Christians Should Put Religion First, Not Politics

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the Trump-Evangelical Industrial Complex. On August 25, Jerry Falwell Jr., former president of Liberty University and one of the first on the Christian right to endorse Trump in 2016, was forced to resign from his post after being outed as a cuckold. The whole affair is a case study of the observation attributed to Mark Twain that “the only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.” If this incident had played out in an anti-Trump work of fiction, critics would rightly roll their eyes at the hackneyed, on-the-nose irony of it all. Donald Trump’s chief Evangelical cheerleader defenestrated as a “cuck”? The willing suspension of disbelief collapses at the very suggestion.

And yet, the predictable fall of Falwell proves that reality remains, in many delightful respects, stranger than fiction. It’s neither charitable nor Christian to glory in the misfortune of others, but few men in the public eye have so richly deserved to be stripped of all moral authority by the humiliating laughter of the masses as Jerry Falwell Jr. He has been plagued for years by complaints from former Liberty University students and staff alleging that the school was run in a dictatorial manner. And his unconditional, boot-licking, self-abasing embrace of Donald Trump in 2016 set the ball rolling for the wider moral capitulation of the white Evangelical world during that election cycle — a capitulation that will probably discredit that particular brand of Christianity in the political sphere for at least a generation. In many ways, Falwell has been the figurehead of the shift among some Christians during the last four years from worshiping Jesus of Nazareth to worshiping political power. The man is a whitewashed tomb, once powerful and influential on the outside, but always filled with dead men’s bones and all uncleanness within. The inner contents of his soul have now been revealed for all the world to see, and both Christians and conservatives are better off for it.

About the Author

Cameron Hilditch

Cameron Hilditch was a 2020-2021 William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review Institute.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Christianity

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the Trump-Evangelical Industrial Complex. On August 25, Jerry Falwell Jr., former president of Liberty University and one of the first on the Christian right to endorse Trump in 2016, was forced to resign from his post after being outed as a cuckold. The whole affair is a case study of the observation attributed to Mark Twain that “the only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.” If this incident had played out in an anti-Trump work of fiction, critics would rightly roll their eyes at the hackneyed, on-the-nose irony of it all. Donald Trump’s chief Evangelical cheerleader defenestrated as a “cuck”? The willing suspension of disbelief collapses at the very suggestion.

And yet, the predictable fall of Falwell proves that reality remains, in many delightful respects, stranger than fiction. It’s neither charitable nor Christian to glory in the misfortune of others, but few men in the public eye have so richly deserved to be stripped of all moral authority by the humiliating laughter of the masses as Jerry Falwell Jr. He has been plagued for years by complaints from former Liberty University students and staff alleging that the school was run in a dictatorial manner. And his unconditional, boot-licking, self-abasing embrace of Donald Trump in 2016 set the ball rolling for the wider moral capitulation of the white Evangelical world during that election cycle — a capitulation that will probably discredit that particular brand of Christianity in the political sphere for at least a generation. In many ways, Falwell has been the figurehead of the shift among some Christians during the last four years from worshiping Jesus of Nazareth to worshiping political power. The man is a whitewashed tomb, once powerful and influential on the outside, but always filled with dead men’s bones and all uncleanness within. The inner contents of his soul have now been revealed for all the world to see, and both Christians and conservatives are better off for it.