Crucial Religious Right Repentance Trump

How Can One Recover From Near or Actual Trump-Worship?

How Can They Recover From Virtual Trump-Worship?I know of, and know personally, a LOT of white professing Christians for whom the emotional and intellectual investment in Trump has been VERY great.  How will it go for them? How will it go as the great golden image begins to dramatically collapse in full view of the whole world?

It’s a hard transition.  I’ve heard that in, say, 1947, it was very difficult to find people who had lived though the 30’s and 40’s in Germany who would admit to having been Nazi’s.  Even harder to find ones who were proud of it, and would gladly say so.

It’s a very difficult thing, the death of a god.

What will those people be feeling, and needing?

I.  PAIN

There will be some serious pain.

  • Pain from seeing hopes evaporate.
  • Pain from either realizing they’ve been very wrong,
  • or realizing that many people have good reason to believe they’ve been very wrong, whether they themselves think so or not (yet, or ever).
  • Pain from realization of all the “told you so’s” that are being said and will be said and thought.

II.  ANGER

There will be anger.

  • Anger at being so badly played.
  • Anger at being so deliberately and vilely lied to and misled.
  • Or, conversely, anger at being held wrong and being publicly mocked or condemned.
  • Anger at not winning.
  • Anger at being more or less suddenly in an obvious minority, a despised minority.

III.  CONFUSION

There will be a lot of confusion.

  1.   If these things I, we, they, held as clear and even Biblical truth are NOT true … How can that BE?  How can these things possibly be untrue (or the negative things be true)?
    • Things like Biblical arguments in support of
      • evil behavior,
      • evil persons,
      • evil plans.
    • Things like justifications (other than Biblical) of what is now seen to be undeniably vile?
  2. Loss of trusted sources:  How painful will be the destruction of the credibility of information sources that were trusted and that provided a never-ending  stream of
    • facts,
    •  arguments,
    • rebuttals,
    • and what turn out to be not exposes, but just smears for political purposes.

All of that’s hard to take.

IV.  AVOIDANCE

Pretend it didn’t happen.  Pretend you didn’t say or approve of those things.  This is fraud, fraud against oneself and against others.  It does not help in actual recovery – but it’s a common human response.

V.  HATE, REVENGE

It’s human nature.  But it would be very wrong.  Sadly, these self-destructive behaviors might also reach over into attack against others.  There truly has been much – a lot more than before – much hate sown publicly, blatantly, over the last 3 years, and a lot of explicit and implicit permission granted to express it in violent behavior.  We should expect there to be people willing to act on it as Trump starts shrinking, even if they have not yet done so.

MIGHT WE BE ABLE TO HELP THEM TRANSITION?

Basil H. Liddell-Hart, the historian and analyst of military strategy, might say we should come at it obliquely, or from a different “front.”  Flank them.  But how?  I’m not sure.

But the first, most obvious answer (“What will they be needing?”  “How does one recover?”) seems to be, well, just bring TRUTH.  It will not be welcome, but it is the crucial therapy – as Paul said, “speaking the truth in love.”

  1.  Teach, present, defend true Biblical, Christic, Prophetic values, and civic, republican, democratic values, in a variety of ways, perhaps not generally or necessarily aimed at particular instances of their evil words and deeds.  Change the context, the background, in which you bring truth.
  2. But specifics need to be mentioned.  They are truth and that needs to be faced. And there are lots of them!
  3. Bring a clear and acceptable instance that cannot be denied, even by the most obstinate, and watch as that crack in the edifice begins to spread.  The monolith of falsehood cannot stand if one of its key legs is removed.
  4. Or maybe it can.  It has so far!
  5. Maybe this is mostly a spiritual battle won not by arguments but by THE GREATER AND FREER GOOD SPIRIT of The Good God.  Nurture awareness of and cooperation with THAT Spirit!

This is just thinking out loud.  What do you think?

Bring Biblical, Christic, Prophetic, and civic, republican, democratic values, variety of ways, not always to particular instances of their evil words and deeds. Change the context, the background. Bring truth.Click To Tweet

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