The Logic of Intersubjectivity. Darren M. Slade

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СКАЧАТЬ §6, 105; MRTYR §4, 48; italics original to both). He writes, “If you’re like a lot of people I meet, you might describe yourself as ‘more spiritual than religious.’ You’re seeking meaning and depth in your life . . . but you don’t feel that traditional ‘organized religion’ helps very much” (NS §Intro., 1).29 McLaren’s goal is to help people embrace Christ without swearing allegiance to obsolete paradigms. “I’m especially hopeful that [I] will be helpful to people who consider themselves spiritual but not religious, or interested in Jesus but not Christianity” (SMJ §Intro, xvii).

Not surprisingly, Christian disillusionment has only been exacerbated because of America’s polarized political environment. “We feel as if our founder [Jesus] has been kidnapped and held hostage by extremists. . . .he often comes across as antipoor, antienvironment, antigay, anti-intellectual, anti-immigrant, and antiscience (not to mention protorture, pro-inequality, proviolence, pro-death penalty, and prowar). That’s not the Jesus we met in the Gospels!” (GSM, 6).30 Here, McLaren’s earlier warnings about right-wing authoritarianism have now manifested in what he labels the “Trumpcult,” an uncritical allegiance to President Donald J. Trump, where conservatives now proclaim, “We have no king but Caesar.”31 The question is then raised, How could conservatives, the “moral majority” advocating for “family values” (cf. COOS1 §11, 147), so easily embrace someone who boastfully flaunts his sexual immorality, misogyny, bigotry, corruption, and cruelty toward others? As Mark Labberton writes,

The ease with which some on the right could affirm an evangelical faith connected to campaign rhetoric that was racist, sexist, and nationalist was disorienting to an extreme. It left many evangelical people of color gasping in despair and disorientation that so many white brothers and sisters in Christ could vote for someone whose words and actions were so overtly inconsistent with their common faith in Christ.32

The disillusionment continues as McLaren cites Robert Cunningham, whose article on the evangelical “love” for Trump actually reflects their love for wealth and political dominance, fueled by paranoia and American nationalism (GSM, 240n16).33 Regardless of how evangelicals rationalize their initial endorsement of President Trump, the fact that “Trumpism” continues unhindered indicates that many churches are causing irreparable damage to Christian identity.34 As R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, once remarked,

I hope every one of evangelical Christians in America thinks about what it’s going to mean to vote for someone, much less to publicly support someone, that we would not allow our children to be around. . . .Can we put up with someone and can we offer them our vote and support when we know that that person [is] . . . a sexual predator? This is so far over the line that I think we have to recognize we wouldn’t want this man as our next-door neighbor, much less as the inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And long term, I’m afraid people are going to remember evangelicals in this election for supporting the unsupportable and defending the absolutely indefensible.35

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has also rebuked evangelicals for endorsing what psychiatrists are labeling malignant narcissism:36

To back Mr. Trump, these voters must repudiate everything they believe. . . . His personal morality is clear, not because of tabloid exposés but because of his own boasts. His attitude toward women is that of a Bronze Age warlord. . . . In the 1990s, some of these social conservatives argued that “If Bill Clinton’s wife can’t trust him, neither can we.” If character matters, character matters. Today’s evangelicals should ask, “Whatever happened to our commitment to ‘traditional family values’?.” . . .Mr. Trump incites division, with slurs against Hispanic immigrants and with protectionist jargon that preys on turning economic insecurity into ugly “us versus them” identity politics. When evangelicals should be leading the way on racial reconciliation . . . are we really ready to trade unity with our black and brown brothers and sisters for this angry politician?37

Eventually, even the evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, officially announced that President Trump ought to be removed from office out of “loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.” Mark Galli, the editorial’s author, explains further, “President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. . . . None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.”38 Christianity Today then offered a sobering warning to evangelicals supporting President Trump:

Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?39

Sadly, this warning was quickly rejected within days as The Christian Post had nearly 200 evangelical leaders openly denounce Christianity Today for their editorial, self-righteously claiming that their continued support of Mr. Trump is in keeping with Jesus’ own behavior in the first century (while never once explaining how their Christian witness remains unspoiled by defending a man who, in Galli’s words, “is morally lost and confused”).40 As McLaren would say in response, “[Jesus] was very compassionate toward many groups of people, but there is one group he had an absolute and uncompromising commitment to confront and expose, and it was those who dishonor themselves and others as humans made in the image of God.”41 This cult-like devotion to President Trump then prompted the international research institute and academic society, Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR), to respond with an open letter of its own (of which McLaren signed):

It is with great sadness that we, the undersigned faith leaders, biblical scholars, philosophers, and other academics, many of whom began our walks of faith in the evangelical tradition, hereby call on all American evangelical Christians of moral conscience who recognize and regret the corrupting and corrosive influence of Donald J. Trump, to join us in repudiating those evangelical leaders and institutions that have politically entangled themselves with him. We believe this action to be an urgent moral imperative because these leaders and institutions, which have unfortunately become the dominant voice of modern American evangelicalism, have shown themselves to be obstinately bound to the control of influences overtly opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and have resisted repeated pleas to disentangle themselves.42

The point here is that there exists a deep sense of betrayal among many who believe evangelicals have sold out their faith to anti-Christ personalities (cf. TWLE). The impression is that these Christians will overlook or minimize any politician’s egregious immorality, but only so long as they are Republican.43 With these criticisms in mind, McLaren’s activist role against political and social cruelty has increased as “Trumpianity” further replaces Christian identity (cf. GDT):

Watching Trumpism’s near total takeover of white American Evangelicalism . . . I think it’s time for all white Evangelicals of conscience to consider withholding their consent from churches that aren’t vocally and actively resisting, and then re-invest their time, intelligence, money, and energy where they will benefit the common good rather than the narrow, conservative, patriarchal, right-wing agenda of Evangelical whiteness and religious supremacy. . . .Evangelical leadership is [simply] too compromised.44

      In order to understand this socio-political context further, several key terms require delineation.

      1.3 Definitions and Terms

evangelical/evangelicalism (lowercase ‘e’): a transdenominational confederation of Protestant and free-church Christians, who share three essential axioms: 1) an emphasis on Christ’s atoning death on the cross; 2) sola gratia and sola fide as the necessary channels for salvation; and 3) sola scriptura as the singular source of religious authority.45

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