Is Trump a wannabe theocrat? It’s complicated. How should people of faith react? That’s complicated, too

Standing in front of a tapestry at her office the day after President-elect Trump won the 2024 election, Bishop Elizabeth Eaton videotaped a somber, nuanced message. Presiding bishop of my church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Eaton doesn’t always speak for me on all issues. (No one else does! Why should she?) But this time she did.

The occasion was the election of a divisive figure who promotes, on the one hand, a white Christian nationalist agenda, saying he’ll protect Christians from a “radical left” that wants to “tear down crosses where they can, and cover them up with social justice flags”; and who stokes fears among people of faith, on the other, that: “Our parishes, schools and neighborhoods have to prepare for difficult times.”

Bishop Eaton’s message to her Lutheran flock was nothing if not nuanced, which is exactly what you’d expect from the leader of a denomination whose members voted 51-to-49 percent for Trump in 2020:

We had an election yesterday, and for some people it was an occasion for joy. And for others it was, and still is, an occasion for deep grief. But we’re coming up on Advent so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to remember that we’re woven together like this beautiful tapestry here at your churchwide office.

Advent, in the tradition Lutherans share with other liturgical churches, is a time of reflection and anticipation. Eaton continued, and as she did, she came to what I took away from her videotaped homily:

And we’re going to remember that Jesus commands us to feed the hungry, and give the thirsty drink and to clothe the naked and visit those who are in prison and welcome the stranger. We’re going to do all these things. It’s who we are as a church. No election decides what our mission is. No election decides who’s in and who’s out as a church, because we are inextricably woven together in the body of Christ.

Nor does an election decide who’s in and who’s out among the larger Christian faith tradition. On Nov. 7, Bishop Tracy S. Malone, president of the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, released a pastoral letter stating in part:

We affirm the inherent dignity of all God’s children. As our Social Principles remind us, “God calls all members of the human family to recognize and protect the dignity and worth of all people.”  The lessons of history teach us the dangers of silence in the face of threats to human rights. Therefore, we cannot remain silent. We call upon all United Methodists to exercise their faith and to pray, speak, and act for justice and peace.
 
Our baptismal vows call us “to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”  We therefore reject rhetoric, policies, and actions that demean or discriminate against any of God’s children and will be vigilant in defending the rights of the vulnerable and speaking out against oppression. [Link in the original]

Christians, of course, haven’t spoken with one voice since the Great Schism of 1054 CE. But you wouldn’t know that from some of the mass media coverage. It’s hard to know how much of what Trump said on the campaign trail was merely crowd-pleasing bluster, but we’ve seen enough to know it has a divisive, white Christian nationalist slant that alarms other people of faith. In October Jack Jenkins reported on a rally for Religion News Service:

After insisting his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, would “come after Christians all over the country,” Trump promised to create a federal task force to fight “anti-Christian bias,” allow homeschool parents to spend $10,000 a year tax-free on costs associated with their children’s education, ban schools from “promoting critical race theory or transgender gender ideology” and “reaffirm that God created two genders: male and female.”

Trump won an estimated 80 percent of the evangelical Protestant vote, according to a pre-election poll cited by BBC News in an unusually objective analysis. “This is a big win for Christians, for evangelicals,” said Franklin Graham. “We believe the president will defend religious freedom where the Democrats would not.” But Graham, even though he’s a son of the influential late evangelist Billy Graham, doesn’t speak for all Christians.

According to the presidential preference poll, which was released by PRRI in September and cited in BBC’s post-election analysis, Trump was favored by 81 percent of white evangelicals, 61 percent of white Catholics, 60 percent of white mainline Protestants, 38 percent of hispanic Catholics and 15 percent of Black Protestants. (Trump was supported by 40 percent of Jewish voters and 28 percent of the unaffiliated.)

Nor is Graham’s brand of religion shared by all Baptists. Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, notes that Trump is backed by Christian Nationalists, who advocate the establishment of a narrow, sectarian view of religion. Her post-election statement was somewhere in between an altar call and a rallying cry:

I believe a majority of Americans reject the assaults on freedom that could await us in a second Trump administration, and I believe Christians must work to dismantle Christian nationalism as a form of idolatry that grossly distorts the teachings of Jesus.

Now is the time for a broad-based coalition of people of all faiths and none to oppose Christian nationalism and instead organize and advocate for a society and government that works for all of us. We must remember at all times — and especially in times like these — that the greatest commandment is love.

Sounding the same theme was Adam Russell Taylor, president of the evangelical advocacy group Sojourners. On the SoJo website, he said, “we should neither catastrophize nor downplay the threats to democracy that we may face, especially given what Trump has promised to do in a second term.” But, he added, “his second term will test our faithful commitment to justice and peace,” and he ended with a call to action:

While our hope may be bruised and battered, we can renew our hope by putting our faith into action to both resist injustice and build the Beloved Community. After we get the rest we need, let’s work in solidarity with each other — especially with those in the most-vulnerable situations — to make sure we can look back and say with confidence that by faith we co-labored with God and each other to defend the vulnerable, protect everyone’s human dignity, and push our nation toward becoming an inclusive and just multiracial democracy.

