First we had election deniers; now we have justice deniers

This time, the problem is not with America’s justice system; the problem is with conservative evangelicals’ warped view of what justice means.

The folks always screaming about “law and order” don’t really care about law and order when it works against their interests. Find a poor Black man passing a fake $20 and it’s OK for a white police officer to kneel on his neck for 9 minutes and kill him. Find a rich white man paying off a mistress in violation of campaign finance laws, and the courts are biased against him if he’s convicted by a jury of his peers.

Conservatives’ response to Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts May 30 shows we’ve moved into even more dangerous territory. We’ve moved from election deniers to justice deniers.

This combination will be fatal to both faith and democracy because these denials are based on disregard for truth. Trump has taught evangelical Christians how to lie and not regret it. Lord, have mercy.

“Trump has taught evangelical Christians how to lie and not regret it.”

Former Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, tweeted about Trump’s conviction: “Everyone take a deep breath, pray and ask God to deliver justice to America after the sham of a trial in NYC. There is so much at stake including the future of our legal system and the constitution of our nation.”

Yes, there’s a lot at stake regarding the future of our legal system and the constitution of our nation. And that begins with accepting the truth.

Then there’s Robert Jeffress, Fox News commentator and pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, who tweeted Trump “was not convicted because of the evidence but because of his rising poll numbers which are scaring the left spitless.”

Clever play on words, Pastor Jeffress. Some of us are not just scared spitless; we are scared shitless because of people like you.

Robert Jeffress is a liar. He misrepresents the truth. There is no real debate over whether Trump paid Stormy Daniels to silence her from talking before the 2016 presidential election. There’s ample evidence of that. The debate is about whether that is — or should be — unlawful.

Even Al Mohler, the would-be pope of the SBC, admits this much. In his Daily Briefing podcast, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said: “No one is arguing that money wasn’t paid and that it wasn’t paid directly or indirectly, as is alleged, to a porn actress. And there is no doubt, at least according to photographic evidence, that Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump were in a room, in public photographed. … As Christians, we need to recognize that if you are in a position where you’re acknowledging you paid hush money, well, you’re in a morally dubious situation. But this isn’t a shocking situation when it comes to Donald Trump.”

Mohler’s convoluted argument, best I can make of it, is not that Trump isn’t guilty but that he shouldn’t have been put on trial in a heavily Democratic state like New York.

“New York City, let’s just state the obvious, is overwhelmingly Democratic and it’s hard to even come up with the right word to use there,” he said. “As you are looking at the area from which the jurors were chosen, incredible preponderance of Democrats, and not only of Democrats, but of fairly liberal Democrats, at least by the voting traditions and the patterns there in Manhattan.”

That sets up Mohler’s logical fallacy to question the impartial deliberation of the jury, which he thinks made a decision so quickly as to be suspect: “When a jury looks at a situation this complex and at a trial that took this long to conduct and comes back with a verdict that fast, it raises some very interesting questions.”

“What Mohler seems to want is for his preferred candidate to have been tried before a jury wearing MAGA hats.”

Never mind that the key witnesses against Trump were not liberal Democrats but his own people. What Mohler seems to want is for his preferred candidate to have been tried before a jury wearing MAGA hats.

And then there’s former SBC President James Merritt, who apparently overdosed on some far-right news outlet while reading his Bible and the Farmer’s Almanac at the same time. He tweeted the day after the verdict: “1. It is a mighty thin pancake that only has one side. 2. The foundation of true justice demands an impartial judge who seeks fairness not a certain verdict. 3. True justice says if you gag one side, you gag the other one. 4. Calling out injustice when you believe it’s occurred does not mean that you approve of the character of the one being tried. 5. I’m comforted knowing there is a Judge who is just and will see justice done in the end. 6. Character still counts in the courtroom as well.”

What?

Merritt, like so many commentators from the Trump camp, ignores the fact that in this case, the judge presided but did not rule. This was a jury trial. The jury decided. Which might be a strange idea to some conservatives who are more accustomed to judge shopping to find a single jurist who will rule in their favor without benefit of a jury. (See the mifepristone case put before Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, for example.)

On May 30, Merritt had posted two other tweets expressing certainty that Trump had not received a fair trial. Both posts later were deleted. One of them said: “Regardless of your feelings for Trump (fyi-the candidate I wrote in didn’t win either of the last two POTUS elections), if you believe this judge was impartial, that this venue should not have been changed, that this is our justice system at its best, then discussion is over. “

And a gag order on one side is not a gag on the other. That’s nuts. The gag order was to stop Trump from personally attacking people related to the trial and the administration of justice. Because Trump is a vengeful bully of the first order. He is a mob boss.

And “character counts”? That’s about as ironic as Trump’s lawyer with a straight face calling Michael Cohen “the greatest liar of all time” while representing the man who is, without doubt, the greatest liar of all time.

Notice how Graham and Jeffress and Mohler and Merritt echo Trump’s own language. He is in their ears.

Graham echoes Trump talking about a “sham” of a trial. Jeffress echoes Trump’s claim the political left is afraid of him because he polls well. Mohler echoes Trump’s claim that he couldn’t get a fair trial in New York. Merritt echoes Trump’s claim that he was persecuted with a gag order.

By the way, have you ever noticed how Trump always is the one being persecuted, all the time? By his telling, he’s been persecuted and singled out from the day he was born. That story gets old after a while. At some point, you’ve got to ask what are the odds of this one man being so persecuted so many times.

“Here are four Southern Baptist pastors and leaders not only jumping on the Trump Train but eagerly selling tickets for the ride.”

So here are four Southern Baptist pastors and leaders not only jumping on the Trump Train but eagerly selling tickets for the ride. They sound more like sports fans than pastors, cheering on their favorite player while accusing the ref of cheating their team with bad calls. Maybe we need to give them some MAGA rally towels to wave around.

Of course, Graham and Jeffress and Mohler and Merritt are not alone in siding with Trump in his persecution complex. They join a chorus of other Republican leaders — people elected to uphold the law they now shun — and religious leaders who also have drunk the Kool-Aid of Kamp Trump.

The crazy messianic memes going around social media are staggering. Christian nationalist and election denier Eric Metaxas deserves a special award for his post comparing Trump’s conviction to Jesus’ crucifixion.

If you perhaps thought the SBC was safe from the cult of Trumpism, here’s evidence of the lawless one’s hold. The force is strong with this one.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are left like prophets crying in the wilderness, trying to help allegedly Christian leaders see that they are following a false messiah, an antichrist.

Donald Trump is the antithesis of the teaching of Jesus Christ. He is, in his words and deeds and philosophy, anti-Christ.

You’d think a bunch of people who have studied the Bible so much could figure that out.

 

Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves and Why Churches Need to Talk About Sexuality. His forthcoming book is Troubling the Truth and Other Tales from the News.

 

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