By Rudy Barnes, Jr.
After
the Manchester suicide bombing in May, President Trump condemned the terrorist
bomber as an evil loser. That reflected Trump’s oft stated belief that
winning is the ultimate good and losing is bad—even evil. Such objectivist normative standards may be expected
on Wall Street, but not from the White House.
All winners are not good and all losers are not evil.
Unfortunately
it’s not only Trump’s norm, but one shared by Christian evangelicals who
elected him president. The irony is that
Jesus taught just the opposite. He condemned
pride and greed and reversed the world’s order of merit when he blessed losers
and condemned winners and taught that the
last will be first and the first will be last. (see Luke 6:20-26 and Matthew
20:16) It is a Christian conundrum that
puts mercy over winning, even if it requires losing.
The
truth is that Jesus was a loser by the world’s standards—that is, until God
made him a winner with the resurrection.
But it was a short-lived victory.
In the 4th century the church yielded to temptation and became
complicit with Constantine in seeking worldly power. To that end the church, like Trump, subordinated
showing mercy for losers to winning worldly power.
The
Christian religion has evolved through a Reformation and the fragmentation of
the Protestant church into countless denominations, and the prosperity gospel
has emerged as the distorted progeny of Christian evangelicalism. Led by fundamentalists like Franklin Graham,
Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Paula White, Christian evangelicals embraced Donald
Trump as their political savior and demonstrated their power at the polls by
electing him President.
By
making Trump their political icon, Christian evangelicals have subverted the
altruistic teachings of Jesus to nativist America
First standards of legitimacy that ignore the moral imperative of the greatest commandment to love God and
love our neighbors—including those of other races and religions—as we love
ourselves. It is a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and one
sorely needed in a world of increased religious diversity.
But just as
Trump has subordinated U.S. support for NATO and the Paris Accords for America First, Christians have subordinated
the teachings of Jesus to a distorted vision of American exceptionalism. It is rank hypocrisy for Christians to ignore
the mandates of mercy and put their faith in competition and winning all the conflicts
in life when Jesus taught that loving others—including the losers in life’s lottery—is
a moral imperative of discipleship.
Christianity
and Islam are both at a crossroads. Their
future will be decided by whether progressives or fundamentalists win the battle for God within their
religion. Fundamentalists in both
religions believe that their holy books are the inerrant, infallible and
immutable word of God, and reject any advances in knowledge or reason that challenge
that sacred truth; and they consider their religion the one true faith, with
unbelievers condemned to eternal damnation.
In
contrast to fundamentalists, progressive believers accept advances in knowledge
and reason in interpreting the truth of their Scripture and respect those of
other religions as children of God.
While there will always be differences in both faith and politics among
progressive believers, they can disagree agreeably without condemning others
for their beliefs.
There
is one important difference between Christian and Islamist fundamentalists. All Christians in libertarian democracies—fundamentalists
and progressives alike—revere the freedoms of religion and speech; but in
Islamic cultures, fundamentalists use Islamic law, or Shari’a, to deny those
freedoms with apostasy and blasphemy laws.
The
primary purpose of politics is to provide equal justice under law, and that
requires balancing individual rights with providing for the common good. Religions are obstacles to justice when they condemn
those of other races and religions, but they can promote justice and mercy when
they advocate a common word of faith to
love God and all their neighbors.
Few
can be expected to follow all of the teachings of Jesus in our materialistic
world, but if progressives and fundamentalists love their neighbors of other
races and religions as they love themselves they can all be winners in the battle for God. Loving both losers and winners in an often
unfair world promotes justice with mercy, and the world would be a better place
for that.
Notes
and commentary on related topics:
A group of Christian
fundamentalist pastors in North Carolina (for their mission, values,
cornerstones and vision, see https://ncpastors.net/about/) have sponsored
a billboard supporting Trump’s immigration that proclaims that 19 Muslim
immigrants killed 2,977 Americans on September 11, 2001. See http://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/billboard-causes-controversy-over-religion/526157287. Apparently those pastors overlooked the fact that
the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia and that Trump’s travel ban does not
apply to Saudis.
