A fascinating article in Harpers about the focus by many in the US Evangelical Christian community on the Babylonian Exile of the Jews as a metaphor for what they see as their own marginalization by American secular / multi-cultural society. This is important in how that focus drives the Vice President, and how it provides cover for Donald Trump, who’s seen as Cyrus the Persian Emperor by folk in this camp: Sure, he’s a brutal pagan whose ways are ungodly, but he’s God’s selected tyrant, destined under the guidance of our Daniel [i.e., Pence] to free us and restore God’s own kingdom of Chosen People.
It’s a very Old Testament mental framework, and helps explain why so many Evangelicals seem to be so gung-ho over a guy who strikes me as about as un-Christ-like as one can get. It’s because they’re focused on the highly-supported white-haired Daniel beside him as their last, best, and clearly anointed hope.
(Alternately, if you are looking for a more old-school conservative view of Pence, you might want to check out George Will’s latest column, which concludes: “Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic. Pence is what he has chosen to be, which is horrifying.”)
[Essay] | Exiled, by Meghan O’Gieblyn | Harper’s Magazine
Mike Pence and the evangelical fantasy of persecution
Delusional.
Still need to read the whole thing, but I have a couple of observations.
First, I have a quibble with the following statement: "The God of these stories [in the Old Testament] is not the familiar, tranquilized Jesus of hymns and dashboard figurines but the more forbidding Yahweh who disciplines and delivers the nation of Israel." It's a gross oversimplification to characterize the Bible in this way. There's a lot of mercy in the Old Testament (including, ironically enough, in the recently-cited story of David and Bathsheba), and there's a lot of discipline in the New (including in the Sermon on the Mount; plucking your own eye out isn't a nice little children's story). Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Pence tends to cite the more disciplinary passages of the Bible, rather than the merciful ones. (Well, except when the adultery of a certain person comes up; then mercy becomes important.)
Second, I had completely missed this emphasis on exile. Sure, I've heard the occasional complaints about how woeful the life of American Christians is. But if the author's observations are true – and I have no reason to doubt them – it's a massive shift from the idea of American exceptionalism (the city on a hill) to the idea of American persecution (sing us one of the songs of Zion).
+John E. Bredehoft It's always dicey to generalize, of course. Esp. about something as complex as the multi-authored, multi-centuried multi-edited gatherings of writings in the Christian Bible.
I agree with your first point, while noting that most people (Christian or not), if they characterize the Old vs New Testaments (the Gospels, at least), would draw that sort of distinction — a harsh, disciplining, bloodthirst, legalistic, xenophobic Yahweh, vs. kind, gentle, loving, forgiving, suffering Jesus. Both characters miss a lot of material, but they aren't characterizations wholly without merit if you take a 50,000 foot view.
Moreover, they're characterizations that various factions of Christians tend to use. The Evangelicals have, ironically, drifted from the Gospel Message about forgiveness to the legalism (and tribalism) of the Old Testament. That's always been a strain within American Christianity, but it's come to the fore in the last 40 years. Conversely, the more liberal Christian elements have focused on a core message of Jesus as cool love-loving hippie that they almost ignore the quite stringent life and attitudes that he preached in the various Gospels. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is not just about being nice, but putting your time, talent, and treasure into action to that end.
The Exile thing is interesting. And I guess since enough of that group backdate it all to SCOTUS "outlawing prayer in schools" (it did no such thing, of course), they figure it's been just about long enough for a Cyrus to come along and let them go out free to build that Shining Theocracy on a Hill.
So I calculated 1962+70 and got 2032, which works out to the end of Ivanka’s second term. Never mind that she isn’t Christian…