WB Pragmatic Four
I have been so down about the news for the last week. It just seems like the inevitable culmination of years of the President’s rhetoric compounded by his mass media platform to convert everyday people who feel disenfranchised into more extreme versions of themselves.
Many people have wondered how evangelical Christians could be so enamored with a President who in many ways violates so many Christian values. But it’s not that hard to see.
Many evangelicals hold onto a more black-and-white view of Scripture, believing themselves to be literalists. Literalists assume the Bible is uncomplicated, inerrant, and simply understood…in whatever ways their preachers tell them.
These types of folk need a strong and charismatic leader to tell them that what they believe is true, maybe even that they alone know the truth. It tends to be highly individualized, focusing on personal relationship with Jesus and individual morality rather than allowing for systemic sin and oppression to be real problems that can actually be addressed by groups of people. It is inherently a very small and simple way to look at the world, with a tendency to feel like they are the ones being persecuted and disenfranchised, even as they persecute and disenfranchise others.
I was reminded of a Fantastic Four comic where Dr. Doom shrank the heroes and placed them in a make-believe tiny world called "Liddleville." In this tiny world of biblical literalism, it is no surprise that so many evangelicals remain supportive of a President who literally incited an insurrection against our democratic processes last week. It is no surprise that the same people who demand their right to refuse business to gay people are upset this week that Twitter has permanently closed Trump’s account. Trump was their charismatic spokesperson. He affirmed their tiny worldview. He fed them exactly the lies their tickling ears wanted to hear and they failed to see how misled they were. I wish there was a fix, an easy out for these people to get a bigger perspective on the world and repent of their near-sightedness.
But so many continue to remain blindly loyal to Trump, and I am just so sad.
I know this week is purely editorial, and not deeply theological. It’s all my opinion. But I believe in an infinite God, one who is inherently NOT simple, NOT black and white. I believe in the incarnate Son who muddied the waters of purity and holiness by breaking the Sabbath to heal and by associating with those who were actually disenfranchised. I believe in the fiery Holy Spirit, who cannot be tamed, who is constantly calling us to reevaluate our understanding of Scripture so that we can expand the guest list to the kingdom of heaven. And none of those things line up with what I’ve been seeing in this "great again" America.
So I’m bringing back the Pragmatic Four, my characters who represent the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Wesleyan Christians believe that all of us bring an interpretive lens to the Scripture, that there is no such thing as a plain, literal reading of the text because we all bring our reason, our experience, and our histories (traditions) to the reading of Scripture. Scripture is always more than it seems at first glance, it’s always bigger. And followers of John Wesley seek to understand all Scripture through the lens of the love of Jesus Christ.