There is a death cult running America, one that claims to believe in eternal life.
I remember laughing as Donald Trump, on his first go round, claiming the Bible was his favourite book, so much his favourite in fact, that he couldn’t pick out a single verse for discission. ‘The Bible means a lot to me,’ he said, with a presumably full heart, ‘but I don’t want to get into specifics.’ Back then, in the now Edenic early days of Trump’s first term, he seemed to be slightly uncomfortable in re-positioning of himself as a man of God – a multi-millionaire, nuke code owning follower of Jesus. Now, a few years on, Trump’s base has simmered in the heat of culture – and actual – wars and has been reduced to the most ardent evangelicals in the country. And Trump is definitely a Christian this time.
Now, in England, say, this pseudo-Damascene conversion of a leader would not have worked. And there’s a lovely irony to this: the religious monarchy of Britain being out-religioned by a Republic founded on the separation of Church and State. Perhaps the existence of an established church buffered England from what America is now experiencing, which is a seemingly unstoppable surge of Christian nationalism. In a strange way, the anaemic, seemingly ineffectual influence of the Anglican communion seems to have taken the power out of Tommy Robinson’s recent discovery of the New Testament. In the UK, Christianity, to borrow a phrase, ‘hasn’t gone away you know’, so its supposed reemergence in radical forms hasn’t really raised an eyebrow. Perhaps the solution to a rise in far-right religion is, paradoxically, more hereditary Bishops?
Last month in America, photos emerged from the Oval Office of President Trump at the centre of a prayer, his evangelical advisory board placing their hands on him as they blessed his leadership in the name of God. This was a few days into the Israel-American war on Iran and was intended to anoint the incursion as a divine act of a Christian nation. The laying on of hands, rooted in the Christian tradition and instigated by Christ himself, is a powerful religious practice in many denominations. Those present seemed to think the will of God was embodied in the wartime leadership of the 79-year-old President, though given the headlines prior to the invasion, I suspect his team were also glad of a new story to accompany Google searches of ‘Trump laying on of hands.’
The point is clear, however. Trump and his newly Catholic Vice-President are proudly leading a war-hungry government that is being explicitly justified in theological terms. ‘Religion’s back now, hotter than ever before,’ Trump said at the prayer breakfast, in his best Martin Luther impression. And on Monday, he posted ‘Praise be to Allah,’ as an accompaniment to his online threat to orchestrate a war crime. If there was social media in the Middle Ages, this is what would have been posted. Our mediums may have modernised, but human nature, it seems remains largely unchanged.
Pope Leo has got himself in trouble. On 9th January he had the temerity to mention that ‘war is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.’ The Pentagon has, reportedly, threatened the Vatican, summoning Cardinal Christophe Pierre for a bollocking from Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary of Defence for Policy. The Free Press reports that the Cardinal was told in no uncertain terms that the Church’s moral position ran against the grain of reality: the US, Colby said, ‘has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.’ On Easter Sunday the Pope said, that God does not listen to the prayers ‘of those who wage war.’ In response, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s Press Secretary opted for a history lesson, declaring America was ‘a nation founded, 250 years ago almost, on Judeo-Christian values.’ The re-positioning of the second comma might represent the truth more readily, one could argue.
Pew Research Centre reported in January this year that white evangelical Protestants remain some of Trump’s largest supporters. Over two thirds gave him a positive approval rating, though this is down a few points from the previous year. On the whole, though, they are immensely loyal to the President, a man who famously said he could ‘stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody’ and wouldn’t lose any voters. Now, as his appeal dwindles across many demographics, Trump is banking on the fact that he could drop bombs on another country and not lose white evangelicals. And he is largely right.
Threats of a scorched earth policy in Iran are supported by Trump’s religious base. Of course they are. But to some, this might seem like a contradiction – aren’t Christians meant to be stewards to Creation, after all? But to an old-fashioned American evangelical, a Protestant of the Billy Graham variety, this earth is not our home, we’re just passin’ through. If, for Christ to win, thousands of innocents must die and the planet burns, so be it. We are citizens of heaven on an inconvenient stopover on a sinful planet.
The final bitter irony is that old-fashioned evangelicalism is now finding an unlikely ideological alliance with the billionaire tech-bros. As Musk dreams of eternal life on distant planets and the wealthiest build their bunkers for the inevitable nuclear winter, we see Christian eschatology in another form. Here, too, the few will be saved. The first shall indeed be first and the last will, well, continue to vote against their own interests. And it is their own interests too. Indeed, how far does one’s pro-life theology have to atrophy before you find yourself making the case for a President who was found liable for sexual abuse, covered up a sex scandal with hush money and, as recently as February, gave orders which resulted in the blowing up a school, killing 160 innocent girls.
And yet white evangelicals continue to march to protect, ah yes, women and girls.
Evangelical Christianity is a life-denying subculture of Christianity. Every religion has one or two. It is a shame this one is running the world. Evangelicalism, with its simplistic view of the cosmos, is flourishing. For some as nostalgia, for younger men, as a new set of radical ideas set in motion by Charlie Kirk and Jordan Peterson. But its dangers remain the same. With their phobia of nuance and binary way of seeing, evangelicals can only offer conflict. It’s how simplistic worldviews flourish.
And we can’t trust the future of the planet to people who think it was built in six days.
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
