I have kept a promise to my readers not to speak of the ever-absorbing topic of American politics for over six months. But it remains difficult not to comment when a large swathe of Christians in the States continues to support the most immoral and disconnected from the truth president that that country has ever seen. Without rehearsing all his immoral activities which include assaulting women and a chronic lack of feeling for his fellow human beings, Donald J. Trump represents everything that a Christian might want to shy away from. If Christian parents really cared about the moral formation of their children, they might want to forbid any discussion of his activities in the home. The apparent normalisation by Trump of lying and his ability to make up a truth to suit an audience, is corrupting to everyone in America today.
And yet the support of the president by good Christian people continues strong. How can we account for it? The reasons for the support of Trump by around 80% of white evangelicals will no doubt be the subject of PhDs and learned books in the future. What I can say in a short blog post will only touch on a few of the issues. My comments mainly refer to the unique American context which evangelicals occupy in the States and so my observations do not normally apply to evangelicals in the UK.
When the American republic was founded some 230 years ago it was not just a military uprising by a colonial outpost of the British empire. It was also an attempt to rewrite the way politics itself might be conducted. The American ideal was to do politics in accordance with the new ideals of the Enlightenment. No longer would the tasks of government be entrusted to existing elites and privileged groups as they were in Britain. The revolutionary state would also no longer base its guiding principles on religious ideas handed down from the past. The American Constitution speaks about truths being ‘self-evident’. There was an attempt to suggest that their way of ruling was based on the exercise of reason without any of the baggage of the past. A similar veneration for the power of human reason was carried over into the French Revolution which occurred only a few years later.
Behind this arrival of self-evident truth into American political thinking was a movement among intellectuals known as ‘common-sense’ philosophy. This movement, which originated in Scotland, stated that the evidence of the senses can be trusted. Ordinary human beings, even those who had not received a formal education, can grasp reality by the application of the ordinary exercise of reason assisted by the senses.
Although the role of religion in the American Constitution has been much argued about, it seems clear that the Founding Fathers hoped to keep politics and religion firmly separate. They thus refused to give any denominational expression of religion privileged status, no doubt hoping that religious belief would play little part in the development of the political life of the new nation. This hope as we see today has been thwarted and we have in the States a political system now more entangled with Christian ideas than anywhere else in the Western world.
‘Common-sense’ ideas were not just followed in the politics of the new state. They also spilled out to the population at large. The philosophy gave to ordinary people the sense that they could have an opinion in everything, including religion. There was effectively a rediscovery of the Protestant principle that everyone who possessed a Bible could find their individual path to God. The application of ‘common-sense’ allowed the massive expansion of evangelical churches in the 19th and 20th centuries. No one questioned the strangeness of thousands of new churches appearing, each of which were claiming to have a unique and final understanding of Scripture and thus of God. Common-sense ideas have always been dismissive of notion of tradition and the possibility of denominational authority.
Most Evangelical churches in America continue firmly in this common-sense tradition. The particular way in which the common-sense approach is applied is in the understanding of Scripture. If the Bible says that the world was created in six days then common-sense tells us that this has to be literally true. Theories like evolution, higher criticism and textual analysis all emerge from an expertise that even now is considered belonging to a despised educated elite. Elitist traditions were all rejected by the Revolution. In short, the American revolutionary impulse lives on in the fundamentalist chapels of America. Any knowledge that critiques the ‘plain’ understanding of Scripture is firmly rejected.
