Tucker Carlson in Politico, after recalling the time Donald Trump once left him an obscene phone message, insightfully suggests why many Evangelicals tell pollsters they support Trump:
You read surveys that indicate the majority of Christian conservatives support Trump, and then you see the video: Trump on stage with pastors, looking pained as they pray over him, misidentifying key books in the New Testament, and in general doing a ludicrous imitation of a faithful Christian, the least holy roller ever. You wonder as you watch this: How could they be that dumb? He’s so obviously faking it.
They know that already. I doubt there are many Christian voters who think Trump could recite the Nicene Creed, or even identify it. Evangelicals have given up trying to elect one of their own. What they’re looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their freedom of speech and worship. Trump fits that role nicely, better in fact than many church-going Republicans. For eight years, there was a born-again in the White House. How’d that work out for Christians, here and in Iraq?
Yes, no doubt many Evangelicals are indeed looking for a “bodyguard” who would protect the nation from external threat and who would safeguard religious freedom at home against increasing cultural and governmental animosity. Arguably it’s a sign of maturity that many Evangelicals don’t apply a rigorous faith litmus test in their electoral decision making. As Martin Luther supposedly said, better to be ruled by a smart Turk than a dumb Christian.
Many Evangelicals are increasingly stressed about a dangerous world and hostile culture even as many Evangelical elites belittle these concerns by warning against “fear.” Christians live by faith but they also are to “beware” dangerous men and called to protect the defenseless. According to traditional Christian teaching, the state is not ordained to provide charity, hospitality or therapy, but indeed to be a “bodyguard” who ensures security, justice, public order and liberty for all.
What candidate would best serve as chief magistrate and public “bodyguard” is a prudential question over which Christians may disagree, and which the institutional church should not specifically answer. Every Christian voter must decide who best embodies the qualities requisite in a ruler, which include strength, moral character, experience, even temperament and good judgment. An American president, even if not personally devout, typically has to articulate our nation’s unique brand of civil religion and homage to the Creator as ultimate guardian of our liberties. The most successful rulers of any nation embody in word and deed their country’s highest aspirations.
Christians must also shun messianic expectations about earthly rulers. They are sinners no better and no worse than we, for which reason they should always be restrained by law, tradition, public opinion and a division of power. We pray for them but don’t invest them with metaphysical hopes.
Comment by Ella Pauline on January 29, 2016 at 10:09 am
Thank you for a clear-headed assessment!
Comment by Joe on January 30, 2016 at 3:07 am
Saints and Strangers. Think about that for a moment. William Bradford hired Captain Myles Standish, not a pilgrim. That is basically the point that Trump’s evangelical supporters are making. And, but for Standish, Plymouth would not have been.
Comment by John Hutchinson on February 1, 2016 at 9:04 am
I do not expect our politicians to be Christians. However, their level of knowledge, wisdom, and ethics/ethos ought to be on the table. It is not simply an issue of his sexual/marital dalliances, although those tend to be indicative of one’s general ethos (1 Tim 3:4-5). And that discernment between of a relationship between private and public(civic) virtue is not solely a Christian understanding, but shared by pagan Roman Republicans, prior to the 1st Century BC. Even the Athenians repudiated males who privately acted as paid consorts as dangerous to the state (Against Timarchus – 346 BC) and denied place on their political councils.
Trump is a man is uses civic laws and officials for private gain (eminent domain) and “who devour widows’
houses and for a pretense make long prayers” (Matt 23:14) in the person of Vera Coking. He is an avaricious and self-aggrandizing American Crassus, who sells out principles, persons, and even his country if it does not befit his immediate “Randian” and utilitarian self-interests. He promises to be an international bully, who will only complete the total detestation of all things American by the rest of the world.
And although Trump is no Hitler, the same threshold of intelligence and character vote for such arrogant buffoons as Donald Crassus, as did the German fascists or fascists everywhere almost a century before. Christianity Today claims that Evangelicalism is not in decline, because Galli and Stetzer measure things by appearance and sociological numbers. Considerable Evangelical support for Trump would be a good barometric indicator of the seriously internal decadence of a biblically illiterate, spiritually lifeless, intellectually inchoate and ignorant, foolish, and corrupt movement that I can no longer identify with.
Comment by ron_goodman on February 1, 2016 at 7:20 am
Fear and resentment seem to be what Republican voters thrive on. Last year it was Ebola, this year ISIS, who knows what they’ll be panicking about next year.
Comment by Carlos M on February 1, 2016 at 6:04 pm
Funny, the left panics over “theocracy,” which is not even a real threat, so at least the GOP fears are grounded in reality.
Comment by ron_goodman on February 1, 2016 at 7:22 pm
Being cautious of religious extremists isn’t panic, and I worry more about the ones with potential access to political power there than the ones riding around in Toyotas in the wilds of Syria/Iraq with none.
Comment by polistra24 on February 2, 2016 at 6:56 pm
” they should always be restrained by law, tradition, public opinion and a division of power.”
Should, yes…. but those restraints no longer exist. Anti-Christian and anti-Muslim leaders operate without any restraints in US and EU and UK. They have hammered all sane and religious people into quivering silence.
This cannot be countered by delicacy or restraint. It must be countered by superior force.
Comment by OhJay on February 11, 2016 at 11:26 pm
Not trolling, just ingorant: do Evangelicals treat the Nicene Creed the same way mainliners do, as the essential definition of the faith?
Comment by ElrondPA on February 23, 2016 at 11:03 pm
I think I and many evangelicals would say that the Nicene Creed is AN essential definition, not necessarily THE essential definition. Someone who can’t assent to the Nicene Creed is definitely not within the bounds of orthodoxy (small “o”, not meaning Eastern Rite churches but the literal meaning of “right belief”), though many evangelicals would ask for more than that.
Comment by Dr. Daniel Mercaldo on February 13, 2016 at 12:35 pm
Once again, I know why I read your columns. Great perspective on the upcoming election. Though I would favor a true Conservative with deeper personal spirituality, I agree with your commentary. Hoping God could give us Trump/Cruz in one person, but we will probably have to decide between the two.