In Luke 4, before Jesus ever preaches from the word of Gawd, he is first tempted in the desert by the biggest baddie of them all: the devil. “If you worship me, all the kingdoms of the world will be yours,” says the red-horned demigod. “Piss off,” Jesus replies, not batting an eye at the infamous grifter. “Okay,” retorts the devil, “How about this church? Do something cool and you’ll be a God.” Jesus still doesn’t budge.
Fast forward to today, and American Evangelicals have stepped into Jesus’ place, and are more than happy to agree to both terms, so long as their orange overlord is the one in charge of the operation.
51% of Iowa Republicans just proved as much, in a state where children go directly from the womb to the baptismal waters, are swaddled in American flags, spend their Sundays in the pews, and eat at church potlucks where mayonnaise is considered a spice. Sorry, what I mean is that Iowa is WHITE AF, so not entirely emblematic of the whole of the nation.
But still!
51% were like, “Fuck all that blessed are the poor BS; give me the guy with the multiple indictments and history of sexual abuse. That’ll show those liberal heathens!”
The insane thing about the predicament we are in is that nothing we ever say sways certain swaths of the faith (and certainly not this blog post). Again, they agreed to the terms set forth from the Dark Lord, so we are in too deep now. Pointing out hypocrisy is done and dusted as a way to convict any of these Christians.
Oh, but Matt, who are you to judge?
It’s not me; it’s Jesus. He said we will know them by their fruit, and the only thing growing in Iowa is corn, soybeans, and bullshit (except for Quoir authors Daniel Henderson and Samuel Jaye Tanner … they’re cool!). But 51%! Maybe instead of getting mad at my so-called judgmentalism, get mad that so-called “followers of Jesus”–and that’s what Christian was supposed to mean–have glommed on to a man who promises to create a Handmaid’s Tale-esque blend of Church and State, combined with a revenge tour that literally is antithetical to Jesus’ command to forgive “seventy times seven.” Man, they are so blind they don’t seem to see any problem here.
It’s like the whole nation is being gaslit (or, is it “gaslighted?” I never know).
So, I guess it’s obvious what my answer to the question in the title is. At least in Iowa, one out of every two Evangelicals would take the devil up on his offer of a nationalistic Christian state. In fact, they really like the sound of that. Which makes so much of the silence from Evangelicalism quite deafening. And sure, some Evangelicals have rightly spoken out against Trump, but too few have echoed that oppositional call. Most have done what they always do: asses in the pews, clapping on the ones and threes, sitting idly by while folks in their own camp trash the faith, the constitution, and just about everything else the siren song known as Trumpism beckons from them.
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