Why Christians vote Trump

The honest answer to the question why (some) Christians will vote for Donald Trump in the forthcoming US Presidential Elections, is I genuinely have no idea.


But here is an attempt to understand how it is that apparently nearly 80% of evangelical Christians in the US will vote for the divisive Republican candidate this coming month. http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/july/pew-most-evangelicals-will-vote-trump-against-clinton.html

It would seem to be a question of 1. Standpoint, 2. Extreme political factions and 3. US conservative evangelical tropes.

1. Standpoint.

Everyone has one. My Twitter feed is full of slightly left of centre English Anglican clerics (with a healthy smattering of soft evangelicals, educated literary types and environmentalist/left wing commentators) so naturally it seems inconceivable to me that any Christian could vote for Donald Trump. I found it difficult even to look through images of his face to post one on this blog, without feeling physically uncomfortable, in a kind of skin crawling way. 

However, my digital environment is, like most people's, self selected. My physical environment is much more mixed, but even having said that, I haven't met a single Christian, or even person in the UK (so far) who thinks voting for Trump would be anything less than disastrous for US, not to mention global, politics.

With his blustering, hectoring manner, http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/26/13068010/presidential-debate-2016-trump-clinton-interruptions lack of any apparent spiritual understanding http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/trump-has-never-sought-forgiveness/ and his objectionable views on women http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/ and minorities, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-way-donald-trump-speaks-toand-aboutminorities/481155/  Donald Trump would seem to lack any kind of noticeable match with the servant hearted, gentle, humble, peaceable and wise Jewish teacher known as Jesus of Nazareth. So how could a follower of Jesus be persuaded that Trump was the best candidate? But perhaps that's just my standpoint. 

2. Political Factions.

US politics is fatally dualistic (or even duel-istic). It's like a wrestling match. You have Democrats in one corner, Republicans in the other, each trying to land blows on each other. I know we're not much better in the UK, but I like to think we're marginally less dreadful. The entire present US Presidential campaigning consists of hugely over funded populist rallies massaging the cult of personality, shallow rhetoric and to the death 'debates' on live TV. There's been no sense in which one side learns from the other or engages in Third Way finding. News networks and commentators react to the slightest hint of weakness and whip up the media into a frenzy. A few rare people only are taking a moment to reflect, consider or look beneath the instant headline. 

If you're a Trump-supporting Republican, you're stirred up by your side's moral fear of the US 'going to the dogs', of being attacked by a terrorist who is likely to be a Muslim or a Mexican, and general right wing hysteria around socially progressive policies leading to moral disintegration. Your whole standpoint is to fear and mistrust a Democrat, a foreigner, or a person who doesn't conform to a certain stereotype. You're susceptible to promises to 'Make America Great Again', whatever that means. 

Great is a loaded word, surely? Especially for Christians. If you're in the Republican faction (even if you're a Christian, apparently) it is going to be difficult to see outside your faction, though some have managed it, which is noteworthy.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-doubt-donald-trumps-chances-in-november_us_57ac6953e4b0ba7ed23f29c0

3. US conservative evangelical tropes. 

This is a much more pernicious factor, it seems to me. Since the publishing of a 2005 video of Trump making casual comments about how easy it was for him to grope women https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html some female evangelicals have called on their male counterparts to cease supporting Trump http://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelical-women-leaders-disgusted-beth-moore-defending-trump-sexual-assault-170714/.

However, this looks unlikely, which reflects how gender still plays a large part in US white, evangelical intertwined strands of belief, or tropes. Complementarianism, the idea that men and women are equal in status, but created for different roles, in its extreme form, seems to fear any woman who doesn't easily conform to a perceived female stereotype. In addition, innate biblical conservatism fears equal rights discourse, because it appears to lead to the full acceptance of women and gays in every walk of life. This is seen to be destabilising. In a bad way.

Enter Hillary Clinton. In terms of shibboleths of the Religious Right, Hillary is beyond the pale, of course. You could say that even where evangelical support for Trump is grudging, at least he represents something less scary than Hillary - a woman, Democrat AND equal rights campaigner. The sense of needing to protect the US from this dreadful female, who will literally tip the US over the precipice into full blown secularism, is almost palpable. The fact that Clinton consistently cites her Methodist background, with its roots in the socially dynamic witness of John Wesley and the Holiness Movement, is neither here nor there, so strong are the tropes that narrowly define this certain type of evangelical opposition to her.