The tidal wave that carried Trump into the White House drew on the nativist American traditions of anti-elitism and anti-establishment. One might even claim that some of the energy for Trumpism can be traced right back to the American Revolution itself against the rule of King George. Even if we do not go back that far, we can still see a huge reservoir of what we might describe as a primal resentment against a privileged ‘them’, those who through education and wealth control the levers of power. We should not be surprised that fundamentalist churches in the States should have provided shelter and support for these political forces of reaction and conservatism.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who deplores the effects of fundamentalist rhetoric and thinking, it is hard to see how this tense stand-off between the educated elites in the States and those who reject and resent them for their power can be reconciled. From my point of view, it requires education to teach people the principles of critical thinking, the awareness of paradox and the ability to hold two opposing points of view simultaneously. These abilities to reason in a ‘liberal’ way stand over against huge numbers of people who believe that truth can always be grasped by the simple application of gut reason. There are always going to be problems. The evangelical churches have largely identified with the anti-liberal masses and they see Trump as reflecting their ways of reasoning. It is a highly risky strategy. Moths are attracted to a flame, and so conservatives who are attracted to Trump run the risk of being burnt up. The realisation will eventually dawn on his supporters that so far from supporting favoured conservative causes, Trump has led them to a place of intellectual and moral emptiness. The old common-sense ideas of the 18th century made sense to a new nation struggling to overcome the legacies of elitist thinking and the philosophies of the wealthy and privileged. They make little sense in the present century. The insights of science, culture and advanced technology are all needed if America, or any other country, is to make its way in the world. Without modern insights, technical and philosophical, there is only deprivation and widespread poverty. The regression to ‘primitive’ ways of thinking which Trump is encouraging in church and politics is bad news for that country and bad news for the world. When American history is written, the word ‘evangelical’ will probably be a word of abuse. Many will regard all who followed this religious movement under Trump as being on the wrong side of history and certainly on the wrong side of the history of the Christian Church.
Did you see Ed Balls on Trump’s America? I didn’t see it all, but it was very interesting. He was made to feel very uncomfortable by the “Trumpettes” who just didn’t believe anything bad and said it was fake news. Or said that the talk about grabbing women was just locker room talk and not meant. But he thought the backwoods men were decent. They felt that it didn’t matter that rich people got richer, so long as they were getting 100 dollars more themselves. And that some of the things he said weren’t right, but the economy was good. These weren’t put into a religious context, but I’m guessing that many religious people would go along with what they said. There was also a pastor with a real knack for avoiding the nitty gritty. Swore he had no political ambition. Then went and stood for the Senate! It does seem that Trump is basically spending what Obama accrued, and getting the credit. Maybe we should hope he gets that second term and has to fix his own mess. And of course, the ability to pretend that everything is ok when it isn’t is exactly what we see when a church or other organisation is faced with abuse accusations.
Thank you for this most interesting post, Stephen, and for your comments EA. In my view education and critical thinking, particularly the latter, need to be promoted more in the UK too. Would a government that promotes “Education, education, education” be equally willing to promote “Critical thinking, critical thinking, critical thinking”?
I have just returned from two months in mid-west America where two of my daughters live, one in East Michigan beside Detroit, the other in West Michigan, in Zeeland and Holland (no Episcopalians or Presbyterians here because it wasn’t the English or the Scots but the Dutch who settled it). America is a large continent and what I will share is anecdote but having spent time over many years in New York, the Carolina’s, Colorado as well as Michigan my experiences of the people have been very positive. I have moved among Church people of different backgrounds but generally of evangelical background mostly Reformed in the sense of Churchmanship rather than the independents or charismatics but I wanted to say that my anecdote of the generosity, character, wisdom and general wholesomeness of the people has left me with thankfulness to God that there are many such in that great country. No place or people is perfect and there is much to bewail what we hear and see on our news but as one who has regularly experienced life across the pond I do want to say, in line with them, God bless America!
I don’t think people are very different. There are reasons for the way people vote. Fear seams to be one. Suspicion of politicians another. It could happen here.
Interesting item on bbc news at ten about Christians and Trump. Very interesting. Worth iPlayer-ing it.
Thanks for the tip, Athena. You can find the clip here, from 21 minutes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bgh9gc/bbc-news-at-ten-29082018
Stephen, I take issue with your suggestion the Founding Fathers would have wanted to keep religious belief out of politics. The American and French Revolutions followed different forms of separation of church and state. The American was just that, keep denominational establishment separate from government. The early settlers had fled an England where nonconformist Protestants were oppressed by the established CofE. They didn’t want a repeat of that. However, most, with the exception of Franklin and possibly a few others, would have fully expected Christian faith (probably Protestant) to play a significant role in shaping policy. The French of course wanted religion to shut up and play no part in public life. The thinking evangelicals I know in the States voted Trump while holding their noses. They don’t like his marital history, his language, his lying, they don’t trust him as far as they can throw him. But the prospect of conservative Supreme Court picks who will outlast Trump by decades was a big carrot. TBH, the Democrats could have picked a lot of candidates other than Hillary who may have got more evangelical votes.
