By Rudy Barnes, Jr.
July
4, 2017, should have been a day of celebration, remembering the origins of our freedom
and democracy and giving thanks to those who risked their lives to protect them.
But for me July 4, 2017 was a sad day of
mourning the degradation of American values.
I felt out of touch with the America I thought I knew.
The
election of November 2016 was an ugly watershed in U.S. politics. Christians, long a bulwark in American politics,
elected a “bizarre, absurd, ridiculous and embarrassing” man as president of
the U.S. Ironically, that was made
possible by white Christians whose values are shaped by their faith. Despite Trump’s political victory—or perhaps
because of it—Robert P. Jones has asserted that white Christian America is in a
decline that cannot be reversed.
Trump’s
degradation of American values was evident when he spoke in Poland on July 6: “The
fundamental question of today is whether the West has the will to survive and
defend its values,” and then he asked, “Do we have the confidence in our values
to defend them at all costs?” Beware
when Trump speaks of defending our
values. America’s values should not be those
exemplified by Donald Trump, and it’s a sad day to think they could be.
Trump’s
degenerate values are not just a partisan political issue. Religion is the source of our values and our moral
standards of legitimacy, so they are as much an issue of faith as of
politics. The Christian religion was in
decline well before Trump’s election, and it has since lost its legitimacy
among those whose faith is based on following the teachings of Jesus. It’s time for a religious and political reformation
to reestablish the priority of American values.
The
problem for American democracy is not so much Trump as it is those who support
him. Those Christians who support Trump
are apparently motivated by a distorted form of Christianity that is closer to
the objectivist teachings of Ayn Rand than to the altruistic teachings of
Jesus. Their “prosperity gospel”
reflects materialistic and hedonistic values that have made America the Beautiful ripe for a fall
from the grace that God supposedly shed on her.
Faith,
freedom and democracy are interwoven in our culture, but that has been ignored in
many churches. Mainline denominations have
avoided political issues and allowed fundamentalist evangelical churches to
control the “Christian” political agenda.
Apparently things have to get really bad before respectable Christians
recognize the relevance of their faith to their politics. Well, hello!
In case you haven’t noticed, things have gotten really bad.
Freedom
and democracy are subject to shifting tides in the cosmic battle between the
forces of good and evil. When the church
subordinates the teachings of Jesus to church doctrines conducive to the worldly
objectives of prosperity and power, it throws Jesus under the bus and puts
Satan in the driver’s seat. Those who
supported Donald Trump subordinated God’s will to reconcile and redeem people
of all races and religions to Satan’s will to divide and conquer.
How
do we put Jesus back into the driver’s seat of the church bus and restore the values
that made America great? We need to put the greatest commandment to love God and
to love our neighbors as we love ourselves—and that includes our neighbors of
other races and religions—at the heart of our faith. That love command provides the moral
imperative needed for political issues ranging from health care to immigration
and national defense.
If
Americans lose their freedom it won’t likely be at the hands of an outside enemy,
but forfeited from within. Edmund Burke
warned Americans before the Revolution: In
a democracy you will forge your own shackles. Pogo the Possum echoed that warning when he
said: We have met the enemy and it is us. Americans must rejuvenate their religious and
political values by next July 4, or it will be another sad day to mourn their
loss.
Notes:
On Kathleen Parker’s view of
Trump as bizarre, absurd, ridiculous,
embarrassing, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bizarre-absurd-ridiculous-embarrassing-trump/2017/07/04/f004b6dc-6033-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
On Robert Jones’ assertion that Trump can’t reverse the decline of white
Christian America, see https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/robert-jones-white-christian-america/532587/.
On Trump’s speech in Poland on the
need to defend Western values to survive, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/06/in-poland-trump-reaffirms-commitment-to-nato-chides-russia/?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1. On what those
values might be, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/07/what-the-idea-of-civilization-does-and-doesnt-mean-to-trump/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1; see also https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-wants-us-to-defend-our-values-which-ones/2017/07/06/9fcb041e-6272-11e7-84a1-a26b75ad39fe_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
(12/15/14): Faith and Freedom
(1/11/15): The Greatest Commandment: A Common Word of Faith
(1/18/15): Love over Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy
(2/15/15): Is Religion Good or Evil?
(3/22/15): The Power of Humility and the Arrogance of Power
(4/12/15): Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy
(5/3/15): A Fundamental Problem with Religion
(8/30/15): What Is Truth?
(9/20/15) Politics and Religious Polarization
(11/22/15): Dualism: Satan’s Evil Versus God’s Goodness
(1/23/16): Who Is My Neighbor?
(1/30/16): The Politics of Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves
(2/27/16): Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy in Faith, Freedom and Politics
(5/14/16): The Arrogance of Power, Humility and a Politics of Reconciliation
(6/18/16): A Politics of Reconciliation with Liberty and Justice for All
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/06/a-politics-of-reconciliation-with.html (8/5/16): How Religion Can Bridge Our Political and
Cultural Divide
(9/17/16): A Moral Revival to Restore Legitimacy to Our Politics
(11/5/16): Religion, Liberty and Justice at Home and Abroad
(11/19/16): Religion and a Politics of Reconciliation Based on Shared Values
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2016/11/religion-and-politics-of-reconciliation_19.html
(11/26/16): Irreconcilable Differences and the Demise of Democracy
(12/3/16): Righteous Anger in Religion and Politics
(2/25/17): The Need for a Revolution in Religion and Politics
(3/4/17): Ignorance and Reason in Religion and Politics
(3/18/17): Moral Ambiguity in Religion and Politics
(5/6/17): Loyalty and Duty in Politics, the Military and Religion
http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/05/loyalty-and-duty-in-politics-military.html (6/3/17): When Winning Trumps Mercy and Losing is
Evil
(6/24/17): The Evolution of Religion, Politics and Law: Back to the Future? http://www.religionlegitimacyandpolitics.com/2017/06/the-evolution-of-religion-politics-and.html.
(7/1/17): Religion, Moral Authority and Conflicting Concepts of Legitimacy
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