Fascinating, disappointing, interesting, and concerning article, talking with people in Sioux Center, Iowa, where Donald Trump gave his famous “Fifth Avenue” shooting comment during his 2016 campaign, but where he also promised his evangelical Christian audience that, under his presidency, “Christianity will have power.”
“I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it,” Mr. Trump said.
Christians make up the overwhelming majority of the country, he said. And then he slowed slightly to stress each next word: “And yet we don’t exert the power that we should have.”
If he were elected president, he promised, that would change. He raised a finger.
“Christianity will have power,” he said. “If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”
What struck me in reading this was the irony that a religion whose founder was killed by those in power, and who taught the virtue demonstrated and grace given when refusal to compromise principle for power leads to persecution, has so many followers who just want to be the ones “in charge.” To have Caesar promise them power in exchange for their support at the ballots.
Not necessarily malicious power (though clearly there are some), but just comfortable power. Their scripture in all public places. The assumption that they are “normal”. Laws that adhere to their religious code. And those who aren’t of their belief, left on the margins, at best.
And if their perceived rights conflict with those of others? Women who want equal treatment, or those of other races, or sexual orientation or gender expression or religious faith? Well, the advantage of firmly believing God is on your side is that you don’t worry about others who don’t believe as you do. You can argue that you need the power to have the nation do what you want, but frame it as making sure someone isn’t oppressing you.
Explained Jason Mulder, who runs a small design company in Sioux Center: “I feel like on the coasts, in some of the cities and stuff, they look down on us in rural America. You know, we are a bunch of hicks, and don’t know anything. They don’t understand us the same way we don’t understand them. So we don’t want them telling us how to live our lives.”
One has to consider some are projecting concerns that they will find themselves being treated as poorly on the margins as Jews, or Muslims, or atheists, etc.
The irony is that the nation’s history shows that when Christianity “has power,” it turns on itself as much as on those outside. Along racial lines. Wealth lines. Most importantly doctrinal lines. Catholic vs Protestant. Evangelicals of different flavors. James Madison grew up seeing Baptists tarred and feathered, which led to his pressing for protections against the church being entangled with the state.
When Christians “have power,” it’s not all Christians, ever.
“Obama wanted to take my assault rifle, he wanted to take out all the high-capacity magazines,” Mr. Schouten said. “It just —”
“— felt like your freedoms kept getting taken from you,” said Heather’s husband, Paul, finishing the sentence for him.
Is Christianity “under siege”? Well, it’s losing numbers. And it’s losing (to coin a phrase) the “special rights” of being the assumed norm, of having the presumed power when push comes to shove, of having its values be the values everyone has to adhere to (in theory).
And, weird thing, as that norm has faded, some people in some groups who have been pushed around by Christians following what they think is Christian doctrine, when they get a chance, they speak out. They verbally attack Christianity. Sometimes they push back, too.
She worried that the school might be forced to let in students who were not Christian, or hire teachers who were gay.
“Silly things. Just let the boys go in the boys’ bathroom and the girls go in the girls’,” he said. “It’s just something you’d think is never going to happen, and nowadays it could. And it probably will.”
“Just hope nobody turns it upside down,” he said.
“But we feel like we are in a little area where we are protected yet,” she said. “We are afraid of losing that, I guess.”
And it all feels so much like a zero-sum game. That the only way for someone to get freedoms, liberty, rights, is to take them from someone who already has them. The idea of rights being a universal pool to which only some people have been invited, and that those people were now insisting on their fair share … doesn’t matter to them, maybe because they don’t know or acknowledge some of the groups insisting on their freedom, liberty, rights.
The years of the Obama presidency were confusing to her. She said she heard talk of giving freedoms to gay people and members of minority groups. But to her it felt like her freedoms were being taken away. And that she was turning into the minority.
“I do not love Trump. I think Trump is good for America as a country. I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away under the guise of giving freedoms to all,” she said. “Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.”
But if Christianity is diminishing in the US, it’s not because of those attacks. It’s not because of Hollywood, or liberals, or Satan whispering in the wings. It’s ultimately because Christians, in all their different flavors, are not being persuasive that theirs is the better way, the right way. That the salvation they trust is coming, and the peace and joy they claim to feel in their lives, and the righteousness of their cause, is worth it as a belief system and lifestyle.
Taking a shortcut by having power in secular terms doesn’t seem to fit into any of the New Testament teachings I can find. And the more they grasp at that, the more they drive people away,
They want America to be a Christian nation for their children. “We started out as a Christian nation,” she said.
“You can’t make people do these things,” he said. “But you can try to protect what you’ve got, you might say.”
One might think, if this were simply a matter of faith, the folk talked with here would be focused on their beliefs and their relationship with God. They would bear the insults and slights as signs that they’re doing something right. (They might also consider any justice of the accusations against them, but one step at a time).
Instead, what we hear about is all about Us and Them, and fear, and discomfort, and change, and Donald being the guy who will Restore Our Power, take away the insecurity, the questioning, the (gasp) marginalization, the laws and culture that say they’re “wrong” or “silly” or “hurtful.” He’ll keep them safe, their religious schools pure, their bathrooms binary, their neighborhoods white … just like they’ve always been.
“Trump’s an outsider, like the rest of us,” he said. “We might not respect Trump, but we still love the guy for who he is.”
“Is he a man of integrity? Absolutely not,” he went on. “Does he stand up for some of our moral Christian values? Yes.”
The guys agreed. “I’m not going to say he’s a Christian, but he just doesn’t attack us,” his friend Jason Mulder said.
It’s a transactional scam on Donald’s part — he’s no more pro-Christian than my cat is — but they don’t see it, or they don’t care. They’re terrified, they feel that power, power from the modern Caesar, is the only cultural salvation for them in the short run, and they don’t care what it is costing them in the long run.