On the evangelical roots of our post truth society, see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/opinion/sunday/the-evangelical-roots-of-our-post-truth-society.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0.
One explanation for why (Christian) religion breeds both compassion and hatred
is that the social bonding of fundamentalist Christians trumps those principles
in the teachings of Jesus. See https://psmag.com/news/why-religion-breeds-both-compassion-and-hatred.
On the eight points of progressive Christianity, see https://progressivechristianity.org/the-8-points/.
President Trump began his recent inter-religious
diplomatic tour with King Saul in Saudi Arabia, then met with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and then Pope Francis in Rome. It was evident that “What divides Pope
Francis from Trump politically does not divide Trump from King Saul or Prime
Minister Netanyahu,” and that “The religion of Trumpism is the presidential
bending to the politics of white evangelicalism, whose theological substance in
America today is in danger of being reduced to the prosperity gospel.” It was obvious that “Trump’s own political
interests and moral legitimacy are very different from the pope’s….” See http://religionnews.com/2017/05/28/trump-and-francis-detente-not-armistice/.
Matthew Sitman of Bloomberg
has noted that “Pope Francis’ has made ‘mercy’ the theme of his papacy—he has
called it the very foundation of the church’s life.” And, “If there is one element that holds
together the dominant Republican worldview, perhaps it is a rejection of
mercy.” See https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-23/a-vatican-meeting-and-a-clash-of-moral-visions.
After Greg Gianforte, the GOP
congressional candidate from Montana, body-slammed a reporter from The
Guardian who had the audacity to ask Gianforte a question about health
care, Kathleen Parker said, Don’t be
surprised about the body slam. Trump
planted those seeds long ago. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-be-so-surprised-about-the-body-slam-trump-planted-those-seeds-long-ago/2017/05/26/9e24cc7e-4258-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinionsA&wpmm=1.
Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for
God (Random House, 2000) is a history of fundamentalism.
On interpreting scripture based on
tradition, experience and reason, see Our
Theological Task in The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist
Church , pages 78-91, at https://www.cokesbury.com/forms/DynamicContent.aspx?id=87&pageid=920.
On the greatest commandment as a common word of faith, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/01/the-greatest-commandment-common-word-of.html.
On religion as good or evil, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/02/is-religion-good-or-evil.html.
On different perspectives of Jesus,
see Jesus: A prophet, God’s only Son or
the Logos? at http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/04/jesus-prophet-god-only-son-or-logos.html.
On a fundamental problem with religion, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/05/a-fundamental-problem-with-religion.html.
On moral restraints on the freedom of speech, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/05/moral-restraints-on-freedom-of-speech.html.
On fear and fundamentalism, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/07/fear-and-fundamentalism.html.
On freedom and fundamentalism, see
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/freedom-and-fundamentalism.html.
On balancing individual rights with providing for the common good, see
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/balancing-individual-rights-with.html.
On how religious fundamentalism and secularism shape politics and human
rights, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2015/08/how-religious-fundamentalism-and.html.
On the politics of loving our neighbors as ourselves, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/01/the-politics-of-loving-our-neighbors-as.html.
On the relevance of religion to politics, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/04/the-relevance-of-religion-to-politics.html.
On religion and a politics of reconciliation, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/05/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation.html.
On religion and a politics of reconciliation based on shared values,
see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation_19.html.
On saving America from the church, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/01/saving-america-from-church.html.
On the need for a revolution in religion and politics, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/02/the-need-for-revolution-in-religion-and.html.
On
moral ambiguity in religion and politics,
see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/03/moral-ambiguity-in-religion-and-politics.html.
On
how Easter and the Christian paradox
have distorted the role of Jesus and the church in politics, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/04/easter-and-christian-paradox.html.
On
the relevance of Jesus and the
irrelevance of the church in today’s world, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/04/the-relevance-of-jesus-and-irrelevance.html
On the freedoms of religion and speech: where human rights begin, see http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/05/the-freedoms-of-religion-and-speech.html.
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