A twitter-spat over Donald Trump’s immigration policy reveals a deep cleavage in America’s religious right
JULY 4TH of all days should be a time of amity for Americans. So many generations have joined in celebrating “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as basic human entitlements, whatever the myriad interpretations they have put on those exhilarating words.
Jerry Falwell junior , president of Liberty University and a champion among pro-Trump evangelicals, shot back with a personal sneer: “Who are you Dr Moore? Have you ever built an organisation of any sort from scratch? You’re nothing but an employee - a bureaucrat.” Other Trump-minded Christians chimed in to say that protesting over the immigration crisis amounted to an unpatriotic slur on the United States Border Patrol.
But according to a new book, “Believe Me”, by John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, all these theological disagreements are being transcended by a more salient issue: whether or not to support Mr Trump wholeheartedly and therefore overlook his character flaws. These days, by far the most important distinction is between what Mr Fea calls “court evangelicals”, who stridently support the president and are rewarded with access to him, and every other kind of evangelical.
Another popular view holds that Mr Trump’s rude and rumbustious character is really a merit in a time of great geopolitical and spiritual danger. As Robert Jefress, a megachurch builder and Trump favourite, told a newspaper in his native Texas: “When I’m looking for a leader who’s gonna sit across the table from a nuclear Iran, or who’s gonna be intent on destroying [the jihadists of] ISIS, I couldn’t care less about that leader’s temperament or his tone or his vocabulary.
As an example of a rigorously conservative Baptist who keeps his distance from Mr Trump, take Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said during the 2016 campaign that the candidate’s character flaws risked destroying the moral credibility of evangelicals. As a prolific commentator on politics, he always has harsh words for America’s political left and holds traditionalist views on social and bioethical questions.
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