Jefferson called for “a wall of separation between church and state.” That’s very strong and does not indicate falling back on Christianity to shape policy. Jefferson even edited the Bible to align with Enlightenment thinking, on his own time, not to be used by the state. The fundamentalism that drives the evangelical movement in the US didn’t even come about until the 19th Century. The Enlightenment didn’t reject God, but they rejected dogma of any sort. For the most part, the Founding Fathers simply did not subscribe to Christianity as we see it today.
The argument about Church and State is, I know, much argued about in your country. The motive for pretending that the founding fathers were all motivated by assumptions that would make sense to a modern conservative Protestant complete with literalist ideas about Scripture seem extremely flimsy. There is a lot more that could be said, but I just want to give the flavour of that book by Hofstadher? on anti-intellectualism in American life. I think that is where I read these ideas first.
Yes, sadly, anti-intellectualism is a thing in the US, with a long history. I was exceedingly surprised to see it raise its ugly head in the UK during the Brexit campaign. What was the quote? “People are tired of experts…” Something like that. The irony of the Founding Fathers is that those guys were incredibly well educated and firing on all cylinders, for better and for worse.
I’ve come to see that anti-intellectualism is a very convenient excuse for confirmation bias and affirming every bigotry, bias, theology, and attractive conspiracy theory that exists. Heaven forbid that any of those things should be challenged with critical thinking and reason, how uncomfortable!
What astounds me are the leaders with Harvard and Yale educations who know better, but are incredibly effective at working that phenomenon for their own benefit.
The funny thing is that the “people are tired of experts” thing is a misquote, apparently. But it struck a chord, which is depressing. The guy actually finished his sentence with “…. who turn out not to be”! So sad that so many people want to believe that they know better.
Labels abound but are not helpful in a world where we must acknowledge each other as individuals who may share certain things with others but cannot be grouped with them as a homogenous lot. “Evangelical” is actually a broad Church that takes in a variety of people with sometimes widely differing views but it is often thrown at people a bit like mud in the hope that something dirty will stick – and, yes, it often does because there are some who fly the flag as a rallying point for their own particular camp.
If there is anything of a vague commonality in the word it is that the evangelical sees his or her authority as having some kind of anchor in the scriptures of the Bible.
How do we define its opponent – liberal? If it has roots over against the ‘other side’ it is that the liberal – and please give me some slack on this – takes human understanding as the operative control over any supposed source of authority. If the evangelical wants to see a source of authority from ‘without’ the liberal does not want to relinquish control of this from ‘within’.
The difficulty that arises from these differing elements can be summed up in the quote, “Can two walk together except they be agreed”. However, providing battlements aren’t the dividing line, ‘talk talk is better than war war’ as Winston Churchill used to say.
I think the quote is “jaw jaw”, and I have a feeling it may have been an American. I have found that learning to get along with those with whom I do not agree is very rewarding. I consider myself an evangelical. Perhaps a liberal one? Normal? Humane? The opposite I guess is either Anglo-Catholic or the mediaeval monastery, where they prayed on behalf of the whole community but didn’t go out into the “highways and byways”. I have a lot of sympathy with the conventual tradition, and currently worship in a Cathedral! I see the evangelical tradition as being focussed on outreach. But in most normal communities, there isn’t really an “either/or” situation, it’s just emphasis and personal taste. I always enjoy discussing things with you, Leslie. Thank you.
“Jaw Jaw is better than War War” — winston churchill.
also
“Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels”
A surprising man in many ways.
Thanks.
Readers may be interested in scanning the blurb for the book ‘Trumpocracy’. It makes frightening reading – frightening that some people will actually fall for this stuff. http://www.armageddonbooks.com/959trump.html