“How in God’s name have American evangelical Christians become so enthralled by Donald Trump? Until 2016, this was a group known best for fealty to the bible, traditional family values and stern condemnation of vices such as gambling, sexual promiscuity and financial impropriety. Then came Trump — a three-times-married casino mogul who boasted of molesting women, is alleged to have paid hush money to a porn actress with whom he had sex and was found liable in a US court for sexual assault. This is a man who committed financial fraud, and whose lies, curses and blasphemies would earn an evangelical kid a mouthful of soap.” *1

Tim Alberta is an evangelical Christian journalist and writer who has an awareness of, and contacts in, the right-wing evangelical movement he now writes about with unrivalled knowledge. When asked why evangelicals morphed “from holding their nose and choosing a flawed leader to deciding that he was the messiah” he responded:

“There are many, many, many Christians in this country who are deeply invested in the idea of…supernatural intervention and transformation and the idea that God speaks to us through the unlikeliest of sources….I’ve talked with plenty of these folks. They believe Donald Trump is God’s instrument on Earth. And not only that, they believe that Donald Trump has become a Christian, that Donald Trump underwent a transformation while he was president, And why else would he be fighting for us the way that he’s fighting for us? It’s difficult to overstate just how meaningful that language of transformation is to people whose entire lives revolve around notions of transformation and of holy intercession.”*2

We are beginning to touch on ground we wrote about in April in our blog series on abusive leadership. Jesus warns that wolves will put themselves forward to lead his sheep, and he urges us to examine their fruit. We do this by studying the language someone uses, the behaviour they exhibit, the way they treat others and whether they practice what they teach. And recall Jesus’ warning against the wealthy. When a rich young man asks what he must do to enter the Kingdom of God, Jesus replies that he should sell everything and give the money to the poor.

We have also written a great deal in our blogs about transformation: what it means and how it happens. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was profoundly concerned at the way the church in Germany welcomed, and cooperated with, Nazi ideology, losing its identity as it did so. I believe the church in the USA faces similar challenges wearing a very different disguise. I suspect that most of you reading this series do not live in America, but if you are a Christian you will feel the growing apathy amongst your friends and family about learning from Jesus if the media persist in asking searching questions of the white evangelicals who support Donald Trump.

In response to a situation he mourned deeply, Dietrich Bonhoeffer urged his readers to adopt a faith that should be “characterised by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection.” By discipline Bonhoeffer is describing exactly what Jesus teaches in my summary above. The need is for those we live amongst to see us working at becoming the people we claim to be. We come to know death and resurrection as we look to embody a radical availability to the world. Death is experienced as we make ourselves available in ways that Jesus, “the man for others”, perfectly modelled. Resurrection happens as we sustain ourselves within healthy Christian communities in recognition of the fact that “the church is the church only when it exists for others.”

In the days since I finished writing the first draft of these posts we have seen rioters in the streets of our own towns and cities in the UK. Circumstances are very different, but those who are seeking both to foment and explain the violence are doing so because they insist “Judeo-Christian values” are at the root of English culture, and they need to be defended against Muslims who “loathe” them. The phrase “Judeo-Christian values” often remains undefined, and when a definition is offered, it is usually extremely vague and presents concepts that are in no way unique to Christianity or Judaism. In Blackpool, Nigel Farage defined it as follows: “the family matters, the community matters, working with each other matters, the country matters,”*3 as if these values are central to Christianity and not found deeply embedded within Islam. Farage is quite simply wrong. He knows nothing about either Christ or Islam and followers of Jesus must be certain about these facts.

I believe we are facing a watershed moment. Writing this series has convinced me that it is vital, and maybe even urgent, to be clear about Jesus’ call to us and certain about what following him should look like in each of our unique contexts. Many others are doing the same thing at this time, and I believe the Spirit is stirring the church, urging us to develop eyes that see and ears that hear.

I toyed in an earlier post with the question of labels – is the term ‘Christian’ still useful? Can it ever mean what we want it to mean given all we’ve been living through? But, just as the title of a book presents itself once the content has been completed, changing labels isn’t going to begin the quiet revolution we need. The call is always to challenge the dominant culture to think differently by building an authentically Christlike church, and doing so to the fullest degree possible.

When Jesus spoke of his followers being in, but not of, the world he was grieved at the degree to which the religious leaders of his day were misrepresenting his Father. He was therefore experiencing similar pressure and pain to that which is our experience at this moment. Jesus’ teaching, demeanour and example insists that cruelty, othering and scapegoating can never make things right. Everything Jesus taught and lived about loving those who disagree with us, even those who might call us their enemies, is the opposite of what we see demonstrated by Trump and Farage. And his call was not one of retreat, but that we embrace our calling to be an exposed light on a hill. To acknowledge that we can be salt that fertilises and improves. We are to be living and positive examples, not hidden away but engaged and available.

Paul’s version of Jesus’ teaching is found in Romans 12:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will… Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.“

I find Paul’s words act upon me like a nice cool shower at the end of a hot day. I have tried to think deeply in order to be as wise as a serpent, but yet my calling is to be as gentle as a dove. I mourn at the way the church Jesus established is misrepresented so grotesquely for political gain, and feel deep pain at the way labels I grew up with have been trodden in the mud by those who know little of what they truly represent. Thankfully Jesus promised that those who mourn will be comforted, and our hope is not in the continued faithfulness of others but in our own calling to keep following one step at a time.

*1 See https://www.ft.com/content/fe3fe8df-fa61-402c-b8a6-9966c2a27b25

*2 See https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2023/12/how-trump-has-transformed-evangelicals/676267/

*3 See https://www.mend.org.uk/nigel-farage-seeks-to-marginalise-muslims/