Overview:
It's not that many Christians think liberals are weak, it's that they now think Jesus is weak, his teachings too liberal.
I recently described why I think “woke” has become a vacuous word that means little more than “libtard” in modern parlance. It seems apropos, then, that Christianity Today also recently released a piece that saw the editor-in-chief claim (in a previous NPR interview) that evangelical Christianity is moving too far to the right.
It turns out that Jesus’s teachings are increasingly considered by many Christians to be too “liberal” and “weak.”
Russell Moore had already resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021, criticizing Donald Trump and the evangelical support that he had somewhat worryingly garnered. (He was also unhappy with the Convention’s response to a sexual abuse crisis and increasing tolerance for white nationalism in the community.) Trump has never been a shining example of moral purity and has often required some serious cognitive dissonance reduction in order that supposedly upright moral Christians could so vociferously support him.
In the NPR interview, Moore rightly pointed out that “almost every part of American life is tribalized and factionalized.” He saw this firmly in the context of the church such that he said, “I think if we’re going to get past the blood and soil sorts of nationalism or all of the other kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it’s going to require rethinking what the church is.”
As Christianity Today stated:
Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”
“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
These sorts of questions not only expose a deep lack of biblical and theological knowledge in the modern flock, but they show how unforgiving people are becoming.
Moore sees the church landscape as reflecting the divisive, partisan nature of modern US politics and society. And he is absolutely right in noticing that so many policies and talking points are “packaged in terms of existential threat.” The left are coming to take your guns from your very hands, from your home, after murdering babies and eradicating religion, all the while drinking coffee from “Happy Holidays” Starbucks cups.
It sometimes seems a mystery as to how such vocal Christians can embrace someone who has clearly never read the Bible to the point that he is unable to answer what his favorite book of the Bible is while also claiming the holy tome is his favorite book.
It makes sense, then, that evangelical Christians would embrace Trump, who portrayed himself as the answer to many of those supposed existential threats. Trump both campaigned and governed on a largely evangelical Christian platform. He moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; he cracked down on immigration from majority-Muslim countries; and he appointed multiple conservative judges, including to the Supreme Court, which has swung sharply right.
He made good on his anti-abortion promises when the high court removed the nationwide right to the procedure in June. Many LGBTQ protections were rolled back under his watch, and during the June 2020 protests over George Floyd’s murder by police, he tear-gassed demonstrators so he could take a heavily posed picture with a Bible in front of St. John’s Church near the White House.
And as Trump swings ever further right, it makes sense that people who believe he will solve their problems will follow blindly.
And follow him blindly they do, excusing all the many moral foibles the narcissistic autocrat clearly has.
What will remain to be seen is how much his support will or will not double down the further Trump becomes mired in his legal swamp. He never did do much swamp-draining, preferring to swim deeper into its murky depths.
It seems a long time ago when Christians confidently claimed the moral high ground. Nowadays, the “high ground” is wherever the “us” is standing, irrespective of the moral topography. There is no desire to welcome others into the flock; instead, fences are built to divide.
And the shepherd? Weak.
Forgotten.