t rush out into the street in your pajamas, down to the town square and raise your voices for every distant acquaintance to see and hear, and also see that your pajama bottoms are torn, you forgot your hat and so forth. On the other hand, it’s perfectly acceptable to dress up, go to the city council meeting, and vehemently tell your civic adversaries exactly what you’re thinking. Facebook is hardly the best place to expose yourself. The real intent of my little story here is to comment on the state of Evangelical’s political notions as observed of the original poster and the various parties. It’s not that I’m an unfamiliar outsider. I spent considerable time in Evangelical circles as well as liturgy centered parishes and ‘spirit led’ ones as well. My present disposition is non-committal to all of them but only because they each present so many disappointments, a topic for a different post. I’m however forthright in saying that those of us presently more focused on civic issues, that we owe a great debt to the historical movements of Christian faith, just not very much for its present state. What I learned watching the latest raw edge of Evangelicalism was eye opening.
The direct theme of the discussion centered around the idea of ‘Christian nationalism’ and how Donald Trump may figure into it based on some of his biggest moves so far. Outside the cloistered halls of Evangelicalism, nationalism of all stripes is now anathema if for no other reason than how it’s been universally appropriated by neo-liberal peoples as the most ready rebuke for not being liberal, except that they automatically skip to the worst varieties, rhetorically and otherwise: ‘fascist’, ‘Nazi’, ‘Hitler’. Since traditional Evangelicals have various levels of sympathy for nationalism, and a very few to the point of institutionalizing it as ‘Chistian nationalism’, and as wherefore mainstream Evangelicalism has quickly drifted well into the political left, therefore ‘Christian nationalism’ is apostasy squared; and as you’ve already guessed, Donald Trump is why. Because.
The observed discussion meandered through all manner of speculation on Donald Trump’s Christian allegiance, he’s saved, he’s not saved. We should honor his authority, or we should condemn it. He’s acting unchristian or he’s God’s vessel or he’s just a pagan tool in God’s hands. Before I list out some highlights and horrors, I should mention that over half of the respondents took a favorable view of the Trump Presidency, and the rest were either the perpetually discontented [feigned] middle, or like the original poster (OP), veered left where Trump’s negatives were emphasized. The majority evaluated Trump and the cited current events, predominantly, according to a bible or spiritual ideals long existent in Evangelicalism. A handful gave no basis for their opinion and only one respondent seemed to have any grasp at all on historical precedents beyond the last couple Presidential terms. I do not believe the original poster represents the dominant stream within the Evangelical movement, or maybe he does in as much as there is a huge shift leftward throughout their churches. Just the fact that Trump compelled the OP out into the public square to critique his character after four years of Biden’s atrocities, endured in silence as per my observation, tells you an awful lot about Evangelicalism today.
What I learned (not in any particular order):
Apparently, God is not color blind after all. As a matter of fact, God is quite racist, quite aggravated with the whites and especially with our white-y in chief. Forgetting that there are whole continents filled with billions of people that come in hundreds of skin tones and where so many of those people live a life of affliction, hundreds or thousands of miles from the gaze of any Caucasian at all, God is still irked at us for our skin tone. I found this to be astonishing.
Our economy lacks compassion; (translation) Donald Trump lacks compassion as he now owns our economy just five weeks into his Presidency. It’s again astonishing, that something as broad as our economy can be assigned personal agency; measured, weighed, and found lacking.
Our foreign policy also tramples people. Perhaps this is a little more plausible because indeed, we have quite a track record of doing just that. Recall that we believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so we went in hot with regime change fever -for democracy – and about a million Iraqi’s died as a result, ISIS became a thing, and the whole region is still a bubbling hot mess to this day. That kind of trampled? Was he talking about Trump since he’s now our foreign policy?
I quickly reconfirmed my long-held conviction that the vast majority of Evangelicals, and most Christians for that matter, are uninformed and totally ignorant of the history and the doctrines of hegemonic power that guide nation-states. However, the majority of Evangelicals would usually know and care so little that they’d never form an opinion, but since one was made in the discourse I observed, it was errant. For example, perhaps God did indeed finally crush a decrepit immoral Roman empire but they had quite a run of about 1500 years leading up to it. Suffice to say, there’s a danger in assigning standards of a pious individual to a sovereignty.
So where did my original poster here get some of these ideas? How did he and perhaps a lot of other Evangelicals arrive at such a confusing juncture between traditional Evangelical and moral ideas but with leftist talking points? One clue was to observe only big-name major media sources, particularly when everyone else is now using alternative media, especially conservatives. You don’t know what you don’t know. Over on the church side of things, there’s documented instances where George Soros has funded the placement of his people in reputable Evangelical organizations. Who would even know? Sheep have a poor track record of recognizing sheep disguises. I suspect this is just the tip of that iceberg.
My OP was skeptical of so many of his acquaintances and brethren accepting of Donald Trump, thus earning their ‘Christian Nationalist’ badge in his eyes. Irony given that he and so many others are going left. Maybe he fancies himself an outlier, the voice crying in the wilderness, thus he speaks for God. He is fast to say that Trump doesn’t speak for God as if anyone suggested that he does, or because so many of his apparently errant brothers and sisters simply think that Donald Trump has been chosen in this hour to deliver us from wicked hell-bent rule. Why then would OP then think HE speaks for God over and above this tide? Simply Jesus makes him more qualified to speak to the powers that be? Is it Christian arrogance or leftist ignorance?
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