Americans face a stark choice this November between two very different political visions. As I watched the recent Democratic National Convention (DNC), it struck me that it is also a choice between two very different kinds of Christianity.
Author
Robyn J. Whitaker
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity
Donald Trump has positioned himself as a defender of the Christian faith, and found somewhat unlikely bedfellows in American evangelicalism. This seems a politically expedient choice for someone who has previously shown no interest in faith nor has a record of attending church.
Equating the "radical left" with communism, Trump has promised to protect the public symbols of Christianity such as crosses from those who would tear them down. Whether crosses are actually under threat is unclear.
Christianity does not fit in to 'left' and 'right'
If anyone tuned into the DNC expecting to see this "radical left" inciting crowds to tear down crosses, they would have been disappointed. Instead, biblical language permeated the speeches.
Michelle Obama appealed to a sense of community over individualism in political life, quoting the Bible's golden rule "do unto others" and "love thy neighbour". So familiar are these phrases to a Christianised America that she didn't even need to quote the entire verses. Pete Buttigieg drew on apocalyptic imagery to describe Trump's worldview as "darkness". Senator Raphael Warnock, a pastor, quoted Micah's injunction to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God".
At the Republican Convention weeks earlier, Christianity was also on display, but with a very different tone. Christian images and language infused the rhetoric of Christian Nationalism, a movement that is predominantly white, male, authoritarian and unabashedly puts America first. God bless America! It blurs the lines between patriotic and Christian symbols in the belief that Christianity should be privileged and in power in America.
A Christian nationalist agenda is one that seeks to dominate and shape the community according to a narrow set of "biblical" values. These are the kind of values outlined in Project 2025, which claims to be a blueprint of "biblical principles" for the nation.
Its principles look a lot like patriarchy: a system that relies on male domination, wants women pregnant and back in the kitchen, and leaves no space for anyone whose diversity of gender or sexual orientation challenges the hierarchy.
Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne, argues that Christian Nationalism is a political movement, not a Christian one. It has moved a long way from biblical values or traditional evangelical Christianity.
By contrast, the Democrats seemed to reclaim Christianity as a liberal and liberative religion. They portrayed Christianity as a faith that makes space for LGBTQI+ families, embraces diversity and affirms a woman's right to choose (and one that makes space for a diversity of religious or non-religious views). Moreover, they embodied Christian qualities such as joy, promise and hope for the future.
The Bible is political, but not party political
Though my sympathies lie with the Democrats in this particular political contest, no political party has ever been able to truly claim the "Christian" mantle. Christianity is inescapably political, but it is not party political, and never can be. Christianity can be found in both these somewhat polarised forms.
While religion and its extremes play out in particular ways in American politics, we are naïve if we think such narratives do not exist in Australia.
Globally, there are those who lean into the liberative aspects of faith, finding in the pages of the Bible a radical call for justice, an affirmation of diversity and a demand for loving action. And there are those who emphasise a narrowly drawn set of supposedly Christian moral standards, often reflective of some ideal past.
One end of the spectrum focuses on community and common good, the other on individual behaviour and responsibility. One liberates, the other seeks to control. One is a big tent, the other seeks to draw tight boundaries about who is in and who is out.
Both of these sets of thinking - the liberative and the controlling, the diverse and the patriarchal - can be found within the Bible. This is why the Bible should be used carefully in public discourse, not weaponised or co-opted for visions that are not in keeping with its teaching.
As religion declines in the West, there is a danger that voters are less well equipped to evaluate how religion is used in political life and what constitutes a poor or dishonest use of Christian theology. While the interpretation of almost any biblical passage can be debated (and is), at the heart of Christianity is the term gospel, euanggelion, which literally means "good news".
When Jesus spoke about "good news", he spoke about it in terms of release from captivity, the liberation of the oppressed, and favour for the poor (Luke 4). It is not a bad measure by which to assess political discourse that claims to be Christian.
It can be tempting in the face of the diversity of Christian opinion to want to keep religion out of politics entirely. But the answer to bad theology is not an absence of theology. It is good theology.
When Christianity is invoked in politics, people of all faiths - and none - should examine how the way it is being used sits alongside the central Christian message that God is love, and that the people at the very bottom of society always come first in Jesus' teaching.
Robyn J. Whitaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