A good set of marching orders, this. But I think there’s something deeper in play here. Among a remarkable set of post-election articles, the Jesuit magazine America magazine had one that speaks to me where I live and move and have my being was aptly titled “A spiritual response to the election: What matters for young people, our faith and the future,” by Cecilia González-Andrieu, professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University. Maybe it hit me so hard because I taught for 20 years in a faith-based college, as she writes: 

For now, our young have learned that we live in a reality where there is no “we.” This is a destabilizing space in which to exist as a young person, and we need to soberly acknowledge this truth. […] Yet we have just witnessed a catastrophic unraveling of our social fabric. Our young are learning (and perhaps will teach each other) that insults, ambition, bigotry and misogyny ultimately win. They are being taught through words and actions that the most fundamental of all Christian beliefs—that God is love and we must care for all of God’s creation—can be trampled without consequences in the pursuit of self-interest. They have witnessed that those seeking reconciliation and prioritizing the dignity of others will be mocked and defeated.

González-Andrieu,whose family fled Cuba when she was a young girl, warns that Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric on the campaign trail must be taken seriously. Given her background as a child of refugees, she knows what mass deportations look like and she worries most about today’s refugees:

Whatever way we voted or did not vote is irrelevant now. What matters is what happens from here forward. Our parishes, schools and neighborhoods have to prepare for difficult times. In particular, we must advocate for our immigrant brothers and sisters. We anticipate the forced separation of parents from children. We need to do the heartbreaking work of readying documents transferring the care of children to compassionate neighbors and friends. Our small businesses and farms have to be ready for repeated raids; for mothers and fathers, brothers and friends to disappear, and for widespread economic hardship to spread as harvests rot and essential work goes unfilled.

But, like other faith leaders of varying traditions, González-Andrieu’s alarm transitions to a call to action:

 We will need to feed each other. We have to prepare for the loss of health care and other safety nets for our elderly and sick. We will need to come together to bind each other’s wounds. Our schools, universities and libraries may become targets; our books may be banned and our journalists jailed. We will need to teach each other to remember what is true. [Italics in the original.]

So in the end, González-Andrieu’s call to action becomes a call to renewed faith. “There’s much work to do,” she concludes. “The reign of God is groaning under the weight of human egoism. Only its complete opposite—neighbor-carrying generosity grounded in love—can free it.”

Links and Citations

“Challenges to Democracy: The 2024 Election in Focus,” PRRI [Public Religion Research Institute], Oct. 11, 2024 https://www.prri.org/research/challenges-to-democracy-the-2024-election-in-focus-findings-from-the-2024-american-values-survey/.

Cecilia González-Andrieu, “A spiritual response to the election: What matters for young people, our faith and the future,” America, Nov. 14, 2024 https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/11/13/uncertain-election-immigration-249245.

Jack Jenkins, “Trump’s closing argument to evangelicals: I will protect you. Harris won’t,” Religion News Service, Ocrt. 23, 2024 https://religionnews.com/2024/10/23/trumps-closing-argument-to-evangelicals-i-will-protect-you-harris-wont/.

Tracy S. Malone, “A Pastoral Letter from the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church,” Council of Bishops, United Methodist Church, Nov. 7, 2024 https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/umc-bishops-statement-on-us-elections-18744247.

Aleem Maqbool, “‘Anointed by God’: The Christians who see Trump as their saviour,” BBC News, in Yahoo!News, Nov. 18, 2024 https://www.yahoo.com/news/anointed-god-christians-see-trump-235858588.html.

Robert David Sullivan, “The Democrats lost to someone who is unfit to lead the nation. Can they learn from it?,” America, Nov. 8, 2024 https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/11/08/trump-harris-democrats-election-2024-249223.

Adam Russell Taylor, “The Road Ahead Will Test Us. We Start by Accepting Trump’s Win,” Sojourners, Nov. 14, 2024 https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/road-ahead-will-test-us-we-start-accepting-trump-s-win.

Amanda Tyler, “This is a time for our movement to meet the moment,” Baptist News Global, Nov. 12, 2024 https://baptistnews.com/article/this-is-a-time-for-our-movement-to-meet-the-moment/.

Will Weissert, “Trump says he’ll defend Christianity from ‘radical left’ that seek to ‘tear down crosses’,” PBS News, Feb 23, 2024 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-says-hell-defend-christianity-from-radical-left-that-seek-to-tear-down-crosses.

“Woven Together: A Post-Election Message,” video featuring Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Nov. 6, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4HrySysWAo.

[Uplinked Nov. 19, 2024]