The Gunfighter
I listened to a CNN interview with commentator Peter Wehner about his July 5th article in the Atlantic magazine. His contention made a great deal of sense. From his perspective, evangelical whites believe they are in an existential fight for survival. The enemy is not the Soviets or atheistic totalitarians. Rather it is the liberal elites. Issues such as gay marriage, abortion rights, and prayer in schools are threatening the very existence of the church. Attacks are coming from the courts, government regulators, universities, schools, media, Black activists, immigrants, lawyers, ecumenical movements, liberal seminaries, and Hollywood. All of these institutions are in the thrall of godless humanists who hold Christians in disdain.
This culture war has been raging for decades. Battle after battle has been lost by the White church. Along comes Donald Trump — a profane, immoral, narcissistic bully. He is willing to take up the White, conservative, evangelical Christian agenda. He’s a take-no-prisoners fighter. He will lie, cheat, steal, persecute, abuse, and bludgeon his opponents to get his way. And all he asks is enthusiastic support. It is to this demigod evangelicals have sworn allegiance.
Why have so many of those who talk of servant leadership, the poor in spirit, peacemaking, and mercy flocked to such a profane man? Because he’s tough. He fights and fights hard. While evangelicals like talking about ethical leadership, they don’t actually believe it works. They think Jesus was hopelessly naive when he said:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mt. 20:25-27)
To me, an illustration of what has happened would be if a pacifist Mennonite community had settled in the wild West. Imagine if a gang of desperados arrived in town and began to wreak havoc. The Mennonite elders got together to discuss the problem. Because they were against violence of any kind, they themselves saw no way to address the problem of the terrorists. Into town rides a famous gunfighter, unmatched in ability. The elders decide that while they can’t act in a belligerent manner, they will instead hire the gunslinger to shoot down all their enemies. Their hands will thus be kept clean, and they will solve their problem.
In this way, evangelicals have hired an amoral, ruthless gunfighter to take care of their enemies. They don’t believe Jesus’ ethics are up to the task. At some point they may wake up and realize they have temporarily won the culture war but at the cost of their own souls.