One of the nation’s leading experts on religion warns that America could be threatened by the rejection of democracy by religious reactionaries in defense of their values.
David P. Gushee, distinguished professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University, wrote the new book “Defending Democracy Against Its Christian Enemies,” which examines the deepening connections between evangelical Christianity and far-right politics.
Chair of Christian Social Ethics at the Vrije Universiteit and senior fellow at the International Center for Baptist Theological Studies, both in Amsterdam, Gushee said he was motivated to write the book after seeing so many Christians engaged in violence on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
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Gushee admits he was surprised to see so many Christian flags that day.
“I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess, now that I think about it,” he said. “Actually, if you look at my book, the cover is the Christian flag superimposed on the Capitol. I mean, for some of us who have traditional Christian backgrounds, for (that flag) to be in a violent mob attacking the Capitol, it was just shocking. As a scholar, I wanted to make sense of it.
He describes MAGA evangelicals as a mix of people committed to conservative Christian values and “post-Christian” people.
“(Post-Christians) don’t go to church; they are only vaguely Christian, but they identify Christianity with Trumpism. Opposition to immigration, cultural resentments, anti-feminism and “anti-diversity, equity and inclusion,” he said. “They identify with all of that, and their votes reflect that.”
Is this a divine appointment?
These issues, Gushee said, allow them to forgive Donald Trump’s weaknesses and accept the idea that God is using Trump despite his faults.
“You can hear at least three types of patterns,” he said. “The first is that Trump is some kind of savior, the savior of America, the savior of Christianity. And then, Trump is the ‘anointed one,’ raised to be a leader. When you think about the Old Testament, anointed leaders were often unlikely people. I was just reading the story of how Samuel chose David. That’s the unlikely choice, right? And there’s the one where God used King Cyrus to let the Israelites go home. So, I mean, if you look for justification for something, you can usually find it. So the idea that Trump is most likely his choice because he has a bad record is a further proof that God must have chosen him because only God would do something as big as this, right?”
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Gushee said that in some circles, Trump’s legal troubles are compared to the unjust prosecutions and persecution of Jesus by the Romans.
“So, like Jesus, Trump is suffering,” he said. “A national savior is kind of where he got to. It’s very, very dangerous.”
Gushee said reactionary Christianity is prevalent all over the world.
“In the book I talk about Russia, hunger, Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Poland – until this government was rejected – as examples of parties and politicians capable of telling the religious majority traditional “Hey, vote for us” and we will make our country great again, restore traditional values, fight the liberals, make sure everyone knows that this country truly belongs to us, to our church, to our people, to our values,” he said.
The book also examines the Black Church.
“The Black Church has been involved in politics in part because of a lack, historically, of access to political power,” he said.
Although black Christians tend to be socially conservative, Gushee explained why they resist political extremism.
“On civil rights issues, they are not conservative,” he said. “They take the history of racism in this country seriously and want to see it corrected. And they know about white supremacy and the way it demeans and mistreats people of color, and so there will never be a majority of black voters who will be interested in supporting a movement that feeds on racist overtones. We unfortunately only have two parties, and neither party perfectly reflects what I understand to be Christian values. So, it’s a bit as if people consider which values are the most important. “Which ones do they think is most important to vote for?”
Gushee argues that churches and pastors need to keep a healthy distance from politics.
“Ultimately you have to think about what values Christians should care about,” he said. “Christians need to think about these values, and preachers need to talk about the values that are at stake. And sometimes that will make you lean politically in one direction rather than the other.”
Polls show that overall the number of American churchgoers is declining, particularly among young evangelicals offended by the fusion of religion and right-wing politics.
A transcendent figure
“If loyalty to Donald J. Trump becomes the litmus test for being OK in a religious community, then we’re really in trouble,” Gushee said. “I know of pastors who were forced out of their jobs or felt the need to leave, as early as 2016, because their congregants were so enamored with Trump and as a pastor they weren’t giving them what they wanted. And they were under pressure. and they left.”
He said the decline in religiosity and church attendance could have the paradoxical effect of some people turning their politics into a quasi-religion.
“They no longer find transcendent meaning in the Church, nor in God, nor in Jesus,” he said. “If your movement or your community isn’t in church, maybe it will be in rallies. You see people who have been to 50 Trump events just because that’s their people, it “is their tribe. One of the reasons he has had such a loyal support base is because of what he has brought to the people. It goes beyond traditional politics. He is more of a figure transcendent that we can trust and hope in.
Gushee said he worries that some Christians may be willing to abandon democracy if they believe their values are threatened.
“Democracy is not perfect,” he said. “But democracy is far preferable to dictatorship. And the rule of law, with the protection of civil rights, is a valuable achievement and we must protect it. Protecting our democracy is far more important than any other issue on which we will vote for in 2024. Christians must be reminded why democracy deserves to be protected.
Contact Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP.
