Politics and religion intermeshed
can be a nasty business. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, witnessed every
venue of his planned tour in Europe cancel because Franklin had “called Islam
‘evil,’ attacked laws increasing rights for transgender people, and told his
followers that the legalization of same-sex marriage was orchestrated by
Satan.”[1] Although criticizing another religion is religious in nature,
turning to laws renders the attack political too. Although Franklin Graham may
have assumed that many of his co-religionists would agree with him both in
religious and political terms, wading into controversial political matters
risks alienating people who are or would otherwise be religious followers.
Even the willingness to traverse into the political realm may not be liked by
some religionists, whether followers or not, especially if the incursion is
into a controversy. Some co-religionists may agree with the distinctly
religious belief, yet hold dissimilar political views. Such distance created between
religionists can weaken a religious leader’s credibility and even following in
the religious domain. Politicians dragging their respective religious faiths
into the political domain can also be problematic, though authentic
applications can pay off even if there is a cost politically. The incursion of
Christianity at the end of U.S. President Trump’s trial in the Senate and as he
took a victory lap can demonstrate the complexities of religion distended into
another domain. A politician may invoke his or her religious beliefs to
justify a political position, as Sen. Mitt Romney did before he voted to
convict U.S. President Donald Trump on the abuse-of-power impeachment article.
In his speech justifying his vote on the senate floor, an emotional Romney said,
“My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before God as enormously
consequential.”[2] Obviously, his vote itself had the immediate effect of
isolating him in Trump’s GOP. Even so, incorporating his religious faith in the
senate chamber could have cost Romney more politically to the extent that other
Republicans did not agree with his political beliefs. Some Democrats (e.g.,
secular or of other faiths) may otherwise have thought more of the senator in
spite of his vote. Also, his denomination of Christianity, the Church of Latter
Day Saints (i.e., the Mormon church) may have taken a hit in religious circles.
In other words, a religionist who explicitly brings his or her faith across the
border to play a role in the political domain may pay a price back on the
religious turf.
Even religion itself can suffer
from a politician bringing it into the political domain, especially if he or
she contradicts his or her religion in political action. At a prayer breakfast
on the day after the senate trial on President Donald Trump ended with an
acquittal, he said he did not believe in loving enemies in spite of the fact
that the teaching even though Jesus includes in his Sermon on the Mount in the
Gospels. The president immediately matched his statement, “Arthur, I don’t know
if I agree with you,” with attacks on his political opponents, calling them
“dishonest and corrupt people” who “badly hurt our nation.”[3] Then he
went after Senator Romney, saying “I don’t like people who use their faith as
justification for doing what they know is wrong.”[4] The charge of
religion used wrongly is a good example of how extending the religious domain
into the realm of politics can have political costs, as well as costs to the
particular religion.
Even though Speaker (of the House
of Representatives) Nancy Pelosi was prominently placed at the breakfast and
had said that she prays for the president daily, Trump said, “nor do I like
people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that’s not so.”[5] If
Pelosi had lied about the praying, then her invocation of her faith meant that
she was misusing her religion in the political domain. If she really had been
praying in private, then the president misused his religion in going after her
personally.
Instead of the New Testament preachment
to love thy enemies, Trump had said that he preferred taking an eye for an eye,
a teaching in the Old Testament that Jesus rejects in the New Testament. “It’s
striking,” one journalist wrote after the prayer breakfast, “to hear Trump, who
is a Presbyterian, so directly reject one of Christianity’s core teachings.”[6] In
implying that he can be a Presbyterian and not believe in one of Jesus’ core
teachings, both the president and his denomination look bad. That is, that the
president cited his religious denomination and faith for political purposes
hurt both him and his Church, for duplicity or hypocrisy is not generally
looked on favorably.
As if to justify opposing Jesus’
dictum to love thy enemies, the president said at the breakfast, “So many people
have been hurt and we can’t let that go on.”[7] He chaffed at having to
like his enemies. I contend that loving one’s enemies is not the same thing as
liking them. A mother may love her son but not like him, so like is
not necessarily implied in love. Coming to an enemy’s aid when help
could help the person—and valuing doing so—rather than
attacking especially when the enemy is down—is the epitome of Jesus’ notion of
loving one’s enemies. This goes beyond merely turning the other cheek when
attacked. In fact, assent to valuing voluntarily helping people who have
insulted, injured, or even physically attacked you can be viewed as the litmus
test of whether a person is really a Christian. Even better is having helped a
detractor, especially if he or she really needs help. Resentment and
retribution have no place.
In spite of loving your enemies
being viewed as a strength rather than weakness by Christians, religion itself
may be weak relative to political force once in the political domain. Pelosi
may have been praying for the president, but this didn’t stop the president
from going after her (and literally waving a newspaper whose headline was
“President Acquitted” in the air) at the National Prayer Breakfast, which was
“typically a nonpartisan event that organizers say is meant to provide a
spiritual refuge from political warfare.”[8] Not even at such an event
could religion have the upper hand; the president could disgorge Jesus’s famous
dictum and attack his enemies even in victory. To be sure, that the president
could be both a Presbyterian and an eye-for-an-eye guy points to a weakness
within institutional Christianity. Even so, extending religion beyond its own
domain into another may not be a good idea. However, if Sen. Romney bucked his
own political party, which was controlled by the president, on the basis of his
faith, then religion starts to look very good indeed in the political realm.
Religion can be a strength even beyond its own domain, yet only if
religion itself does not expand into something other than religious and,
even worse, bring the other back into the religious realm as religious.
Religion must be authentic rather
than employed as a political tool to have strength in the political realm. Yet
even as authentic, a religious element can be vulnerable and even make the
politician politically weaker. Sen. Romney and National Prayer Breakfast itself
were vulnerable. The ways of the world are not those of the Kingdom of God that
Jesus preached.
