Over the course of the last few months there has been a surge in outspoken voices, specifically Christians, that have voiced this statement:
“I can’t believe that this is happening. I am literally shocked that Donald Trump has the following he does and that people are supporting him… especially Christians!”
There is a tendency in a political season such as the current one to shoot back responsively to this statement mentioned above with remarks such as, “Yeah, but given the options Donald Trump is a much better candidate” or “You’d rather vote for a crook like Hillary?!”. This post is not actually about who is the more or less legitimate candidate worthy of holding such a powerful position. Honestly both candidates are not ideal. We know this, people.
What I’m interested in talking about is the layers beneath the surface of why people [specifically Christians] are voting for Donald Trump. Many progressive Christian voices are baffled by this phenomenon – that evangelicals are supporting Trump in droves. Here’s why I think this is not surprising:
1. We don’t actually understand Jesus, and, thus, have misunderstood the gospel
We have lost the plot when we start to think that voting for president means voting for whoever will get me and my family the best tax breaks, protect my certain freedoms, and carry out my private ideological leanings. As followers of Jesus I think we should know by now that the Christ who was a homeless, itinerant, Jewish preacher in the 1st century was hated most for how he leveled the playing field for all people. Jesus got into the most trouble for calling out the B.S. in the system that favored a select percentage of wealthy, religious elite, and popular people of his day. Jesus looked a lot more like a socialist than we might think…
Jesus was EXTREMELY political in his three or so years of ministry. He disrupted the political and religious systems of his day to announce a new Kingdom (not Caesar’s, which was a big no no) and this Kingdom, he declared, would be brought about and carried forth by love instead of money, power, or violence. Jesus announced that the first would be last and the last would be first. Whoever wanted to be served would have to serve the lowest rungs of society first. The way to go up is to go down. This was huge. When we miss the fact that Jesus was politically and socially controversial, we miss a huge component of what being a follower of Jesus means.
2. “Make America Great Again” actually embodies a pseudo-Christian mantra that many desire… to “Make the Church Great Again”
This can also be translated into “Let’s get back to the way things used to be, already!” … And what is often meant by this phrase is that certain people were used to a certain set of rules working in their favor and not in the favor of others and this worked just fine. If we could just get back to the good old days when people (minorities and women) knew their place and played their part, there would be a lot less problems in the world.
Good Lord.
This is true for many fundamentalist Christians, too. Many think that the Jesus Movement was the pinnacle of Christianity when Calvary Chapel was booming and the bible was preached straight forward. None of this progress mumbo jumbo. I’m being facetious, but you get the point. For many, the best days are behind us, not ahead of us.
We miss one big piece of the storyline in this thinking, though.
God has always been in the process of unfolding new and fresh ideas/movements/renewals through the power of the Spirit in and through progress. Not just human progress like the industrial revolution or The Enlightenment. I mean the Reformation, The Great Awakening, the Jesus Movement and Azusa Revival and emergent church, etc. Looking at how God progressively unfolded God’s plan over thousands of years through the people of Israel shows this. The “becoming of God” in the person of Jesus shows this. God’s sending his Spirit shows this. All of these events inching toward a more full and beautiful picture to reveal what humanity is to look like. What if we’re not so much supposed to go “back there” to find the best days but, instead, invited to push forward WITH God to discover what God is bringing about.
3. Donald Trump reveals the real convictions and fears of many Christians
I know no other way to say this than to just say it.
I’m not surprised when people who are violent, mysoginistic and xenophobic express their affirmation of Trump. I honestly think this is a product of (hopefully) well-meaning Christians reading their bibles and interpreting them in literal, ego-centric and harmful ways. The bible is often used as a sword to cut down others so that the one doing the cutting can be proved correct. We take our hateful and bigoted ideas and project them onto God (actually, god…). People in America are addicted to violence. We are a violent people. We own, as a nation, more than 300 million guns. That is insane. We are a scared and afraid country that is set on “protecting ourselves” at whatever cost. Donald Trump’s entire campaign is fear-based. This is not the way of Jesus, my friends. Jesus did not come rolling in on a tank to show the Romans who was boss. Our violence, our hatred toward people, our sexism… it unfortunately is wrongly supported by fundamentalist Christians who use the bible wrongly as a weapon to support their own hateful agendas. Instead of hating our enemies, we need to search within the hate in ourselves and ruthlessly eliminate all hatred and fear that has led to more war, death, and destruction in recent years.
As Christians, I beg you to consider the politics and way of Jesus this election season. The homeless, itinerant Jewish man from Nazareth who came to bring light to darkness by way of selfless sacrifice and enemy love. The one who invites us to a different kind of allegiance. Who’s Kingdom will share a stage with no political party or even a national flag (*note to churches). God transcends political parties. God can unite political parties. God is still God despite the political party that wins this next election and the outcome should change nothing about how you follow Jesus.
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