The Support of Evangelicals for Trump is About Identifying with Martyrdom
The Support of Evangelicals for Trump is About Identifying with Martyrdom
But just remember this: You're stronger, you're smarter, you've got more going than anybody. And they try and demean everybody having to do with us. And you're the real people, you're the people that built this nation. You're not the people that tore down our nation. - Trump, speech on January 7, 2021
When I left Christianity I was eager to find and be a part of the global secular anti-religious conspiracy that I’d been told ran everything. Suffice to say, the emotional pique that I wanted to be nurtured ended up shriveling on the vine of hope. All I found was a humanist group who complained of not having enough money for snacks at their meetings and presentations that were concerned with how to get along with religious believers. I was not amused.
Where was the anger? Where was the cabal of satanists? I’d been raised on the notion that governments and society at large were in direct opposition to the spiritual truths of the universe and the only response I could find was a desire for bagels to be brought to the next small group meeting? Eventually I found some anger on the Internet (I’d not yet come to the realization that the Internet runs on rage rather than computer code), but the antipathy was expressed through so many puerile protestations that it was easily dismissed.
Alas, while the years since have delivered many examples of people who are against Christianity (though usually defined in such a way to merely fit one’s personal gripe), the carefully constructed conspiracy has been utterly absent. Having grown up emotionally, at least in some ways, since my early 20’s, I’m rather glad there wasn’t in fact some global conspiracy, but the head-shaking at the memory of how strong that belief was, is still constant, not least because it continues to be shrilly screamed about by many believers, particularly Evangelicals.
Thing is, it is precisely that belief in one’s perpetual distance from the powers that be, the abject refusal to consider that most people simply don’t care what you believe until you’re trying to instantiate in within the law, is why someone like Donald Trump can co-opt the message of conservative religion and gain such incredible group status within the circles of evangelical Christianity.
The Narcicissm of Belief
I use the term co-opt for the specific reason that the self-proclaimed “moral majority” of Protestant Evangelicals, the group who railed so vociferously against Bill Clinton having an affair, has gone all in for Trump, a multi-divorcee who paid hush money to a porn star with whom he was having an affair while one wife was giving birth to their child. Lying is no longer a moral failing, at least in leadership, but a way of “owning the libs.” Nearly every virtue associated, rightly or wrongly, with evangelical Christianity, is utterly absent in the man some call the “orange Jesus” and yet, the majority votes for him more consistently than they attend church services.
“She still identifies as an evangelical Christian, but she doesn’t believe going to church is necessary to commune with God. “I have my own little thing with the Lord,” she says.” -Times
The testimonial from the person quoted above is indicative of a trend.
In 2021, for the first time on record, less than 50 percent of Americans were members of a church. -Times
Despite the exhortation to “not forsake the assembly” in Hebrews 10:25, it would seem that many religious believers are simply not interested in getting together with one another anymore. At least not in person. This trend in reducing church service has been going on for a while, but it got a shot in the arm during the COVID lockdowns, when people found they could likely get their emotional needs met online without the nuance required of dealing with people in-person.
That lack of nuance, the absence of having to deal with people as multi-faceted, has a deeply personal effect: avoiding cognitive dissonance. This avoidance means the internal constructs of the world need never be challenged and one’s lived experience, a euphemism for the supremacy of subjective feelings-based reasoning, reigns over the complexity of reality. Polarization and the silo-ing of news and information sources, are the social-level effects of the sweet lullaby of confirmation bias to one’s ego.
The Trumping of Identity over Morality
Ego is not being used, here, in the sense of Freud, but as a way of pointing to the belief in the primacy of the subjective. Social consequences don’t have to be considered when people are believed to exist in an enclave of the singular. This doesn’t mean that beliefs about how various aspects of society should function go away. They instead become declarations of solidarity. Like wearing certain colors for a gang, wearing sports team clothing, or planting yard signs, beliefs about social issues have become signals of belonging, a way of designating who is or isn’t “safe” to talk and congregate with.
Ethics and morality are deeply social, they are the means of addressing how to engage in the complexities of social interaction.
“Moral deliberation at its best is a process of reconstructing our experience in a way that resolves the morally problematic situation that is currently confronting us.” - Morality for Humans by Mark Johnson
Morality, rather than being pontifical declarations, is a process of dialogue and compromise when dealing with the multiple variables of any complex situation. As social beliefs become signals rather than platforms for the debate of their particular manifestation in reality, morality becomes subsumed to a social identity. Actions no longer exist as a way to show how one would like people to deal with one another, but are considered right or wrong based solely on whether the person belongs to the right or wrong group.
“Being evangelical once suggested regular church attendance, a focus on salvation and conversion and strongly held views on specific issues such as abortion. Today, it is as often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.” -Times
As noted above, the social relationships of church attendance and salvation (one’s relational alignment to God’s moral demands), are no longer as important as the belief in one’s identity. That identity is bound to a carefully constructed persecution complex where martyrdom (at core, the setting apart of oneself from broader society) is now to be found in every declaration from the “elite” that being a conservative or Trump-supporter is equivalent to being a racist/fascist/deplorable. To be a martyr to one’s cause is the strongest declaration one can make of allegiance to a group, a screaming protest that the person must be seen and elevated by those they connect with.
This combination of support for one’s ego through social isolation, itself leading to even more strongly needing to belong to a group where one feels safe and supported in, easily becomes the foundation for being taken advantage of by a populist leader who channels one’s anger to a national stage.
Being a Tool for God’s Wrath
Back in 2006 there was a video game called “Left Behind,” where you could play Christian believers in a post-apocalyptic world, a period of Tribulation according to one version of Christian theology. There was controversy around the game, but it’s instructive as to what the controversy was about. The concerns centered on the promotion of a particular Pre-Millenial theological opinion, rather than the active essence of the game where Christians were taking up arms to kill anyone who didn’t align with their belief.
“This election is part of a spiritual battle,” Mr. Tenney said. “When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.” -Times
Christianity is fundamentally about being set apart from the world through the divine revelation leading to salvation. Protestant Christianity is a protest against the centrality of that revelation being bound in an institution, where instead it should be found in the individual. Evangelicalism is Protestantism as a declaration to other groups, a way of setting oneself apart even within a larger group they should find solidarity with.
Retribution and violence, both the imaginary form found online and the real form rallied on January 6, 2020, are a direct result of beliefs in one’s persecution and that alone one stands against the tyranny of the masses.
Is it truly any wonder that a man who demands loyalty above all else, who considers every declaration of his moral failings to be nothing more than an insidious plot of shadowy groups out to get him, would garner the support of a group founded on the principle of taking pride in being set apart from society because of their declaration to possess cosmic truths nobody else has?