Post Script To Russell Moore, Or: Sunday Afternoon Ruminations

'This has been a spiritual battle': Mike Lindell tears into 'evil' Fox News at Christian revival event https://t.co/vQ9cJWTPSO

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 9, 2022

I don't want to divide "the church," universal and international, in time and throughout time, but this is rather a specific brand of Xianity, if it's Xianity at all:

"This is not about politics," he said. "This is about our country, our freedoms and God. This has been a spiritual battle."

"Now, everyone out there, it's been a big battle of evil and good, you know, this spiritual battle," he continued. "You know, what are we facing right now? What happens to our country when you have the bad media here that gives you this false narrative just like we talked a minute ago about the churches and then you've got media you trust over here that you trusted to speak out the truth or at least speak out and they go silent on us."

"That's where we're at, your Foxes of the world," Lindell added. "The conservative media that just went silent. So all you're hearing is this false narrative."

The pillow executive concluded his remarks by vowing, "We will get our country back and we will be one nation under God."

Although, to be fair, I've heard "liberal" Xians talk that way, too.  Extremes are extreme,  The fringe is on the fringe for a reason. And I want to be sympathetic rather than judgmental ("Lord, help thou my unbelief!") but this isn't where I can be, either:

What would Jesus actually do? He'd never give up on the 'deplorables' https://t.co/H1xcpLm9cG

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 9, 2022

To start off with, I think the tactic of attacking Trump and his followers is a mistake that only makes him and his movement stronger. Calling his followers a basket of "deplorables" only encourages many more people to jump into the basket. Hell, when I heard that comment from Hillary Clinton back in 2016, I felt much more "deplorable" than not. I not only voted for Clinton against Trump, I believe she would have been a more effective president than her husband, and perhaps than Barack Obama. But the language of the downtrodden is the language of humility, and an understanding that we have failed in life in ways that makes us feel more deplorable than not. Trump was unapologetically deplorable and that felt good for the millions of Americans who have lost a hundred times over in their lives. So stop that approach, because it's not working.

Pastorally, that starts in the right place.  But this is politics, and politics ain't pastoral care; it also ain't beanbag.  I think spiritual stakes are much higher than material ones, but the people described here don't see much value in spiritual stakes, except as they derive from material ones.  And don't start by telling me Trump appealed to the ptochoi that Jesus preached to and for.  Trump supporters aren't the "downtrodden" "who have lost a hundred times over in their lives."  They're white racists who see their supremacy and authority being taken by black people like Barack Obama.  Plain and simple. They are wealthy enough to stay in Trump's properties, or to imagine they could one day.  They are wealthy enough to take up expensive arms and equipment, and travel to Washington, D.C., and stay for several days, and return home again, some of them on private jets. These aren't the "downtrodden," these are people who think they are victims because they are not supreme.  Trump is who they imagine they want to be; he's not the vox populi, or the voice of the ptochoi.  Never forget Trump's political career began with birtherism, and that wasn't aimed at gaining the trust of people "who have lost a hundred times over in their lives."

In the ministry of Jesus, his church and message welcomed all who were willing to improve themselves through humility, forgiveness and grace. It did not matter what was happening in their life, how much or little they owned, what sins they had committed in their life or what their social station might be. His followers until that time had no agency, no voice, no acceptance. In a sense, that is how liberal or progressive leaders should approach these next two years. Learn the stories of all those who have struggled with the American dream. Provide them a voice, embrace them as brothers and sisters, and show them a path that leads to their own success, whether materially, spiritually or otherwise. Do not speak from a place of arrogance, success and superior knowledge but a place of humility and empathy.

That's not bad advice, but again it assumes we need a government of mutual consent, rather than majority rule.  LBJ was a Democrat from Texas in part because he learned the stories of those who struggled with the American Dream.  But you know what?  He listened to the non-whites who had those struggles, too; and as a result, as he said, he signed away the South for a generation. All he actually did that day was sign legislation finally implementing the 15th Amendment; finally, in other words, almost a century later, beginning to pay that promissory note Dr. King spoke of the day he said he "had a dream."  Nobody wants to remember that part of his speech.  Everything the GOP has done since LBJ is to unravel what he did, to roll back gains made by non-whites.  Justice Roberts drove that final nail in the coffin when he declared (as Charlie Pierce puts it) the year of Jubilee and gutted the Voting Rights Act.  Now Georgia is closing polling places in largely black areas, and Texas tried to give the AG the power to prosecute anyone he thought a threat to GOP electoral hegemony, and they shut down various voting sites and practices because "pre-clearance" is no longer required.  That Paxton was stopped by the Texas Constitution, itself in that factor a product of the Populist era of the 19th century, is no credit to Roberts' order, or a sign the 15th Amendment is not still meaningless words, honored in neither the breach nor the keeping.  The real question Jesus raises is:  to whom do we show humility and empathy?  It's not just to Trump voters, few of whom are so enthusiastic they attacked the Capitol the first time, or would do it again.  Humility is not a bad play in politics, but it's usually a fake humility.  There's also no requirement, even in Xianity, that you invite the wolf to the table.

In the ministry of Jesus it was equally important to show the great divide between the religious leadership and the needs of their followers. The Pharisees presented themselves as the arbiters of God's justice and as people of purity and goodness, while hoping to shield their misdeeds and hypocrisy in darkness. Things are much the same today: Nothing the evangelical leaders do is for their followers. They only seek to lift themselves up, and to be seen as both righteous and powerful. They have set themselves up as the gatekeepers to God's love, but in the words of Matthew 23, they have neglected "justice and mercy and faithfulness" and they serve the devil, making their followers "twice as much the children of hell" as they are.

Well, yeah:  power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Didn't we see that with Trump, who openly exploited his religious followers ruthlessly (and clumsily)?

If we're going to talk hypocrisy and politics, the fish still rots from the head. But are you willing to go as far as Jesus did in Luke's version of the anointing?  If we're going to ask WWJActuallyD?, we might as well start there.