We're Always Under Attack!
Growing up in an Evangelical church, I learned pretty quickly that most of the church members had a very distinctive "us versus them" way of looking at the world around them. The church had a seige mentality. The leadership and membership saw itself as being the victims of all kinds of worldly plots, from the nebulous part of society known as "the liberals" or simply, "the left." Of course, all of the enemies of the church were guided by demonic forces, and any time a pastor needed to get church members up off their rear ends and engaged in some kind of activity, a straw man enemy would pop up to motivate the membership.
The well-known atheist activist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, was always good to bring up when there was fighting or bickering in the church over some issue or another. For many years, in one form or another, there were allegations of a "petition" that she was circulating aimed at removing all religious broadcasting from the airwaves. That one made the rounds of churches several times, and no matter how hard they tried, the F.C.C. could not dispel the rumors that led to tens of thousands of phone calls and letters being sent in. The volume of calls and mail was such that extra staff had to be hired just to deal with it. The ignorance that was displayed in the sheer volume of response to nothing more than a rumor was a huge embarrassment to the churches of this country, though few of them ever recanted their error.
When that rumor was first promoted in my home church, I was in high school. It just didn't sound right. Religious broadcasting is constitutionally protected by the first amendment. No federal agency has the power to remove religious broadcasting from the airwaves. My Sunday School teacher did not take kindly to me pointing this out, since the pastor had been the one who provided the information and of course, he could not be mistaken. My information came from what I had learned in "that public school," so of course that just added one more liberal institution to her agenda. The truth didn't matter.
As white, Evangelical Christians have wound themselves up tightly in far right wing GOP politics, the "attack" rhetoric has ramped up significantly. The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency brought a serious ramp-up of the "us vs. them" rhetoric, characterizing the President and a Democratic party controlled Congress as the "evil" in the world. Everything was put in religious terms, any initiative of the Obama Administration was a product of the evil worldliness that had taken over the country.
Abandoning Faith to Embrace Right Wing Politics and Politicians
And that's more or less the point at which I became convinced that what's sucked many white Evangelicals into the political right is not the Roe v. Wade decision making abortion a constitutional right, but the racism that has always been lying below the surface. A black, democrat gets elected President and suddenly, the rhetoric of an evil empire having taken over comes to the surface. They never liked Clinton, who was, like themselves, a white Evangelical. But there was a real shift in both the attitude and the language when Obama was elected.
The more they have wound themselves up in right wing politics, the more they have lost of their own identity, including their religious structures and beliefs, and the basic values of a faith they proclaim is found in the sixty-six books of the Protestant Canon they claim as being both inerrant and infallible. Their willingness to systematically abandon their core beliefs and principles to align with the far right, and now, with Trump, has done far more damage to their reputation, and to their ability to be the evangelistic church that is their identity and their mission and purpose.
This subversion from the right has irreparably damaged American Evangelical Christianity, far more than any alleged frontal assault from the left.
How Right Wing Politics Leads to the Abandonment of the Christian Gospel
Dr. Russell Moore, formerly the executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and currently editor of Christianity Today has made some interesting observations about the shocking, but clearly heretical departure some white Evangelicals are making from the core doctrines and theology of the Christian gospel. These departures are not just from commonly accepted doctrine related to commonly held beliefs among the broader Christian community, but are also denials and departures from the unique, literal interpretation approach of their own brand of Christian faith.
"When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus are seen as subversive to us, we're in a crisis," said Moore, after hearing reports from pastors who, after preaching on themes from the Sermon on the Mount, would have members of the church come up to them afterward and ask, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?"
Those specific points, according to Moore, specifically included the passage where Jesus preaches to those gathered, the core Christian principle of "turning the other cheek."
"You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." Matthew 5:38-42NRSV
The conservative interpretation of this passage has always been literal. It's not a context that stands by itself, either, because the very next point that Jesus makes is "love your enemies."
