By Wendell Griffen
“You can’t handle the truth!” People familiar with the 1992 motion picture A Few Good Men recall that angry retort shouted by Colonel Nathan Jessep (played by actor Jack Nicholson) in response to the “I want the truth!” cross-examination demand from Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) during the dramatic finale of that movie
Whether you can handle it or not, I’m going to share some hard truth that people need to face given the January 6, 2021 insurrection and coup attempt by pro-Trump extremists who invaded the US Capitol, an action that has claimed the lives of five (5) persons thus far and injuries to many others. Buckle up.
In 2016, Donald John Trump was elected president of the United States as the candidate of the Republican Party after receiving overwhelming support from a voting bloc known as “conservative evangelical Christians.” Although those voters have claimed for decades that they stand for “family values,” they campaigned and voted for Trump knowing his serial marital history (three marriages) and abuse of women (misogyny). They did so weeks after Trump bragged that his maleness, wealth and celebrity enabled and entitled him to sexually assault and verbally abuse women.
]Some people have been astounded that Trump, whose adult history is characterized by open disdain for service to anyone or anything other than himself and who has shown no outward interest in faith and obedience to any religious belief, has been embraced by U.S. voters who claim to be “conservative evangelical Christians.” They may wonder why those voters supported Trump after he pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt of court when he violated a court order to stop racially profiling Latinos.
Why didn’t “conservative evangelical Christian” support for Trump drop after he called Haiti and nations in Africa “shithole countries”? Why didn’t Trump’s support decline from people who previously viewed Bill Clinton unfit to remain in office after Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, revealed that Trump paid him to hide news of Trump’s tryst with a former erotic film actress named Stormy Daniels? Why didn’t their support fall after Trump’s administration insulted people in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017? Why did “evangelical Christian conservatives continue supporting Trump after he publicly called white supremacists “nice people” when their Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to the death of Heather Meyers? Why do people who claim to be “conservative evangelical Christians” and revere Jesus support Donald Trump when his administration separated thousands of children from their parents at the U.S. southern border, failed to adequately track where refugee children have been taken, and refused the children decent housing, sanitation and loving care? Why do 77 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump’s job performance (according to a recent poll from the Public Religion Research Institute), including half who strongly approve?
The answer to these questions is as clear as it is unpleasant. Trump enjoys good standing with “conservative evangelical Christians” because his racism and white supremacy, patriarchy and sexism (including discrimination against women and girls, homophobia and transphobia), fear and bigotry towards immigrants (xenophobia), and support for Zionist nationalism (regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Middle East) fits their notion of “religious liberty” and the American empire.
In 1948, South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond and southern Democrats known as “Dixiecrats” bolted from the Democratic National Convention because they opposed policies of racial integration promoted by Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and President Harry Truman (who had issued an executive order to desegregate the U.S. armed services). In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public education in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. White evangelical Protestants – “conservative evangelical Christians” – sided with Strom Thurmond and the segregationists against desegregation. In doing so, they followed the tradition of their predecessors who supported slavery, opposed Reconstruction-era policies to remedy the effects of slavery, and gave open support to the Ku Klux Klan and other domestic terrorist groups.
After 1964 (the year Congress enacted and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act that officially outlawed racial segregation and reversed the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson), white voters in the states of the former Confederacy who call themselves “evangelical Christian conservatives” began identifying in growing numbers with the Republican Party. Those voters objected to desegregation and increased participation by black and other non-white voters in elections. They opposed efforts to shape public policy in more inclusive and equitable ways.
The presidential campaigns of Barry Goldwater (1964), Richard Nixon (1968 and 1972), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984), George H. Bush (1988), George H.W. Bush (2000 and 2004), and Donald Trump (2016) were built on overt and subtle appeals to the fears, prejudices, perceived grievances and other views of “conservative evangelical Christians.” Those predominantly white and Protestant voters in the U.S. South and Midwest have become more politically active in their convictions about whether women are entitled to decide whether to have abortions without governmental interference. They have opposed protecting the voting rights of persons of color. They have objected to governmental regulation and protection of the air, soil, water and communities from toxins.
