On Monday, June 1st, 2020, former president Trump made a speech in the Rose Garden in regards to the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and rioting that were spreading not only across the country, but around the world. While he began by saying that “justice will be served” for Floyd and his family, Trump then declared himself “your president of law and order.” He criticized the states and local governments for not doing more about the rioting, calling it “domestic terrorism.” He firmly stated that he intended to send out the National Guard and even the US Military if necessary to “end it now.”
Prior to his speech, a peaceful protest had been happening in Lafayette Square. The night prior the protest had stirred some rioting, but that day it was peaceful. Protesters stood together. Aid workers were there. The media was there. Priests and volunteers from St. John’s Episcopal Church of Lafayette Square were there handing out water, snacks and hand sanitizer. They weren’t bothering anyone. Lafayette Square has long been a popular place for protests due to its close location to the White House.
Suddenly and without warning, federal officers charged in full riot gear into the protesting crowd, pushing them back and forcibly removing them from the Square. They used their shields and batons, as well as flash grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray. The unsuspecting crowd, including the aid workers, including the media, including the priests, ran and screamed. By all reports of the incident, as well as the video footage that we have, no one asked the people to leave the Square or warned them that they would be removed if they did not. They just acted.
United Stated federal officers used violent force to remove peaceful, law-abiding citizens from a legal protest before curfew.
Once the Square was clear, the officers created a barricade of bodies on either side of the Square. Trump, having finished his speech, walked through the Square, flanked by shields, and stopped in front of St. John’s. Someone handed him a Bible, and he held it up. He said nothing. Did nothing. Offered nor sought any sort of spiritual console or comfort. His staff took photos and videos of him which they later turned into a campaign video. Then he went back to the White House.
The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, who oversees the Diocese which St. John’s belongs to, said in a statement the next day, “I am outraged. The president just used a Bible and one of the churches of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for. To do so, he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the churchyard.”
Trump’s Christian base of supporters were elated. People called it “brave,” “a show of power,” and “encouraging.” I even saw comments that he “had a right to defend himself.” Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and leader of Samaritan’s Purse, said he felt Trump holding up a Bible was symbolic of how the country needs the Word of God.
When I saw the news that Monday night of what happened at Lafayette Square, I wept. Literally wept. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I was disturbed to my very soul. When I got out of bed the next morning and saw the many supportive comments from my Christian friends, I wept again. How? I thought. How even now can they even now support him?
By all accounts, I should be one of them. I was raised in a conservative home that was nearly as fiercely Republican as it was Christian. I was baptized as a preteen. I attended Sunday School, Christian summer camp, and youth group. I went to a small, traditional Christian college where all students were required to sign a strict morality code. I attended Evangelical Christian churches. I have held leadership positions in the church, was on staff at one point, have taught Bible Studies, have even preached a few times.
So, one would think, statistically, that I would have been in the 81% of White Evangelical Christian voters who made up Trump’s largest support base.
But I was not.
I was part of the 19%.
I remember going to a Woman’s Bible Study right after Trump won the election. All over social media there were people grieving and afraid of what the next four years would bring. Yet at Bible Study, a woman stood up and shared that she was “so excited” for what Trump was going to do for our country. It seemed oddly out of place for a Bible study, yet many of the other women seemed to be nodding along enthusiastically.
My reaction to Trump’s win was a bit more wary. I did not vote for him. He seemed to me to be inexperienced, unpredictable, and of questionable character. Still, I figured that since our government had a three-branch system, which in school I had learned was designed to keep checks and balances, that one man by himself certainly not cause too much damage.
I came to quickly regret my cavalier response to Trump’s election.
What bothered me the most was the Christian support he continued to receive from my community: White Evangelical Christians. The support that he is still receiving, even after the insurrection at the capital, even as now he faces multiple legal issues for serious crimes.
Men and women whom I loved, whom I respected, whom I sat beside in church on Sundays and studied the Bible with on Wednesdays, whom I looked up as examples of what it means to be Godly, these same men and women for four years expressed support for his every word and deed as though he could do no wrong in their eyes.
And, most disturbingly, when I spoke out against him, I was accused of being sacrilegious.
Let's stop for a moment and define "sacrilege", shall we? Sacrilege is the "violation or misuse of what is considered sacred".
Sacred is defined as "connected with God and so deserving veneration".
In other words, a good example of sacrilege would be waving a Bible in front of a church after gassing peaceful protestors in the name of a publicity stunt.
