Would Jesus attend a Trump rally. Of course he would.
G. K. Chesterton said that Saint John in his Apocalypse had beheld many strange and impossible creatures, but none so strange and impossible as some of his own commentators.
It was the same for Jesus. His name has been invoked through the ages by many groups and causes to which he would not willingly give it. In my opinion, maga is one of those groups. They are the latest iteration of John’s strange and impossible creatures.. For Jesus to be linked with maga is a gross instance of false advertising. Jesus proclaimed a message of reconciliation not the virulent revenge of maga. He clearly preached, “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies while President Trump pursues vengeance and hatred of his enemies.
The scribes and Pharisees accused him of consorting with known sinners, working on the Sabbath, encouraging his disciples to ignore cleanliness laws, usurping the prerogative of God to forgive sins, and blasphemously employing the name of God without specific authority to do so. In short, But he did not equate morality with spirituality. In fact, he consistently demonstrated that there was a vast difference between the two and inveighed against confusing them.
Given the “fellowship” habits of Jesus, an interesting question arises: Would Jesus attend a Trump rally? Yes, of course. He often appeared in places where he was unexpected. He hung out with supercilious religious folk and with sinners and publicans. Surely he would attend a Republican rally.
Even though a Trump rally attracts crazies like hummingbirds flocking to a a firebush. According to St. John, Jesus Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone, for he himself knew what was in everyone” (John 2:24 – 25).
The problem is not with Jesus but with how the Trump rally crowd would receive him. He would undoubtedly have said some confrontational things to the crowd, as he often did. For example, he might have said: “You appear to be very religious. I see a lot of “Jesus” signs. “Jesus is my Savior but Trump is my president” has a certain ring to it. But, inside, you are vengeful, rapacious, unconverted wolves, seeking only to stick it to the liberals, without really caring for the poor or the immigrants. Or: “You take money from widows and children, promising the blessings of God; it is the blessings of God you take from them, only to build an empire.” Or: “You talk of legislating morality as if the Father had given you the franchise on morality and you knew precisely what it is. You hypocrites! Have you not heard that it is immoral to decide for others what they shall read and not read?”
People Jesus would encounter at a Trump rally and what he might say to them Jeff Sharlet spent a season attending Trump rallies. He reports on some of the crazies he encountered.
Jesse Lee Peterson, a right-wing preacher and talk show host calls Trump the Great White Hope because, he says, “Number one, he is white. Number two, he is of God.” Peterson does not mean this metaphorically. Trump is the chosen one, his words gospel.
Imagine the preacher’s surprise when Jesus says,. “For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’[a] and they will lead many astray” (Matthew 24:5).
Lance Wallnau, the Pentecostal leader who first said Trump was the “new Cyrus,”, dubs him “God’s chaos candidate”: “the self-made man who can ‘get it done,’ enters the arena, and through the pressure of circumstance becomes the God-shaped man God enables to do what he could never do in his own strength.”
Jesus, not surprised by Wallnau’s assertion says, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
When Rep. Elijah Cummings died last October shortly after sparring with Trump about Baltimore, Peterson declared on his radio show, “He dead”—like Trump enemies John McCain and Charles Krauthammer, Peterson noted. “That’s what happens when you mess with the Great White Hope. Don’t mess with God’s children.”
It would be hard to imagine any statement less in line with the teaching of Jesus. In contrast to Peterson’s declaration that God kills off Trump’s enemies, Jesus says, “He is God not of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:32 – 33) And when the Trump rally crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.
Trump supporters have treated his tweets and social media posts as Scripture. Pastor Dave, at a Trump rally, says, Every tweet, every misspelling, every typo, every strange capitalization—especially the capitalizations, says Dave—has meaning. “The truth is right there in what the media think are his mistakes. He doesn’t make mistakes.” The message to Dave is: Study the layers. “Trump is known as a five-dimension chess player,” Dave says later. And he’s sending us clues.”
Yet Jesus clearly says, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). And he says, “You are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29).
Yes, Jesus would attend and disrupt a Trump rally. His words would confuse and befuddle maga followers. One of Trump’s often repeated claims, “If someone screws you, you have to screw them back five, ten, fifteen times.”
Refuting this garbage should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but Trump believers are still shouting “Amen.” It is as if Jesus never said, “But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:39 – 42).
Or that Jesus insists his followers love, forgive, and pray for their enemies. There’s a disconnect from maga minds from the clear teaching of Jesus. Something has darkened their minds. They have eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear.
There’s no indication the presence and words of Jesus would have an impact on Trump rally goers. Rhetorical scholar Robert L. Ivie makes a sobering claim: “In my opinion, Trump’s bullying, demagogic rhetoric is difficult to critique because there is nothing subtle about it. Exposing it and its bevy of dehumanizing, coercive, militaristic tropes to the light doesn’t alter its impact or increase public resistance. He is a known entity. Just about anything negative that can be said about him and his rhetoric has already been said many times. There is nothing left to uncover or expose—not even his sick mind, and even if there were, nothing shocks anyone anymore. In our deeply polarized society, his supporters (including his fundamentalist Christian followers) love him for what he is, what he does, and what he says; everyone else shakes their head in disgust. Many simply tune out and opt out.”
If Trump’s “Christian” followers are unwilling to follow Jesus, are we willing to construct an alternative gospel message that centers on the teachings of Jesus.
In fairness, I should ask what Jesus would say if he appeared in our sanctuary on a Sunday morning. Would we hand him a Bible, allow him to read, and preach? He’s not listed in the order of worship. He doesn’t have clergy credentials.
Rev. John Killinger asked his Lynchburg Presbyterian Church this question in a 1983 sermon. “What hard things would he have to say to us? ‘You take great pride in your elegant sanctuary and beautiful windows,’ Jesus might say. “Will they save you from the judgment to come?” And: “You delight in your hymns and creeds and sacraments. But the poor of the world shall rise up and condemn you, because you have not given yourselves to compassion and justice. You are whited sepulchers, glistening on the outside but putrid and stinking with old carcasses on the inside.” And: “You spend hours preparing your faces and bodies to come to the sanctuary of God; you would do well to spend half the time preparing your souls, that you come not as strangers but as true children of the heavenly Father.”
Killinger understood we all face the judgment of God. Jesus never shied from speaking the truth to everyone. He would have been as bold at a Trump rally, or a progressive downtown cathedral, as he was when he took a whip and cleared the Temple of thieves and robbers.
So, yes, Jesus would have attended a Trump rally. And looking on them he would have loved them and been sorrowful for their deluded state.
More importantly, Jesus would attend church with us. And what he told us to do should be our immediate task in a world coming apart at the seams.
