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Trump, Jesus and the Evangelicals

By Mark Christensen - posted Thursday, 22 February 2018


Trump is an unserious Christian, content to remain vengeful, egotistical and other than frugal. Yet by virtue of instincts lacking in others, he relates to growing electoral frustration with the sterile intellectualism of a ruling class that refuses to acknowledge the spiritual nature of our ultimate cause. And like Jesus, he puts fainthearted materialists, including those on his own side, under immense pressure.

Feared by Washington and the mainstream media, the President's disdain for political norms is typically dismissed without critical thought or self-reflection. As Charles C. Cooke explains in a pre-Christmas takedown of Washington Post blogger, Jennifer Rubin:

Indignation, not analysis, is the perennial order of the day, and the tone of our debates is ineluctably Twitteresque. Retweets are points on the board, and hyperbole gets you oodles of them. The worst. Ding! Insane. Ding! Crisis. Ding, ding, ding! Congratulations, you have been promoted to the next level.

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But here's the thing: a reactionary, ad hominem strategy makes sense. Genuine free inquiry might unearth inconvenient facts. Like, for example, that is it irrational and craven to hope for a plan aimed at coercing the non-partisan heart. And that trying to avoid an unconditional leap of faith, wanting to shirk the burden to love one another, is prone to ordain tyranny and a puerile culture that cares nothing for human dignity.

By casting her as "an example of this president's remarkable talent for corrupting his detractors as well as his devotees" Cooke lets Rubin, and himself, off the hook. For many believing Americans, Trump's improvisation merely highlights the failed imagination of an already-corrupt establishment mindful only of the things of man, not God.

Since the summer of 2015, the many acolytes of "MAGA!" have agreed to subordinate their true views to whatever expediency is required to sustain Donald Trump's ego. Out has gone their judgement, and in has come their fealty; where once there were thriving minds, now there are just frayed red hats.

Yet consistent with Bush's quip, evangelicals are actually affirming their worldview, a perspective that is too nuanced for less-than-thriving minds intent on rationalizing the irreducible element of Trumpism.

It is the unknowable spirit that bestows meaning and moral purpose in life. Many once judged Republicans committed to this reality, but not any more. The transcending of worldly goals, rules and authority is now a desperate, all-or-nothing proposition. Why render to Caesar what is Caesar's when seeing they do not see, hearing they do not hear?

In an interview with Bill Kristol, National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg observed the President "does great violence to people cognitively in our line of work because we're all about trying to figure out what the real plan is – and there is no plan with him."

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Well, yes, that's the point; the very subtle point.

Trump doesn't convey truth through parables. Rather, he is the parable, an unwitting champion of divine mystery, what others, rivals who believe they are smarter than him, cannot discern.

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This article was first published on Thermidor.



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About the Author

Mark is a social and political commentator, with a background in economics. He also has an abiding interest in philosophy and theology, and is trying to write a book on the nature of reality. He blogs here.

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