By Rudy Barnes, Jr., January 16, 2016
Public
expectations drive politics, and those expectations are shaped by religious
beliefs. Today many middle-class white
Americans feel insecure and threatened by events beyond their control, and
their fear and anger has produced the likes of Donald Trump and Senator Ted
Cruz whose campaigns have stoked public fears into anger, hate and hysteria.
It
is ironic that many of those supporting Trump and Cruz claim to be Christians,
but that should be no surprise given the populist rhetoric of Christian
evangelists who ignore the teachings of Jesus and pander to public
expectations. After all, the worldly power
of religion has always been based on its popularity, and evangelical
Christianity has produced some of history’s most notorious (and popular) religious
charlatans, such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
In
their competition for converts, exclusivist religions like Christianity and
Islam appeal to public expectations—especially their fears—much like competing GOP
campaigns. That is reflected in the
“hellfire and damnation” and “prosperity gospel” themes of fundamentalist
Christianity, as well as the hateful rhetoric and terrorism of fundamentalist Islamists
like those of ISIS and al-Qaeda. It is
typical of all religions that assert belief in their religion is the only means
to salvation, and that all unbelievers are condemned by God to eternal
damnation.
Fareed
Zakaria has noted the connection between the insecurity, fear and anger of many
white people in America and the popularity of Donald Trump. Many middle-class whites feel their
expectations for social, economic and political well-being are in jeopardy, and
they have good reason to feel that way.
Many of them are fundamentalist evangelical Christians who consider
themselves God’s chosen people living in the new Promise Land, and they feel
threatened by immigrants—especially Muslims—who represent a threat to their
political dominance in American politics.
This
paranoid view of the future is motivated by divisive religious and political beliefs
that favor the faithful and condemn all others.
Both fundamentalist Christians and Muslims (known as Islamists) share
the same salvation/condemnation dichotomy and the same insecurity and fear; and
they expect God/Allah—and his chosen leaders—to save them from perdition and to
destroy their enemies, with a little help from the faithful. It is an apocalyptic scenario, and one that
attracts demagogues who exploit religion and politics to promote their power,
whether among fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. or Islamists in the Middle
East and Africa.
Zakaria
cited Carolyn Rouse who suggested that blacks have done a better job of coping
with pessimistic expectations than whites, relying on a different perspective
of Christian faith.
Other groups might
not expect that their income, standard of living and social status are destined
to steadily improve. They don’t have the same confidence that if they work
hard, they will surely get ahead. She
said that after hundreds of years of slavery, segregation and racism, blacks
have developed ways to cope with disappointment and the unfairness of life:
through family, art, protest speech and, above all, religion.
“You have been the
veterans of creative suffering,” Martin Luther King Jr. told African Americans
in his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963: “Continue to work with the faith that
unearned suffering is redemptive.” Writing in 1960, King explained the issue in
personal terms: “As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two
ways that I could respond to my situation: either to react with bitterness or
seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. . . . So like the
Apostle Paul I can now humbly yet proudly say, ‘I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.’ ” The Hispanic and immigrant experiences in the United States
are different, of course. But again, few in these groups have believed that
their place in society is assured. Minorities, by definition, are on the
margins. They do not assume that the system is set up for them. They try hard
and hope to succeed, but they do not expect it as the norm.
Zakaria concluded:
The United States is going through a great power
shift. Working-class whites don’t think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly
compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to America’s economy, its
society, indeed its very identity. They
are not anymore. Donald Trump has
promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he can’t. No one can. And deep down, they know it.
For
good or for bad, religion will continue to shape public expectations and
politics, both in libertarian democracies like the U.S. as well as in Islamic
cultures. It is incumbent upon Jews,
Christians and Muslims to insure that the influence of their religions on
future generations is for good rather than bad.
That requires that they put love
over law and embrace the greatest
commandment to love God and their neighbors as themselves—including their unbelieving neighbors—as a common word of faith. If that happens, competing religions can be
reconciled and demagogues like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz will lose their
legitimacy with Christians—as will Islamist terrorists with Muslims—and the
world will be a safer and better place.
Notes
and References to Resources:
Previous blogs on related topics
are: Religion and Reason, December 8,
2014; The Greatest Commandment,
January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A
Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Promoting Religion Through Evangelism:
Bringing Light or Darkness?, February 8, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews,
Christians and Muslims Today?, January 25, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, June 21, 2015; Fear and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Politics and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015; The Power of Freedom over Fear, December
12, 2015; and Resettling Refugees:
Multiculturalism or Assimilation?, December 26, 2015.
See Fareed Zakaria’s commentary
on America’s self-destructive whites
at
In an ugly incident at a Trump
rally in Rock Hill on January 8, 2016, a Muslim woman wearing a hijab was
escorted out of Donald Trump's campaign event by police after she stood up in
silent protest during Trump's speech. See
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/08/politics/donald-trump-muslim-woman-protesting-ejected/.
In his last State of the Union
address on January 12, 2016, President Obama acknowledged the fear and anger
contaminating the political process, and Governor Nikki Haley acknowledged that
GOP contenders for Obama’s job, like Trump and Cruz, were contributing to the
malaise. See E. J. Dionne, Jr., Obama and Nikki Haley fight the GOP
faithful’s fury, January 13, 2016, Washington Post at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-and-nikki-haley-fight-the-gop-faithfuls-fury/2016/01/13/dd601128-ba28-11e5-829c-26ffb874a18d_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions. See also, Kathleen Parker’s commentary on
Governor Haley’s equanimity in a volatile political climate—her courageous
attempt to counter the demagogues who are seeking to take over the Republican
Party, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nikki-haleys-righteous-gamble/2016/01/15/3038fdfc-bbcc-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions.
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