The Hypocrisy of the Righteous

In the 2020 US presidential election, Caucasian evangelicals threw the weight of their support behind the candidacy of Donald Trump. Many conservative Christians were appalled at the supposed moral degeneracy that was eating out the soul of the American nation. Democrats like the Clintons and the Obamas seem hellbent on taking the American ship of state over the event horizon and into the belly of a moral blackhole from which they could be no return. The dark clouds of divine wrath were looming ominously over the self-acclaimed shinning city on a hill.

Christians were therefore called to man their battle stations and prepare for a no-holds-barred fight to the finish with secular humanists and their woke agenda that was threatening everything the faithful were taught to believe. The Bible and its deity were down with slavery providing Jews were not the subjects of human trafficking. Slavery therefore had the divine imprimatur relegating critical race theory to the dustbin of history. If God had a hand in the enslavement of Black Africans, then the people doing the enslavement were merely helping God out.

Granting full human rights to members of the LGBTQIA+ community was nothing more than the opening of a gateway for demons who would transform America into the new Sodom and Gomorrah. Gay marriage would eventually set the stage for the legalization of interspecies marriage and widespread zoophilia. Homosexual gang rape would make a big comeback as the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah was given a new lease of life in America.

Notwithstanding the positive injunctions found in the Jewish and Christian scriptures encouraging hospitality and kindness to strangers and foreigners, many Caucasian evangelicals and others succumbed to the spirit of xenophobia. Mexicans and other South Americans coming over America’s southern border were framed as rapists and robbers. Africans who turned up at the border would no doubt offend the delicate sense of smell of Americans who were not accustom to the scent of people from feces filled African countries.

Jewish and Christian scriptures also demand a certain stewardship of the earth and its resources by every generation. The last book of the Bible is crystal clear that the deity of the Bible takes a dim view of those who destroy the earth. This dim view is reflected in the divine promise to go nuclear on those who destroy the earth. Driven by a desire for cheap fuel Caucasian evangelical Christians and others have thrown the weight of their support behind political administrations whose attitude to mining fossils fuels is best summed up in the catch phrase of ‘drill baby drill.’

Conservative Christians today have joined the long queue of religious warriors down through history who had no scruples about using the long and violent arm of the state to suppress sins. During the Dark Ages the medieval church used the secular powers to track down, bring to trial, torture and execute witches, heretics, blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, homosexuals, lesbians, and other sinners. The irony of the moral crusade launched by the church could be found in the long and scandalous list of churchmen whose hands were found in the proverbial cookie jar located under the dresses, skirts and pants of women and men.

The reputation of the Anglican faith community is currently being dragged through the mud as the sordid revelations about the abuse perpetrated by a high-profile member of the Anglican community. The revelations and the apparent cover up by the archbishop of Canterbury were so egregious that a senior member of the clergy demanded the resignation of the archbishop. The Catholic church in America and in Europe has also been plagued by numerous sex scandals with priests and under age boys at the epicenter. Even mild mannered Seventh-day Adventist in England had to hold their collective heads down in shames as the sordid details about one of their own sex offenders went public.

Anyone familiar with the moral climate in many churches today would have to conclude that there is very little difference between the churched and the unchurched these days. Surveys conducted by Barna, Pew Research Center, and others confirmed that supposedly born-again Christians were watching pornography, committing adultery and fornication, and divorcing as frequently as their unchurched neighbors. With such a dismal moral track record one wonders where contemporary Christians get the testicular fortitude and ovarian elasticity to be casting stones at other communities.

The MAGA strategists may have played to the bigotry of conservative Christians, but MAGA and its leader do not come close to the high moral standard set by the Christ, his disciples, and the Jewish prophets. Jesus was often accused by his religious detractors of being a sinner because he hanged out with prostitutes, publicans and other sinners. These people were the LGBTQIA community of the first century CE. Rather than persecuting the woman caught in adultery, Jesus simply encouraged her to do better.

The great apostle Paul reminds Christians that vengeance belongs to God. The extent to which the MAGA crowd will indulge in revenge against their opponents will soon be a matter of public record. President Elect Trump has promised to go after the enemies within who were identified as some of his political rivals. Moses, the great lawgiver of the Jewish scriptures enjoined Israelites not to oppress strangers and foreigners in their land. President Elect Trump has made the issue of the incarceration and deportation of strangers and foreigners one of his chief objectives.

Both the tyranny and the hypocrisy of conservative Christians and the rest of the MAGA crowd in America will be on full display before the rest of the world during Trump 2.0. Regrettably Trumpism is not a uniquely American phenomena. Right wing conservative political parties are making waves globally as witnessed by the victory of Gorgio Maloney in Italy, the gains made by the right-wing party of Marine le Penn in the last French elections, and the draconian anti LGBTQIA+ law passed by the government of Uganda.

The hypocrisy of both the righteous and their allies in the MAGA coalition has the potential to make the world a more dangerous place for minorities of all stripes. Former speaker of the House in the US Nancy Pelosi reminded Americans that when President Elect Trump said he wanted to make America great again it was nothing more than a dog whistle to Caucasian supremacists and nationalists that he was fighting to preserve America for them and their children in America. Just how far Trump and his team will go this time around is anybody’s guess.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the Founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of At Hell’s Gate: The Catholic and Evangelical Takeover of America.