My Italian grandparents spent a week or two in Wildwood, New Jersey for decades. They drove three hours down the Garden State Parkway to this honky-tonk shore town because they enjoyed sitting on the beach, walking the boardwalk, and spending time with extended family. In the 1960s and 1970s it was a working-class vacation haven. Nestled between Victorian Cape May and the upper-middle class towns of Stone Harbor and Avalon (with Protestant middle class Ocean City a bit farther north), Wildwood had the best boardwalk on the Jersey shore.
I don’t know what my grandparents would have thought of Donald Trump’s visit to Wildwood on Sunday, but I am pretty sure they would have been offended by it. Today the white working class who vacations in Wildwood is different. The mid-Atlantic’s white working class has always been a rough bunch, but its dark side was always tempered by a strong commitment to the Catholic Church and its moral teaching. I think it is fair to say that the moral power of the Catholic Church–or any church for that matter (including the Protestants of Cape May or the evangelicals of Ocean City)–among the white working class has given way to the power of Fox News and other pro-Trump media outlets.
Here are some lowlights from Trump’s rally at Wildwood
He referred to the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office is prosecuting the Trump hush money to a porn star case, as “fat Alvin.”
He claimed, without any evidence, that his 88 criminal charges are politically motivated.
He said his indictments were “bull—,” prompting “bull—” chants throughout the crowd. Watch:
He led a chant of “S—!” after saying “Everything [the Biden administration touches] turns to “S…!” Watch:
The Washington Post is reporting that when Trump complained about the news media, a rallygoer “turned to the workspace for journalists, yelling: ‘You guys suck. F–fake news. Go f—yourselves.”
He called the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter “a wonderful man” in the context of an anti-immigrant rant. It is not clear whether Trump actually believes Lecter is a real person.
The pro-Trump evangelicals are silent. I want to hear public condemnation of this Wildwood rally from Tim Scott, Mike Johnson, Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, James Lankford, John Thune, Bob Good, Charlie Kirk, Lance Wallnau, Jack Hibbs, Eric Metaxas, Robert Jeffress, Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Jack Graham, Greg Laurie, Jentezen Franklin, James Dobson, Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee, Sean Feucht, and Jonathan Falwell.
How long can these evangelical leaders continue to remain silent? If Trump was indeed a “baby Christian” in 2015, I don’t see much spiritual growth. In fact, his 2024 campaign is more disgusting, vulgar, and anti-Christian than his 2016 campaign. Here is the New Living Translation of Matthew 7:16: “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?”
Will these evangelical leaders fulfill their prophetic call to speak truth to power? am not holding my breath.
For example, Here’s a paraphrased conversation I had recently with an evangelical Trump supporter:
Trump supporter: “Have you ever seen Christian leaders pray over Trump?”
Me: Yes, many times.
Trump supporter: Than how can you not say that God is with him, answering the prayers of those who prayed over him? Can’t see you see that this is why Trump was one of the greatest presidents in American history and why he did so much for our country during his presidency?”
How does one counter such claims in a short conversation? You can’t do it. The views expressed by this Trump supporter are the product of years of immersion in conservative media and a failure of the evangelical churches to get people like this to think deeply about how to bring faith to bear on politics and public life. Sadly, most evangelical churches are not interested in that conversation.
I once believed, somewhat naively, that good arguments and serious theological and political reflection would convince ordinary evangelicals that Trump was bad for America and bad for the church. Today I believe that the problems within evangelicalism, at least in terms of politics, are deep and systemic. Change requires more than merely having a conversation or writing a book. It requires deep learning and spiritual and intellectual formation that will take time, effort, and commitment.
Tragic indeed
Thanks for your post. What if the “faith” of all those “Christian” leaders is fake? I tremble as I write this.
“Change requires more than merely having a conversation or writing a book. It requires deep learning and spiritual and intellectual formation that will take time, effort, and commitment.”
I think it will require more than that: a heart change effected by the Holy Spirit.
Who, thus far, seems to have declined the task, for what I am sure must be good reasons.
John: How about “Holy Spirit-led deep learning and spiritual and intellectual formation?” 🙂
Matt. 12:37: “For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
2 Peter 2:17-22 ESV
[17] These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. [18] For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. [19] They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. [20] For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. [21] For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. [22] What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”