CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
I've been saying for awhile, and statements like this really demonstrate it:
It looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the Pope.
Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas on Fox News.
That comment was stupid. But then, he's called Catholicism a cult.
The Catholic Church is an Apostolic Church. It was founded by Christ. John Smyth, an Englishman, founded the Baptists in 1609.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a Catholic doctrine. There is no salvation outside the Church. None the less, the Church holds that those who did not come to Christ innocently, or those who did not come to the Church innocently, can be saved, which operates again through the Church. You can't be held responsible for what you innocently didn't know.
But what about here?
We're in the death throws of the reformation. Things Smyth could get away with believing in 1609 there's no excuse to believe now, other than invincible ignorance.
Being a pastor of a 14,000 member church puts a pretty heavy burden on you and your soul for remaining ignorant.
Smyth is also a Fox News contributor, which really figures.
As an irony here, although one he will not be capable, right now, of appreciating, Smyth has gone after Mormons, Jews, and Muslims as well. In normal times, he would not have a national television audience. He would have a local Dallas one as Texas is part of the former Confederacy and the Baptist rose in the wake of the Southern defeat in 1865, replacing the Episcopal Church in the South as the dominant religion culturally. Nationally, however, picking on Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Mormons would get you booted off of television.
Religious aspects of this aside, this brings up a political one I've warned about here repeatedly.
Catholics voting for MAGA candidates are voting for a group that not only doesn't regard the Church highly, they don't believe it's a Christian religion at all. People like Lyin' Chuck Gray, Reid Rasner and Megan Degenfelder, who are Catholics who run as MAGA are making a political bargain that will cause them, as it seems to have already for Lyin' Chuck to decide between their faiths, and their political fortunes. Degenfelder has signs up all over which say "Endorsed by President Trump".
They should say "Endorsed by Blasphemous Donald Trump".
And this isn't merely esoteric. We're in the same position now that Catholic Germans were in the 1932 German election (and the Catholics in fact went for Hitler much less than German protestants did). There's really going to be no good "um, well, the other guy . . . " excuse here. The far right Evangelical edge of the Trump coalition isn't even pretending not to hate Catholics much anymore.
And what about Mormons?
Mormons include a heavy MAGA contingent, although the only really devout Mormons I know here locally right now are heavy duty Never Trumpers, and openly so. But then you have guys like Deseret Mike Lee who come pretty close to viewing Trump positively in some sort of creepy religious terms. Deep in the Jello Belt it's always been the case that there was a sort of ignorant conservatism in some quarters, and in the last 16 years, in spite of guys like Mitt Romney, it's really come out.
Trump and Islam is simply laughable as a joke. In the last election Trump drew a fair amount of Islamic support because Muslims were so mad about Joe Biden's support of Israel. Well, they got what the should have expected. The only person Trump loves more than Putin (and of course Trump) is Benjamin Netanyahu and as a result we've supported genocide in Gaza, a war in Lebanon and we helped Israel attack Iran and we can't get out of it. I suspect that most Muslims are voting for the Democrats next go around, just like most Hispanics will be (and in both instances, this really gives the Democrats a chance to evolve away from their sea of blood positions).
And this sort of thing should even be a revelation for Jews of all stripes, although I think they're more awake to what MAGA is than most. The strong Trump support for Netanyahu comes in part because Netanyahu is good at playing Trump, much like Putin is. But it also comes from people like Hegseth or Huckabee, who have a radical Protestant view of Israel and want to bring about the Second Coming of Christ basically by force, which they see current events as an opportunity in which to do so. Put another way, do you really want to get in the car with somebody who wants to drive you to a giant gun fight?
Donald Trump, of course, is sort of beyond all of this. Trump isn't any sort of serious Christian and we don't really know if he has any religious beliefs at all. Most of his life has been spent chasing cash through real estate development and his hobbies have been golf and chasing tail. Christians are just a convenient vehicle for him. If the Sultan of Oman offered him a bigger better airplane tomorrow if he'd convert to Islam, and remind him that Muslims can have more than one wife, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he signed on. His personal conduct actually squares better with Islam than Christianity, which is after all a religion focused on the poor and duty.
In the end, all of this is going to fall apart.
Christians who aligned with Trump, just like Muslims and Mormons who did, are going to have to pay the cost. It'll be different for each. For Muslims, well their fellows are playing through blood right now. Jews will pay by the backlash that's already started.
For Christians, it'll be different, depending upon where their allegiance lay. For the ignorant members of the American Civil Religion, and for the hardcore Evangelical right, this will be the beginning of an end of an era that started in April 1865, when the South fell and the Evangelical far right stepped into its own. For the Protestant world in general, this will accelerate the death of the Reformation.
For the Catholic and Orthodox Christians who supported Trump, how could you be so blind?
Nonetheless, this will be a good thing for the Catholic and Orthodox. A delusion that started in 1960 that you could be fully American and fully Catholic, or Orthodox, has ended. National Conservatism will end with it.
And that will be a good thing.
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