That this has been a “black swan” election year is an understatement. In fact, we’ve been treated to confirming instances on a daily basis.
But nothing has been more surreal in this respect than watching Evangelicals abandon their values to support Donald Trump. These, after all, are Christians who professed religious scruples over supporting Ronald Reagan simply because he had divorced and remarried.
Yet, here is what I felt moved (by God?) to write in “Evangelicals Supporting Donald Trump like Israelites Worshipping Golden Calf,” January 20, 2016.
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I know Evangelicals. As the son of an evangelical preacher, I grew up amongst them. So trust me when I say that, for any sober Evangelical, Trump is the very personification of Mammon…
As he does with everything, Trump boasts about the love Evangelicals have for him. But they have clearly lost their way. It’s a testament to just how far that more Evangelicals are filling stadiums to hear Trump boast about his wealth than are filling churches to hear pastors preach about their God.
The only thing that explains this willful suspension of their evangelical faith is the precedent the lost Israelites set in Bible times [by abandoning God to worship a Golden Calf]…
It would be one thing if Trump troubled himself to show a little regard for their purported Christian values. But the feature attraction of his campaign rhetoric is mean-spirited, bullying, even profane language, which makes a mockery of those values.
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Now comes this confirming instance, which stems from Trump’s antic outreach to urban blacks … to reassure suburban whites that he’s not the Manchurian candidate of newfangled “Alt-Right” racists:
DETROIT – Donald J. Trump’s visit to a black church here on Saturday will be a major moment for a candidate with a history of offending the sensibilities of black Americans.
His team was leaving nothing to chance.
Instead of speaking to the congregation at Great Faith Ministries International, Mr. Trump had planned to be interviewed by its pastor in a session that would be closed to the public and the news media, with questions submitted in advance. And instead of letting Mr. Trump be his freewheeling self, his campaign prepared lengthy answers for the submitted questions, consulting black Republicans to make sure he says the right things.
(New York Times, September 1, 2016)
Of course, it’s hardly surprising that Trump would do whatever and use whomever it takes to make himself look good, morality and ethics be damned. What is surprising, though, is that a Bishop would compromise his morals and undermine his integrity in this fashion to help him do so.
Frankly, this is worse than a teacher giving her pet student exam questions a week in advance so he can practice his answers before taking it. And we all know what would happen to that teacher and student if, like this Bishop and Trump, they got caught.
But again, for this election year, Trump seems to be playing a political version of The Purge. It, you may recall, is the movie that dramatizes what unfolds when, for one night only, everyone gets a free pass to commit any crime without fear of prosecution.
But that was yesterday. Today Trump’s most celebrated surrogate for his outreach to blacks, South Carolina pastor Mark Burns, is revealing himself to be no less compromised. Which is a shame because, as one who grew up among charismatic preachers, trust me when I tell you that this man can preach. His message at the Republican National Convention in July, for example, was easily the highlight.
Unfortunately, with his newfound celebrity came increased scrutiny. And CNN found out that Burns has not only been lying about earning a college degree, but had it listed among a number of other fraudulent credentials on his pastoral website.
When CNN confronted him, you would’ve expected this man of God to show a contrite heart and confess his sins. Instead, Burns lashed out, lied like the Devil himself, and then ran off with his tail between his legs. But before doing so, he accused CNN of ambushing him and the Democratic Party of treating blacks like plantation slaves.
His first accusation merely compounded his sins. His second made them almost unforgivable. After all, in hurling it, he was aping Trump’s paternalistic and ignorant trope about the DNC engaging in plantation politics.
Moreover, he was insinuating that blacks who prefer Hillary over the racist, xenophobic and profane Trump must be too enslaved to have any freedom of choice and too uneducated to know what’s in their best interest.
Remarkably, Burns’s monkey-see, monkey-do surrogacy extended to Trump’s habit of tweeting racist taunts. For example, Burns got burned for tweeting a cartoon of Hillary in blackface, of all things. But it even extended to faking the size of his … congregation. It turns out his megachurch is nothing more than a podcast show at which, as best as CNN could report, only a few family members ever attend.
Frankly, given his Trumpian defiance, one wonders whether Burns is more upset about getting caught in his web of lies, or about losing all of the perks that came with his surrogacy, including hobnobbing at Trump Tower and flying around on the Trump plane. But imagine the fall from grace of a black pastor who is too much of an attention-seeking, resume-embellishing, money-grubbing fraud … even for Trump.
Whatever the case, shame on you, Pastor Burns! May God forgive you.
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* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Friday, at 8:17 p.m.