Trump’s alleged Christianity and the schism between ‘nice’ and ‘mean’ Christians

benfell

“Pope Francis said ‘a person who thinks only about building walls… and not of building bridges, is not Christian,'” reported the British Broadcasting Corporation.[1] The comments, in response to a question about Donald Trump, were widely interpreted as a personal attack on Trump’s Christianity, which some evangelical Protestant leaders criticized,[2] and to which Trump initially responded harshly,[3] and which the Vatican walked back.[4] Jeff Stein, writing for Vox, parses the wording carefully and cites “religious experts” to conclude that the Pope’s remarks were not, in fact, a personal attack.[5]

Perhaps, but we should bear in mind that that charitable interpretation requires a close reading. It might be right. It also might be over-analysis. “‘I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt,’ the Pope said,” according to the BBC.[6] Trump has said things like that,[7] and worse, saying that “[t]hey are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”[8] So the claim that the Pope didn’t mean his words personally seems to me to depend upon his ignorance of highly-publicized remarks in what is probably, owing to the impact of U.S. foreign policy throughout the world, the most important and least representative election campaign in the world.

That said, the controversy seems to me to reflect a deeper and more important schism. On the one hand, we have the Jesus who chased the “money changers” out of the temple[9] and who is notorious for his concern for the poor, even saying “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”[10] On the other hand, we have a Protestant notion emerging from the Reformation that associates temporal reward with the Christian god’s favor and interprets it as a sign of being among the “select,” that is, of being among those being bound for heaven.[11] As I point out in my dissertation, a corollary attaches to the latter, “that those who are poor are not among the select. They are thus damned and with that judgment, it could thus be said that good people owe no moral duty to poor people (Benfell, September 24, 2012).”[12] In this, too, is the question of theodicy, the question of why a purportedly “good” god allows so much evil.[13] And to turn this question on its head, one might suppose that people facing extreme poverty and violence, which are the consequence of neoliberal so-called “free trade” and the “War on Drugs,”[14] are nonetheless to be blamed for their own misfortune. They are damned, not only by a United States which promulgates these policies but seeks to exclude refugees, but also by the Christian god who not only permits this evil to happen but then will exclude its unfortunate and therefore damned victims from heaven.

This is, in essence, the conflict between a kind, compassionate Christianity that cares about social justice and the mean-spirited hypocritical Christianity that so many detractors take for the whole of Christianity. But of course it’s a lot easier to point fingers at who said what, so I guess that’s what we’re going to focus on.

  1. [1]British Broadcasting Corporation, “Pope Francis questions Donald Trump’s Christianity,” February 18, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-35607597↩
  2. [2]Samuel Smith, “Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Johnnie Moore Criticize Pope Francis for Suggesting Donald Trump Not Christian,” Christian Post, February 19, 2016, http://www.christianpost.com/news/franklin-graham-jerry-falwell-jr-johnnie-moore-pope-francis-donald-trump-not-christian-jfk-wall-158171/↩
  3. [3]Jeff Stein, “The debate over Pope Francis’s Donald Trump comments, explained,” Vox, February 19, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/2/19/11073026/donald-trump-pope-francis↩
  4. [4]Associated Press, “Trump, Vatican tone down rhetoric over immigration comments,” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, February 19, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-pope-rhetoric-1.3455051↩
  5. [5]Jeff Stein, “The debate over Pope Francis’s Donald Trump comments, explained,” Vox, February 19, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/2/19/11073026/donald-trump-pope-francis↩
  6. [6]British Broadcasting Corporation, “Pope Francis questions Donald Trump’s Christianity,” February 18, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-35607597↩
  7. [7]Bill Curry, “The destruction of Donald Trump: How the billionaire with a rage problem became the frontrunner — and then fell apart,” Salon, August 10, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/08/10/the_destruction_of_donald_trump_how_the_billionaire_with_a_rage_problem_became_the_frontrunner_and_then_fell_apart/; Ross Douthat, “My Sarah Palin Romance,” New York Times, January 20, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/opinion/campaign-stops/my-sarah-palin-romance.html; Lucia Graves, “‘We love you!’ Conservative women turn blind eye to Donald Trump’s slurs,” Guardian, January 22, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/22/donald-trump-conservative-women-turn-blind-eye-anti-women-slurs; Josh Marshall, “Act Two of the Trump Epic,” Talking Points Memo, August 19, 2015, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/act-two-of-the-trump-epic; Evan Osnos, “The Fearful and the Frustrated,” New Yorker, August 31, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated; Eric Owens, “From Immigration To Guns, Longtime Democrat Donald Trump Must Reckon With His Progressive History,” Daily Caller, August 26, 2015, http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/26/from-immigration-to-abortion-longtime-democrat-donald-trump-must-reckon-with-his-rich-progressive-history/; Leonard Pitts, Jr., “Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail in GOP,” Miami Herald, July 18, 2015, http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article27531262.html; Jeff Stein, “Here are 9 times Donald Trump’s campaign should have imploded,” Vox, February 9, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10952772/donald-trump-new-hampshire; Kimberley A. Strassel, “The GOP’s ‘Whatever’ Moment,” Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gops-whatever-moment-1441928540↩
  8. [8]Jeff Stein, “Here are 9 times Donald Trump’s campaign should have imploded,” Vox, February 9, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10952772/donald-trump-new-hampshire↩
  9. [9]Matt. 21:12.↩
  10. [10]Matt. 19:24.↩
  11. [11]Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View (New York: Harmony, 1991).↩
  12. [12]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126), p. 38.↩
  13. [13]Cornel West, with David Ritz, Living and Loving Out Loud (Carlsbad, CA: Smiley, 2009).↩
  14. [14]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).↩

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