Religion and Politics

One of the most surreal scenes was at the National Prayer Breakfast this past week. Let's set aside for a moment the propriety of high-ranking government officials participating in a religious as part of their official duties. They all do it, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, it's a bit anti-First Amendment, but okay, let's move on.

This year's prayer breakfast, the theme, in an as-it-turns-out-wildly-inaccurate way was "Love Your Enemies". Following up the keynote speaker who sermonized on the theme, Trump, disagreeing with the guest of honor and Jesus, said he disagreed with the whole loving your enemies shtick. He spent his allotted time attacking and demonizing his enemies. He also criticized Speaker Pelosi, suggesting that she lies when she says that she prays for him, and Senator Romney, who he accused of using his faith as a crutch. He ranted that both of them used their religion to defend doing what they knew was wrong.

Now despite the fact that the Bible does indeed tell Christians to pray for their political leaders, I cringe whenever I hear Pelosi tell us that she prays for Trump. She may very well be sincere, but I don't know what it has to do with the job she was elected to do. Romney is a different case. It is well known that he is an ardent follower of his faith and that his beliefs shape who he is and how he conducts himself. I had a lot of respect for him when, during his 2012 presidential campaign, he resisted the urge to pander to religious people. Maybe it was a political calculation, knowing that many evangelicals don't consider Mormons to be Christians, but nonetheless, he kept his personal beliefs out of his politics.

What is beyond irony is Trump presuming to lecture anyone on using religion as a political crutch. His religious pronouncements are so obviously phony, so evidently someone who knows little or nothing about how people of faith act, attempting to replicate that behavior. His speeches, when he sticks to the teleprompter, are full of high sounding rhetoric, but in unguarded moments, it's unmistakable that he has no idea what faith is. While I may have thought that previous presidents were using religion for political purposes, or that they should keep their beliefs to themselves, I never seriously doubted their sincerity. Trump, on the other hand, makes me nauseous when he rambles on about God. So the hypocrisy of regularly pandering to the anti-abortion segment, the naturally conservative wing of modern evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity, by a man whose faith is so shallow as to have evaporated, who believes that he doesn't ever require forgiveness and whose personal morality is, frankly, depraved, is sickening.