No joy in Trumpville

In light of the recent rally by President Trump held in Tampa, Fla. earlier this week and the abuse that CNN reporter Jim Acosta endured just for being there, blogger John Pavlovitz made the observation that many of his supporters were “miserable.”

That struck me as, frankly, disappointing but also enlightening because I’ve never seen from his evangelical supporters — and for that matter, those of the “religious right” generally over the years — the “joy of the LORD.” I’m witnessing not a lot of trust in Him and love for others, especially not like themselves; rather, I detect a lot of anger, bitterness and resentment toward specific targets — Muslims, gays, racial minorities, foreigners, “liberals” et al.

Indeed, if you replace “love” in I Corinthians 13 with “evangelical Trump supporters,” they honestly don’t often fit. Nor do I see them exhibiting the “fruit of the [Holy] Spirit,” mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23: “[L]ove, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

I thus find it ironic that many evangelicals believe with all fervency that Trump would start a major revival by re-instituting “Christian values.” (Of course, by that they mean such things as outlawing legal abortion and driving gays back into the closet.) Some will insist that evangelical Christians are being pushed around by secular forces — not only is that factually wrong but, even if that were true, it might be, and I suspect would be, a direct result of their contempt for those who don’t agree with them.

See, revival can happen only when we realize in humility that we’ve strayed from the path, and you best believe that much of the rest of the world sees just that.  And we won’t need political power to cause cultural change — just a basic trust in God and a willingness to open our hearts.

In the movie “Cry Freedom” South African anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko, played by Denzel Washington, made this remark in reference to overthrowing the system: “Conflict if [the white man] likes — but with an open hand, too.” That is to say, he was encouraging people under the sound of his voice to reconcile with their oppressors if and when that time would come.

I’m not hearing that from either Trump or the majority of his Christian supporters — and that’s a problem because the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is reconciliation. We’re dealing with extremely hard hearts through which He simply cannot work.

That’s why there’s no joy in Trumpville.