“Believe Me” (2018) is a book by John Fea subtitled “The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump”. Fea is a historian who wonders how in the world his fellow White Evangelical Protestants wound up voting for someone so clearly immoral as Donald Trump for US president – and at record levels. Trump got 81% of their vote. That is more than George W. Bush, an actual White Evangelical Protestant.
Fea:
“Evangelicals may have carried Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016, but we should probably see his success among these voters as part of a last-ditch attempt – a kind of Pickett’s Charge, if you will – to win the culture wars.”
Culture wars: White Evangelical Protestants see the US as “their” country. They are, in effect, White Christian nationalists (Fea leaves out the “White” part despite quoting their racist rhetoric). Anyone not White or Christian is pretty much a threat. They are “losing” “their” “Christian nation”, their Promised Land, which has been going downhill morally since the 1960s. Make America Great Again!
It has been going downhill since the 1960s ever since the 1600s:
- In 1800, for example, Thomas Jefferson, then running for president, was the great moral threat to the nation – he was a Deist. In the 1990s it was Bill Clinton – he lied under oath about being unfaithful to his wife.
- In the 1850s it was Irish and German Catholics coming into the country who were going to destroy it. Now it is Muslims and Mexicans.
- In the early 1900s beer and wine were the great moral scourge of the nation. Since the 1980s it has been abortion.
Notice the constant fearmongering. That sets the stage for a strongman.
Abortion: In 1973 when the US Supreme Court allowed the killing of unborn children in Roe v Wade, White evangelicals saw it as a Catholic issue. To them the big threats were equal rights for women and being forced to go to school with Black people.
Not till the 1980s did abortion become a huge issue for them, as it has been ever since.
Putting all your eggs in one basket: There are many ways to fight abortion, not all of them political, but White evangelicals have pretty much pinned their hopes on just one: elect presidents who will pick judges for the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v Wade. Even if said president lacks moral character!
Machiavellians for Christ: Christianity is not a political religion. Politics is about power and power usually corrupts. It has turned some White evangelical leaders, like James Dobson, into Donald Trump’s bootlickers right before our eyes, causing untold damage to Christian witness. In Scripture holy men do not lick boots. They speak truth to power. It can be done:
A better model: Fea says evangelicals should be about humility not power, hope not fear, history not nostalgia for a past that never truly was. A great example of all that was the Civil Rights Movement as led by an evangelical pastor – Martin Luther King Jr.
– Abagond, 2019.
See also:
- books – books I read in 2019
- White Evangelical Protestants
- Reconstructing the Gospel – how US religion, but especially White Evangelical Protestantism, was warped by slavery and capitalism
- Donald Trump
- “It’s not about racism” – Fea takes the White evangelical’s religious squid ink way too seriously. They are way more White than evangelical.
- US White nationalism
- Martin Luther King, Jr
- his speech on Vietnam – what a moral vision and truth to power look like, for those who have forgotten
- Machiavelli
- the ends justify the means
- evil popes
- fearmongering
- Anglo-Protestant culture
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Words! It is always the same! Almost all of the acceptable words and some others are captured by some group to unite under and than there is a change in the meaning and direction!
The word Christian has changed so much we do not equate it with Christ; but, we expect certain actions. The red lettered words are not followed, just someones new thinking.
Can Martin King be the same evangelical pastor as the current white evangelical?
That is kinda hard to swallow!
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Franklin Graham who is the son of the late evangelical preacher Billy Graham is a die hard Trump supporter. Even Billy Graham was not a supporter of the civil rights movement. I don’t understand how these people can claim to be followers of Jesus but be so hateful.
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But then again even White Supremacist like the KKK and Nazi’s call themselves “Christian.”
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I was always suspicious of James Dobson and his so called “Focus On The Family” I had a gut feeling these types of so called Christian ministries had no interest in black people and other people of color. Their only interest were white people whom they judged as being good and exceptable.
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The Religious Right cares more about fetuses but care nothing about children that are already born. Especially children of poor and underserved communities.
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@Mary Burrell
Do they really care about fetuses? How much do they promote universally available prenatal care?
I think it is more about controlling female reproductive rights than about fetuses (whom I think they don’t really care too much about).
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@Jefe: It’s all of it. Yes they are trying to control female reproductive rights.
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@ jefe
I agree. Fea takes their religious squid ink way too seriously. Trump “resonated” with them because they want a world where men are above women and Whites are above people of colour. Their vote for Trump shows how thin their actual religious beliefs were all along. These are the same people who used the Bible to defend race-based slavery.
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They are resorting to draconian practices and wishing for the so called good old days, when being “American and Christian” was always meant being “white.”
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@ Abagond: Also Tressie McMillan Cottom’s Thick is a series of essays that are very good.
And Brittany Copper’s Eloquent Rage, Another series of essays from a black womanist perspective.
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@Abagond: The book recommendations were supposed to go on the Books That I Am Reading In 2019 thread. Could you transfer this post to that thread? I would greatly appreciate it.
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The Religious Right has lost on many social issues since the 1960’s, Prayer In School, Divorce, Same Sex Marriage, Abortion. So they thrown in their lot with Trump to stay relevant.
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@Abagond: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Created Christian America by Kevin Kruse
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This nothing but white nationalism masquerading as Christianity. Although this has nothing to do with spirituality or faith.
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Once you enter politics into the equation, its a control and power grab.
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