What do Christians do if Trump wins? The question is loaded.
Many Christians will celebrate a Trump victory as a blessed event. They see the former president as a champion of Christian virtue and true faith.
But that is not true for many other followers of Jesus. They see Trump as using faith as a political stepping stone. They find him vulgar, untruthful, unnecessarily provocative and too quick to call for violence.
For many, former President Trump is the antithesis of what it means to be a Christian. He has no history of regular church attendance.
He obviously has no authentic understanding of the Bible, referring in one instance to Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians.” A week in Vacation Bible School would have prevented that.
But it isn’t just the absence of church involvement that gives me pause. The man just doesn’t seem to have any Christian demeanor.
His tendency to demean and diminish others is over the top. His disdain for common courtesy and statesmanship, behavior we expect from public servants, goes far beyond what is acceptable.
He just doesn’t look or sound like a Christian.
I know what Jesus said about “judge not lest you be judged,” and I know the line I am skirting. But Jesus also said you shall know a tree by the fruit it bears.
And to be honest, I don’t see a lot of Christian fruit in Donald Trump’s life. If Paul was right in his description of Christian fruit, where in Donald Trump do we find “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control?”
I am in no position to say definitively that Donald Trump is not a Christian, but I am entitled to ask where the evidence is.
Beyond these difficult spiritual questions, there is also a deep reservoir of troubling political ideas. Former President Trump doesn’t have an orthodox view of democracy. He has little to no respect for the rule of law.
Of course, that is not a uniquely Trumpian problem. Many on the political right have expressed displeasure with the courts since the Civil Rights movement.
Trump has turned this right-wing political disenchantment into a social hammer. His opportunistic efforts to turn back the clock of the Supreme Court have seen many established precedents of law thrown away. On the legal chopping block now is traditional birth control, affirmative action and a possible review of the legal rights for LGBTQ+ individuals to marry.
True enough, these actions were taken by justices, not by Trump directly. But they were certainly championed by Trump and enabled by his judicial appointments.
Beyond the actual institutional changes Trump has brought about, he dismisses orderly legislative processes. He has made it abundantly clear that he would prefer a form of government much less cumbersome and more responsive to his wants and wishes.
If that sounds authoritarian, then it is because it is. Trump would prefer less democracy and more autocracy.
These are not specifically Christian concerns. We exist under a constitutional mandate that separates church and state. The church does not govern and the state does not provide spiritual or scriptural instruction— although politicians have recently found the separation clause very inconvenient.
While it is true that the Christian church cannot govern, we do have a say in how we are governed. If a system of government practices injustice, then people of faith have the right and need to speak up.
The Civil Rights movement of the 60’s is an example of faithfully speaking the truth to power. This movement was not an effort to usurp the government’s role but to persuade the institutions of our political life to be just and fair in dealing with all people.
Which brings us back to the question: What do Christians do if Trump is elected President?
Christians must speak the truth to power if the former president gets re-elected. As American citizens, we have direct access to our government through the ballot box, print and digital media, and peaceful, nonviolent assembly. All these resources will be needed to reign in Donald Trump’s likely aggressive effort to create an autocratic form of government in America.
We are not called to save democracy for democracy’s sake. We are called to find ways to help our government practice justice and fairness.
But we have faith. Not the faith of television evangelists or faith healers. This form of media-based faith is a distortion of authentic faith.
Faith, in the biblical sense, is not some form of religious magic where we get what we want simply by adequately believing. The New Testament word for faith carries with it a complex set of ideas that include belief and commitment.
To believe in something in the New Testament sense of the word means to be committed to doing something about that belief.
Jesus told his disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could move a mountain. The word for faith Jesus used would not have been understood as a magic formula for moving mountains. The disciples would have understood that, to faithfully move a mountain, they would need to show up daily with a shovel until the mountain was gone.
A Trump presidency will challenge the ideals of our democracy. And while Christianity does not need any particular form of government to survive, our faith has thrived in the freedom created by our Constitution. The loss of that freedom would be tragic.
Paul wrote that of all the great realities of life— faith, hope, and love— the greatest is love. What he didn’t tell us was that faith is often the most difficult and hope is the key.
It will take courage and the willingness to endure public scorn to meet the challenge of a Trump presidency. There is so much that can be lost. We must meet this challenge with faithfulness and hope.
A retired Baptist preacher living in Alabama. Over 35 years, he served churches in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia. In support of his pastoral work, Evans published five books including “First and Second Corinthians: Immersion Bible Studies” (Abingdon Press (2011).
