Republican "Christianity" Is Entirely Pre-Jesus-- If Not Anti-Jesus-- Theirs Is A God Who Is Judgmental And Punitive

 

Keith Mannes, giving his final sermon in East Saugatuck one week ago

On Saturday evening, the Washington Post's Hannah Knowles did some Trump reporting from the front lines of one of his super-spreader events, this one in Muskegon, Michigan. He told supporters there was "something very beautiful" about "watching everybody get pushed around" in Minneapolis as National Guard troops responded violently to the peaceful protests after George Floyd’s murder. "Wasn’t that beautiful? In Minneapolis‚ they came in, these soldiers … And they had their tear gas, and they had their pepper spray, which the other side doesn’t want you to use, because it’s not nice. They can throw cans at you. They can throw rocks and stones and hurt your police, but you’re not allowed to guard yourself with tear gas, pepper spray." The forces "marched forward," said the would-be Hitler, "and the whole thing was over" as his fascist followers cheered. "There’s something about that when you’re watching everybody getting pushed around, there’s something very beautiful about it."

Muskegon is a 50-50 county on the shores of Lake Michigan. Hillary actually edged Trump there is 2016-- 36,640 (47.5%) to 35,962 (46.6%). Interestingly, Muskegon was Bernie Country that year. He didn't just beat Hillary in the Democratic primary, he beat Cruz, who won the Republican primary and had far more votes than Trump:

• Bernie- 10,062
• Hillary- 8,220
• Cruz- 6,478
• Trumpanzee- 5,757
• Kasich- 3,706
• Rubio- 1,875

In 2018, Muskegon voters turned out for Debbie Stabenow in the Senate race (52.3% to 44.8%) and for Gretchen Whitmer in the gubernatorial race (50.3% to 40.3%). In the congressional race, it was the only Democratic-performing county in MI-02. Since then, 2,790 county residents have been infected by COVID-19 and 78 have died.

Saugatuck is a small township in Allegan County 47 miles south of Muskegon. No doubt there were residents who drove the 50 minutes to see Trump Saturday. In 2016, Trump won Allegan County with 61% and two years later Stabenow and Whitmer each lost the county. It's part of MI-06, where progressive Democrat state Rep. Jon Hoadley is taking on long-time incumbent, conservative Republican Fred Upton. In 2018, Allegan was one of Upton's top bases of support-- performing for him at an R+22 level.

If you're a regular here at DWT you know I was one of the earliest supporters of what turned out to be an anti-Trump evangelical group called Vote Common Good. The pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in East Saugatuck, Keith Mannes, is part of that group as well. He's been the pastor for over 3 decades-- until last Sunday, when he gave his last sermon and walked away from his ministry in the midst of "increasing political tension and divisiveness." His parishioners are overwhelmingly MAGA supporters.

While Mannes loves the congregation he served at East Saugatuck CRC for the past four years, he says the church as a whole has “abandoned its role” as the conscience of the state in support of Trump, leading Mannes to step away.

“There’s a quote from Martin Luther King where he said, ‘The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state,’” Mannes said. “That just hit me hard because I think, broadly, the white evangelical community in our country has abandoned that role.

“The question of the church largely and how it’s functioned in this moment has been really disturbing. That’s been troubling enough that I need to lay it all down.”

A divide within the faith

Mannes is not the only Christian feeling the strain. He said he knows several other pastors who are feeling the same things.

Additionally, polls show that while white Christians still favor Trump, that support has decreased.

In a poll conducted by Pew Research Center from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, Christian support for Trump had dipped since August.

In the poll, published Oct. 13, 78 percent of white evangelical Protestants said they would vote for or lean toward voting for Trump if the election were held that day. That’s down from 83 percent in August.

White non-evangelical Protestants supported Trump 53 percent of the time in the latest poll, while white Catholics sat at 52 percent, down 6 and 7 percentage points since August, respectively.

According to Pew, 44 percent of registered voters are white Christians, making it a key voting demographic.

Why the strain on the faithful?

George Lundskow, a sociology professor at Grand Valley State University who studies the sociology of religion, said support from the religious community is tied to how people view God.

Lundskow said that while some of the president’s actions may not align with Christian values, he has aligned himself with conservative Christians by acting similar to how they see God-- judgmental and punitive.

″(His actions) don’t seem very Christian, much less conservative Christian,” Lundskow said. “I don’t think it’s about that. It’s something else about religion-- whether you see God as punitive and judgmental or the loving, forgiving version of God. That definitely shapes political views as well.”

Lundskow said this divide between conservative and progressive Christians based on their view of God is a point of division within the faith in terms of political support.

The professor explained that those who see God as punitive tend to support Trump, saying they see him as strong-willed for the way he attacks opponents and “punishes” people for being poor. Lundskow added that Christians who view God as loving and forgiving tend to be more liberal and progressive, welcoming immigrants and “seeking social justice” for the poor.

Years in the making

Mannes has been feeling a disconnect between the teachings of the church and the actions of the political candidate it largely supports for years. It started when Trump announced his campaign in June 2015 while descending down an escalator at Trump Tower.

“From the time he came down the escalator,” Mannes said of when he began to feel an internal struggle. “It’s only been building ever since. From the beginning I thought there’s something about this man and the instrument that he is for a lot of things that are just very not Jesus.”

He said the congregation at his church has “saved (his) faith in many ways,” but what he’s seen from Christians nationally has challenged it.

