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Why Trump’s strongest Christian supporters reject democratic traditions
Why do conservative Christians remain loyal to Donald Trump? Examining faith, Christian nationalism, democracy and the appeal of authoritarian leadership.
By Patrick McCormick | FāVS News Columnist
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News.
Why are conservative Christians unshakably loyal to Donald Trump? How is it that the more frequently these believers attend church the more they support a twice-impeached felon convicted of 34 counts of fraud who bragged on “Hollywood Access” about assaulting women?
After all, Jesus condemned even fantasizing about adultery, so why didn’t white evangelicals and Catholics abandon the twice-divorced Trump after two dozen women accused him of sexual offenses, a court found him guilty of sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll and his name showed up thousands of times in the Epstein files?
Christ also demanded we love all our neighbors, including the poor, aliens and enemies. So why is the Christian core of Trump’s MAGA base not offended by the torrent of hate and bigotry he spews in every post and rant?
Why have these Christians not condemned his demonization and planned detention and deportation of 11.5 million mostly hardworking, law-abiding resident aliens? And where was their outcry for the tens of millions of souls who will die from Trump’s gutting of USAID, or for the millions endangered or injured by his senseless war in Iran?
Perhaps the tie that binds conservative Christians and their MAGA messiah is that both want America ruled by a king.
Autocracy in the U.S.
Trump’s autocratic aspirations are on display everywhere. Looking abroad, he dreams of colonizing Canada, Greenland, Panama and Cuba. Domestically, he plots to strip Congress, the courts, the Constitution and voters of any power to restrain his tyrannical ambition. And across our capitol he schemes to litter the landscape with monuments memorializing him as a conquering hero.
But the Donald’s Christian base seems equally ready to shuffle off the messy constraints of democracy and embrace a messianic monarch promising to deliver them from manufactured enemies and threats both foreign and domestic.
This brand of patriotism (white Christian nationalism) privileges one race and faith while weakening checks and balances making room for dissenting voices. Trump’s evangelicals and their pewmates in other denominations oppose a secularism requiring them to negotiate, cooperate or compromise with people who think or look differently.
Conservative Christians often hold up “family values” as a model for politics. But “traditional” families united by blood and ruled by patriarchy didn’t prepare people to live and work with outsiders or defend the autonomy and rights of women, or those ill fitted to assigned gender roles.
No room for dissent
Aristotle believed families were a school for virtue, but traditional families were not a place where you learned democracy. In the patriarchal families of the Bible, the male head of the household owned and ruled over other members, and neither spouses, children nor servants had a vote.
There was no place for freedom of speech, thought or religion where dissent was condemned as disobedience. Even the Bible understood that larger society had to compensate for the way “family values” ignored the rights and needs of outsiders, and so demanded special protection for “widows, orphans, and aliens,” the original DEI.
And though conservative Christians want religion to have a bigger role in politics, churches are also a poor school for democracy. The places where Americans pray are more segregated and hierarchical than those where they gather to work, shop, play or engage in politics, and there is little room for debate when dissent equals heresy.
At Sunday worship, long the most racially, economically and increasingly politically segregated hour of the week, flocks listen obediently to their pastors without engaging in dialogue or voicing disagreement.
And when real dissent surfaces in American churches, they often splinter into ever smaller likeminded assemblies. If our country held together like our congregations, we would have hundreds of nations between Canada and Mexico, hardly any of them talking to one another.
Homogenization of the nation
Maybe, then, it’s not surprising conservative Christians want to bring the homogeneity and hierarchy of their homes and houses of worship into the halls of Congress and the White House. How much easier it would be for all of us to sing from the same hymnbook, even if that requires shutting a lot of people up.
In addition, readers of Scripture will find no democracies in the Bible. There are no presidents, congresses, or constitutions, and — most strikingly — no voters in the Promised Land. So why should traditional Christians prefer a government that treats all faiths as equal and forces true believers to defend the rights of heretics and infidels?
What else we see in the Bible
First, because the Bible demands we treat all people with justice and compassion, not just those who look and think like us.
Genesis 1 teaches that every human is made in the image and likeness of God. Galatians 3 says Christians should make no distinction between Jew and Greek, male and female or slave and free. Matthew 17 demands we treat all others (neighbors, strangers and foes) as we wish to be treated. And Leviticus 13 instructs us to defend the rights of outsiders as we would our own.
Second, because Scripture condemns the fear driving us into the arms of demagogues promising to deliver us from neighbors near and far unfairly demonized as dangerous fiends.
Samuel warns the Hebrews that their desire for a king betrays the God who liberated them from tyranny. And Jesus repeatedly rebuffs efforts to cast him as a messianic king. Christ does not deliver us from the messiness of working and living with other people but teaches us the compassion and virtue to treat everyone with respect and defend everyone’s rights as if they were our own.
And third, because the vast majority of early white Christians who arrived on these shores were fleeing kings who forbid the free practice of thought, speech and religion. Why would their children repeat these crimes?
Something is there that craves a lord to rule over us and make all other people march to our drumbeat. But this adoration of monarchy is heresy. We have no king but Jesus, and he did not defame, demonize, detain, deport or deprive anyone of their voice or vote.
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well written, on point, and insightful.