Preaching in the Era of Trump

Dr. O. Wesley Allen Jr.

• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780827231498
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Now more than ever, it's time to preach.

The election of Donald Trump left countless faith leaders across the country speechless. Now that he is president, silence must give way to prophetic preaching.

Christians have long debated whether politics should be addressed from the pulpit. Following Donald Trump's controversial, divisive rise to power and the sweeping changes his fledgling administration has already proposed, that's no longer a question — political preaching will be the order of the day, even for pastors who try to steer clear of controversy. It's up to preachers to make the church great again by leading it to embrace and embody God's concern for those whose lives are at stake in a Trump administration. Veteran teacher, preacher, and author Wes Allen offers a blueprint for addressing current events through a Gospel lens, persuasively and pastorally— without engaging in divisive, antagonistic rhetoric.

Available in EPUB, EPDF, and paperback

PART I: BROAD ISSUES

As pastors consider whether and how to deal with Trump’s oppressive rhetoric and proposed policies, there are background issues to consider. In the following essays that open this book, I offer my reflections on a variety of foundational issues for preachers to consider in light of the election of Donald Trump, and the potential for significant harm that his presidency could do to the ethical fabric of our society. While I at times turn to specific homiletical suggestions in these chapters, most of that sort of work is reserved for the second half of the book.

These reflections, then, are offered as contributions to the conversations many preachers are having internally as well as with clergy colleagues and lay members of the church. I would not expect readers to agree with every perspective I offer, but I hope that even in disagreeing with me, preachers find their views sharpened in a way that helps them better determine how to preach in this critical time.

CHAPTER 1: Confessing Our Shock and Awe

I’ll admit it. When real estate mogul and reality show star Donald J. Trump came riding down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for the presidency in June 2015, I didn’t take him seriously. I viewed him as a rich huckster turned reality star in a show I couldn’t stand. I took the way he talked about himself as a sign of a needed-diagnosis of narcissistic megalomania. And I was aghast at the way he spoke about others, especially Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. As time progressed, I was confounded when he didn’t immediately reject endorsements by David Duke and the KKK newspaper, The Crusader. But that is not what I need to confess. I need to confess my own hubris in assuming everyone else would see Trump in the same way I did. I need to confess the progressive bubble in which I lived that shielded me from even having to imagine that there were enough Americans with an ideology, and even a sense of proper public etiquette and civility, so far from my own that Trump stood even the smallest of chances of being elected.

So not taking him seriously, and assuming others would not (could not) either, I followed his candidacy with intrigue. As a Democrat, I have rarely watched Republican primary debates, but, during this election cycle, I couldn’t take my eyes off the train wreck. I binge watched coverage of the debates and the campaign trail to see what Trump would say next. What names would he call the other Republican contenders? How would he attack journalists (even Fox News journalists!) for being “unfair” to him by asking hard questions? What outrageous claim would he make without any factual support? What segment of our populace would he offend next? How would he go off message this time and be unable to keep racist, misogynist, classist inferences from vomiting forth from his dark soul? I confess that I was entertained in my disgust and assumed that most others in this country, regardless of political orientation, viewed him as I did.

And then he started winning primaries. It can’t be so! Then he won the Republican nomination. Really? How? And then…no…and then…yes…he won the general election. The first president to follow the first African American president is going to be this man? The pendulum could not possibly swing that far back to the right! And I finally turned off the television set late into the night of November 9, 2016. I couldn’t bear to watch any more what before I couldn’t stop myself from watching.

I now I find myself writing these words as President-elect Trump (yes, “President-elect”!) and his Apprentice version of a transition team work to fill out his cabinet. I write out of the fear, shock, and very real grief I feel, and which I think much of America feels. But the fact that he was elected means there are many people (at least 50 percent of the voting population, minus two or three million) who do not feel what I feel—or who are at least willing and able to overlook things I cannot. And that is what troubles me most. It was not that a person who holds and promotes views I find so abhorrent could run for office—after all, I hail from the state of George Wallace. But I could not fathom that the America I know and love, and that people in the Church in which I profess faith when reciting the Creed and serve as clergyperson, could elect him.

My surprise likely reveals my social location. I am a white, Protestant, heterosexual, well-educated, middle-class male. I am the very image of American privilege. I have experienced the best benefits our culture has to offer. Even as a progressive who cares about social change, I have not personally felt the need for society to change so that the state of my well-being might improve. But many African Americans, women, immigrants, homosexuals, Muslims, and poor people are not surprised at all. They know how high the level of hatred and oppression in America (and in the Church) is—even if it has been expressed more subtly, while we had an African American president, than in the past and in the present. Many of them saw Trump expressing what they assume many people who look like me really think and feel. They were likely neither surprised by Trump’s election nor by the way his election has emboldened and legitimized renewed hate speech against minorities in the wake of that election.