That includes when white supremacists gathered for a rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 which led to three deaths and dozens of injuries, after which Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Mannes was part of a group of pastors that walked 130 miles from Charlottesville to Washington, D.C., in August, hearing the stories of people there during the 2017 events.

He called Trump’s photo holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Church in Washington in June, following the use of tear gas and riot control to clear protesters from the area, a “tremendous violation of something deep and holy,” and said it was a key moment in his views.

“It just floors me how church-going people who read the Bible and sing the hymns can show up at a (Trump) rally and just do that deep bellow like an angry mob supporting these horrible things that come out of his heart and his mind. It just began to trouble me so much that I am a pastor in this big enterprise.”

While some, like Mannes, may be turned off by Trump’s actions, Lundskow said many look past them because they believe Trump was sent to be a representative of God.

“If I’m somebody who sees Donald Trump as God’s chosen representative, the leader God has chosen to bring the country back to the right direction, I’m willing to overlook his personal failings,” Lundskow explained. ”(Christians think) if he’s good enough to be God’s representative, he’s good enough to be president.”

The decision to leave

As the tension in his heart and the world around him continued to grow, Mannes said his feelings began to show in his sermons, causing discomfort for some parishioners.

Trying to keep his thoughts internalized became more and more difficult as time went on.

“What it was really doing was tearing me up,” he said. “I’ve had to be very careful to not speak about these things directly with members of the church.

“It’s not only me, but quite a number of pastors I know are just like, ‘This is it? All this preaching we did about Jesus and there’s this big of a disconnect?’ I think that’s a real burden on a lot of pastors’ hearts. I love these people, I love God, I love Jesus, I love the church, but there’s something happening here.”

Mannes sat down with the elders of his church in September to express the tensions he had been feeling. After a long and emotional meeting, they agreed it was time to part ways.

“We got down on our knees, many of us wept. It was a really hard decision,” Mannes said. “It was time for me to lovingly and with great peace and loss separate from the church. It was really crushing because I’ve given my life to the church, and thankfully so.”

‘Be the conscience’

Mannes says he understands many Christians will vote for Trump, and he will still love those who do, but implores them to think about what it means to be a Christian before making their choice.

“I would just implore anybody who claims Christ to just look very seriously at the core things Jesus called us to do and be,” he said. “Do some serious soul searching about who you’re serving and how you’re trying to accomplish that purpose in the world.”

He calls on his fellow Christians to be the conscience of the president, whoever it is, and force them to be better than the division that has become common.

“We’re supposed to be the conscience of the president and we have refused to do that,” Mannes said. “I don’t know that a church who believes in Jesus as we do, can abandon its conscience and not say, ‘Mr. President we’re calling you to better than that and you need to call our nation to better than that.’”

A few weeks prior to his last sermon, Mannes spoke with a member of the church, who asked him to reconsider his decision. The person asked him about his plans once he walked away, with no guarantee that the issue will even persist after Election Day.

“He said, ‘What are you going to do? What are you going to have?’” Mannes recalled. “Well, at least my conscience.”

These days, John Pavlovitz's evangelical ministry is online. His blog, Stuff That Needs To Be Said is stuff that needs to be read. Today he wrote one aimed squarely at Trump supporters: No, I Won’t Agree To Disagree. You’re Just Wrong. "At this point, with the past four years as a resume," he wrote, "your alignment with this president means that we are fundamentally disconnected on what is morally acceptable-- and I’ve simply seen too much to explain that away or rationalize your intentions or give you the benefit of the doubt any longer. I know what your reaffirmation of him is telling me about your disregard for the lives of people of color, about your opinion of women, about your attitude toward Science, about the faith you so loudly profess, and about your elemental disrespect for bedrock truth. I now can see how pliable your morality is, the kinds of compromises you’re willing to make, the ever-descending bottom you’re following into, in order to feel victorious in a war you don’t even know why you’re fighting. That’s why I need you to understand that isn’t just a schism on one issue or a single piece of legislation, as those things would be manageable. This isn’t a matter of politics or preference. This is a pervasive, sprawling, saturating separation about the way we see the world and what we value and how we want to move through this life."

And he was just getting started, perhaps with Keith Mannes' struggle in the back of his mind.

Agreeing to disagree with you in these matters, would mean silencing myself and more importantly, betraying the people who bear the burdens of your political affiliations-- and this is not something I’m willing to do. Our relationship matters greatly to me, but if it has to be the collateral damage of standing with them, I’ll have to see that as acceptable.

• Your devaluing of black lives is not an opinion.
• Your acceptance of falsehoods is not an opinion.
• Your defiance of facts in a pandemic is not an opinion.
• Your hostility toward immigrants is not an opinion.

• These are fundamental heart issues.

I’m telling you this so that when the chair is empty this Thanksgiving, or the calls don’t come, or you meet with radio silence, or you begin to notice the slow fade of our exchanges, I want you to know why: it’s because I have learned how morally incompatible we are. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect you or even love you, but it means proximity to you isn’t going to be healthy.

I’ve been disagreeing with people all my life. That isn’t the issue here.

Were we talking about anything less than the lives of other human beings, I’d be more than willing to disagree with you and, but since we are talking about the lives of other human beings-- I can’t.

I believe you’re wrong in the ways that are harming people.

You’re wrong to deny the humanity of other human beings.

You’re wrong to justify your affiliation with this violence.

You’re wrong to embrace a movement built on the worst parts of who we are.

I simply can’t agree to that.

Now, give yourself a Sunday treat and allow the Resistance Revival Chorus to show you what Mannes' courage to speak truth to power sounds like in song: