In Wisconsin, at one of Donald Trump’s recent presidential campaign stops – infrequent since he spends much of his time defending himself in several criminal and civil court cases – he lambasted President Joe Biden for issuing a White House proclamation on Sunday, March 31 as the annual International Trans Day of Visibility, which coincidentally fell on Easter Sunday this year.
Though Biden has issued this proclamation in each year of this presidency, Trump nonetheless claimed some sort of Christian persecution: “What the hell was Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be trans visibility day?” Trump shouted to loud boos and thumbs-down signs from the audience. “Such total disrespect to Christians.”
Related:
Trump predicted that he would win the presidential election and promised his acolytes that “November 5th [election day] is going to be called something else.”
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“Christian visibility day,” he said, “When Christians turn out in numbers that nobody has ever seen before.” The crowd responded, of course, with wild applause.
This was clearly an effort to pander to his Christian nationalist, anti-LGBTQ+ and specifically transphobic base. In reality, Trump understands neither the Jewish nor the Christian Bibles. Though Jews are taught to follow all 613 Commandments listed in the Jewish Bible, Trump has repeatedly violated the Ten Commandments – including “Though shall not kill” by lying, downplaying, and failing to take appropriate actions during the rise of the pandemic.
Though his disciples believe The Donald is The Messiah incarnate, the only Second Coming that concerns him is performing with his paramours and turning water to golden showers in his Moscow hotel room.
In actuality, every day is Christian Visibility Day in the United States.
For example, Christmas and [the Christian] New Year of January 1 have been declared official national holidays. The U.S., like most Western nations, marks time from the supposed birth of Jesus of Nazareth, though historians debate the precise year.
Words with Christian antecedents have invaded the English language, such as:
· Cross to bear
· Knock on wood
· Have an epiphany
· You’re a saint
· Baptism by fire
· I take my hat off to you
· Hail Mary Pass
· Heaven / Hell Binary
· Devil’s advocate
· Devil may care
· Cross your fingers
· Christian name
· “Church and State”
· BC / AD
· 21st Century
· God Bless America
· Spreading THE word of God
· Preaching to the choir
· The Good News
· El Niño / La Niña
· The Holy Grail of…
· A come to Jesus moment
· New Millennium
· Road to Damascus moment
· And many more!
If you don’t believe that these words have Christian predicates, check it out for yourself.
If we were to ask some of the early founders of the United States whether the country is a “Christian nation,” they might have voiced the opinion that the United States is not a Christian nation.
They would point to what has come to be called “The Treaty of Tripoli,” signed in advance of the first war fought between the United States and Muslim states (1801-1805). The treaty was signed in 1797 to ensure commercial rights and to protect U.S. ships in the Mediterranean from Barbary pirates.
Congress ratified the treaty on January 3, 1797, and then it was signed by President John Adams. Article 11 is often referenced when discussions of the role of religion in the United States government arise.
Article 11 states that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” It was worded to put at ease the delegates in Tripoli (Libya) that the U.S. did not hold animosity against member states in the Muslim world.
The wall of separation between religion and government has suffered several salvos, resulting in a deeply cracked and crumbled ruin. Examples of ballistic missiles downing the wall include:
· Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant making Christmas (December 25) and the New Year celebrated by most Christian denominations (January 1) each year as official national holidays uin 1870.
· The motto “In God We Trust” first appearing on US coins issued during the Civil War and being added to bills in the 1950s.
· “Under God” being added to the Pledge of Allegiance at the height of the Cold War against a “godless” Soviet Union.
· Annuit Coeptis (He has favored our undertakings) embossed on the Great Seal of the United States and printed on the back of the one-dollar bill.
· Religious Invocations presented at presidential Inaugurations.
· Government-supported forced Christian conversions of Indigenous tribal communities and enslaved Africans.
· Several attempts by legislators to impose adherence to Christianity in its many denominations as the official religion of the nation.
· Imposition of the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”: the mandate supposedly commanded by God to Anglo-Europeans to expand westward throughout the entire expanse of the continent.
· Chaplains hired at taxpayer expense to open sessions in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives each day.
And the list continues ad infinitum.
Chaplains in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives open each session with a prayer, coordinate religious programs, reside over funerals and memorial services, and provide pastoral care for members of Congress, their staffs, and their families.
They are hired by majority vote of the members in each chamber. Though they serve as individuals and are not meant to represent any specific religious denomination, all elected chaplains to date come from Christian traditions, though on occasion guest chaplains from other religions are invited to give invocations.
Regarding presidential Christian greetings and addresses, every Christmas since Calvin Coolidge in 1927, the President of the United States has delivered a Christmas message. Coolidge wrote greeting cards in his own hand on official White House stationary to the people of the United States. He requested that the news media print his Christmas greeting in newspapers and circulate it to a wide audience.
Coolidge also participated in the first official Christmas tree lighting, which today is known as the Pageant of Peace.
After President Eisenhower’s time in the Oval Office, the official Christmas card became a permanent feature of presidential duties.
Lyndon B. Johnson began his seasonal address on December 19, 1966, by stating, “Christmas is a time for hope. It is also a season for renewed inspiration from Christ’s universal message of peace on earth, good will toward men.”
George W. Bush and other elected leaders have invoked their Christian faith as the foundation of their political ideology. While governor of Texas, Bush proclaimed June 10, 2000 as “Jesus Day.”
