Christian Dissonance – Reconciling the Disharmony of Opposites

 

Christian Dissonance – Reconciling the Disharmony of Opposites

Ends-Means and Justifying the Unjustifiable?

I have already questioned the underlying doctrine behind the strong evangelical movement in support of Donald Trump, including my recent Fear, Loathing, Christianity and Polarization – Election 2024 blog. After watching the September 10th Harris/Trump debate and looking at the tsunami of post-debate polling results, his numbers with his base… and even with non-evangelical white males… held firmly. Even his references to non-existent pet-eating Haitians in Ohio and “retroactive” abortions – obviously absurdly and verifiably false – did not move the needle much to erode his base.

At first blush, this might seem as nothing more thandoing whatever needs to be done, without moral question, to end abortion, enhance white Christian nationalism and marginalize or destroy those who oppose those beliefs. After all, notwithstanding his recent failing efforts to pivot away from his direct responsibility for the reversal of Roe v Wade, profoundly damaging to the MAGA GOP, Trump is irretrievably linked to appointing the Supreme Court justices who made that possible. That alone might give evangelicals a willingness to support Trump no matter his obvious lunacy. But so many evangelical pastors and the majority of Trump supporting evangelicals, truly believe that Donald John Trump is the anointed one, chosen by God to rule, absolutely, the United States of America. That goes way beyond a simple end-means test.

The theories began circulating during Trump’s 2015/16 presidential campaign, and rallied millions of evangelicals into his base. The various alternatives arose justifying this seeming deification of Trump, but one particular approach seemed to dominate. “Evangelical thinker Lance Wallnau then gives [reporter Chris] Mitchell his take [on where Trump’s “connection” to God came from]: Trump is a ‘modern-day Cyrus,’ an ancient Persian king chosen by God to ‘navigate in chaos.’… Mitchell notes that some evangelicals disagree but does not name or cite them. Instead, he cites the growing threat of China, Russia, and Iran, before Wallnau concludes, ‘America’s going to have a challenge either way. With Trump, I believe we have a Cyrus to navigate through the storm.’

“The comparison comes up frequently in the evangelical world. Many evangelical speakers and media outlets compare Trump to Cyrus, a historical Persian king who, in the sixth century BCE, conquered Babylon and ended the Babylonian captivity, a period during which Israelites had been forcibly resettled in exile. This allowed Jews to return to the area now known as Israel and build a temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus is referenced most prominently in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, in which he appears as a figure of deliverance.” Tara Isabella Burton for the May 5, 2018 Vox.com. A motion picture (The Trump Prophecy released in the fall of 2018 on the Christian movie circuit – poster above), that provides historical and biblical “support” for this inane allusion, was wildly popular.

I’ve counted that Mr. Trump and his followers have broken eight of the Ten Commandments. Even as Trump survived an assassination attempt, it’s quite clear that MAGA has normalized political violence, often egged on by their “God Anointed” candidate. “In the past five years, a man walked into the House speaker’s home with a hammer and assaulted her husband; a young man upset about the Supreme Court’s direction turned up in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s neighborhood with a gun; a man showed up at a district office of Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia with a baseball bat looking for him and attacked two staff members; this year, someone lit the door of Bernie Sanders’s Vermont office on fire with seven staff members inside.

“The list goes on up to and including the many things that happened on Jan. 6, and the threats and harassment politicians, election officials and workers, judges and other public officials faced after Mr. Trump refused to concede the election and attacked political and legal efforts to hold him to account. This also leaves aside less targeted violence, like the carjacking attempt that took place near Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s home.

“Things can feel alarmingly precarious: What kept the shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice from turning into something much worse was the presence of Representative Steve Scalise, who suffered some of the worst injuries but also had an armed Capitol Police security detail who returned fire. Near Justice Kavanaugh’s home, the unwell young man with a gun never followed through, because his sister talked him into calling 911 on himself. Part of what made the attack on Paul Pelosi — which Mr. Trump has told jokes about — particularly harrowing is that Ms. Pelosi’s armed security detail was not there because she wasn’t there.” Katherine Miller, in the September 8th NY Times. Lambasting those you oppose as you cast the first stone in toxic judgment of others is the new “A-OK.” He eschews responsibility for his egregious behavior and statements and likes to blame anyone but himself for the consequences.

So unschooled pastors, now scared to defy the MAGA party line as un-Christian as it has become, continue to tow the party line. My above-referenced blog, however, illustrated what happens when pastors actually know and understand their faith. Trump’s deification cannot withstand these experts’ scrutiny. The only way to understand this mass willingness to face and deny reality is to analogize the group behavior as cultlike, a phenomenon that explains why so many Germans refused to reject Adolph Hitler as their cherished leader. Those who have broken out of cults, that they were firmly committed to, provides some slams of reality, exemplified by Carley Suthers in the August 14th Buzzfeed, that “no matter how devout a person is, there can sometimes be a single turning point when one realizes they can no longer be a part of the faith they used to be so devoted to… “

Including, going through a severely traumatic event but being told it was your fault because you are a sinner. Perhaps it is a scandal involving the religious leader. Living with the harsh premature death of a loved one and being told “it’s part of God’s larger plan.” Maybe, it’s a hard-stop conflict between your own moral values and what you are being told to do. Or when you are helping someone trying to understand why they (you?) believe the words of your faith… and you can’t.

Whatever the reason, large flocks of evangelicals, led by pastors of questionable values, still seem unable to apply their values to Donald Trump. He can be convicted of multiple crimes, indicted for many more, a substantial cadre of his inner circle have also been convicted of serious crimes, he has been found liable for lying (fraud) to both lending banks and governmental taxing authorities, proven in court to have “raped” at least one woman, recorded on an open mike of how he is able to take some absurd non-consensual sexual liberties with attractive women, and since the beginning of his presidential term, there have been an alarming number of events where Trump has used unsubtle words (vermin, bloodbath, mass arrests of political opponents, flattering descriptors for racists, murderous rightwing militia and foreign dictators) … to rally (stir-up?) his gathered followers.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the weakness of the US Constitution, drafted by men who wrongfully believed that only men of good moral character would be drawn into those designated elected offices, is dramatically illustrated by a man who violated some of the most basic mores of his nations while president, got impeached, indicted and then convicted and with this track record has no barriers to running for second term.