They oppose federal, state and local regulation of firearms in the United States while blindly cheering U.S. military interventions around the world. And “white evangelical Christian conservatives” have refused to recognize, let alone protect, the humanity and right of persons who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBGTQI) to marry, work, parent and exercise other aspects of freedom without discrimination by the government.
It is a mistake to disregard or understate the role of white supremacy and white religious nationalism in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. White supremacists and religious nationalists fumed, bristled and schemed for eight years during the Barack Obama presidency. They were mortified when Obama, a black man whose middle name was Hussein, defeated John McCain, a white, decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, son and grandson of veterans, and a recognized national security and defense hawk. They were shocked again when Obama’s signature first term initiative, access to affordable health care, became law thanks to the strong and shrewd legislative maneuvering of Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives, a wife, mother, and grandmother who is a devout Catholic and proponent of reproductive freedom for women.
When Obama was able to nominate and secure confirmation of two pro-choice women on the Supreme Court (Justices Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor who is also the first person of Latino ancestry to join the Court), the bastion of white supremacy, patriarchy and religious nationalism suffered yet another shock. These things happened before the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2015. Scalia was the Court’s leading conservative. He led the fight to criticize the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade that recognized the right of women to choose whether to have abortions. Scalia also opposed efforts to protect LGBTQI persons from discrimination, opposed civil rights legislation to protect voting rights of groups historically discriminated against on account of color, and authored a Supreme Court decision that limited the power of state and local governments to regulate handguns. So “conservative evangelical Christians” smugly cheered with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Majority Leader, refused to allow the hold confirmation hearings and vote on whether to confirm Judge Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee to succeed Scalia.
The hard truth is that “conservative evangelical Christians” – whom I term “the Hateful Faithful” – are the dominant force behind Trump’s xenophobic, racist and otherwise questionable policies. The Hateful Faithful fiercely support Trump because they crave the power of his office to achieve their imperialistic and authoritarian aims.
In that sense, Donald Trump’s presidency fulfills dangers Cornel West identified in a book titled Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). Writing during the first term of President George W. Bush, West predicted our current situation:
Just as demagogic and antidemocratic fundamentalisms have gained far too much prominence in both Israel and the Islamic world, so too has a fundamentalist strain of Christianity gained far too much power in our political system, and in the hearts and minds of citizens. This Christian fundamentalism is exercising an undue influence over our government policies, both in the Middle East crisis and in the domestic sphere, and is violating fundamental principles enshrined in the Constitution; it is also providing support and “cover” for the imperialist aims of empire. The three dogmas that are leading to the imperial devouring of democracy in America – free market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism, and escalating authoritarianism – are often justified by the religious rhetoric of this Christian fundamentalism. And perhaps most ironically – and sadly – this fundamentalism is subverting the most profound, seminal teachings of Christianity, those being that we should live with humility, love our neighbors, and do unto others as we would have them do unto us… The battle for the soul of American democracy is, in large part, a battle for the soul of American Christianity, because the dominant forms of Christian fundamentalism are a threat to the tolerance and openness necessary for sustaining any democracy…
The basic distinction between Constantinian Christianity and prophetic Christianity is crucial for the future of American democracy. America is undeniably a highly religious country, and the dominant religion by far is Christianity, and much of American Christianity is a form of Constantinian Christianity. In American Christendom, the fundamental battle between democracy and empire is echoed in the struggle between this Constantinian Christianity and prophetic Christianity [Democracy Matters, pp. 146-146].
