The Trump Problem And Christians Partisans (by Ben Davis)

Ben Davis is a student in our MA in New Testament Context program at Northern Seminary; he lives in Wichita with Lauren and their son Henry.

Christians in America have a Trump problem. One considerably large group of Christians, mostly evangelicals and some conservative Catholics, are the unmovable cornerstone of Trump’s political base. To them, Donald Trump is one of God’s chosen characters in the master plan of salvation-history – a modern King Cyrus, as one commentator put it – who wills to transform the American Republic into the instantiation of the Kingdom of God. Another group, mostly comprised of Mainliners, Catholics, and progressive evangelicals, believe Donald Trump is the archetype of the antichrist. In their eyes Trump is the bane of all that is good in the world. Every injustice, every evil, every political setback and misdeed can – and should! – be placed at Trump’s feet, they believe. Like armies clashing in the night, these two groups of Christians are waging a war for the soul of America, and, depending on where they stand in the fight, Trump is either perceived as a liberating, heroic warrior or an enslaving, despotic overlord.

Since the late 1970s, with the rise of the Religious Right, Christians have had a fraught relationship with politics. The rhetoric of the Moral Majority made it clear that Christians had a biblical obligation to engage in the political process, and, moreover, that their convictions compelled them to vote for the political Party that most advanced their agenda, namely, the Republican Party. Over time, though, the moral zeal evinced by Christians began to fray, and their involvement became less about the heavy demands of conscience and more about the preservation of political ideology and tactical partisan power-plays. Many Christians, disillusioned by the whole affair, either removed themselves from the political sphere altogether or moved decisively to the Left, where the landscape was not so overgrown. As it stands now, in the age of Trump, Christians are no less political – or partisan – than they were before, but the colors of their ideologies bleed more evenly across political lines.

I say all of this because I think it bears heavy on our current political situation. Let me explain. Over the past month the world has watched with horror and dismay as pictures of immigrant children, frightened and confused, separated from their families, flooded through our international media outlets. In a strident effort to curb illegal border crossings, the Trump administration instituted an unprecedented “zero tolerance” policy that warranted the detention and criminal prosecution of every person caught crossing the southern border illegally (a first-time offense is a misdemeanor; the second offense, a felony). Since minors are exempt from being charged, they were taken from their families and held in prison-like camps while the adults who brought them to this point were prosecuted. In many instances children were being held for weeks with little assurance that they would be reunited with their family anytime soon if ever again.

Rightfully, moral outrage and anger ensued; a chorus of national and international voices joined together, calling on the administration to cease and desist these egregious, unjust practices. Thankfully, it worked (sort of). President Trump signed an Executive Order that hereafter ended family separations for crossing the border illegally – although the fate of those families torn apart before the Order went into effect still hangs in the balance.

Before we move on, let’s be unequivocally clear on this point: the practice of family separation is grossly unjust and without any moral rationalization. Every person – Christian or not – should be deeply morally offended by this horrendous policy, desiring it to end post haste. Additionally, we should demand and work for the restoration of the families, especially the children, who’ve been hurt and traumatized by this experience. Justice calls us not only to stop the practice but to make whole again what we have torn apart. Thankfully, many Americans and people from around the world have parlayed their anger into action in an attempt to do just that.

While I applaud the change of course taken by the administration, and I’m grateful for the sincere response of many Americans to act justly on behalf of immigrant families, for me, a larger issue still remains, that is, moral consistency on the part of Christians. From the welter of stories released about this crisis, punctuated reports have also surfaced tracing its origins. As it turns out, the legal precedent for separating families at the border was set by the Obama administration – not, as many assumed, by Trump. Now, Trump certainly accelerated and broadened the policy beyond the scope of the previous administration, instituting a “zero tolerance” policy that saw the prosecution of every person crossing the border illegally without exception, among other things. But, as is now clear, the difference between the Trump and Obama administrations on this score is one of degree, not of kind. Injustice is injustice, plain and simple.

In light of this, I ask: Why now? Why bring our moral outrage to a fevered pitch with Trump, but not with Obama? Or, by contrast, why praise Trump’s immigration policy but deny Obama the same measure of support? One answer, I think, is this: Christians are so beholden to partisan interests that, for them, the terms of justice are strictly defined and redefined along ideological lines instead of the cross of Christ. Perhaps worse, many Christians are seemingly more concerned about the aesthetics of moral preening than the fluid administration of their outrage.

To be sure, it is not unreasonable for Christians to have certain ideological inclinations that move either Right or Left. That is not what is at issue. Rather, the point I’m trying to raise is that Christians have moved beyond mere inclination to blatant, uncompromising partisanship. In turn our vision of (in)justice – and much else besides – owes less to Scripture and the Church’s established theological Tradition, and more to whoever occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Thus, instead of evaluating each policy and president equitably, by the sharp standards of the Kingdom, we weigh them on the feeble scales of our own political preferences, minimizing if not destroying altogether our ability to speak truth to power no matter who’s in office.

Alternatively, Christian orthodoxy is broad enough to transcend the paucity of our modern political arrangements. It situates us at a particular angle of vision to see Trump and Obama – Republican and Democrat, Liberal and Conservative – as two sides of the same political coin who are fundamentally frail and predisposed to work against the grain of God’s Kingdom. Orthodoxy, moreover, trains us to feel the sting of moral offense without supposing that the offender is any less human than you and me. The wisdom of Christian orthodoxy nurtures our judgments, tutoring us in the ways of Christ-like virtue, so we may call what is evil, evil, regardless of who’s in power. In short, orthodoxy trains us to be citizens of the Kingdom of God who unapologetically proclaim that Jesus alone is King and Caesar is not!

Partisanship, however, is the direct antithesis of all of this, as we routinely see on today’s political scene. Partisanship is a form of Nietzschean will-to-power, which posits that knowing right from wrong is a privilege for those who hold the power and no one else. Thus, it is a type of nihilism.

Like it or not, Trump is here to stay, at least for the next two years if not more. My challenge to Christians is to eschew the temptation to make him the sole object of their attention, whether for good or for ill. Rather, keep your sights on Christ and the manifest signs of his Kingdom in our midst. Should you lament the grave injustices perpetrated against immigrants? Absolutely! Should you continue to call out this administration for is disgusting overreaches and malfeasances? Yes, of course! Should you continue to work tirelessly for the poor, powerless, and persecuted affected by bad policy? Unquestionably! Just realize, however, that when Trump leaves the work does not end, but rather continues apace, no matter who precedes him.

Lastly, I hope that Christians will use this unsettling time to recognize all they share together in Christ. It is troubling enough that the Church is so deeply divided along ecclesial lines. Being divided along superficial political lines is even worse, and forces the wounds of history even deeper. We must strive to order our affections rightly and in turn ask ourselves this question: What is more important, power or witness?