Trump is a Messiah for the 21st Century

Christianity is hard. It goes against human nature.

Donald Trump gives Evangelical Christians an excuse to be Christian while also being their natural selves.

Loving your neighbor is hard enough. Loving your enemy defies human nature. It also defies human nature to give all one's money to the poor, or to turn the other cheek when one is slapped by an enemy, or to volunteer to walk a second mile if one is ordered to carry a burden for a mile, or to clothe and feed strangers. or to welcome refugees. Jesus preached a message of profound selflessness, empathy, and generosity.

Trump's does not claim to be selfless or kind to strangers. Trump says that when someone hits him, he hits back 10 times harder. He eliminated USAID food and medicine to the poorest people on earth. In both his personal life and his policies as president, he proudly calculates what's in it for him and he tries to maximize that. He speaks a message of profound selfishness, lack of empathy, and personal aggrandizement.

The mythmaking and imagery surrounding Trump portray him as a modern-day, improved version of Jesus the Messiah, beloved by a broad group of Christian Evangelicals. Trump is the anointed one, tight with Jesus and protected from assassins by God.  

The image below of Trump-as-Jesus, Trump-the-healer, Trump-the-compassionate-caregiver received a lot of attention, and most of it was negative.

That image seemed wrong. Trump posted blasphemy. It was criticized as wildly presumptuous to present himself as a Jesus-like healer. Trump did something unusual: He backed down and deleted the image. 

It was, indeed, the wrong image, but not because it was presumptuous. It was wrong because it was off-brand for Trump. Trump leads a movement of Christian nationalism, not by being that old-fashioned Jesus: Mr. Nice Guy. That Jesus is soft and feminine in nature. He ultimately loses, tortured to death. (Yes, that Jesus rises from the dead and rises to heaven, but that mostly happens briefly and off-stage. On earth he is the victim. The iconic image is Jesus on the cross, suffering, losing on purpose for us.)

Trump is the movement leader for Evangelical Christians, winning an overwhelming proportion of their votes. Trump is the defender of the faith. 

Trump is a kick-ass leader, an aggressive, masculinized Messiah, the savior and liberator of oppressed Christians. The old Jesus empathized with losers; Trump is the Messiah for winners. The images around Trump are ones of superhuman strength -- Rambo Trump and Superhero Trump -- but also ones of menace and fierce cruelty. 

The Truth Social page has these images today:

Trump expresses a view more consistent with human nature that has evolved to have survived amid external dangers and intra-group competition. We cooperate some, but we also compete and we look out for ourselves. We squabble with our neighbors and fight our enemies. We look out for ourselves and maybe our families. The Jesus of 2000 years ago preached a message to live. Trump has an easier one: take what you can. 

Yesterday I wrote that the centerpiece of conservatism was not liberty. It was defense of laws that protected hierarchy. I quoted Wilhoit's Law: “There must be in-groups the law protects but does not bind, and out-groups the law binds but does not protect." 

Trump gives politically conservative Christians a faith leader who clicks into place both their religious identity and world view, a relief from the old Jesus who kept preaching unreasonable, unwelcome ideas of radical generosity.  Trump cuts aid to the least of these brothers of Jesus, the hungry, sick, impoverished, the immigrant, the refugee. The old Jesus advocated for those losers. Trump advocates for Evangelical Christians -- not those Pope-addled ones --  the American Protestants who formerly were unquestioned as the top of the religious hierarchy. They are threatened with displacement by Latin American Catholics and secular humanist multiculturalism. Evangelical Christians wanted a defender to re-establish the traditional hierarchy. Put Christian prayers back in schools. Deport Muslims. Bar refugees and asylum-seekers from the wrong places. 

Trump has a more appealing message for Evangelical Christians than did Jesus. 

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