For the evangelical right, this has nothing to do with “faith”
I was reading a Post article recently about the fallout from last week’s explosive Christianity Today editorial in which the publication’s editor-in-chief called for Donald Trump’s removal from office. There was a line (from the Post) that particularly stood out to me:
James Dobson…ticked off more than a dozen issues in which he believed Democrats would be worse than Trump, such as school choice, abortion, Israel, gay rights and “men in women’s sports and boys in girls’ locker rooms.”
Two reactions for my part on this one. First is the obvious one where I feel like a broken record every time I mention it: With all of the pain, suffering, and injustice that afflicts the world and our country, it’s worth nothing that these, incredibly, are the issues they care about. No surprises here, of course, but it’s still despicable and thus still important to call out.
Second, Dobson’s remarks ought to lay bare a reality to anyone for whom the evangelical right’s motivations somehow remain unclear: Their uncompromising, unquestioning embrace of and support for Trump has nothing to do with faith or commitment to any kind of religious or spiritual integrity; to the contrary, it has everything to do with power and profit.
Read the open letter to Christianity Today that was signed by nearly 200 evangelical leaders in protest of the bombshell editorial, and note that it does not even attempt to refute the actual substance of the editorial. This is hugely telling.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Post article dutifully mentions just an infinitesimally tiny sampling of the long, hideous list of transgressions that, by even the most charitable measure of decency, render Trump an objectively vile person (bolding mine):
Beneath the president’s angry outbursts lies a fear that, ahead of the 2020 election, Trump could lose some evangelical supporters, who as a group have remained durably bonded to him despite his payments to an adult-film star after allegations of an affair; attacks on war heroes, congressional widows and a teenage climate activist; boasts of sexual assault caught on tape; and the regular use of profanity at rallies from behind the presidential lectern.
Now imagine just for a moment if it were a Democrat in office who espoused even just one of these ignoble traits, and imagine if that Democrat was at odds with the evangelical right on even just one of the litmus test issues that James Dobson references above.
They’d be sanctimoniously calling for his or her head. Full stop.
The evangelical right’s uncompromising, unquestioning embrace of and support for Trump has nothing to do with faith or commitment to any kind of religious or spiritual integrity; to the contrary, it has everything to do with power and profit.
I’ve speculated in the past as to why issues like abortion have long been objects of obsession for figures like Dobson, Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, and the unholy, cult-like movement they represent. The CliffsNotes summary goes like this: For those who ruminate upon them unrelentingly, controversies like abortion or gay and transgender rights are issues in which someone else is always the evil one. Find issues like these that not only anger and agitate a significant contingent of people but allow them to self-righteously project their own shame and self-loathing onto the other, and you’ve got yourself a cash cow that may never dry up.
So indeed this is about money and influence. Remember that whenever a spokesperson for this movement peddles some variation of “we know he’s a scumbag, but at least he’s doing our bidding!”
I’m already seeing editorials proclaiming that the Christianity Today piece won’t change anything. That’s absolutely correct; it will not. Donald Trump and the evangelical right have a perverse symbiotic relationship in place: He gives them clout to promote an agenda that is both morally indefensible, in part because of its hypocrisy, and wildly unpopular with the broader public; they give him a massive political boost by lending the support of a voting demographic that is dwindling but nevertheless vital to his tenuous electoral prospects. (By the way, why is it dwindling? Maybe because there are lots of people who understandably want no part of this dynamic or the contemptible behaviors it produces.)
As long as these incentives coexist, indeed nothing will change. The evangelical right is a collection of modern-day Pharisees; Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist. Both are concerned solely with their own fortunes. This sounds to me like a match made in hell—but as long as both stand to profit through this dark arrangement, neither an editorial in Christianity Today nor any other voice of reason can hope to disrupt it.
