Meeting in Salt Lake City in 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a robust resolution on the moral character of public officials, which stated that “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.” Let it be further resolved that “We urge all citizens, including those who serve in public office, to submit themselves respectfully to governing authorities and to the rule of law.”
At the time, the Southern Baptists clearly had President Bill Clinton’s Oval Office affair in mind. Two decades later, Southern Baptists joined other white evangelicals in overwhelmingly voting for Donald Trump by margins of nearly 4-1. This despite a court of law finding the former president guilty on 34 felony counts; his request to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the 2020 election results (you just need to “find” 11,780 votes); the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case; the Manhattan hush money case about a porn star; and his defense of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
Whatever happened to the conviction that public leaders must exhibit moral character?
My doubts about religious convictions and politics first crept in when I heard the “truths” of fundamentalism in boyhood Sunday School classes. My Biblically-inspired teacher said that the creation of all living things had taken place just 6,000 years ago. (As a young boy, I wondered about the dinosaurs and how all the animals had gotten on Noah’s Ark.)
Then in high school came the stories of the 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial, when former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan attempted to disprove scientific evidence that humans had evolved over time. His views supported the widespread religious fundamentalism of those postwar years: the verbal inerrancy of scripture, the divinity of Jesus, his virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ and a coming Armageddon when God and the forces of Satan would join in battle.
After World War II, strict fundamentalism diminished somewhat, but the broader movement of evangelicals became ever more alarmed at the course of political and social change. The election of a Catholic president in 1960, the civil rights movement, desegregation, 1960s upheaval, counterculture and battles over school prayer prompted early discussions about organizing an opposition. During the following decades, other “threats” were added, including feminism, gay marriage, abortion, secular humanism, the first African-American president, Islamic terrorism and immigration.
In her recent book “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” history professor Kristin Kobes Du Mez argues that “for conservative white evangelicals, the ‘good news’ of the Christian gospel has become inextricably linked to a staunch commitment to patriarchal authority, gender difference and Christian nationalism, and all of these are intertwined with white racial identity.” This internalized outlook can invest adherents with a false sense of superiority, a sense of certainty that their responses to modern, secular society reflect objective certitude. It’s a short step to seeking political dominance. And that’s the problem.
People do need some kind of faith that provides identity and belonging, a means of finding comfort when confronting an often merciless world. But it is wise to refrain from pushing that faith on others who believe differently. In matters of religious faith, it’s the Apostle Paul’s collection of virtues — love, peace, goodness and faithfulness — that pave the way to the good life.
We cannot always be sure our individual views are the correct ones. At such times perhaps we can find comfort in the words of the pragmatic philosopher William James, who justified individual religious beliefs by saying that on matters such as God and the afterlife, we must take a “leap in the dark”: “We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. … We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? ‘Be strong and of a good courage.’ Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes.”
This pragmatic wisdom applies to lesser questions also.
Ron Lora, a native of Bluffton, is professor emeritus of history at the University of Toledo. Contact him at [email protected]. His column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Lima News editorial board or AIM Media, owner of the newspaper.
