Answering Rob Reiner: Yes, Christians Can Support Trump - Here's Why
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Most liberal elites understand neither Christianity nor the phenomenon of popular support and even love for former President Donald Trump.
Trump-hating actor Rob Reiner, for instance, asked on social media how Christians could possibly persist in backing the former president.
“Jesus told us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. How in God’s name can anyone who believes in the teachings of Jesus support Donald Trump?” Reiner said in a Jan. 16 post on X.
Jesus told us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. How in God’s name can anyone who believes in the teachings of Jesus support Donald Trump?
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) January 16, 2024
Let us begin by explaining to Reiner what Christians actually believe.
First of all, we do not believe the “teachings of Jesus” as if they constituted a mere moral philosophy. We do not read his words as we would read the words of Plato or Confucius.
Christians believe in the miracles of Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection. We believe that God came to earth in human form and took upon himself the sins of all mankind. God did this, we believe, because he loves us in spite of our rebellion against him.
Moreover, all of human history testifies to the futility of our efforts to pursue something meaningful outside of God. We worship money, power, sex — anything but the true source of our happiness.
When these fail to satisfy us, we harbor resentment against existence itself. We succumb to pride when we place ourselves above God and presume to judge the universe he has created. In all these ways and many others, we sin.
Once you realize these things, you stop asking the sort of questions Reiner asked. After all, you cannot regard Christianity as a self-improvement program or a platform from which to scold your neighbors.
Instead, you give everything to Jesus because in doing so, you believe you will get your own house in order. Thus, from a personal standpoint, Christianity does not allow me to see Trump’s sins without seeing my own as well.
In short, nothing in the core of Christian belief precludes us from supporting Trump.
Furthermore, I would make two substantial Christian arguments in the former president’s favor.
First, having answered Reiner’s question, I thoroughly reject its premise.
Liberals (and others) have attacked Trump for so long that their character assassinations now pass as truth. Worse yet, those attacks have shaped perception even among some of the former president’s Christian supporters.
“If a leader lacks Christian character but is pointing the nation back to God, is that a bad thing?” one pastor wrote in Christian Headlines on Jan. 15.
But that sort of milquetoast endorsement assumes the truth of Reiner’s premise, which I emphatically deny.
I am tired of pretending that Trump “lacks Christian character.” If he does, then so do I, and so does nearly everyone I know or have ever met.
When I look at Trump, I see sacrifice. I see a billionaire who had every reason to retire from public life and enjoy the fruits of his work. Instead, he gave up that life of ease to fight for a dying republic that he so obviously loves.
Furthermore, I see courage in the face of evildoers bent on persecution.
It is true that we need not approve of all of Trump’s moral choices. But that tells us nothing, for neither must we approve of choices made by notorious womanizers such as John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr.
Would anyone accuse King of lacking Christian character? He was a sinner — like Kennedy, Trump and all of us.
So let us have no more of this rubbish. Let us stop pretending, as Reiner still does, that we all supported saints until the demon Trump came along.
Second, to understand why Christians can support the former president, I should explain why I personally do.
Country music star John Rich put Trump’s deep and widespread support in the simplest possible terms.
“1. The system is evil. 2. The system hates Trump. 3. The People love Trump because the system hates him. This is not complicated,” Rich posted on Jan. 17.
1. The system is evil.
2. The system hates Trump.
3. The People love Trump because the system hates him.This is not complicated.
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) January 18, 2024
I cannot speak for tens of millions of Trump supporters, but my sense is that Rich’s explanation holds true. It certainly explains my own position, which began as political support in the ordinary sense but has since evolved into fierce loyalty.
To put this in Christian terms, recall the words of Canadian psychologist and popular conservative commentator Jordan Peterson.
In a 2022 appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Peterson explained how Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung described Christ’s death as the archetypal tragedy.
“There was no death more painful than crucifixion. That’s why the Romans invented it. It was to punish political miscreants,” Peterson said.
But the means of execution merely highlighted the many tragedies associated with Christ’s death.
“Plus your best friend betrayed you into it, plus your people turned against you, plus they’re led by a tyrant who doubts truth,” Peterson said.
“Plus you’re a victim of the Roman Empire, plus you’re completely innocent, plus everybody knows it, plus they choose a criminal to be released from this experience instead of you even though they know he’s a criminal and they know you’re innocent,” he continued.
Betrayed by nominal allies, victimized by imperial state power, harangued by a bloodthirsty mob that knows you are innocent but wants you punished anyway, aware that the mob prefers freedom for criminals to mercy for you, and persecuted by a truth-denying tyrant — that was Christ’s experience.
We need not compare Trump to Christ in some blasphemous way to know that the former president, his supporters and even many other Americans in this evil age must feel that they can relate to the experience Peterson described.
In an essay entitled “The Psalms,” legendary Christian author C.S. Lewis used an apt phrase to illustrate something like this experience. He called it the “Dark Night of the Flesh.”
Lewis then gave examples of people who might endure this “Dark Night.”
“1. A small, ugly, unathletic, unpopular boy in his second term at a thoroughly bad English public school. 2. An unpopular recruit in an army hut. 3. A Jew in Hitler’s Germany,” and so forth.
To these we might add “Trump in a leftist judge’s courtroom,” or “Trump supporters in the hands of the FBI.”
In short, Christians need not support the former president. But no one should question why we do.
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