Musings on Whether Congress and the Church Can Reject Extremism in 2025

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., January 11, 2025

America lost its moral compass and its political legitimacy when it gave Trump a second term.  A polarized Congress and a church that has ignored the altruistic teachings of Jesus must now relearn what it means to provide for the common good.  In the past, America looked to the church for such moral guidance; but America’s churches have lost their moral way.

Extremist Trump Republicans and Christian zealots now dominate American politics and the church.  While churches are shrinking in size, their moral standards now mimic politics, with popularity the measure of success in both the church and politics.  Christian morality has been co-opted by extremist partisan politics, making politics and religion strange bedfellows.

The  early church realized that the teachings of Jesus were not popular, and created exclusivist church doctrine as a form of cheap but popular grace.  That allowed Christianity to become the world’s most popular religion; but the church has failed to be a moral steward of democracy and is now declining, allowing the failure of Christian morality in church and politics.

The altruistic teachings of Jesus are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors, including those of other races and religions, as we love ourselves.  It’s a moral imperative to provide for the common good that could transform the guiding moral principles in American politics and its churches from the shallowness of popularity to altruism. 

The altruistic teachings of Jesus could allow common sense and reason to replace the extremist radical right politics that have shaped American politics and Christianity.  Liberating the church from Trump’s extremist radical right politics could restore legitimacy to American politics and Christianity, but it would cost the church its popularity and worldly power.

Where can America look to lead a much-needed 21st century moral reformation beyond a church as corrupted by Trump’s Republicans and the partisan political divisions in Congress?  As a retired attorney, a retired pastor and a retired Army officer, I don’t see an institutional alternative to the church to counter the ancient inertia of human depravity in America.

America has experienced Donald Trump as a self-proclaimed savior who has corrupted politics and morality in America’s churches to promote his political power.  Only a rebirth of God’s altruistic Spirit can save us from ourselves.  That’s what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3; but a materialistic and hedonistic America has so far ignored that mission imperative. 

After January 20 America will begin to see whether Congress can be reborn to promote the common good, or continue to be paralyzed with partisan polarization.  As for the church, don’t hold your breath.  America’s churches are not likely to be spiritually transformed unless their congregations demand it, and there aren’t historical precedents for that to happen.

      

Notes:

Tim Alberta has reviewed the current disarray among American Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention with the rise of the Moral Majority, Liberty University and Donald Trump’s Republican Party.  See The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals In An Age of Extremism, Harper (2023).  Alberta has depicted an unholy relationship between Christians and Trump’s Republicans where partisan loyalty to Republican politics has supplanted loyalty to the teachings of Jesus and God’s moral imperative to promote the common good in the greatest commandment.  Moral reform in the church will likely have to come from outside rather than inside a church that has allowed popularity to distort its mission.

As for the role of the church, the title to Robin Meyer’s book says it all: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Following Jesus, Harper One, 2009.

In an insightful commentary on the 2024 election, Thomas Edsall of the New York Times described Trump’s Return as a Civil Society Failure. “Edsall cited a recent poll that asked respondents whether the Democratic or the Republican Party is “in touch or out of touch” and “strong or weak,” majorities of working-class voters described the Democrats as out of touch (53-34) and weak (50-32) and the Republicans as “in touch” (52-35) and “strong” (63-23). More significant, on two survey questions that previously favored Democrats — is the party “on my side or not” and which party do you trust “to fight for people like me” — the Democrats lost ground to Republicans. Fifty percent of all voters participating in this survey said that the Republican Party would fight for people “like me,” while 36 percent said the Democratic Party would.  If the past predicts the present, voters are quite likely, sooner or later, to turn against Donald Trump, once he is back in the White House, and the Republicans who control both branches of Congress. American politics are locked in a seemingly never-ending struggle in which neither side ever persuasively claims a durable majority. Esdall asked, Are a growing number of voters, including a small but significant share of Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters, losing faith in liberal egalitarianism, the core premise of the left? Are the defections of minority-group voters to the Republican Party a Trump-specific, momentary phenomenon, or will defections continue to grow, as they have from 2016 to 2024, in what would amount to a partial realignment of the minority electorate? Does the elite character of the Democratic Party — its domination by the college-educated, tied to cognitive elites and liberal foundations — preclude restoration of support among increasingly suspicious and hostile non-college voters? Did Trump campaign’s focus on inflation, immigration, crime and transgender rights succeed in pushing the public image of the Democratic Party farther from the mainstream, no longer concerned with the day-to-day issues of the middle class? Edsall noted that American politics have now been in the midst of a slow-moving realignment that first saw a disproportionately white group of relatively informed and knowledgeable voters reverse partisanship as those with college educations became increasingly Democratic while those without degrees became more Republican.  If the past predicts the present, voters are quite likely, sooner or later, to turn against Donald Trump, once he is back in the White House, and the Republicans who control both branches of Congress. American politics are locked in a seemingly never-ending struggle in which neither side ever persuasively claims a durable majority.”