(Another Voice is returning a week earlier than planned.)
On Tuesday of Holy week, former U.S. president Donald J. Trump said, on his social media outlet TRUTH SOCIAL, that the Bible is his favorite book. He then encouraged supporters to buy his special “God Bless the USA Bible” for $59.99. Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bible” includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance. It also includes country music singer Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.” On Good Friday of Holy Week some of Trump’s faithful were saying – to DJT’s delight – that it is Donald Trump who is being crucified today.
The 45th U.S. president is now working very hard to transform the Republican Party into a kind of Church of Trump. Robert Reich, who served as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, observed on X (formerly Twitter) that “Donald Trump is starting the week by comparing himself to Jesus. Whether he has a messiah complex or is just conning his supporters, he’s playing to a growing GOP faction that wants America to be a white Christian Nationalist state, with Donald Trump as a divine ruler.” I thought immediately about the strongly pro-Trump Christian nationalist movement, the Society for American Civic Renewal. It is known as “SACR.” Some even consider it a sacred movement.
SACR is an exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the United States government with an authoritarian extreme Christian nationalism and religious autocracy. Its founders sought inspiration in the apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond. SACR is open to new recruits, provided they meet a few criteria: the potential member must be male, a “trinitarian” Christian, a heterosexual, an “un-hyphenated American,” and can supportively – meeting their far-right criteria – answer questions about Trump, the Republican Party, and Christian Nationalism.
SACR was founded by Charles Haywood, U.S. businessman, far-right commentator, and chair of the New Tomorrow Political Action Committee, formerly called Unify Carmel. It is a conservative education pressure group in Carmel, Indiana.
The SACR website describes the organization, which even has a lodge in Moscow, as raising leaders to “counter and conquer” the “poison” of “those who rule today.” SACR uses a cross-like insignia, described on the website as symbolizing “sword and shield” and the rejection of “Modernist philosophies and heresies.” SACR membership is by invitation only, and excludes women, LGBTQ+ people, and Mormons. It is closely associated with the Claremont Institute, a far-right conservative think tank based in Upland, California.
The institute has been a strong defender of Donald Trump, ever since Joseph Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election. And, as Michael Bender wrote in the New York Times this year on April 1st, “Mr. Trump’s political creed stands as one of the starkest examples of his effort to transform the Republican Party into a kind of Church of Trump.” And on the Saturday before Easter 2024, Trump shared an article on social media with the headline “The Crucifixion of Donald Trump.” Christian nationalism in DJT style.
A friend asked recently what is wrong with Christian nationalism. Certainly, between now and the next U.S. presidential election on Tuesday November 5, 2024, we will be reading and hearing a lot about it.
I am a U.S. citizen and a committed Christian but I strongly object to Christian nationalism. It is anchored in an anti-democratic notion that the United States is a nation by and for Christians alone; and it threatens the principle of the separation of church and state. Separation of church and state, I would emphasize, is good for the church and good for the state.
Christian nationalism leads to discrimination and violence, circumventing laws and regulations aimed at protecting a pluralistic democracy, with protections for all people.
There is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is about power not belief.
Christian nationalism is hardly just a USA phenomenon. I have doubts that he is really a Christian, but another big contemporary Christian nationalist is Vladimir Putin. He has greatly increased the power of the Russian Orthodox Church and maintains close contact with Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. Kirill has blessed the war in Ukraine as a “holy war” and claims that God is on Russia’s side. Hundreds of Orthodox priests in Ukraine and elsewhere, however, have accused Patriarch Kirill of “heresy” for his warmongering. Nevertheless, on March 27, 2024, the World Russian People’s Council (WRPC), an organization chaired by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, published a new document that further aligns the Russian Orthodox Church with Vladimir Putin’s political regime.
And a final example of contemporary Christian nationalism is Victor Orbán, the autocratic leader of Hungary, who has urged Christian nationalists in Europe and the USA to “unite our forces.” Orbán met with Donald Trump in mid March 2024 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Trump heaped praise on Viktor Orbán while hosting the Hungarian prime minister at Mar-a-Lago. “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter, or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic,” the former president told a crowd gathered at his Florida resort. Trump added that the European autocrat is “a noncontroversial figure because he said, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it, right? He’s the boss and … he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
Donald Trump’s comment reminded me of the observation by Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466 – 1536): “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
Jack
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Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian
Another Voice 