So here is a premise that has been pulling at my mind. There are certain Christian sectors that are highly identified with certain political beliefs. More evangelical and fundamentalist streams of Christian thought and expression have been deliberately identified with the Republican right by Republican strategists. Karl Rove is the name that I remember best in constructing this connection.
But it is
certainly not as simple as that, but that is the most visible connection I see.
So here is
the thing. My understanding is that it
was a political strategy on the right to intentionally court the vote and voice
of this Christian stream of thought. Honestly,
it has left me very uncomfortable on a number of occasions to hear the defense
and unconsidered approval of evangelical Christianity for President Trump.
But what if the
evangelical church no longer serves as a secure and extended voting block for
the political right, but becomes a marker of the political right? What do I mean? What if being a church member in that
particular stream of thought becomes a litmus test for a Republican candidate? What if it moves beyond simply being able to
say that one is a Christian of the evangelical stream of thought, to having to
have that proof, that congregation who claims their membership? Who can speak to the faith foundation of the
one seeking office? What influence over a candidate does that offer?
And I tell
you, that scares me because there is a judicial theology concerning gender roles
and identity, masculine authority, very broad considerations of application of
the death penalty, and justification of defiance of democratic authority if it
runs against this judicial theology, a theology that, in my mind, coopts the authority
of God into the hands of fallen humanity with the hubris to speak in God’s
name. A literal cherry picked interpretation of the
law of Moses as presently binding could pronounce the death penalty for homosexuality.
To consider the Ten Commandments, as it stands now, "Thou shalt not murder" is the only one that is linked to the death penalty in our current judicial thought. But making idols, using God's name in vain, and adultery all carry the death penalty in the law of Moses.
History of
both church and state are filled with the abuses of well-meaning Christian leaders
(and exploitative Christian leaders) doing things for the political ‘good’ that
are horrendous. John Calvin, a leading
theological thinker in my stream of Christian thought, was involved in a death
penalty case in his tenure in Geneva.
The potential
for such religious exploitation has been explored in novels like “The Handmaid’s
Tale”.
The KKK was
based in a very specific Christian theological stream of thought (a terrifying
one!). Christianity in this country
divided when the nation divided over slavery at the time of the Civil War.
There is a double-edged
sword to a Christian lead in blending with a political ideology. The first is that theology will be warped and
twisted to provide support for aspects of that political ideology because they
have been coopted into what defines ‘the faith’. The second is that a judicial theology that
can be absolutely brutal, especially in the face of having the power of the
state to back it up, can twist a political platform that is still designed for
a democracy into something authoritarian, even draconian.
Doomsayer…I
suppose I am.
Peter Hofstra
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