The recent death of Christian evangelist Luis Palau, the ‘Billy Graham of Latin America’, makes me think about how the Trump era affected the ability of Christians to bring the good news of Jesus’ salvation to a diverse and skeptical world. to share. According to her New York Times death row, Palau was ‘particularly aware of the general assumption that evangelists are rabid right-wingers’, and therefore wanted to compensate by holding ‘festivals’ in progressive cities. “In New England, when you say ‘Christian’, they think ‘the maniacs on the right’ ‘, Palau told the Times in 2001. “I want to show that we are not maniacs, but that we are well trained. It is a rational belief, but a belief that ignites you. If you, like Palau (and like me), believe that Jesus is ‘the way, the truth, and the life’, then it makes sense to share the good news everyone you can – yes, including urban residents and progressive students. This is what Palau did.
But what happens when so many of Christ’s messengers have sacrificed their credibility and moral foundation by connecting a controversial political figure such as Donald Trump? What happens when Jesus’ brand ambassadors for many Americans Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell jr. Is not Billy Graham and Pope Francis, much less Jesus himself? In today’s climate, you can be forgiven for thinking that Christians, like Palau, are concerned that we are considered ‘maniac’.
Evangelical Christians thought it was worth joining behind a Trump; they could no longer be wrong. The cost-benefit analysis that led to them supporting him in 2016 as the “lesser of two evils” did not address the long-term damage he is still doing.
I recently wrote about how the Trump era undermined the ability of conservatives to effectively sound the alarm about government spending and debt and deficits, a development that could have serious consequences for our temporary political world. But the consequences of undermining the Christian testimony are even worse. For believers who take John 14: 6 seriously and literally, anyone who undermines the church’s ability to credibly evangelize to a fallen world is responsible for sending other people – people who were otherwise receptive to a message of salvation – to eternal damnation.
Do you think the acquisition of a few seats in the Supreme Court guarantees a lasting legacy? Consider the consequences of … eternity. It puts the political compromises so many Evangelicals in a fuller perspective. It also highlights the possible consequences of one side of the political path trying to monopolize an entire religious faith.
According to political scientists David E. Campbell and Geoffrey C. Layman of the University of Notre Dame and John C. Green of the University of Akron, authors of Secular Surge: a new fault line in American politics, this corruption is already taking place. They designed an experiment to test whether the rise of Americans who identify themselves as ‘non-religious’ was the result of a setback against Christian law. The experiment involved asking participants first for their views on religion and then exposing them to news reports that mix religion and politics; the experiment was concluded by asking participants again for their religious identity.
During an interview with Religious News Service, Campbell said that mere exposure of people to such a story was enough to force a significant number of people from a religious commitment. It is one story by one time, and we can get the effect, ”he said. “Imagine what happens when people are exposed to hundreds of stories over many, many years. It would only reinforce the idea that religion and the Republican Party go hand in hand, and that if you are not sympathetic to the Republican Party, you want nothing to do with religion. ‘
The connection between Christianity and the Republican Party has existed for four decades. But it is fair to say that the association of religious belief with Ronald Reagan’s sunny optimism or George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” does not have the same negative consequences as accepting the MAGA ethos.
As Daniel K. Williams writes in The Cross Policy, “[J]Just as some evangelical supporters of Republican conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s combined white middle-class suburban fears about rising crime rates and social welfare costs with Christian principles, so some evangelical supporters of today’s Republican Party combined white working-class rural fears over , gun control and cultural change with Christianity.
“The result is perhaps even more catastrophic for the gospel than the Christian conservatism of the late twentieth century was, because the Christian nationalism of the contemporary Republican Party is even further removed from historical evangelism – and certainly farther removed from historical Christian principles, at least in its attitude towards immigrants and marginalized racial minorities. ”
This problem is not limited to religion. In my estimation, Trumpism has affected numerous causes, including (but not limited to) our credibility when it comes to 1) compassionately advocating the unborn and the sanctity of life, 2) questioning the wisdom of spending $ 1.9 billion, and even 3) celebration the values, traditions and works of art of our Western civilization. In a recent episode of the Bulwark podcast, Charlie Sykes reflected on this development and lamented that Western civilization had been co-opted by ‘white nationalists and racists’.
To put it in business terms that a consumer community can understand, we have a branding problem. If you’ve never heard of it, Grover Norquist, the conservative anti-tax crusader, uses a rather colorful hypothetical statement to explain the importance of brand management (since it relates to tax cuts): ‘Coca-Cola spends a lot of time to quality control brand Coca-Cola, ”he says. ‘Everyone knows what’s in Coca-Cola. And so you can buy a bottle of coke, take it home, you do not have to ask what is in it, or read the ingredients or ask your friends about [it], ”He continues.
‘Finding Donald Trump as the de facto leader of your movement – at least in the eyes of many Americans – is like finding a rat’s head in your Coke bottle. ”
But ‘if you get two thirds through your bottle of Coke and you look in and there’s a rat’s head left in your Coke bottle, you do not say to yourself,’ You know, I wonder if I’m going to rest of this bottle of Coke ready. “… It damages the brand.”
“Republican elected officials who vote for tax increases,” Norquist concludes, “are rats in the Coke bottle. It damages the brand for everyone. ”
This colorful metaphor can be extended to other areas. I would argue that Trumpism has damaged the Christian brand as well as the conservative brand.
The good news is that Trump does not exist in a vacuum. Others want to reach different communities and separate the gospel message from the toxic politics. In this regard, Luis Palau and his successors (people like Christian leaders, including the pastor of New York, Tim Keller, and president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Russell Moore) offer a ray of hope and a hopeful alternative.
Finding Donald Trump as the de facto leader of your movement – at least in the eyes of many Americans – is still like finding a rock in your Coke bottle. But the consequences are even more grim. In some cases, Trumpism lasts forever.