Along with, apparently, most of Christendom, I’ve been reflecting on the recent editorial by Mark Galli in Christianity Today on Trump, and reading various responses, rejections, affirmations, etc. I believe that Galli’s editorial makes some important points and raises some critical questions about what the evangelical support of Trump is doing to the church’s witness to Christ. But what the editorial does not do is get to the deeper issues facing the church; in my view, western Christianity still does not understand the nature of the disease infecting our body, of which the question of Trump and evangelicalism is a symptom. The Galli article, and the many responses to it, are addressing the symptom, but not the cause. Until the church has more clarity on the cause, we will continue to be pawns of human political authority, unable to fulfill our calling as God’s holy nation.
I believe that the cause of the malignancy infecting western Christianity is a deeply held, and deeply flawed, understanding of the relationship of the church to history. Though I am only able in this post to paint with broad strokes, I suggest that the church has long been convinced that our mission in the world is to direct history toward a particular end, often referred to today as “The Kingdom of God,” which is assumed to be the goal toward which immanent history is moving. The church has come to believe that we move history toward this goal by “Christianizing the social order” (to borrow the title of Walter Rauschenbusch’s book on the Social Gospel). In this vision of the relationship between the church and history, the mission of the church is to direct the world toward the goal of the Kingdom by making the society more Christian (i.e. "bringing in the Kingdom"). And we do this by determining the “values” of the surrounding culture, by enforcing a Christian vision of “justice” on the surrounding culture, by embracing military power as a mechanism of Christianization, or by endorsing a particular political ideology as that which is endorsed by Christianity.
At the heart of this theological commitment is a vision of history that asserts that Christ’s resurrection has placed the church in a position of authority over history. Because Christ has defeated the powers through the resurrection, the western church came to believe that it is our task to enact that victory in history by using the mechanisms of this world to enforce “Christian values.” This has led to a deeply embedded triumphalism in western Christianity that has promoted the various tribalisms/nationalisms that have so distorted the vocation of the church in history, binding us to such ideologies as racism, sexism, nationalism, secularism, progressivism, moralism, etc. While the nature of the “-isms” can extend in a variety of directions, both to the left and to the right of the political spectrum, the motivating factor of western Christianity’s participation in these various “-isms” is, as I have said, a theological vision of history that compels the church to seek control over the society around us with the purpose of implementing a Christianized society. History, following Christ’s resurrection, is viewed as the enactment of Christ’s resurrection victory in the social order. The constant danger of this, seen throughout western history, is that the triumph of Christ’s resurrection easily becomes the triumphalism of the church, a triumphalism which has led the church to justify all manner of un-Christlike behavior in pursuit of our control of history.
So how does this theologically flawed vision of the church's relationship to history relate to the issue of evangelicalism and Trump? Evangelicalism, due to its particular way of living out the assumption of the church’s relationship to history we have just discussed, has become accustomed to analyzing political candidates based on how “Christian-ly” they will wield the powers of this world. In the past, the criterion for voting for a candidate was rooted in the character of the candidate; we can call this the “character criterion.” Assuming alignment on social issues, evangelicals would vote for the candidate with the best character to lead the government in a manner consistent with Christian “values.” (This was why George W. Bush was such a favorite: His conversion story gave comfort to evangelicals that this was a true follower of Christ, a man of character who would lead the country in a manner worthy of Christ.)
But something changed with Trump. Character was no longer the primary criterion for electing a candidate; many of the most fervent Trump supporters acknowledge his deep character flaws, but voted for him anyway, and continue to support him as a friend of evangelicalism. Why?
The answer is that the criterion for voting for a candidate changed. Character was replaced by protection as the primary principle. In other words, in 2016, evangelicalism moved from the “character criterion” to the “protectorate criterion.” This change followed the cultural shifts that occurred during the Obama presidency, symbolized by Obamacare (viewed as socialist) and homosexuality (viewed as a rejection of traditional Christian values). These two cultural shifts were a great shock to evangelical Christianity, and signaled the loss of the culture wars, i.e., the loss of control over history that evangelicals believe is their birthright because of their training in the western Christian theological understanding of history. With the loss of control, evangelical Christians, feeling under siege in what was perceived to be a suddenly foreign and hostile culture, turned away from the “character criterion” of political leadership and, in supporting Trump, turned to the “protectorate criterion.” The question in 2016 was not “who is the candidate with the highest character?” but “who is the candidate who can best protect and defend our control?”
The answer? The person best suited to protect evangelical control is a strong man. Evangelicalism felt the need for someone who was unafraid to stand up to the opponents of Christianity in the culture wars, someone who would not play nice. In other words, the evangelical siege mentality made support of a man like Trump almost inevitable. Evangelicals needed a mercenary, someone from outside the camp who does things that they themselves can’t do, but does them for the team, on the team’s behalf. The Trump/evangelical phenomenon is rooted in evangelicalism’s feeling of a loss of control and so need for someone who can be entrusted to regain that control. The need is for someone who can use tactics that many might find difficult to stomach, tactics that evangelicals might find unsavory, someone whose character is questionable, but who is accepted because he is the protector and defender of the faith’s control of history. The support of this protector is a necessary means to achieve the ends of regaining the upper hand in the culture wars (Note: 2016 is certainly not the first time the western church has sought the help of a strong man; historical examples of this are plentiful).
What the Galli editorial misses, and what most analyses of the Trump/evangelical phenomenon miss, is that support of Trump is consistent with Christianity’s vision of the church’s relationship to history. To address the question of evangelicalism’s relationship to Trump we cannot merely address the surface issue of moral hypocrisy or failed witness. Rather, to address the question of evangelicalism and Trump, the church needs to fundamentally rethink our relationship to history and in so doing address how this rethinking can lead us to a new way of understanding the nature of the church’s vocation of presence in the world.
In other words, what we need is something beyond an evaluation of the morality of particular candidates; what we need is a new vision of our presence in the world, a vision of our “Sabbath Presence.” I will publish another article on this in the next week or so.
This resource is part of the series Kingdom Politics. Click Here to explore more resources from this series.
Joel Lawrence is the Senior Pastor of Central Baptist Church in St. Paul, MN. He has also served as a Professor of Theology at Bethel Seminary. He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the St. Anselm Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