Saturday Night Live offered a particularly insightful commentary on this situation in a skit in which a group of friends gathered to watch the election results.1 At 6:00 p.m., all of the white progressives in the apartment were ready to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s election, but the lone Black friend (played by Dave Chappelle) interjects sarcastic remarks showing he expects Trump to win. As the evening progresses, hour by hour, the white friends move from joy to denial to despondency. Finally, at midnight, after all of the swing states have swung toward Trump, one of the white friends has a revelation: “Oh, my God, I think America is racist.” Dave Chappelle’s character responds sarcastically and hyperbolically while the recently entered Chris Rock feigns a look of surprise, “Oh, my God! You know, I remember my great-grandfather told me something like that. [Then dismissively] But he was like a slave or something. I don’t know.”

As someone whose life and livelihood will likely change little due to the election of a candidate like Trump, I have no right, or desire, to represent the voices, experiences, or concerns of those truly threatened by a Trump presidency. I pray that what I write, instead, is an expression of solidarity with those who are very much at risk if Trump institutes many of the proposals he made during his campaign (which at the moment seems to be the case, given the kinds of cabinet and agency appointments he is lining up). I write as a progressive Christian of European descent who feels fear, anger, grief, and especially shame following the election of a leader who manifested such a lack of decorum and promoted such hatred. My fear, anger, and grief are rooted in the fact that America is so divided at the moment along lines of race, gender, class, religion, and sexual orientation. My shame is rooted in the fact that we—yes, we; not they; we, the American populace, and we, the American church—voted out of fear and hatred to promote these divisions further. I am ashamed that white, patriarchal America voted to restore a status quo of bygone years in an attempt to protect “us” from “them.”

Specifically, I write to reflect on the role of the pulpit at the beginning of this new era of Trump’s presidency. I write to and for preachers who feel called to speak prophetically over against the kinds of mean-spirited rhetoric and potentially oppressive policies we have seen in the election and expect during his time in office. I write not only to address how to preach “about” issues raised by Trump, but how to preach to a divided America that exists in and around a divided church. I write as someone striving to figure out how the church in the U.S. is to participate faithfully in the missio Dei (the mission of God) in the American era of Trump’s presidency.

It is important to acknowledge that I write at a different time than you read. I am writing prior to Trump’s inauguration. My “data” comes from Trump’s election rhetoric and promises and the early days of his post-election transition. I pray that this book is unnecessary and Trump’s presidency looks and sounds radically different than did his campaign. I would love for the office to remake the man instead of the man remaking the office. But signs at the moment of my writing do not make me hopeful. I have no faith that the power that comes with his new office will temper his approach or attitude.

1 http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/election-night/3424956?snl=1.

CHAPTER 2: A Postmodern Presidency

Much of my scholarly work has focused on proposals for how to preach during postmodernity.1 In my estimation, postmodernism has reached a new stage of development in American society with the election of Donald Trump—one I have not addressed in these earlier works. And this new stage of development has much to say about how we proclaim God’s good news in our sermons.

Postmodernism

The word postmodern signals that its definition is related to the definition of modern. What comes after modernity? It is helpful to back up a little further, actually, to premodernism and then work through modernism, to get a full view of what is unique about postmodernism.

In a premodern worldview, truth is seen as absolute and universal. Something cannot, by definition, be true here and false there, true now and false then. What is true in Rome is true in Jerusalem and Alexandria and Beijing and on Mars. What was true in 568 bce was also true in 1024 ce, is true now, and will be true until the end of time. In this worldview, revelation is the primary authority and source of truth. God (or gods) declare what is true; and if our reason conflicts with such revelation, our reason must be flawed. Since the Bible says that God created the world in six days, science must be wrong in promoting the big bang and evolution as natural processes that took millions of years to form the universe in its present state.

A modern worldview also sees truth as absolute and universal. The primary source and authority for truth, however, has shifted to reason. With the rise of the scientific method and the philosophical search for a foundation of knowledge during the Enlightenment, the human mind was elevated over religion in determining truth—reason over revelation. Modernists viewed religious claims that contradicted science as, at worst, superstitious mythology or, at best, theological claims of a different order than scientific ones. Since science has shown that it took millions of years of natural processes for the universe to evolve to its present state, the story of God creating the world in six days...

Table of contents

• Praise for Preaching in the Era of Trump
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: BROAD ISSUES
• CHAPTER 1: Confessing Our Shock and Awe
• CHAPTER 2: A Postmodern Presidency
• CHAPTER 3: The Elephant in the Church
• CHAPTER 4: Us and Them
• CHAPTER 5: Love Trumps Hate, But Only If We Love Trump
• CHAPTER 6: Making the Church Great Again
• PAET II: PULPIT STRATEGIES
• CHAPTER 7: Race
• CHAPTER 8: Gender
• CHAPTER 9: LGBT Issues
• CHAPTER 10: Islam
• EPILOGUE
• About the Author