Daily thread for news/updates/discussion of George Floyd protests - June 3

After Trump got the nomination, I, like many others, remember thinking there was no way that he would take the presidency. My perception of this was based on the fact that I come from a deeply religious family and a deeply red community. Christianity, from my perspective, was the Republicans' bread and butter. They played to their Christian base, and their Christian base supported them obediently.

So, when Trump, the most un-Christian candidate you could possibly consider got the nomination, I thought they were done. They failed to elect squeaky clean devout Mormon believer Mitt Romney in 2012, and surely Trump was far less in alignment with Christian values than Romney. Why were they shooting themselves in the foot like this?

My own parents struggled greatly with Trump's nomination. They are devout Christians who live and breathe every word of their faith. My mom has, for decades, woken up before dawn to spend time praying and studying her Bible in the calm stillness of the early morning. They are breathtakingly, admirably devoted to God in everything that they do. For all the problems I have had with my parents and all the problems I have with the ideology of Christianity, I still find the depths of their faith and the consistency in which they live it inspiring.

Trump, as a candidate, was like a slap in the face for them. He represented nothing of which they valued or supported. I remember talking to my mom about him, and she mentioned that in her morning quiet time, she had carefully gone through the "fruits of the spirit": love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. She applied each of them to Trump and could not identify how he embodied even a single one.

The passage from which it comes, Galatians 5, has a lot to say about character and faith. Here are verses 13 to 26 (NASB):

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

She then looked at the parts I've bolded above, about walking by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Look at the list of the "deeds of the flesh". Trump hits almost every single one.

My parents had fierce debates with their friends and people in their churches about Trump. To my parents, he was completely unsupportable as a candidate. Many of the people they talked to identified the same qualities but still felt they should vote for him not as a vote for Trump but as a vote for the Republican party. Many of them said that they were casting a vote not for Trump, but for Pence, which makes sense as he was chosen likely because of his appeal to Christian America (my parents love Pence). I remember being glowingly proud of my mom when she shared a story about a good friend. The good friend had decided on voting for Trump even though the friend found him abhorrent. Her reasoning was "he's not my guy, but I'm still going to vote for him." My mom, who speaks her truth in everything that she does, simply said in response: "if you vote for him, that means he is your guy."

Prior to the election, my mom also shared with me an article, "Decency for President", written by very well-known and influential Christian author Max Lucado. She identified it as speaking truth to her feelings, and I can understand why. "Decency" was a huge value where I came from. I usually call it "southern hospitality" now that I've left that area, but it's the idea that you lead with kindness because that's just what you do:

I don’t know Mr. Trump. But I’ve been chagrined at his antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made a mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to the former first lady, Barbara Bush as “mommy,” and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people “stupid,” and “dummy.” One writer catalogued sixty-four occasions that he called someone “loser.” These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded, and presented.

Such insensitivities wouldn’t be acceptable even for a middle school student body election. But for the Oval Office? And to do so while brandishing a Bible and boasting of his Christian faith?

My parents did not vote for Trump in the 2016 election -- probably the first time they had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate in their lives. They couldn't support Clinton either, given their right-aligned values, so they wrote in the name of someone else. They knew they were "throwing their vote away" in the larger picture, but for them they were doing the only action that they felt that they could morally.

It feels weird to say this, but it's an honest truth: Trump's election was actually good for our family dynamic. I'm the super-left gay child of super-conservative Christian parents, and where before we could only see our political differences, now we could see so much more common ground. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, and none of my immediate family, no matter their politics, could support him. We've become closer, more understanding, and more appreciative of one another. We talk politics more than we ever used to, and we certainly still have our disagreements, but all of us fundamentally believe that hatred, bile, and instability are not leadership.

What my parents and I have learned since then is just how much of Christianity has aligned itself with the domineering power and hatred that Trump espouses. That was foreign to us. It didn't fit our perception of Christianity; of leading with kindness. My mom shared another conversation she had, this time with a different friend, who had continued to support Trump long into his candidacy, when we could now see his un-Christianity on full display. The friend simply said, icily, "I didn't elect him to be my pastor."

When I talk with her now, my mom says that she believes that, at large, Christians have "sold their souls to the Devil". "We were promised a little bit of what we wanted" she says, and in return they were "tempted into sin" -- into giving up so much of their, and God's, core values.

I sent my mom an apology text yesterday after I saw Trump's publicity stunt with the Bible. I was offended on her behalf. He was using, as a mere prop, the text she holds sacred, that she has poured over and thought through countless times, that she makes time for every. single. morning. of her life. It felt like he was desecrating her faith when he held it up; that the words which she has spent her entire life honoring were cradled in his hateful, unkind, and clearly unbelieving hands.

That he held it upside down and backwards felt like an additional dishonor -- imagine if it had been a flag. That he specified that it was "a Bible", not his, was one more -- another reminder of just how little the book actually means to him. Anyone who studies the Bible regularly knows that you develop a very intimate connection to the physical object itself. It is so much more than just a cover with pages between. It, too, feels like it has a soul. It is, after all, the word of God.

The transparency of his pandering felt like he was demeaning the very core of my mother as a person; the very anchor of her character, upon which she has built her entire life. I wanted to let her know that I support her, and that he has no right to position himself as someone who stands alongside her in faith. He has not earned the authority to wear the word of God. She walks by the Spirit; he walks by the flesh for the camera, through an illusion of peace made by violence, flashbangs, and tear gas.