This article is another theory on the improbable alliance
between evangelical Christians and Donald Trump, the
formerly secular, thrice married, "baby Christian" who had
affairs with porn stars:
https://www.alternet.org/evangelical-historian-explains-how-christians-came-put-trump-ahead-jesus
The article is by Paul Rosenberg, originally on Salon.com.
It is a review of a book by a formerly evangelical historian
names John Fea, called Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to
Donald Trump.
Fea argues that white evangelicals are concerned with power,
nostalgia, and fear of the future. He discusses the election of
Trump on several timescales. The most recent events leading
to the 2016 election caused the selection of Trump by
evangelicals in spite of some much more likely candidates,
including Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, and
Ted Cruz. Fea argues that these likely candidates understood
evangelicals too well. They tried very hard to frighten the
evangelicals about the consequences of the Obama
Administration and their loss of political power. The
evangelicals were so alarmed that they decided a strongman
was needed to restore their power, and Trump fit the bill
better than Rubio, Huckabee, Carson, or Cruz. Trump also
had the background of his birtherist attacks on Obama as a
racist introduction.
Fea also discusses Christianity as it's evolved from further
into the past. Rosenberg adds comments from Seth Dowland
from his essay for Christian Century, “American
evangelicalism and the politics of whiteness.” American
Christianity was deeply divided by the Civil War, and it
remains divided. The church became segregated and
divided between northern white Christians, southern white
Christians, and the black churches. Each strain developed its
own culture and concerns. Black Christians were more
interested in Christian hope. Whites, especially southerners,
gravitated toward fear. They felt that they needed political
and financial power, and they didn't seem to trust God to sort
out human affairs.
Rosenberg points out that Fea's book seems to disregard that
evangelical leaders have learned that politics and religion
don't go well together. This is something that the American
Founders tried to guarantee with the First Amendment. But
white evangelicals still seem to be trying to hang on to
political power, regardless.
No comments:
Post a Comment