麻豆社

The presence of Christians at the assault on the US Capitol building last week appalled me, but it did not surprise me.

Five years ago, I had dinner with the family of a Lutheran priest in America. It was the week in which the news media repeatedly played a tape of Donald Trump boasting about how he groped women. The 12-year-old daughter asked her mother how a man like that could ever be elected president. The mother made no reply. She said to me, 鈥淚f I had told her what I thought and she repeated it to some of her school friends, and they told their parents, we could end up losing church members鈥�.

To talk about political issues 鈥� whether these be race, climate change or arms control 鈥� is taboo in some American Christian circles. A clear distinction is defended between the church and the state, as if race, the environment and world peace were not God's business.

So, on the basis of where Democrats or Republicans stand on abortion, gay rights, black lives or drilling for oil, some people of faith find it easier to stand behind a partisan banner than to openly discuss the ethical and spiritual dimensions of issues of public concern. And when, as witnessed last week, your favoured candidate who has defended your preferred opinions is rejected, some unthinking minds regards that as an onslaught against God. And there is no option but for Christian soldiers to fight the good fight.

My experience of such believers 鈥� on the extreme right and left 鈥� persuades that they have often been influenced more by the rhetoric of populist preachers than by any fidelity to scripture. If asked about the social justice injunctions of the Hebrew prophets, they might dismiss them as being 'before Jesus'. If asked about Jesus' concern for women, race or money, they would probably say, 鈥渘ext question鈥�.

For many other Christians, Trump has been a bogus Messiah. His photo shoot holding a Bible outside a church during a Black Lives Matter protest was not, in my view, an endorsement of faith but an attempt to convince the faithful he was on their side. His ability to stand on a podium, manipulate emotions, pontificate and defy contradiction, is in complete distinction to the great religious leaders. They, like Jesus, sat at ground level, even among those who disagreed with them, to discuss the thorny issues, make themselves vulnerable and affirm the humanity of all.

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