Thankfully, Evangelicalism is splintering in the US. Progressives such as Jim Wallis (sojo.net) Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) and Rachel Held Evans (rachelheldevans.com) are redefining what being an evangelical means, even dropping the word altogether, in favour of re-centring on the person and life of the radical Jesus, champion of the poor, and liberator of humanity from all forms of oppression.

Despite the factors of standpoint, factions and evangelical tropes, I do not understand US Christians who support Trump. I have tried and failed. Although no one is beyond the pale (people thought Zacchaues was, till Jesus went to his house for tea) some people appear, on the basis of bringing forth bad fruit, to be unfit for the office of President of the United States. Trump is one of them. 

Annoyingly, it would be just like Jesus, were he around in person today, to tell a parable about the 'Good Trump Supporter', a modern day 'Good Samaritan' for squeamish English church types like me. That would be awkward. 

In the absence of such a parable, though, I can only say to the 80% of Evangelicals who still think Trump's a viable candidate; nay, even God's candidate: come on guys...

Trump? It rhymes with dump and lump. I mean, come on guys....

Saving Paradise, Greenbelt-style

Maybe there are a lot of tulips in Paradise. Perhaps the relative size of things differs there, like the size of reputations. The first shall be last and the last first. And the Lord said 'Behold, tulips will  be bigger than people. Blessed are the tall red flowers, for they shall bring much joy, taking people's mind off the mud.'

The theme at this year's UK Greenbelt Festival was Saving Paradise. You can tell a lot from a strap line and Greenbelt does some good ones - recently we've had: Dreams of Home (2011); Heaven in Ordinary (2007); Standing in the Long Now  (2009) and perhaps my favourite, from 2010: The Art of Looking Sideways. Are they due merely to clever artistic types being a little bit alternative, in a nice middle class sort of way, or do they actually mean something?

The strap lines from Greenbelt increasingly reflect its vision that the whole earth is the arena for God's activity; that the gospel compels us to engage global inequality, human rights, climate change, culture and the poor. All the strap lines quoted above play with themes of 'the here and now' and 'the then', when God will renew the face of the earth and bring justice and peace. Paradise is clearly lost. Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. But this is not the end of the story. How we live in the interim and what the death and resurrection of Christ have to do with it all, has been the stuff of debate amongst Christian people for centuries. 

But there's a bit more to this year's strap line, in that Saving Paradise is the title of a recent book (2008) by two American theologians, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebeccca Parker (right)  http://savingparadise.net/

who made an astonishing discovery when they set out on a five year pilgrimage to document early Christian art in the churches and catacombs of Mediterranean Europe. What surprised them was that until the end of the first Millennium Christ is depicted primarily as the risen One, involved in this life, as baby, infant, man, shepherd, teacher and healer. Paradise is close at home. Only at the turn of the Millennium does he begin to be depicted as the Crucified One, and themes of torture, death and martyrdom point people beyond this world to the next, and, for the Crusaders, appear to sanction bloodshed in his name. This world may be going to hell in a handcart, but no matter: God will welcome us into the next. We are heaven bound, no matter what happens here. Paradise is not here but in the next world. When you're mainly concerned about the next world, it doesn't take too much imagination to conclude that this world is not so important. What we create here (art, writing, dance, music) is of limited value. In addition, 'You will always have the poor amongst you', said Jesus; so tell them the gospel; at least they'll go to heaven when they die, despite having been starving in this world...

Complex themes. We walk a tightrope in faith. 'Set your minds on things which are above, not on things that are on earth', says Colossians. Yet all the great movements of the Spirit have raised up Christians to make a difference here and now on this earth. How can you make a difference if you eschew this world and think only of a Paradise that is to come?

And so Saving Paradise neatly sums up the ongoing sea change in British and American Evangelicalism. Dallas Willard; Brian McClaren; Rob Bell; Shane Claiborne; and in the UK, Steve Chalke and NT Wright, have all pointed to how we need to live in the here and now; bringing heaven to earth, alight with a vision of a Jesus who is teacher, example and ideal human, not just a crucified Saviour who guarantees us a ticket to Paradise when we die. 

And so the net widens. At Greenbelt you will come across Christians engaged at all levels in 'saving paradise': stewarding the earth; fighting injustice; rediscovering spiritualities for every taste in recognition of the diversity of a questioning 21st Century Christianity.

Where it will lead......? 

Who knows. 

What exactly is our part in 'saving paradise?' What is God's part?

For further thoughts and reflections on tulips in Paradise, over to you.