There’s a great scene in the classic film Norma Rae, when the title character, played at Oscar-winning caliber by Sally Field, asks the pastor of her congregation to use the church for a union meeting. She makes clear a number of black folk will be in attendance, and declares if he refuses the request she will leave his flock. The pastor, busy adding a coat of paint to the facility, barely takes his eyes off his chore and matter-of-factly tells Norma how much he will miss her voice in the choir. What Would Jesus Do? That’s an inquiry many a theologian has pondered on a selective basis.
The vivid hypocrisy on display these days regarding support of perhaps US history’s least God-fearing President is nothing new. Sadly, up and down the line, throughout the seminal moral conflicts of our maturation as a nation, many an otherwise pious servant of the lord has been on the wrong side of history, often attending to the line laid to follow by their church leadership. Slavery had no problem finding warm comfort in the weekly sermons of southern preachers. Ditto Jim Crow a century later. Congregations throughout the US prayed for the souls of “savages” even as Manifest Destiny destroyed their way of life. The many charitable avenues of Catholic outreach prove inadequate to beguile the decent from a top-to-bottom cover up of crimes so despicable they discourage retelling.
Lately we see some of the ugliest inconsistencies yet, carried out in the name of protecting the unborn and ensuring “religious freedom,” not to mention reviling desperate immigrants with the temerity to believe our national story. Widespread as it is subtle, encoded as it is unmistakable, what bedevils us today is no different from prior bouts of wretched disingenuousness steered in full from the dais, and wholly supported by the collection plate.
The Falwell Jrs., Grahams and Jeffress are merely new names on an old list of nasty hypocrites. What’s new is how dependent the President they buoy with false acclimation has become on them and theirs. Take away evangelical devotion and Trump’s 93% of GOP voters becomes much softer. The moral majority may be neither, but within the Republican base they call the shots. Make no mistake, they could deliver us from evil…. if only they didn’t adore him. Like many of the President’s wretched core, born again Christians will swear it’s the agenda stupid when pressed to explain how a serial adulterer and Howard Stern’s all-time favorite guest gets a pass for behavior they’d disown their own kids for. In fact, Trump has delivered the culture war goods, his selection of Mike Pence as number two assuring the looney right gets more than its fair share of love from the bully pulpit.
Yet and still, even more than Pro-Life extremism and the right to foist indignities on those whose sexuality they’ve decided deserves no quarter, let alone a wedding cake, the undertone of Trump’s evangelical support feels much like that of the rest of his wretched core… a disdain for those who populate his ever expanding enemies list. Whether it’s illegals, liberals, independent counsels or blacks ungrateful enough to protest getting shot by police while unarmed, turning the other cheek and loving the sinner appear to be on the back burner these days. It’s amen to MAGA intolerance as empathy now suffers at the border, a casualty to protecting our sovereignty from the invading hordes, the chaotic caravans. He’s keeping us safe, who cares if he paid off a porn star? God demands perspective, all things to their rightful importance… these are rapists and drug dealers we’re talking about! Pay unto Caesar and all that.
The surreality of Mr. pussy grabber signing the Bibles of those nature just tragically reminded she won’t be ignored dovetails with the preposterous dichotomy of flyover Christianity’s disdain for a good many things they know Jesus would do. Bigotry and xenophobia don’t get people to the head of any post-rapture line I’m aware of. Trump certainly never cared one way or the other, and now a solid majority of born-again America doesn’t seem to either. First things first, I suppose; let’s keep it white and right… worry about salvation once the job is done.
The worst number Trump polled among Christians was 66 percent in the midst of the government shutdown. Since then it’s been ticking back up as the President latches on to the infanticide lie Republicans pinned on Democrats for the gall of favoring a mother’s survival. This is a Handmaiden’s GOP and Trump is all in. However, even with Pence taking every opportunity to polish the Administration’s extremist bona fides on the Pro-Life front, the ugly attacks against most every group not on Roy Moore’s mailing list seems to really keep those awaiting judgement day enrapt. Don’t bother asking them WWJD when they’re in a lather over who Trump hates most at this moment… they’ll just tell you where to go. BC