“Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee Any Graven Image”

Max Ridgway, The Church of Trump: How Donald Trump Corrupted American Christianity

Chances are, we all remember where we were on the afternoon of January 6th, 2021, when thousands of insurgents overran the U.S. Capitol Building. But like most traumas, the path that brought us there is murkier. Multiple scholars, pundits, and journalists have written countless pages of speculation, reconstructing that path from one perspective or another. But every reconstruction has needed to acknowledge one contributing factor: religion.

Northwestern Oklahoma State University instructor Max Ridgway started out as a musician. But in recent years, he has remade himself as a scholar focusing on the collision between Christian pop theology and American politics. His latest book follows the flow of religious language over Donald Trump’s political career. What Ridgway finds is singularly disturbing, but also enlightening for anyone who cares about the role of faith in modern, post-industrial society.

Even before he formally declared for the presidency, self-proclaimed prophets saw something in Trump that would revitalize their vision of America. Once he became a candidate, Trump had the endorsement of celebrity pastors like Kenneth Copeland, Robert Jeffress, and especially Greg Locke. Their support, though, came with strings. Ridgway unpacks these highly visible Christians’ language surrounding their hero, language that doesn’t blush to describe Trump as a political messiah.

Highly public Christian leaders, and the parishioners who looked to them for guidance, saw Donald Trump as a harbinger for national greatness. They disagreed about exactly what that greatness would entail, but details mattered little; he appealed to their longing for moral rectitude, clear answers, and the simple nation they imagined once existed. For all his linguistic ineptitude, Trump used religious terminology deftly, though his living didn’t reflect such beliefs.

Just as important, Trump promised his White Evangelical base power. And he delivered, in ways voters rewarded generously: evangelists and pastors enjoyed an open door to the Oval Office for years. But they exchanged power for control, and Trumpism soon set the tone in America’s largest, richest congregations. Boring old doctrine like feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger disappeared from large swaths of White Christian discourse, apparently forever.

Max Ridgway

Other scholars have written about the particular beliefs of Christian nationalists; Ridgway addresses this topic only synoptically. Instead, Ridgway narratively reconstructs the religious language that has followed Donald Trump throughout his circuitous, weirdly short political career. Though the Trump Administration deployed religious language and symbols in ways that horrified secular voters, and even many Christians, he retained a loyal White Evangelical base that other openly Christian politicians could only envy.

Ridgway scrupulously reconstructs the weird symbiosis between Donald Trump and White Evangelicalism, and cites sources, Christian and secular.. But his prose is concise and energetic, moving briskly through a wide selection of evidence. This book isn’t long, and propelled by Ridgway’s zealous style, readers can savvy this entire book in one or two evenings. He writes with a sense of timing that would make many Hollywood screenwriters envious.

Admittedly, he’s sometimes guilty of overgeneralizing about Trump’s Christian loyalists. On a few occasions, he uses phrases like “most rank and file Christians” to describe reactions emerging from a primarily White evangelical demographic. Mainline Christians face deep clefts in their reaction to Trump, divisions more indicative of party affiliation than religious conviction. Sometimes Ridgway observes this distinction, other times he doesn’t.

It’s difficult to get a strong read on Ridgway’s own religious inclinations. Unlike other scholars of religion and politics whom I’ve read recently, Ridgway plays his cards carefully. He demonstrates familiarity with Scripture, which he deploys without liturgical pomp, and makes persuasive arguments about how Trump’s language jibes, or doesn’t, with the Bible. But through most of the text, Ridgway keeps himself out of the narrative, letting facts carry his message.

Then late in the book, Ridgway uses a powerful word to describe the White Christian nationalism which steered Trump into office: blasphemy. Most other writers, eager to maintain the appearance of journalistic or scholarly dispassion, have avoided such religiously laden terms. But Ridgway, who throughout most of the book avoids taking sides on religious controversy, finally comes down hard on this position. Trumpist Christian nationalism is blasphemous.

This final declaration sums up Ridgway’s entire book. He writes with the narrative urgency of a suspense novelist because he considers his topic too important for nonchalance. Donald Trump hasn’t only hurt America; he’s hurt the Church too. When organized Christianity gets entwined with individual politicians, it loses the ability to challenge them in their transgressions. If the Church doesn’t remain politically separate, it can’t have a political conscience.