In my efforts to deconstruct my evangelical upbringing I have often been aware that my rejection of christianity hasn’t been as logical and well reasoned as those of others that have helped me along the way. What has convinced me of the untruth of Christianity, from my first objections as a child, until now, has been experiencing, first hand, the egregious behaviours of christians. I am now learning to reason, and reason supports my understanding of this process, but I didn’t start there.
My deconstruction or deconversion has been helped immeasurably by the online presence of Jim Pfaff, Suzi and Cal Baumann, Matt Dillahunty and others. Dillahunty is a former Southern Baptist seminarian who began to question his Christian beliefs when a non-religious flat-mate responded to his proselytising attempts by continually asking “how do you know that?”
On a recent show on Dillahunty’s YouTube channel, The Line, a caller suggested to the hosts that Donald Trump aligns with Christian values more than any President. The hosts (not Dillahunty) disagreed vehemently, citing the words and actions of Biden and Obama as much more Christian. I agreed until this morning when I realised that I truly do believe that Donald Trump is the most Christian president in the history of the US.
I was born and raised on the Navajo reservation, the youngest of six in a missionary family. My childhood was marked by constant abuse by one member of the missionary staff or another. I remember asking my mother many times why the staff behaved in such a non-christian manner. Her answers were never helpful. ( My Journey Away from Evangelicalism, Part 1). Through the years I have been continually troubled by the actions of Christians and their leaders, and have struggled to understand their actions (and my own). One need only do a quick Web Search to see what I’m on about. I have also been troubled by the support of Donald Trump given by Evangelical Christians in the US and abroad. This brings me to my main point.
Christian Evangelicals support Donald Trump, precisely because he does exhibit Christian character and values. These are the traits and values that I learned as a child, growing up on a Christian mission compound. He is a bully. He is mean spirited, He is arrogant. He does not love God. Trump is a fraudster. He is a liar. He is an adulterer. He is a racist. He is a misogynist. He does not welcome the immigrant. Trump has not and does not read the bible. Trump does not attend church. He is a cheater at meaningless games. He has implied that he has paid for abortions for women that he has been involved with. He has repeatedly sexually assaulted women and bragged about it.
There are many prominent Christians, some even evangelicals, who do not share these traits. I’m thinking of President Biden, President Barack Obama, and President Jimmy Carter. However, to the extent that these or any Christian exhibits positive (what we’ve called Christian, in the past) character traits and values is the extent to which the person is actually a humanist, not a Christian.
Truth can be defined as that which most closely comports with reality. The Bible (the sacred scripture that I was raised with) has much in it that is truth, but does not contain any truth that is exclusive to it. Any exclusive claims to truth in the Bible have to be accepted on faith; and faith is not a reliable path to truth, because there is nothing that can’t be taken on faith. Faith is the reason we give when we don’t have evidence for a belief, because if we have evidence we cite that. For example, our moral sense does not come from or borrow from the Bible which is demonstrably immoral in many places (eg. Exodus 21, Leviticus 25:44-46, 1 Peter 2:18, the Ten Commandments, John 3:16-18, etc.), but rather has been demonstrated to be necessary for any social animal group to survive and thrive.
We need to stop saying that the words and actions of evangelical christians do not represent True Evangelical ChristianityTM. If someone is continually telling you who they are by their actions and words, believe them.