The Passion of The Don
Trump’s Indictment and What’s Next
The indictment of President Trump is an unprecedented moment in US History. But it’s only the beginning. And in this case, the indictment is poised to become the passion narrative in a secularised Christian imagination.
In his 2016 apology for Trump titled “God’s Chaos Candidate”, evangelical leader Dr. Lance Wallnau argued:
“Christians need to change their search criteria. We should start looking for evidence of who is anointed to get results rather than who is the most committed Christian.”1
These were the arguments in 2016. In 2020, it was Trump versus the Deep State. Now, Trump claims it’s the final battle. Supporters—many of them Christian— still rally to the MAGA banner.
Trump endures not because of results, but because of the reality he creates and incarnates for the MAGA movement and White American Christians at large. The word of Trump, like the Word of Christ, seems to these like a creative force.
Trump’s reality serves to confirm cultural suspicions and resentments. His reality is a conspiratorial one where elections are stolen and legal proceedings are the work of a leftist partisan machine. This reality fuels politics that can be only described as fascist.
In his study on fascism, Jason Stanley observes,
“the pull of fascist politics is powerful. It simplifies human existence…encourages us to identify with a forceful leader who helps us make sense of the world, whose bluntness regarding the “undeserving” people in the world is refreshing.”2
Trumpism is fascist politics in all but name. It is fueled by cultural resentment and nationalist zeal baptized in and sanitized by Christian speech and symbolism. It doesn’t matter whether this politics describes itself as “fascist”—since it more likely describes itself as culturally “Christian”.
Trump’s indictment may well be the passion narrative of his messianic complex. And Christians determined by this practice of politics may soon imagine the American justice system as fascist theater.
Before the indictment, Franklin Graham took to Twitter and premptively called the possible indictment “definitely politically motivated” coming from “the left in Washington” that “just can’t get their fill of attacking Donald Trump.”
A better question is what will it take for White American Christians to be emptied of our idolatry? And now that Trump’s “passion” has commenced, we should expect more of the same theological propaganda. How has this happened?
White churches have failed to proclaim a meaningful theological distinction between the passion of the Christ and the politics of the Don.
Some of us have hidden our politics behind our bourgeois piety and away from theological criticism. “That’s too political!” is coded resistance to interrogating conservative political decisions by theological criteria. Others have drawn politics directly from our theological ideology, made possible by reducing the Scripture to a mine of “Christian principles” to be extracted and abstracted. Both of these postures stand to interpret the indictment of Trump as a partisan assault on “Christian America”. This America is an illusion.
The illusion that one can be a “Christian” and “American” without any conflict is (largely) only possible among White Christians. Ethnically minority Christians can entertain no such illusions about the compatibility of White Christianity with American democracy owing to slavery and Jim Crow. This is why, in the case of Trump, the witness of minority Christians and churches have been a prophetic voice in our moment.
But now the very notion of “White Christianity” is labeled as evidence of CRT, of “reverse racism”, of the persecution of Christians. But as Jeff Sharlet points out, the offense taken at using "White" as an adjective illustrates the fundamental “unraced” assumption that characterizes Whiteness itself.3
Stanley Hauerwas observes that claiming to be “Christian” and “American” tends to function as an “identity without difference.”4 And Trump is nothing more than the messianic incarnation of this identity. Trump has always welcomed and fueled this messianic image of himself. And quite unlike the Christ, who told Peter to put down his sword, Trump's passion will be propaganda for conflict.
Trump occupies a saintly place in the white American Christian imagination because he seems to suspend the moral struggles which implicate White American Christians. Trump simply "wins"
The propagandizing of Trump’s passion serves to both obscure his corruption and confirm the corruption of the left. As Jason Stanley observes, fascist politics makes this possible. It allows some to say: “they are criminals, we make mistakes.” Just a few weeks ago Trump could be heard promising voters, “I am your retribution. I am your warrior.” If Trump is convicted, he can now say to those convicted from J6, “hey, I get you.”
Still, others will see Trump’s indictment as a reason to jump ship. Not because of any ideological disagreement, necessarily. But because of simple pragmatism. It may be that DeSantis is simply the next-best-thing. It may be that Trump’s time has passed, and he has served his purpose. The indictment may prove to be Trump’s demise rather than his resurrection.
Eventually, the power of “make American great again” will pass Trump by. It will fill other vessels, and commandeer other candidates. This is mere political expediency. But the church has a theological responsibility to tell a different story. To confront the myth that gives meaning to “make America great again”. This story continues so long as the church in America continues to step by on the other side of the road.
The story of Jesus Christ disillusions the MAGA story that sees “white” and “Christian” and “American” as basically the same thing.
We can dispute “Christian nationalism” as an academic term, or we can deal with the reality that many who embody this conflicted identity do not call it “Christian Nationalism” but simply “Christianity”.
That is the danger lurking beneath the moment. One which is ready to treat the reality of an indictment as the passion of the Don. This is a reality the church must be disillusioned from if it is to be determined by Jesus Christ.
Dr. Lance Wallnau “God’s Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling” (2016) Page 127.
Jason Stanley, “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them” (Random House: 2018)
Jeff Sharlet, “The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War” (2023)
Stanley Hauerwas, “Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth” (University of Virginia Press: 2022)
Keep it coming, man. Thank You!