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:44, NRSV
Using that last phrase makes it pretty clear, in looking at the context, and the manner in which this text is rendered from its original languages, that Jesus was making the point that this was a practice of faith which would directly identify Christians. Earlier, in the same narrative, which is likely a collection of all of the things Jesus preached and taught, rather than a single "sermon" delivered at one location, he applies this same phrase to the peacemakers. "They shall be called Children of God," he says, recorded in Matthew 5:9.
For someone in a white, conservative, Evangelical congregation to label this particular part of Jesus' teaching as a "liberal talking point" is an admission, on their part, of unfathomable ignorance of the contents of the Bible, and especially of the New Testament. One of the interpretive principles emphasized by conservative Evangelical doctrine is the acknowledgement that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-promised and prophesied Savior, and as such, he was the Son, one of the three persons of a truine God. His presence, and the years of his public ministry are considered direct revelation from God himself, a divine presence speaking divine words, leading by divine example.
So the Sermon on the Mount, along with the other narratives of the New Testament about Christ, become the interpretive criteria for all of the rest of scripture. To be unaware of the origin of statements like "turn the other cheek," or concepts centered on values like being a peacemaker, which Jesus clearly elevated to the highest degree among the values of the gospel he preached, and relegate them to the level of "liberal talking points", in today's political jargon, is a denial of Jesus' divine nature.
Infiltrated by MAGA Trumpism
Donald Trump Jr. is one of his father's leading emissaries to the MAGA crowd. Atlantic Monthly describes him as "intensely unappealing and uninteresting, combining ineptitude, banality and corruption in his personality." So it's not surprising that he would be a speaker on the Turning Point USA circuit, another Trump rally organization, given the crude, disinteresting, one dimensional personality he exhibits. He shouldn't flatter himself, it's his name they want.
In one particularly forgettable rally in Phoenix, Trump Jr., in one sentence, denied one of the core teachings of Jesus, one that Christians interpret as divinely inspired, characterizing for anyone who is paying attention to this, the whole anti-Christian nature of MAGA and Trumpism. Without any clear understanding of what it was that he was talking about, he basically told an audience that their Evangelical faith wasn't worth anything in this world.
"We've turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference--I understand the mentality--but it's gotten us nothing, OK? It's gotten us nothing while we've ceded ground in every major institution in our country."
So, according to Don Jr., this particular principle, at the very core of foundational Christian doctrine, the words of Christ himself, has gotten his followers nowhere in this world.
Aside from the obvious inaccuracy of that statement, his expectation is that Christians who support his father can simply set that principle aside now, because Don and MAGA say it's OK to do so. There are already plenty of prominent Evangelicals who have set aside everything they ever preached or taught to be on his side. It's like claiming the statement "an eye for an eye" is the way to go because it's in the Bible, one of Trump Sr.'s favorite, and almost only, Bible quotations. He sure missed that point.
It's the Nature of the Beast
In spite of what the pastors, preachers and evangelists say from the pulpit, a majority of Evangelical church members are not grounded in the doctrine and theology that is preached. They know the high points, the prooftexts they use to convince others of their rightness and righteousness, what they are allowed and not allowed to do. Ask them the pertinent questions, like "What are the primary, essential values demonstrated in Christian faith practice? or "Explain a true Christian conversion experience and contrast it with a phony or false one," and most of them can't answer either question. That's why Donald Trump can use them in his politics without ever having to acknowledge having had a genuine conversion experience.
In fact, if you take Trump at his word, his "Christian" experience is actually a direct denial of the very first step in the conversion process, at least as far as Evangelicals describe it. They insist that the Bible teaches that God's spirit must bring about conviction of sin before anyone can start to move toward Christian conversion. And they also teach the one unforgivable sin is the rejection of that conviction, a practice known as "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit." That amounts to denying that one is a sinner, and must be forgiven by God for his sins.
Let Trump's own words testify to what he believes, and he'll tell you himself, he has no need for forgiveness. And while that puts him completely at odds with Evangelical doctrine, they'll never acknowledge that information or let the word get out on their watch, lest they be guilty of hypocrisy.
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