Theology of the smirk

Three weeks into Trump 2.0, and I’m still haunted by JD Vance’s condescending smirk at the National Prayer Service.

He wasn’t he only one. The entire Trump team was smirking and squirming. But since, once upon a time, I also was a young, straight white man with conservative views, I took special notice of his smirk.

And, in an unsettling way: I remember that smirk. I remember that guy.

Before I came to truly understand the words of Jesus — the compelling, soul/society shifting message of the gospel — the world behind that smirk, a world of seemingly confident and endlessly powerful straight white men, assured in their place and position in society, and completely ignorant of their privilege, that was my world too.

That was my “team.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting I’m now magically devoid of privilege as a cisgendered straight white guy. And it also would overstate things to suggest I ever was an active evangelical Christian or a Republican Party operative.

But once upon a time, I was the kind of young white man who heard Bishop Mariann Budde’s theology and in reaction to it would, cluelessly and thoughtlessly, smirk.

Challenged by preaching

In the early 1980s, as a University of Texas student, I regularly sat in the balcony of First United Methodist Church of Austin and heard Jack Heacock preach sermons about liberation theology and El Salvador and Guatemala. He’d roll his tongue when pronouncing the names, and my friend and I would make fun of him.

What I know now, looking back at my own self, was those sermons, and much else in my life at that moment, was pushing me. It was convicting me, challenging me.

The idea that God has a special love for the poor and outcast — the idea that women, People of Color, the LGBTQ community did too — I never had heard that before.

“I knew that meant my tribe, the Tribe of White Men, was one of the problems.”

I knew that meant my tribe, the Tribe of White Men, was one of the problems. Although I wasn’t active in Republican politics, I loved the muscular “posing” young men in the Reagan era did, and I tried to fit in to that.

So it was that in my dorm room, I had a poster of a Nicaraguan “Contra” up on the wall. We all now know these “freedom fighters” were illegally funded by the Reagan administration, in moves that were deeply harmful to the people of Central America.

All I saw was a cool-looking Latino man, dressed in military fatigues, and it reminded me of Apocalypse Now. I didn’t know shit about war. I didn’t know shit about politics. But such posturing was “cool.”

Again, it was posing, it was representing a “tribe.”

So, I would hear these sermons on Liberation Theology, on God’s compassion for suffering Central American campesinos, and yet I’d come home to see that poster on the wall.

“Smirk.”

The Vance smirk

When JD Vance smirked, he was specifically listening to Bishop Budde’s plea for mercy. She was describing how people in our society are “scared right now.” Which was true in that moment, already, and is simply more true today, several weeks later.

Every day of Trump 2.0, there is some new group targeted: Trans people, immigrants, women, People of Color, federal workers. It’s a long list of people that, conspicuously and intentionally, of course, excludes white men.

So, we can clearly see: Budde was right. People are scared, and they are more afraid, every day.

And the reaction, of course?

“Vance has —beautifully and horrifically— explained the theology of the smirk.”

“Smirk.”

The moment I first saw the Vance smirk, I knew I was going to write this essay. I wanted to write about “the theology of the smirk.”

I planned to describe the wrong-headed theology and politics that allows somebody to be so self-confidently devoid of compassion in that moment.

But, as it turns out, JD Vance did it for me! Vance has —beautifully and horrifically— explained the theology of the smirk.

‘Old-school concept’

He has given an interview with FOX News, where he spools out the theology in full form in a simple, and easily refutable, way.

He called this next quote an “old-school, very Christian concept”: “You love your family, then you love your neighbor, then you love your community, then you love you fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.”

Let me scream out the “lead” right here: That’s not an old-school Christian view. That’s actually an anti-Christian, pro-Christian nationalist view.

It’s a view that twists the gospel message, inverting its true message to serve a political ideology. And it’s a horrifically clear and helpful little paragraph for us to unpack.

The theology of the smirk goes like this:

1. We love our family.
2. We love our community.
3. We love American citizens.
4. Then and only then do we love anybody else in the entire world.

This view of love is up and down. Greater or lesser.

And finally — and please don’t miss this point — it actually posits that Christianity is simply one tribe among many tribes. It’s just, in their mind, the only “true” tribe.

Christian families, Christian communities, Christian Americans are to be loved, honored and privileged above all others.

The theology of the smirk is being foisted on our entire nation in ways that will be deeply harmful for generations, assuming the Republic actually survives.

Misunderstanding Jesus

JD Vance’s smirk — and my own as a younger man — is based on misunderstanding of the words of Jesus. Because contrary to Vance’s claim, it is the “theology of the smirk” that inverts true Christian theology.

“It’s literally the word of Jesus that destroy the hierarchical theory of the smirk.”

Paradoxically, the theology Vance decries was not created in modern times among the American “far left.” It’s from Jesus. It’s literally the words of Jesus that destroy the hierarchical theory of the smirk — the theology he falsely calls “old-school Christian.”

JESUS is the one who, when his own biological family shows up to see him, disses the idea they are “special” by asserting that “family” is anyone who does God’s will. (So much for biological family first.)

JESUS is the one who says the Great Commandment is to love God, self, and neighbor. (So much for the world being last.)

JESUS is the one who then helps us define “who is my neighbor?” (See the Parable of the Good Samaritan). The answer: Our political enemy or somebody from an entirely different tribe than ours. (So much for geographic neighbors being second.)

