Iowa Voters Make Christianity Look Ugly
As the formation of the Christian-only Iowa Faith Leader Coalition shows, a large part of Iowa Republicans’ support for Donald Trump has to do with their religious perspective. In every speech he’s made in Iowa, Trump talks about his plan to use the federal government to promote Christianity above all other religions and philosophies, and crowds of his supporters cheer every time they hear it.
There’s a seething anger among Iowa Christians as we approach the 2024 Iowa caucuses. They’re enraged that Christianity doesn’t get the respect that it used to be given.
What might happen, though, if Iowa Christians supporting Donald Trump stopped for a minute to think about why Christianity is in decline?
Christianity is still dominant in Iowa, but it isn’t as strong as it used to be. At present, one in four Iowans is not a Christian. Only one third of Iowans attend church services once a week.
What conversations might begin if, instead of getting angry about the increasing cultural diversity of Iowa, Trump Christians honestly asked themselves why so many people in Iowa are walking away from Christian churches?
Ryan S. Howard, a failed politician and member of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, insists that such self-reflective conversations must not happen. Instead, Howard wants Iowa Christians to go on the offense. He writes,
“Many in the middle want to "play nice" and just go along to get along. But that approach is what has gotten us into the trouble we are in today. Christians and conservatives have simply played too much defense and not enough offense. We must recognize that the game we are playing is not politics as usual. In fact, this is not even about politics, it's about good versus evil.”
Howard’s reaction to seeing many Iowans turn away from Christianity is to urge that Christians should become less nice to people. He wants Christians in Iowa to treat their non-Christian neighbors as enemies, as “evil”.
The problem with accusing people you don’t like of being “evil” is that doing so creates an evil world. The more evil a person sees in the world, the more aggressive and unkind that person becomes in reaction to the world. Eventually, identifying others as evil becomes an excuse to do wicked things oneself.
Any action against something evil becomes morally justified. A frightening number of members of Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition accuse their Democratic and non-Christian neighbors of literally being demons, magical creatures of pure evil. That’s the mood of extreme Christian hostility that Ryan S. Howard is encouraging, and he doesn’t want the hostility to end at angry words. He urges Christians to take action.
“It's time for the church to take its rightful territory,” Howard says.
If you accept the idea that half of Americans are no longer human, but have become evil demons, then violent action to take back territory for Christianity makes sense. The problem is that demons are not real. People who decide not to be part of Christianity don’t have horns growing out of their skulls. They’re simply people who find Christianity unattractive.
The members of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition could exhibit some curiosity about why people feel this way. Instead, they are doubling down, going further into their radicalizing circle of faith.
Their support for Donald Trump is no longer merely political. It has become a matter of Christian faith. “Trump is simply a chosen instrument in God's hand for today,” Howard writes, without offering any evidence that it’s true.
How could anyone produce any evidence that a god has chosen a politician to put a secret supernatural plan into action? What could that evidence even look like?
Howard doesn’t want to present evidence that Trump has been anointed by his god, because to do so would be to break faith with Trump and with his god, who are, in Howard’s mind, becoming the same thing. Faith does not ask for evidence. Faith simply believes, and ignores every fact that does not fit that belief.
When faith enters politics, good citizenship is left behind. Citizens who place absolute trust in their chosen politician abandon their responsibility to think intelligently about what’s best for the country. Yet, Ryan S. Howard urges complete faith in Trump. He complains that people “paint Christians as compromising values… But we don't need to be distracted by the claims or even engage with them.”
Think about this for a minute. What kind of person would simply dismiss it when another person expresses concern that they are compromising their own moral values? What harm could there possibly be in just listening?
A large number of people, many of them Republicans, are saying that Donald Trump’s political plans are dangerous, could rip the country apart, and could cause serious harm to tens of millions of Americans. They are worried that Trump is encouraging Christians to become selfish, angry, and violent.
Howard advises Trump supporters to simply not listen to other people who say that Trump’s movement is making them afraid. This easy disregard for the feelings of other people is part of what makes it so dangerous to mix religious belief with adoration of a power-hungry politician.
Howard tells Christians not to comfort those who are afraid, but simply to ignore them. In his version of Christianity, Christians only associate with each other, and only with certain kinds of Christians at that. Any time they hear something that doesn’t agree with their own ideas, they walk away. They become unwilling to learn anything that they don’t already know, to be kind to anyone who is unlike themselves.
This is a religion that has become anti-social. It cuts off contact with outsiders, dividing families and communities.
We have gotten to the point where believers in Trump Christianity almost never come into contact with people who don’t believe the same things they do. They don’t see the rest of America anymore. As a result, it becomes all too easy, as Ryan S. Howard does, for them to dismiss anyone who fails to fall in line behind Trump as evil.
Evil can’t be talked to. It can’t be reasoned with. It can only be destroyed. When members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, like Ryan S. Howard and Joel Tenney, call Democrats evil, they are calling for Democrats not just to be defeated at the polls, but to be destroyed.
This kind of Christianity has no room for love. It is obsessed with power and violence and hate.
If Trump Christians took a moment to think about the impression that they make on other people, they would be shocked at the terrible way in which they represent their religion. They shout. They scream. They sneer. They hurl insults at their neighbors. They threaten people with violence. They celebrate a politician who encourages people to show the worst sides of themselves.
To make matters worse, they do so in the name of Christianity, claiming that their god has anointed Donald Trump, to make him some kind of new messiah. They can’t just scream and shout for Trump as private individuals. They sign up to do so while waving the flag of Christianity as members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.
Is it any wonder that so many people in Iowa are abandoning Christianity, given the public demonstrations of unkindness under Trump in the name of Christianity?
Christianity is shrinking in Iowa, and across the United States. It’s not happening because of demons. It’s happening because Christians are allowing their religion, in the pursuit of power, to become aligned with the most corrupt, hateful, and violent presidential candidate the United States has ever seen.
Christianity is shrinking in Iowa because of the behavior of Iowa Christians.
It’s not too late for this trend to be reversed.
Republican Iowa Christians have the opportunity tomorrow to let go of the hate and anger in their hearts.
They can go to the caucuses and vote for a candidate who does not threaten to kill their opponents, who does not promise to set up concentration camps, who does not center their campaign upon a thirst for bloody retribution.
If you want people to return to Christianity in Iowa, you need to demonstrate that Christianity is something worth returning to.
The first step in that process is to vote for any other candidate than Donald Trump.
If you can’t bring yourself to do that, if your religious fury is too strong, you will have no one else to blame but yourself as the number of Iowans who are willing to call themselves Christians continues to wither.