Faith in Trump’s America by R. Ward Holder
Faith in Trump’s America. The possible meanings of the phrase multiply the longer one considers it. Is it the possession of Christian faith, held by some who believe that Donald Trump’s presidency is fulfilling that faith’s hope? Is it a faith in Donald Trump himself and the direction that he is leading America? Or, is it some traditional Christian faith that stands apart from the pomp and circumstance of the halls of power? All three are worthy of consideration, for they describe parts of our present reality, and the lives that people of faith face in 2018.
Evangelical Faith in Donald Trump as God’s Choice
Evangelicals have been the most solid supporters of Donald Trump. Actually, that statement must be qualified. The evangelicals who supported Donald Trump in the election of 2016 were overwhelmingly white, and frequently were not regular worship service attenders. After the final numbers were counted and analyzed, exit polling pointed to evangelicals voting for Trump by a four to one margin.[1] Though that 4 in 5 or 80-81% figure is sometimes attacked, there is little doubt that among white evangelicals who chose to vote, Trump was the overwhelming favorite.[2] That support for Trump has remained strong, with frequent supportive comments from his close circle of evangelical advisors and confidants, including Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Robert Jeffress. This section of Trump’s base has been the most dependable for the president: the Public Religion Research Institute presented poll results in March of this year that noted that 75% of them had a favorable view of the President.[3]
Of course, it is fair and important to ask about the nature of this faith. Many evangelical supporters of candidate Donald Trump avoided charges of hypocrisy by saying that they rejected Trump’s morality or other factors in his personal character, while noting that this did not keep them from seeing the larger picture of the Supreme Court justices he would nominate, the Muslims and foreigners he would stop at the borders, and the support for a return to American greatness that heralded a return to a sense of the rightness of the American societal mores in the 1950s. The Rev. Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of 1st Baptist Church of Dallas, said that the American president would need to be a forceful leader to succeed. “When I’m looking for a leader who’s going to fight ISIS and keep this nation secure, I don’t want some meek and mild leader or somebody who’s going to turn the other cheek. I’ve said I want the meanest, toughest SOB I can find to protect this nation.”[4]
Throughout the campaign, this form of “faith” in Trump tried to walk a tightrope – not to endorse his occasionally outrageous behavior, or the revelations of even worse in the past, while arguing that he was supporting the policy positions that evangelicals should support. A good example was Wayne Grudem, who wrote a long post for Townhall.com that enjoyed a good circulation about why it was a morally good choice to vote for Trump.[5] After the Access Hollywood tape came out, Grudem withdrew his endorsement, with another Townhall.com post.[6] Only ten days later, however, Grudem reversed his course again, arguing that evangelicals should vote for Trump’s policies.[7] In it, he gave that sense of avoiding Trump the person, for the goods of Trump’s policies. He included the appointment of conservative justices, the defeating of the Affordable Care Act with its mandatory provisions for birth control, the closing of the borders, and the tax policy that would leave believers with more of their money. Supporting Trump for president would not be an acceptance of Trump’s own outsized appetites.
But Trumpism has not turned out to be the gift that evangelicalism saw.[8] First, evangelical leaders have found it much more difficult to walk the tightrope of supporting policies without supporting the person after the election’s end. Some almost fell over themselves to proclaim the president a chosen instrument of God, much like Nehemiah, who also had to build a wall. Robert Jeffress’ inauguration day sermon is so Trumpian in its praise for Trump that one is hard-pressed to believe that the pastor ever really believed that he was voting for policies, rather than the man. The constant support for Trump from figures like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and others has made a case that all protestations aside, evangelicals support not only Trump’s policies, but Trump himself and the manner in which he conducts himself.
Second, Trump pulls people in his orbit ever closer. Nothing could be clearer than this than when Trump mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at a rally in Mississippi. The crowd loved it.[9] This is what viewers see, time and again. Trump’s personality and his gas-lit reality exerts such a powerful force that there is no acceptance of his policies that draws a line – the lines are quickly erased. Consider Senator Lindsey Graham – a convert from #NeverTrumper to the President’s pitbull on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Evangelicals who are wont to call on the name of Jesus find themselves supporting racist taunts, lies, misogyny, xenophobia, and the systematic transfer of wealth from the least of these to the richest. There is no functioning support for the President’s policies that doesn’t support the President. Our first two faiths, one in the direction of the President’s policies and the other in the President himself, quickly fuse into one.
