An imperfect contribution to a question many of us are asking - whether the white Evangelicals will again vote for Donald Trump - in this morning's Times argues that Evangelicals did not support Mr. Trump in spite of who he is. They
supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are. The people from Sioux Center, Iowa whom author Elizabeth Dias quotes (chosen how she does not say) give a more nuanced, or at least more complicated, view. One is Micah Schouten:
“Trump’s an outsider, like the rest of us,” he said. “We might not respect Trump, but we still love the guy for who he is.”
“Is he a man of integrity? Absolutely not,” he went on. “Does he stand up for some of our moral Christian values? Yes.”
The most interesting exchange, I thought, came later, with Schouten and his wife Caryn at home, and concerns not Trump but his vice president.
[Caryn:] “Or there are people who think that because we have conservative values and we value the family and I value submitting to my husband, I must be against women’s rights.”
Her voice grew strong. “I would say it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him. And I would argue that point to the death,” she said.
She felt freer as she spoke. “Mike Pence is a wonderful gentleman,” she said. “This is probably a very bad analogy, but I’d say he is like the very supportive, submissive wife to Trump. He does the hard work, and the husband gets the glory.”
She turned to her husband. “Let’s be real, Micah, do you have any clue what goes on in our children’s lives on a daily basis? No.” They laughed.
“Pence you can picture as your father, as your dad,” he said.
But Mr. Biden as president really worried her: “Biden is a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”
Even without Dias's overbearing omnipotent narrating, this is fascinating. For one thing, the gendering of Christian devotion which some of us call queer is on full display: the Christian church, with all its men, is the bride of Christ, and calls its members to wifely virtues. Meanwhile submission, which Christ himself modeled, isn't weakness but strength. (Indeed it's why Christian womanhood is seen as the foundation of social order; men are in fact the weaker sex, though you gotta love them for who they are.) But aren't Caryn and Micah saying different things? She sees Pence as like herself, an omnicompetent but self-effacing wife, while he sees him as like himself, a loving but fallible father!
Was Micah not listening to what Caryn said? I think they may in fact be describing the same thing from different vantages, the strange and wondrous life of the classic Christian virtue of obedience. “God’s standard requires absolute, total, perfect, obedience," Dias quotes from a sermon at the Schoutens' church. But the virtue of obedience, which makes order (understood always as hierarchy) possible, is best exemplified in unquestioning service of an imperfect superior. Living that paradox is part of Christian adulthood, all of us defined by our obediences, whether to parent, husband, or God (or all of them), most complicatedly where you are also called to the servant leadership of others obedient to you. You can obey, even love, someone you don't respect, not because of who he is but because of who you are. (Also significant but secondary: the quality of your obedience might change them.)
Obedience is one of the Christian virtues which seems antithetical to democracy, but democracy relies on something very like it at its most challenging point: in accepting the outcomes of elections, even when the system fails. Democrats, from Al Gore to Hillary Clinton to Stacey Abrams, have embodied that virtue in accepting democratic outcomes, even when unfair. But Trump has shown his absolute, total, and perfect rejection of that virtue, and is indeed doing his darndest to reject a fair rout in advance. (That's doubtless one source of Caryn's infantilizing view of Biden.)
Is it too much to hope that these white Evangelical supporters will see how obedience to one who is obedient to none tempts the demonic?