Before and during his presidency, Bush and other conservative Christian politicians have consistently called for voucher systems whereby students could choose to attend private parochial schools at public expense, and they have supported prayer in the public schools as well as at school events.
Some religious, governmental, and educational leaders also push for the teaching of Creationism (reframed as “Intelligent Design”) to explain the genesis of the world and all its creatures. Others advocate for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a position that Bush and others acknowledge stems from their Christian faith, as does their commitment to the teaching of “abstinence only” sex education.
On December 21, 1999, President Bill Clinton began his Christmas address with these words, “Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us that, on the first Christmas 2000 years ago, a bright star shone vividly in the eastern sky, heralding the birth of Jesus and the beginning of His hallowed mission as teacher, healer, servant, and savior. Jesus’ birth in poverty proclaimed the intrinsic dignity and brotherhood of all humanity, and His luminous teachings have brought hope and joy to generations of believers. Today, as the world stands at the dawn of a new millennium, His timeless message of God’s enduring and unconditional love for each and every person continues to strengthen and inspire us.”
Clinton forgot to include the word “Christian” to describe “millennium” since many people and cultures throughout the world do not mark time from the birth of Jesus.
Each year, White House staff deck the halls and rooms of the White House with several Christmas trees and enough ornaments and decorations to sink a battleship.
Presidents do not (and should not) give Diwali addresses, Yom Kippur addresses, Ramadan addresses, or Kwanzaa addresses So why, in a country that supposedly separates religion from government, would it be appropriate for presidents to present annual Christmas addresses?
This occurs in countries that promote Christian hegemony with its full array of privileges accorded to Christians, which further marginalizes members of other religions and freethinkers.
Christian Colonialism
Though the official terms “colonization,” “colonizer,” and “colonized” may have changed somewhat, nowhere in the world have we experienced a truly post-colonial society. Imperialism remains, though at times possibly in less visible forms.
Beginning in the 1100s, a series of papal bulls (decrees or edicts) began sanctioning, enforcing, and authorizing expulsions, excommunications, denunciations, and, in particular, expressions of territorial sovereignty for Christian monarchs supported by the Catholic Church.
These bulls established what would become known as the “Doctrine of Discovery”: a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonizing and seizing territories not already inhabited by Christians.
Two of these papal bulls particularly stand out:
Pope Nicholas V issued his “Romanus Pontifex” in 1455, granting Portugal a monopoly trading status with Africa and authorizing the enslavement of indigenous populations.
In 1455, Pope Nicholas V called his Christian followers “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans,” take their possessions, and “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
And Pope Alexander VI issued “Inter Caetera” in 1493 to justify Christian European explorers’ claims on land and waterways they “discovered,” and to promote Christian domination in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americans.
The United States justified its “Monroe Doctrine” in the 1880s by declaring U.S. dominion over the Western Hemisphere and spreading its “Manifest Destiny” belief in expansionism westward as its destiny to control all land from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond.
In 1823, in the Supreme Court case, Johnson v. M’Intosh, the Doctrine of Discovery became part of U.S. federal law used to dispossess Native peoples of their lands.
In a unanimous decision, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, “The principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands” and Native peoples certain rights of occupancy.
The edict known as the Doctrine of Discovery gives license to commit genocide agains Black folks, brown folks, Asian folks, and non-Christians across the world. It was the stimulus for Columbus’ travels and is based on patriarchal Christian white supremacy.
Hegemony
The concept of “hegemony” describes the ways in which the dominant group, in this case Christians in general and predominantly Protestants, successfully disseminate dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense, “normal,” universal, and representing part of the natural order – even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it.
One does not have to be Christian to advance Christian hegemony. This religious hegemony maintains the marginality of already marginalized religions, faiths, and spiritual communities.
The form of hegemony examined in this discussion is Christian hegemony, which I define as the overarching system of advantages bestowed on Christians. It includes the institutionalization of a Christian norm or standard, which establishes and perpetuates the notion that all people are or should be Christian, thereby privileging Christians and Christianity and excluding the needs, concerns, religious cultural practices, and life experiences of people who are not Christian.
At times subtle but often obvious, Christian hegemony is oppression by neglect, omission, erasure, and distortion and also by design and intent.
Hegemony is advanced through discourses, which French philosopher Michel Foucault (1980) includes as the ideas, written expressions, theoretical foundations, and language of the dominant culture. These are implanted within networks of social and political control, described by Foucault as “regimes of truth,” which function to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as true or as the truth.
The concept of oppression, then, constitutes more than the cruel and repressive actions of individuals upon others. It involves an overarching system of differentials of social power and privilege by dominant groups over subordinated groups based on ascribed social identities and reinforced by unequal social group status.
This occurs not merely in societies ruled by coercive or tyrannical leaders; it also occurs within the day-to-day practices of contemporary democratic societies, such as the United States.
“Unpacking’’ the knapsack of privilege (whether it be Christian, white, male, heterosexual, owning class, able-bodied, English as first language speakers, and others) is to become aware and to develop critical consciousness of its existence and how it impacts the daily lives of both those with and those without this privilege.
Donald Trump uses Christianity as a hammer and a wedge issue to excite and pander to his crowd, and in the instance of his Wisconsin rally speech, to further marginalize and stereotype members of the trans community.
So, to true Christians I would ask, what would Jesus do and say? Would Jesus vote for this damaged and amoral mortal?
