Thread by @Helenreflects

Why do Christians in the US support Trump? Several sources provide useful answers. A short thread and reflection on this.

Disclosure of interest: I self-identify as a Christian, but I am not American (I currently live in the US).
1/

As November 2020 looms, it's becoming more and more clear thanks to this excellent analysis by @elizabethjdias that the American white Christian support of the president is not in spite of him, but *because* of him. How can this be? 2/

nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/…

Well, Christians feel under siege, and feel their values are under attack. They support the person they believe will defend those values and their religious freedom:
"Is he a man of integrity? Absolutely not,... “Does he stand up for some of our moral Christian values? Yes.”3/

In that respect, the Bible photo-op accomplished its mission: it communicated in clear and easy to understand terms: he's still on our team.
See this analysis, and relevant quote
"He was making a very clear statement: ‘We won’t be forced into hiding,’” 4/
csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2…

In this fascinating book by Kristin Kobes du Mez."Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation" The author shows how white evangelicalism bought into a kind of rugged masculinity, exemplified by T. 5/
amazon.com/Jesus-John-Way…

There is a problem with this single-minded utilitarian support of Trump by Christians. If you anchor Christianity to "traditional" values, Christianity will greatly diminish in the US. I believe Christians have a self-interest not to pursue this course. 6/

This analysis by sociologist George Yancey puts the problem forward as a dilemma: a short-term gain can sometimes come with a bigger long-term cost. He sees this as alienation of young people & loss of moral authority 7/

patheos.com/blogs/shatteri…

American white Christians often conceptualize their faith as a constellation of values and institutions (e.g., traditional marriage), ethnic (white) identity, rather than focusing on the core (faith in Jesus). Too much focus on the former comes with costs, however 8/

It alienates people who are not interested in the package deal of traditional values (e.g., anti LGBTQ) and ethnic identity, and thus loses potential young converts. It's worth noting the very rapid de-Christianization of Zoomers and Millennials, here
pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-… 9/

Now, if you are a Christian and have some self-interest in keeping the number of co-religionists in your society at sustainable levels, I think that Pew report should absolutely wake you up and warn you that urgent action is needed! /10

As a philosophy professor working at a midwest university with a student body that comes mostly from religious households, I've noticed this in my teaching. When teaching philosophy of religion I noticed my students were absolutely interested, even yearning, for religion /11

But they were also (it seemed in conversation) put off by Christianity. Christianity's just not cool anymore for these kids, and being tied up with bigoted views is certainly part of that. My students seemed to enjoy Daoism, Judaism, and other traditions I taught much more /12

Now, this is not a recent phenomenon. To explain the support of Christians for Trump you need to look at history and sociology. And this isn't a pretty picture. The ethnocentrism and racism of Christians in the US has a long history, see here /13
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…

So given that history (as someone earlier in response to this thread has noted), given that Christianity in the US has traditionally been anti-left wing, anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, etc., what hope do we have for changing this? /14

One might note that the traditional wedding of traditional values with Christianity explains why white evangelical churches have done better remaining stable in terms of attendance and demographics, and why more progressive churches (e.g., ELCA, Episcopalians) declined /15

See e.g., here tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Vaugh…
You can see in these narratives doubts about the world being 10,000 years old, questions about the church's authenticity etc /16

So Christians in the US will soon need to decide what their faith is all about. I think it's important here to note that religions are not essentialized blocks, but dynamic and capable of change /17

Christianity is not a religion that is fossilized in the first century AD; nor did it stop at the first Nicean Council in AD 325, when Christian church; nor did it settle in 1910, when the majority of Christians lived in Western Europe. /18

Rather, Christianity a dynamic, organic, living system of human beliefs and practices. It has resources in its theology--with its focus on grace, hope, love and faith, and its recognition of the seriousness of structural evil (original sin) to make it relevant today /19

By tying Christianity in the US to a very specific demographic with a very specific culturally situated outlook, it's basically going to become a fringe phenomenon. It need not be this way. /end