Trump’s Bible, Part Two

This essay is a follow-up to Trump’s Bible and Netanyahu’s Smiting

R.J. Rushdoony

Let’s assume that most readers outside certain theological circles probably haven’t heard of Christian Reconstructionism. This Protestant sect, with roots in strict Calvinism, deals with relationships between religious truth and political power, in a mostly American context. Reconstructionists believe secular power derives from Christianity alone, and therefore Christians should have political dominion over, well, everything.

R.J. Rushdoony, the theologian who pioneered Reconstructionism, specifically demanded that the law of Leviticus be enshrined in American law. He used rhetorical hand-waving to ignore Levitical laws his modern audience found reprehensible, like the death penalty for disobedient sons. Rushdoony remains little-known outside narrow circles, but his strict dominionist theology has tainted swaths of American Christianity, including the Religious Right and the homeschool movement.

Many Christians find the Levitical law tempting because it provides ironclad definitions of right and wrong. I don’t want to seem unsympathetic, because in today’s morally fraught, pluralistic world, the desire for God-given absolute rules makes sense. Many people might want to follow the law, and therefore avoid making decisions, blind to the long-term consequences; but that’s only possible when we think the law itself is morally right.

However, I also think that’s the attitude religious leaders showed in Jesus’ time. They assumed that, by keeping the forms of law, they necessarily did right, regardless of their actual actions or their inmost intentions. Obeying the Law of Moses, which God purportedly handed down verbatim, allowed them to only shallowly understand the situation directly before them. One simply obeyed, and then succeeded, much like a dead fish floating downstream.

(I realize this statement heavily attributes intent. The First Century CE is a poorly documented time in Jewish history, and Christian scriptures the only source. Let’s stipulate their reliability for this argument.)

Jesus, an observant Jew who did significant teaching inside temples and synagogues, rejected this hierarchical interpretation. No longer could the law apply only inside Israel’s borders, real or metaphorical; the law convicts the contents of your heart, demanding right action even at personal cost. The tax collector Zacchaeus, for example, followed ritual law precisely, but he flourished by taking from others, until Jesus convicted his heart.

Donald Trump

Christianity, therefore, requires a moral order beyond this world. Like Plato, Jesus believed capital-T Truth wasn’t circumscribed by heavy matter, but exceeded this world. God’s Kingdom is perfect, clean, and free of this world’s conflicts and moral compromises. But that world lies somewhere beyond, and we won’t comprehend it or the truths it empowers until we escape this burdensome flesh. We see through a glass darkly, indeed.

We cannot know capital-T Truth, therefore, by following the law. Humans write rules in response to past conditions, but doing right means facing the present, and its future ramifications, without blinders. I must observe the source of Truth, fluid and dynamic, to answer this world, with its frustrating tendency to change. Even in Jesus’ time, Israel had changed into a settled nation with iron tools, no longer the hill-dwelling herdsmen for whom Moses wrote the Law.

Donald Trump was baptized and confirmed Presbyterian, but the church hasn’t much influenced his morality. His actions have equated “right” with “what the law allows,” and his fondness for lawsuits demonstrates an elastic attitude toward even that morality. He’s spent his life pursuing his appetites, at the expense of consequences for others. His pandering Bible salesmanship, forging American law into a Third Testament, reflects this strictly make-do ethic.

The devout must exceed the letter of the Law, and observe the Spirit. As I’ve written before, Levitical law has multiple provisos addressing how we treat the poor, disfranchised, and weak. Our treatment of the poor isn’t hypothetical; it bespeaks whether we honor the spirit of the Law, or only its letter. Merely obeying the Law as written is lazy, passive. Doing right means actively engaging with the Law’s purpose.

Trump’s legalistic morality inevitably gets deployed to hurt those already disadvantaged by human systems. His maltreatment of immigrants, dissidents, and minorities is extensively documented; he’s promised to exceed this, and actively make life harder for the indigent and unhoused. Christians who equate devotion with obedience will go along to get along, as many already have. The consequences for “the least of these” will be dire.

Rushdoony wanted to engrave the Bible into American law. Trump wants to bind American law into the Bible. Both cases reject Jesus’ mission which taught that we must know God intimately, and then act accordingly. One can use Biblical language, these men prove, and still lack a Christian core.

Follow-up: Trump’s Bible, Part Three