Stanley Hauerwas is “considered by many to be one of the world’s most influential living theologians” and was named “America’s Best Theologian” by Time magazine in 2001.
He shares a humorous memory in his autobiography, Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir:
The stories of the Bible and the stories of the family were intertwined. The family loved to tell the story of how Billy Dick, my 6-year-old cousin, reacted to the story of the crucifixion at Sunday school by shouting out, “If Gene Autry had been there, the dirty sons of bitches wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”
Robert Sellers
Of course, Billy Dick’s startling expletive is hilarious, given the fact he was 6 and loudly announced the claim in his Sunday school class. But at a deeper level, what Stanley’s cousin said is also instructive and representative of an audaciously blind — and childish — trust expressed today by many Americans.
Exhibiting excessive idolization, Billy was confident his favorite television and movie cowboy, Gene Autry, could have stopped the crucifixion from happening, had he only been there. Billy loved his Western hero and “worshipped” him. The boy was too immature, however, to consider what significance the death of Jesus held or whether it brought any lasting good. He was simply convinced that, with six-guns blazing, Gene Autry could have defeated the mean soldiers at the Cross and rescued the one that everyone in his family and at church said they loved. Given his age and lack of maturity, his cowboy confidence was innocent.
Viewed in this light, Billy’s exclamation seems prescient. Today there are perhaps millions of Americans who are just as guilty of unfounded hero worship as this child of so long ago.
I am thinking specifically of those who support Donald Trump, no matter who he is or what he does. Despite his marital unfaithfulness, constant lying, bullying and name-calling, narcissism and self-promotion, racism and misogyny, offenses to our national allies, autocratic leadership style and attempts to overturn our democracy, they blindly fawn over and follow Trump.
He was correct when he claimed, in January 2016, just two weeks before the Iowa caucus: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.”
It is as if, when they hear what their political enemies are trying to do, which they don’t like, they think, “If Donald Trump could just be there, the dirty sons of bitches wouldn’t get away with it.”
If he were in office again, the inexorable movement toward renewable energy and the establishment of more regulations to control and alter climate change could be halted. If Trump were president again, the wall could be completed, refugees could be stopped at the border and sent home, drug dealers and violent gang members could be sent back to Mexico and the growing numbers of immigrants in our white country could be flattened and even reduced. If he were in power again, he could appoint additional conservative federal judges and replace liberal cabinet members with Republicans with traditional values so that comprehensive bans on abortion and restrictions on gay and transgender people could be put in place. If he were reelected, then America’s military would be dominant once again and world leaders would know our president is exactly what his admirers believe he is: a bad ass. If Trump were in the White House, inflation would disappear and the Democrats’ effort to tax the super wealthy could be forgotten. If he were running the country, school children could be protected from Critical Race Theory and gender equality education could finally be outlawed throughout the nation. If Trump were in charge, Christian nationalism would become the powerful guiding influence we want it to be. If he were just allowed to make America great again, then our national motto — “In God we trust” — might be replaced by a new slogan that reflects what we truly value: “God, Guns and Greed!”
In sum: “If Donald Trump could just be there, in the White House again, the dirty sons of bitches wouldn’t get away with it.”
“Assuming Trump is the answer to our national problems is childish.”
But assuming Trump is the answer to our national problems is childish. It makes no more sense than believing Gene Autry could have stopped the crucifixion.
Trump has proven himself to be ill-equipped to be president. He doesn’t listen to others or take advice well. He doesn’t read briefings and believes he alone can fix our problems. He gets a lot of his “information” from conservative television and other media sources rather than from cabinet members, congressional leaders, think tank scholars or military generals. He struts about as if he is macho but often plays the role of victim, claiming no one in American history has been as persecuted as he.
He attacks his personal enemies, whether they are from the world of politics, entertainment or academia. He admires and gives deference to global autocrats like Vladamir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping. He can’t tolerate losing a battle, so he employed every tactic he could fathom to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to be declared the winner.
And yet, in spite of all of his legal problems — with four investigations ongoing and already having been formally indicted by both the Manhattan district attorney and the federal Department of Justice — the former president’s poll numbers continue to rise. Those with blind trust and fierce loyalty unthinkingly give him the “Gene Autry treatment.”
They are convinced Trump’s “six-guns” of braggadocio, inflated self-confidence, dirty politics, billionaire connections, clever repartee and locker room talk will be just what is needed to return our country to its pre-postmodern, 1950s cultural climate. Ahh, that beloved time when women knew their place was in the kitchen or nursery, abortions were relegated to back alleys, men didn’t worry about being sensitive or inclusive, no one worried about the climate, gays stayed in the closet and some committed suicide, people of color were simply known as “colored people,” teachers didn’t indoctrinate school children with liberal ideas, churches were filled on Sunday morning and America was feared around the world.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is an academic, writer and speaker whose New York Times bestselling book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, analyzes the cross-section of religion and politics. She writes:
“He was the latest and greatest high priest of the evangelical cult of masculinity.”
Evangelicals hadn’t betrayed their values. Donald Trump was the culmination of their half-century-long pursuit of a militant Christian masculinity. He was the reincarnation of John Wayne, sitting tall in the saddle, a man who wasn’t afraid to resort to violence to bring order, who protected those deemed worthy of protection, who wouldn’t let political correctness get in the way of saying what had to be said or the norms of democratic society keep him from doing what needed to be done. Unencumbered by traditional Christian virtue, he was a warrior in the tradition (if not the actual physical form) of Mel Gibson’s William Wallace. He was a hero for God-and-country Christians in the line of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Oliver North, one suited for Duck Dynasty Americans and American Christians. He was the latest and greatest high priest of the evangelical cult of masculinity.
Believing Gene Autry could have stopped the crucifixion is childish thinking, but it is “cute” and perhaps understandable because Billy Dick was a child, 6-years-old and infatuated with his television hero. But believing Donald Trump could stop the national movement toward racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, religious and socio-economic inclusivity and justice is childish in a different way. For the people who believe this absurdity are not preschoolers — although they don’t seem to be very schooled in either history or religious faith. They demonstrate a naivete, lack of judgment and unwillingness to accept the facts that baffles me.
I was amused by the innocence and blind trust of Stanley Hauerwas’s cousin. But I am not amused by the fact that “78% of white voters who identified as evangelicals … voted for Trump in 2020.”
I am not amused by the alarming growth of Christian nationalism that threatens our society by promoting revisionist history and inspiring religious hate crimes. I am not amused that many of my friends at church and across the country put their faith in Donald Trump. That trust is blind, but it is certainly not innocent.
Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren.
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