As West correctly observed, “Constantinian Christianity has always been at odds with the prophetic legacy of Jesus Christ…The corruption of a faith fundamentally based on tolerance and compassion by the strong arm of imperial authoritarianism invested Christianity with an insidious schizophrenia with which it has been battling ever since.” In the United States, the schizophrenia West identified allowed what he termed “strains of Constantinianism” to be “woven into the fabric of America’s Christian identity from the start.” And West added this observation:
Most American Constantinian Christians are unaware of their imperialistic identity because they do not see the parallel between the Roman empire that put Jesus to death and the American empire they celebrate. As long as they can worship freely and pursue the American dream, they see the American government as a force for good and American imperialism as a desirable force for spreading that good. They proudly profess their allegiance to the flag and the cross not realizing that just as the cross was a bloody indictment of the Roman empire, it is a powerful critique of the American empire, and they fail to acknowledge that the cozy relation between their Christian leaders and imperial American rulers may mirror the intimate ties between the religious leaders and imperial Roman rulers who crucified their Savior [p.150].
Although I heartily recommend Democracy Matters (and especially Chapter 5 which is titled “The Crisis of Christian Identity in America”) to anyone interested in a thorough analysis of people I call the “Hateful Faithful,” I respectfully disagree with Cornel West on one issue. The elections of Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump conclusively prove that American Constantinian Christians are quite aware of their imperialistic identity. After all, Trump’s campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – is an explicit adoration of empire.
We need not quibble about whether Franklyn Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Robert Jeffress, Mike Huckabee and other nationally known Constantinian Christians “see the parallel between the Roman empire that put Jesus to death and the American empire they celebrate.” That does not mean they are “unaware of their imperialistic identity.” Instead, Constantinian Christians reject the prophetic identity of Jesus. As Cornel West observed, “Constantinian Christians fail to appreciate their violation of Christian love and justice because Constantinian Christianity in America places such a strong emphasis on personal conversion, individual piety, and philanthropic service and has lost its fervor for the suspicion of worldly authorities and for doing justice in the service of the most vulnerable among us, which are central to the faith”[p.150].
The Hateful Faithful are heretics. Constantinian Christianity is now (and has always been) heretical to the gospel of Jesus. At best, Hateful Faithful claims of allegiance to Jesus are ill-conceived. At worst, their claims of allegiance to Jesus are fraudulent. Any claim that Jesus is the center of one’s faith and living – by people who condone bigotry against immigrants, racism, sexism, murdering political enemies, denial of access to healthcare services to people who are needy, and who condone mistreatment of vulnerable persons – is beyond unpersuasive. Such a claim of allegiance to Jesus amounts to moral and ethical nonsense.
People who cheered the murder of Iranian General Qassim Suliemani are not followers of Jesus because nothing in the teachings of Jesus supports murdering enemies. There is no “Blessed are the assassins” clause in the Beatitudes. People who support policies that forcibly separate asylum-seeking parents from their children and that create and operate concentration camps where the children have been denied loving care, basic hygiene, and comfortable shelter, are not followers of Jesus. Jesus taught (at the end of Matthew 25) that how one treats immigrants shows whether one knows the Son of God.
The hard truth is that the Hateful are Faithful, but not to Jesus. Like Constantine, they have hijacked the gospel of Jesus and are fraudulently using Christian identity as a disguise for white supremacy, patriarchy, bigotry and discrimination, authoritarianism, greed, militarism and lust for empire. Donald Trump, not Jesus, is their Savior. That is why I agree with what Cornel West wrote in Democracy Matters near the end of his analysis about the crisis of Christian identity in America:
To see the Gospel of Jesus Christ bastardized by imperial Christians and pulverized by Constantinian believers and then exploited by nihilistic elites of the American empire makes my blood boil… I do not want to be numbered among those who sold their souls for a mess of pottage – who surrendered their democratic Christian identity for a comfortable place at the table of the American empire while, like Lazarus, the least of these cried out and I was too intoxicated with worldly power and might to hear, beckon, and heed their cries. [p.171-172]
I do not want to be numbered among the Hateful Faithful. Neither does Jesus, judging from what he declared near the end of the Sermon on the Mount:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name.” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoer.” [Matthew 5:15-23].
— Wendell Griffen is a circuit court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas where he is also and pastor of New Millennium Church . He is author of The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (Judson Press) and has written for and is a member of the board of Christian Ethics Today. He can be followed at wendelllgriffen.blogspot.com
