They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but you sure don’t find them on the campaign trail, either. One of the striking data points in Donald Trump’s march toward a third straight Republican presidential nomination this year is how firmly evangelical Christians have lined up behind him. Of course, the Christian right has been almost entirely Republican for years now – 80 percent of white evangelicals voted Republican in 2020. But some of Trump’s opponents in the party thought that this year, they might be able to peel the church folks away from him. After all, the guy is – just my opinion here, folks – a mean-spirited, philandering, lying, cheating authoritarian who advocates policies that slam the door on refugees and immigrants, that perpetuate racism, and that further the wealth inequity here and abroad.
If you think that kind of a guy represents your religious faith, well, I’d like to see the scripture behind that.
Anyway, The Washington Post notes that in the Iowa caucuses this year, evangelical Christians actually moved more toward Trump. In 2016, Trump fared poorly in the most evangelical areas, with his share of the vote declining as the share of evangelicals grew. This year, that pattern was reversed: Trump’s numbers were higher in the most religious counties of Iowa.
You would think that Trump’s character and issue stances would present a problem for people of faith. Of course, politics is perilous most of the time for those in the pulpit – because the teachings of all the world’s religions, if they’re well understood, pose challenges to governments.
For example: The Jewish concept of tikkun olam — literally, “repair of the world” — has led Jewish leaders to call upon governmentto improve public education, raise wages and provide housing for the poor. Those are issues for the legislature, right? Islam teachesthat the state has a responsibility to promote the human rights of its citizens, a charge that in day-to-day life requires enforcement by law. As for Christianity, Jesus is quoted in the Gospel of Luke as saying his role was, in one translation, “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and … to set the oppressed free” — hardly apolitical goals.
From the beginning, American politicians have eagerly invoked God’s name as a supporter. Our leaders have implied an almighty imprimatur on the colonies’ war for independence from England, on the slaughter of indigenous people, the defeat of foreigners in multiple wars and, during the Civil War, on both sides of the question of slavery.
In fact, candidates for president are actually harassed by the Christian right if they fail to embrace the concept of American exceptionalism,which holds that the United States is unique among nations of the world, and that its mission and its success over the past 250 years is a result of God’s will. Logically, that means other nationalities and faiths are inferior and wrong — hardly a stance that encourages empathy for fellow humans outside our own citizenship or religious persuasion.
Maybe what endears Donald Trump to the evangelicals is his embrace of this American triumphalism. Remember how in his 2016 nomination acceptance speech, he spoke darkly of crime and economic ruin, and declared, “I alone can fix it.” Most politicians at least feign humility, and call upon citizens and God alike to help in achieving justice or tranquility or peace, or whatever more specific goals the moment demands. But Trump’s base is acclimated to authoritarian notions, and to the exceptionalism that accommodates the selfish “America First” mantra – which suggests all the world outside our borders is alien. No wonder the Christian right embraces Donald Trump: he sounds rather like what they hear from the pulpit.
I’m no theologian — that has been the calling of others in my family, including both of my grandfathers, my own dad and assorted uncles and cousins. But it strikes me that the notion of turning everything over to an authority, whether a deity or a political leader, is a misreading of both religions’ and governments’ appropriate roles in our lives. In both cases, it leads to a willing brutality toward foreigners and people of other faiths, and to a lackadaisical approach to the tasks that ought to be embraced by the religious and the patriotic among us.
Those tasks, scriptures of all the major faiths tell us, focus on achieving justice and peace. Those are vast concepts, yes, but they have quite prosaic jobs attached to their attainment — including tax and spending changes to make the economy work for all, laws to put healthcare and housing within reach of everybody and policies that protect people in our country and every other land who are denied basic rights. As John F. Kennedy said at the end of his Inaugural Address, “Here on this earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”
People of faith, as well as people who aren’t religious but simply want to be good citizens, need to shoulder the work of achieving those goals, rather than figuring it will be handled by either a spiritual or a civil force. A foxhole is a temporarily safe place, but it’s no route to peace or justice. It’s out on the battlefield – the political battlefield, I mean – that those fights are won.
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack.
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