Speaking out against a president of America, a man of flesh and blood and sin, should not be considered sacrilegious unless we are considering such man as sacred. Sacred as in... equal to God?
Women from Bible studies I had taught, women who knew me, told me I needed to "pray and repent" because as Christians we are supposed to "support our president" and criticizing Trump's actions was therefore unBiblical. (I curiously wonder if they hold to this same standard themselves now that Biden is president??)
I admit I felt... betrayed. Disillusioned. And angry. Angry at how lost the Church has become and the spoiled witness she is giving.
A music pastor named Daniel Deitrich posted a song back in 2020 called, “A Hymn to the 81%” which encapsulates how I felt so perfectly. In the song, Deitrich says:
They started putting kids in cages
Ripping mothers from their babies
And I looked to you to speak on their behalf.
But all I heard was silence
Or worse you justified it
Singing glory hallelujah, raise the flag.
Your fear had turned to hatred
But you baptized it with language
torn from the pages of the Good Book.
You weaponized religion
And you wonder why I’m leaving
To find Jesus on the wrong side of your walls.
See, this is what I saw in Trump’s march across Lafayette Square: I saw a president who delayed several days in making a statement about George Floyd and the protests. A president who was receiving heavy criticism as well as mockery at his silence. A president whose ratings were dropping because of rising Covid cases and unemployment numbers and a falling Wall Street.
I saw this president come out and make a wartime speech against his own citizens. I saw this president make no effort to address what was really going on in the country and no effort to try to reconcile or unite us. I heard no promises to address police brutality, racism, or injustice. Instead, he merely promised more violence and vengeance and force.
Then, this president sent armed federal officers against peaceful, law-abiding citizens – the citizens he himself was sworn in to protect and represent. The protesters were not past curfew, they were not rioting, they were not a threat to him. They were not offered an opportunity to clear out on their own. These peaceful protesters and aid workers and priests were violently cleared out of the Square as a show of force meant to illustrate the president’s speech. This is how we will control you if you do not obey.
Finally, I saw this president walk through the cleared Square, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters beneath his feet, stand in front of a church he had never before visited, holding a Bible he had rarely if ever read. The message, to me at least, seemed clear. The president just declared war on his own citizens – and he used God’s Word to justify it.
It reminded me of the many other incidences of violence that were justified in the name of God and by the misuse of Scripture. The Crusades. The slaughter of Indigenous people. The Holocaust. Slavery. The hanging of black men. The subjugation of women. Child abuse. And so many more.
There was a slim sliver of hope in my mind that night, as I rolled around unable to sleep, that maybe now, maybe now his followers would see who he is. By morning, I quickly found that to be untrue.
His supporters dismissed the critiques of his behaviors as just another example of the Democrats or Liberals or far left criticizing their president. As if there was nothing wrong with his actions and he would be criticized no matter what.
But this criticism had nothing to do with the president as a Republican. If a Democrat had done the same thing, the criticism would have been the same. Actually, it probably would have been worse, because the religious Right would have been outraged as well.
During Trump's presidency, and even since, I have been astonished at not just my Christian friends and community’s silence at the atrocities being committed against human beings in this country but even at their approval of it. The message to me is so contradictory – I can only imagine how it looks to someone outside of the Church altogether.
I was taught that Jesus said to love our neighbors, but saw the church cheering a wall against our neighbors. Americans first.
I was taught that Jesus said feed the hungry, but saw the church supporting policies to cut food stamps and welfare programs. They’re just lazy.
I was taught that vengeance belongs to God, but I saw Christians laugh and reshare the president’s angry, insulting and often demeaning words towards anyone who opposed him, as well as agree when he fired and discredited those who disagreed with him. They deserve it.
I could go on, but I won’t. How is any of this Christian? I wondered. This is not who I thought the Church was. This is not who I know Christ to be.
My objective here is not to convince anyone to leave the Republican Party. My objective is to point out how the Church’s alignment with far-right-wing politics is killing the Church. This enmeshment between Christianity and the Republican Party (especially the extremists) will do the very thing the Church is so afraid of – lose the culture war, lose Christian influence, bring a slow and painful death to the Christian Church in this country as we know it.
Should Christians be involved in politics? Sure. But not so much so that it defines us more than our faith does. In the end, it does not really matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent. It doesn’t matter because that is not what ultimately what is supposed to guide you. If you are a Christian, then your allegiance is to a much higher Master. Your allegiance is not to country nor to flag nor to the president. Your allegiance is to God. How you vote, how you feel about policies, how you get involved in social issues, depends on that allegiance, not on anything else.
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