Over the last decade, advances in social justice have been rolled back by a renewed sense of evangelical pride.
Donovan O. Schaefer in Whiteness and Civilization: Shame, Race, and the Rhetoric of Donald Trump, argues: “The success of Trump’s rhetoric emerges in part through his mastery of a circuit of shame and dignity, in which supporters who feel ashamed find, in his verbal and visual style, a repudiation of that shame and so mobilize behind him.”
An emerging civic morality and developing social consciousness had successfully produced a public where 70% favored same-sex marriage. Added to the triumphs of civil rights, women’s rights and an increasingly affirming culture, the nation seemed, with the election of Barack Obama, primed for a golden age of acceptance and diversity.
Rodney Kennedy
Then the MAGA evangelical movement, a restorationist movement and a revenge campaign, happened. Where evangelicals previously had been shamed for their anti-everything mentality, they now were free once again to feel pride and dignity.
Restoring pride and dignity to evangelical sins, prejudices and fears, Trump eliminated liberal shame.
Now, in public and in the news, we have onward Christian soldiers marching with heads held high, free of shame, filled with pride at doing God’s will against evil.
Be proud of your opposition to gay people and transgender people. Be proud of your homophobia. The Bible is on your side. March on, you sons of God! You have right and might on your side. You will win the victory.
Imagine a MAGA pride parade instead, featuring floats filled with pious sentiment: “Thank you, Lord, that I am not like those gay-loving, immigrant-supporting, liberal demons of the radical left.”
Evangelicals parade their anti-gay bona fides down Main Street every day. The anti-gay float has Franklin Graham swearing on his Bible how much he loves gays. And a gaggle of evangelical preachers condemning and judging gays as disgusting.
Here’s the public bathroom float complete with toilets and urinals and stamped “Anti-Transgender.” The float is filled with virulent evangelical preachers raising holy hell about transgender women in girls’ bathrooms and competing in girls’ sports.
Here’s the racism float with a wall between the U.S. and Mexico complete with a battalion of Border Patrol and ICE agents. “God loves walls” claims the banner hovering over the top of the float. Robert Jeffress stands in a large pulpit at the front and keeps repeating that there’s a great wall in heaven and that God loves walls.
Here’s the anti-science float orchestrated by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man charged with making America healthy again. Trump stands proudly at the head of this float declaring, “I did a great job against COVID.”
The anti-DEI float rolls down the boulevard with bare-chested muscle-bound males. There are no women or African American military officers on this float. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sits on a high throne at the bow of this float. The crowd chants, “We are not racists.”
The anti-history float promotes nationalism, nativism, “Western civilization” and proclaims “Slavery was not that bad” and “Slave owners loved and provided for their slaves.” David Barton headlines the float in his red, white and blue suit and Texas-size cowboy hat.
In such a parade, each float would attempt to restore pride in things once taken away that created a source of great pain for MAGA evangelicals
But there is nothing to be proud of in this pride parade. This procession only underscores the reality of an evangelical culture becoming less human, more cruel, less empathic and less compassionate — all set to the steady beat of a Christian praise band.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.