Yesterday, Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, wrote an article in response to Jerry Falwell Jr.’s statements about President Donald Trump, specifically where Falwell said that evangelicals, “have found their dream President.” The article from Wallis takes the Liberty University president to task on his position; focusing on how easily Trump’s multiple marriages, infidelities, charges of alleged racism and alleged illegal action were forgiven by the 81% of white evangelicals who voted for the Republican candidate. As is typical if you have been reading Jim Wallis’ work, he makes sure to highlight the racist implications of the President’s policies and choices, and ties Falwell to these racially discriminatory underpinnings while simultaneously reminding us of the racist inheritance that comes from Jerry Falwell Sr.
While I will in no way question, or in anyway mitigate, the unconscious (or conscious) racism at play in American society, there is another influence on white Evangelical America’s choice of supporting Donald J. Trump. It’s roots go back to at least the 1930s, though I would bet there are indications of it earlier in our religious history. It’s how white evangelicalism in America has propped up and bowed down to wealthy white men and celebrated them as captains of industry, regardless of the means by which they came to their wealth. My thoughts are drawn from two books published in the last couple of years.
“One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Created Christian America,” by Keven Kruse, and, “The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity,” by Darren Grem, take different paths toward a similar thesis. Namely, that it was a wedding of corporate money with conservative, individualistic theology that created modern evangelicalism and its political influence on American society. Both books make a point of highlighting how the careers of well-known evangelical leaders, such as Billy Graham, were influenced and financed by powerful business owners.
While not exactly a “prosperity gospel,” the authors discuss how the works of evangelicals, who were all benefitting through their connections to big business, uniformly preached that the successful business owner is the only person positioned by God to know how best to address social concerns. Our current context, where evangelicals voted for a “billionaire” in such large numbers is a continuation of the work started during the depths of the Great Depression. There are still those, such as Jerry Falwell Jr., who will support the idea that success in business is the result of someone rightly aligned with the will of God.
Kruse and Grem both draw a line from the conservative Christians and business leaders of the 1930s to the Moral Majority of the 1980s and the election of Ronald Reagan. The choice to vote for Trump in 2016 is not that much different than the evangelical vote for Regan, a casual church-goer on his second marriage. It’s not as if all of a sudden white evangelical Christians have forgotten their morals in order to elect a social messiah. They have done it before, but this time their choice is one decidedly more brash. In 1981, when Jimmy Carter, a devoted Baptist Sunday School teacher and the first politician known to have talked about being “born again,” was leaving the White House on Inauguration Day, Jerry Falwell Sr. said in an interview, “Finally, we have a Christian in the White House.” Supposedly, that was the only negative thing said about President Carter that actually affected him.
I don’t dispute Wallis’ assertion that white America has yet to fully grapple with its racist inheritance. But I think there was another unconscious bias at work in the 2016 election, as well as the continued support of President Trump. White evangelicals love wealth and power. They are very quickly to connect wealthy individuals to kings from the Old Testament, while consistently failing to remember the failings of those very same kings. David and Solomon are great examples to hold up, as long as you don’t talk about the rape, adultery, and idolatry that are a part of their Biblical narratives.
It seems Evangelical Christians would rather have their eye dazzled than have poor people receive healthcare.
They would rather “Ooo,” and “Ahhh” at gold leaf everywhere than see hungry children fed in school.
They would rather ride in fancy helicopters and private planes than have a livable Earth to walk barefoot upon.
It’s not new, Mr. Wallis. White Evangelical America has been holding up people like Trump for almost 80 years.
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