For the Bible Tells Me So

The Trump Administration’s policy of separating detained “illegals” from their children apparently now has the endorsement of The Man Upstairs.

In a speech late last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited Romans 13: 1-3 as justification for the detention policy.  Actually, Sessions quoted the Apostle Paul out of context.  Paul did enjoin Christians to obey the temporal authorities as they would the spiritual; but he tells them to welcome strangers as well.

The Bible is notoriously open to interpretation.  In the various news stories about Sessions’ speech, we’re reminded that the same passages were used to justify slavery in the United States and that the Lutheran clergy drew upon them to instruct Germans to acquiesce to Nazi policies.  Normally, Godwin’s Law would make me hesitant to mention the latter fact.  However, the passive role of churches in 1930s Germany has received considerable attention from contemporary historians and so bears special mention here.  Given the xenophobic bent of our own Christian Right, the invocation of Romans 13 in this controversy is unsurprising.

Donald Trump’s appeal to religious conservatives is, well, puzzling.  As Bill Maher once described him, Trump is the world’s “least godly man.”  He’s dishonest, crass, profane, proud to the point of hubris, unkind, uncharitable, and bigoted.  Then again, maybe that’s why he’s appealing.  Some of the angriest, most resentful people I’ve known have been evangelical Protestants who proclaimed their faith in Blue-Eyed Jesus at every opportunity.  These folks are livid at the social changes of the past few decades and would love to see the calendar turned back to 1955 with everything that that implies.

Evangelicals have a particularly strong authoritarian streak which turns to the Scriptures for justification even while cloaking it in the Christian message of love and forgiveness.  An uncle used to like to quote Isaiah 1:18 to me.  “Come now; let us reason together,” it begins.  (Lyndon Johnson also liked to quote this particular phrase to his political opponents.)  “Though your sins be of scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”  So far, so good; this sounds like the Message I recall from Sunday School.

But let’s remember that this is the vengeful God of the Israelites speaking and not Jesus of Nazareth.  The next verses are downright chilling, for you are given no alternative.  “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land / But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword…”  Yikes!

I always wondered why my uncle always left the second part out.  It spoke so strongly to his conservative values, and he was a gun-loving, pickup driving, blue collar Nixon and Reagan man.  A kickass line like that should have appealed to his overbearing, my-way-or-the-highway nature more than its namby-pamby preamble.

For the denizens of Walmart-like megachurches, the thought of an action hero God is undoubtedly a selling point.  (An impromptu Google search tells me that there are actually action hero movies and comics marketed to Christians.)   Their resort to fantasy is understandable, since their fictional conception of a God-fearing U.S.A. is dissolving like a wet tissue.  Media chimeras such as the “War on Christmas” help them maintain a relentless sense of grievance.  And the presence of people with darker complexions speaking a language other than English is a reminder the country has changed and is changing still.  Tie all these factors—authoritarianism, revealed religion, an aversion to change, and xenophobia—and Mr. Sessions’ claim sounds convincing.

The White House is standing by its man, despite the President’s recent complaints about Sessions.  Sarah Sanders, when confronted with the Attorney General’s remarks at a press conference, retorted that “it is very biblical to enforce the law.”  (Well, she is a preacher’s daughter after all.) 

At least on this issue, the administration is presenting a unified front.  But Sessions' and Sanders’ pronouncements ring hollow when we hear of nursing mothers being separated from their babies, children being herded en masse into cells, and families being unable to ascertain the whereabouts of detained relatives.  We are witnessing an appalling lack of empathy for the less fortunate, and I have a sinking feeling that there is a dead silence on that subject these days in our houses of worship.  If so it’s a damning commentary on our society’s character.

© 2018 The Unassuming Scholar