Traditional Christian Faith in America in the time of Donald Trump
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This insight from the Letter to the Hebrews has stood as the basic locus of where all discussions of faith begin, and where they must return. Faith is that thing we have in the hope we hold, the promises given by a nurturing and loving and suffering God, who walks with us through the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death, through deep water and desert paths where no water flows. Faith is that thing that supported the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness; faith is the guidepost of every believer who has followed them. Whether the faith that gave hope to the martyrs as they faced their tormentors; or that supported Martin Luther to stand up to the Holy Roman Emperor; or that led Martin Luther King, Jr. to go to Washington to speak about a dream—that faith has not wavered, not because of the character of the men and women who held it but because of the nature and faithfulness of the God in whom they believed. That faith was a gift given by a savior who would walk with people even when the paths were bloody.
Christian faith in Trump’s America, then, must be countercultural. This is actually nothing new: faith led people against the ruling society in Palestine in the first century, and everywhere around the world since. This has led people to hate the faithful, whether those who sought to leave this world in monastic solitude or those who tried to change it because they heard Christ’s demand in Matthew 25. Time after time, the denial of cultural Christianity has earned the prophet willing to make such a denial the hatred of those who call themselves believers. It was true for Kierkegaard, and true for Bonhoeffer. It was as true for Óscar Romero as it was for James Cone. To be faithful is to turn one’s back on the realities of power and strength and anxious braggadocio, to reject the comforts of power for the reliance on the divine.
Is the issue whether Americans can merge their Christianity with their politics, and call it good? That’s easy: the answer is no.[10] Attempting to fuse Christian morality with the necessities of any political regime or party is a recipe for a failed Christianity. The Christian solution to the problems inherent in modern evangelicalism’s acceptance of becoming the state religion is not simply resistance, not simply becoming a Democrat or a liberal. That’s simply the Trump faith in reverse, and it would create idols who were every bit as grotesque for believers to worship. The Christian solution is the acceptance of the claim of the Lord who calls us to faith, and working for the very real issues that the gospel of love places before us. Sometimes, that will necessitate working through the political systems. Sometimes, it will compel us to turn our backs on such systems, to work for the impossible possibility of putting in place the effects of love. But always, Christian faith will demand a vigilant distance from any principality or power. Too close, and believers will suffer the fate of idolaters across the ages: exchanging the power of the eternal God for a cluster of empty promises, and manacles that will maintain their allegiance long after the promises have turned bitter in their ears.
Ward Holder is a historical and political theologian, and professor of theology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. He writes on the Reformation, biblical interpretation, and the manner in which religious convictions shape modern politics and political theory. Among other works, he has authored John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation: Calvin’s First Commentaries, Brill, 2006; and has edited A Companion to Paul in the Reformation, Brill, 2009. More recently he has co-authored with Peter B. Josephson The Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem of Christian Statecraft, and his most recent work was co-authored with Josephson, Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice: Christian Realism and American Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Lexington Books, 2019.
[1]Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “White evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, exit polls show,” Washington Post, November 9, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/09/exit-polls-show-white-evangelicals-voted-overwhelmingly-for-donald-trump/ , accessed 2 March 2017.
[2]Kate Shellnutt, “Trump Elected President, Thanks to 4 in 5 White Evangelicals,” Christianity Today, November 9, 2016. http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/november/trump-elected-president-thanks-to-4-in-5-white-evangelicals.html , accessed 2 March 2016. Myriam Renaud weighed in with “Myths Debunked: Why Did White Evangelical Christians Vote for Trump?”, https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/myths-debunked-why-did-white-evangelical-christians-vote-trump, accessed 2 April 2017; Joe Carter argued that the majority did not vote for Trump, when one counts the non-voters, “No, the Majority of American Evangelicals Did Not Vote for Trump,” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/no-the-majority-of-american-evangelicals-did-not-vote-for-trump, accessed 2 April 2017.
[3]Tara Isabella Burton, “Poll: White evangelical support for Trump is at an all time high,” Vox, April 20, 2018. https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/20/17261726/poll-prri-white-evangelical-support-for-trump-is-at-an-all-time-high, accessed 26 July 2018.
[5]https://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564
[6]https://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/09/trumps-moral-character-and-the-election-n2229846
[7]https://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/19/if-you-dont-like-either-candidate-then-vote-for-trumps-policies-n2234187
[8]Philip S. Gorski, “Christianity and Democracy after Trump,” Political Theology, 19:5, 361-362. Accessed 21 September 2018.
[9] https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/10/03/donald-trump-mocks-christine-blasey-ford-testimony-mississippi-rally-sot-vpx.cnn
[10]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/opinion/sunday/christians-politics-belief.html