One of the big mysteries of this time period in the 21st Century is why does a highly moral group such as religiously conservative Christians support a President with such an immoral past and questionable present? Many have tried to answer that question. The latest attempt can be seen in an interview article by Amanda Marcotte (click here for bio). In that article, Marcotte is interviewing author Katherine Stewart about her book that tries to answer that question. In her book, Stewart claims that Christian supporters of President Trump have replaced worship of Jesus with worship of power (click here for the article).
Of course Stewart says other things about conservative Christian supporters of Trump. One of her claims states that the search for power has made these religiously conservative Christian vulnerable to political manipulation by operatives. Part of the time, Stewart describes how that manipulation works with different networks of pastors listening to messages that support policies that favor wealthy elites. She also gives a brief history on how what has come to be known as the pro-life movement was initially not an easy sell to conservative Republicans.
But the most important part of the article is the claim that Christian supporters of Trump now worship power rather than Jesus. And though there is some supporting evidence for the claim, the answer is not an easy one.
Some of the evidence comes by the fact that Christian nationalism has gotten a big boost during the Trump campaign and Presidency. Trump is seen as a hero king who is protecting God's people in a hostile land. That because Trump has a positive relationship with the Christian nationalist movement, Trump is seen as a king. Some have referred to him as King Cyrus from the Old Testament.
And yet, the answer to the questions is still not clear. And that is because Stewart's claim is neither right nor wrong. It is not wrong because many Christian followers of Trump have sacrificed many of their Christian principles on the altar of political power. They have more political say with Trump and thus Trump is the horse they are going to ride.
However, Stewart's claim is not right either. Why? That question goes to the question of why seek that political power. That question is important because if there is a reason for searching for that power, that reason becomes more important than the power these Christians seek. Thus that reason becomes what Christian supporters of Trump are actually worshiping.
The interview article with Stewart noted that the spiritual compromises that many Trump supporting Christians make the following pattern compared with some other nations. Such nations include Russia, Hungary, and Turkey. Other nations that could be included but were not mentioned in the interview were Egypt and Syria. In the last 2 examples, many Christians in those nations were supporting autocratic rulers because those rulers were protecting the Church from physical enemies. But in supporting those autocratic rulers, Christians in those nations were supporting the denial of rights and even oppression practiced against other groups in their nations. Thus, Christians in nations like Syria and Egypt have learned the art of the deal by trading concern for other oppressed groups for protection.
What could be a higher false god to Christian supporters of Trump than power? Perhaps that question could be found by first determining the most pivotal event in the 21st Century for religiously conservative Christians. That event would be the Obergefell decision that allowed for the legalization of same-sex marriages. For that decision became recognized as the final nail into the coffin of Christian privilege and supremacy in American society. It was after that decision, that there was a debate, and still is, recognizing America as now being in a Post Christian era and whether Christians should withdraw from such a society in order to remain pure.
The Obergefell decision put and end to the last vestiges of Christian control over society and so Christians are now in danger of becoming passé, irrelevant. And so just as Christians in Egypt and Syria were facing a physical crisis, so to did many religiously conservative American Christians face an existential crisis. That is because they have lost sense of significance in American society which they felt they have regained with the election of and alliance with Donald Trump.
Here we should note that it isn't the lack of power that makes these Christians so vulnerable to political manipulation. It is feeling insignificant that makes these Christians so vulnerable to manipulation of flattery and/or warnings of threats. And those who are holding the reigns to these Christians use both to steer the political sentiments of these Christians for their own purposes.
Thus, we see something similar in the relationship between the state and the Church in both Syria and Egypt with what exists in America with religiously conservative Christians and Trump. Just as the churches in Syria and Egypt respond favorably to dictators because they provide security in exchange for ignoring the oppression that the leaders of those nations bring on their own people, so the religiously conservative churches here respond favorably to Trump to protect them from existential threats in exchange for ignoring Trump's exploitive measures on people and the environment as well as his harsh measures against immigrants.
So perhaps the real God for Christian supporters of Trump is their collective ego.
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