JESUS is one who said (Luke 4) there is no distinction between God’s love for a foreigner and God’s love for a citizen, a messages that garnered him not only smirks, but his very first death threats (during his very first sermon).

JESUS is the one who clearly destroys hierarchical theology by saying, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”

JESUS inverted this hierarchal view of love, not “liberals.” This is the “old-school view.”

If you’ve got a problem with this view, you need to take it up with Jesus!

This is how both Mary (Jesus’ mother) and Paul get their theology. This is why Mary sings in the Magnificat: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”

This is why Paul asserts that all our human binaries are destroyed, through the love of Christ Jesus.

From where?

Since Vance brought up the phrase “old-school concepts,” let’s be blunt about where his theology comes from: Directly from Colonial theology, imperial theology, enslaver theology, eugenics theology.

Not so long ago, scientists, politicians and theologians all conspired together to create interlocking hierarchical views of God and humans — with men at the very top and everybody else in a descending hierarchical position underneath them.

In one way, Vance is right: His theology is an “old-school concept.” It’s the old-school Christian nationalistic theology that oppresses everyone, save the elite and the powerful.

“The true message of Jesus is always triggering to Christian nationalists. They always smirk.”

Here’s the truth I know from my life of faith in Jesus: The true message of Jesus is always triggering to Christian nationalists. They always smirk.

But, as we have seen, they will do more than smirk. They will seek to enforce their will on what I like to call “The Tribe of Everybody Else.”

What happened to me

My story is that God saved me through the message of the gospel. The non-smirky gospel that rejects political-theological white supremacy.

It started in earnest on Election Night 1984.

I had voted for Ronald Reagan a second time, even as the “Rainbow Coalition” message of Jesse Jackson had inwardly convicted me in ways that troubled my soul. But Jackson wasn’t on the ballot. Reagan was. And, to me, Reagan was the candidate of “my tribe.”

But on that night, to celebrate Reagan’s landslide victory, I went down to the Student Union bar at UT, and from afar I watched the guttural, tribal victory yells of a group of young Republican men. I’m sure there must have been some women in their group, but my memory is of the young men in top siders and blue blazers.

Reagan had won in a landslide. And I had enough Christian mercy to think in my head: “You don’t have to gutturally stomp on your enemies if you win in a landslide, unless your goal is their destruction, and — oh shit.”

“In that moment, my own smirk fell away forever.”

In that moment, my own smirk fell away forever. I suddenly knew this no longer was my tribe.

I couldn’t countenance the smirk, the knowing flex of white male privileged at the expense of everybody else.

Buyer’s remorse

Now, we’re seeing a lot of Trump voters with buyer’s remorse. They’re saying “I didn’t vote for that” to all manner of Trump 2.0 decisions.

Once upon a time, that buyer’s remorse came to me too, on the night my own theology of the smirk started to fall away for good. And yet, even with that history, I still don’t know what to tell you to do to fix stuff.

I know it takes repentance. That’s what it took for me. It wasn’t groveling repentance, because true repentance, as I have learned, is not connected to groveling but instead to all our future choices after that moment.

“True repentance is hard, lifelong work.”

True repentance is hard, lifelong work.

Do we have lifetimes for folks to change? Seems like not. Seems like we might have weeks to months to truly save any vestige of the American Republic, if that.

So, for all you not under the sway of the theology of the smirk, all I know to tell you is to resist, renew and unplug.

Resist this ascending fascism. Join political movements that are resisting, but please make sure you make your movements as broad as possible, smashing the binaries, not reinforcing them with litmus tests.

Find community to be with. If you have a Christian core, find a progressive Christian congregation. To be connected to people of faith who try best we can to name our shortcomings and privilege, this is the movement that saved my life.

For me, in this very moment, I’m leaning hard into the wisdom of the American Civil Rights Movement and the World War II Confessing Church in Germany.

And then unplug. Don’t spend all your time doomscrolling. The solutions, such as they are, will be found in real-world communities and movements. Our devices tend to reinforce our tribalism, not destroy it.

After that, rinse and repeat. Do it all again and again.

A final appeal

Finally, I come back to the beginning with a special plea to white men. I beg you to abandon the “theology of the smirk.”

If you find yourself recognizing JD Vance’s smirk, or even agreeing with it, right now you are doing great harm to our world. I know you’ve been taught otherwise. I know you’ve been taught the toxic lessons that white men are supposed to “lead” and everyone else is supposed to follow.

But white men are human beings like everybody else. White men are not Elon Musk’s apocalyptic “trans-humans.”

As white men, our power, when unchecked, always has been dangerous to others — especially when it lacks mercy. And, dear God, is mercy lacking now.

This is the wisdom, the Christian faith, of which Bishop Budde spoke. God is a merciful God, not a vengeful one. Jesus came to destroy hierarchical systems, not put you, or me, or any white man, back at the top.

The true gospel message of Jesus is against all you’ve ever been taught about the gospel message of Jesus.

I know how disorienting that last sentence is. I know how you’ve been bred to lead, because that’s how I was once “bred.” But we are men, not racehorses. And everyone in a pyramid scheme — even if you are at the top — is oppressed and limited by their demanded place.

There’s a world of freedom and God’s love that awaits you. So please, in the name of God, look up, look around, look beyond your smirk, and see the destruction being wrought right now. The hubris behind it will kill everything you love.

 

Eric Folkerth serves as senior pastor at Kessler Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. Follow his writing here.

 

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