As fate would have it, over this past week while I have been writing two posts inspired a couple things Peter Enns posted regarding MAGA pastors and the issue of partisanship, I have also begun reading Dan McClellan’s new book, The Bible Says So? Recently, he did some sort of podcast with Enns about his new book…and last week he happened to comment on the exact same MAGA pastors’ video the Enns commented on. What better excuse to launch into a book analysis of McClellan’s book than to comment on his comments about the MAGA pastors’ comments regarding Trump, Christianity…and stuff!
In my posts on Enns’ comments, I said that although I generally agreed with what he said, I still felt that he was letting his own partisanship show in the way in which he couched his comments. That being said, even though he is an “ex-Evangelical,” I don’t feel he is nearly as vicious or mean-spirited as some others are. I still generally like Enns and think most of his biblical scholarship is top notch. I can’t say the same for McClellan. When I said Enns isn’t as vicious as others, I probably had McClellan in the back of my mind. Needless to say, since I first became aware of McClellan about 2 ½ years ago, I haven’t been impressed. For all his insistence about “data over dogma,” his entire approach to Biblical Studies is riddled with his own partisan, political dogmas and assumptions.
Storm the Capital!
Case in point, his take on these MAGA pastors…and every Christian who has different politics than McClellan.
In the part of the MAGA pastors clip that McClellan played, one of them said that pastors should support the administration because what Trump is doing is in line with the moral law of God. Now, let’s admit that is a mind-numbingly stupid thing to say. And, yes, that is something someone who is “too MAGA” would say. No pastor should “support” any administration. Sure, a pastor (or any Christian for that matter) can voice his/her opinion about any issue or policy—as long as he/she gives valid reasons and exhibits a Christ-like attitude as he expresses his/her view, fine. Still, I don’t want any pastor, regardless of that pastor’s political leanings, to be preaching about politics from the pulpit. Even if I agreed with a pastor on a certain political issue, if that was the topic of the sermon, I probably wouldn’t be attending that church.
That’s not McClellan’s take on that comment though. The first thing he says is that there is a “spectrum” of Christianity: on one side of the spectrum is the love your neighbor Christianity and at the other side of the spectrum there is the storm the capital Christianity. For any clear-headed Christian, McClellan’s setting up his understanding of Christianity should raise major red flags.
He then asks a question: “To what extent does your Christianity help you overcome or give into the ‘baser instincts of your identity politics’”? If you are a love your neighbor Christian, then you set aside your personal interests and the “social identities important to you” in order to “expand the scope of that access to power and resources to those who are outside of the social identities that are closest to you.” By contrast, if you are a storm the capital Christian, then you want to give into your baser urges and you “expressly seek out greater access to power and resources for yourself” at the expense of the lives of those social identities not close to you. McClellan calls this an “I’m gonna get mine Christianity,” and says it is precisely what Jesus condemns, because people who do that just “put their piety on display to signal to others their credibility.”
The first most obvious problem with McClellan’s assessment is his not so subtle conflation of anyone who voted for Trump (obviously including any conservative Christian who just happened to be a Republican) of being a “storm the capital Christian”—implying that every Republican and/or Christian who voted for Trump actively approved of what happened on January 6th 2021. Never mind the fact that the violence that did happen was instigated at the beginning by a select few from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers; never mind the fact that the majority of people who ended up walking through the capital were let in by the capital police and had gotten there after the violence had happened (because the violent ones had attacked the capital while Trump’s speech was still going on and the majority of people)—never mind any of that. In McClellan’s assessment, everyone who voted for Trump are violent oppressors. No, every responsible, clear-thinking person, even someone who didn’t vote for Trump, should see how irresponsible and blatantly partisan such an accusation is.
And to be clear, no one is saying that the violence on January 6th was good or excusable. Those who violently attacked capital police should (and were) prosecuted. But what McClellan is doing in his comments is inexcusable. He is defining Christianity and slandering all Christians who disagree with his politics as being “storm the capital Christians.” And, the fact is, even if they were wrong, the people who went to the rally on January 6th (not the violent ones) were there because they believed there was something fishy about the election. The purpose of the rally was not “let’s seek out more power at the expense of those who have different social identities!” Finally, the rally wasn’t even a “Christian thing.” Sure, there were probably some Christian nationalists in the crowd, but most of the people there were just citizens who were upset over the election. Again, the rightness or wrongness of those concerns, the obvious guilty of those who were actually violent—all of that—is irrelevant to the point regarding what McClellan is doing.
Inflammatory Rhetorical Bombs Galore
From there, McClellan launches into what can be described as nothing less then a purely partisan and distorted attack on the Trump administration and anyone who voted for Trump. Again, to be clear, whether or not you voted for Trump or like/dislike Trump is irrelevant. The question you have to ask yourself is: “Is this a fair and responsible description of the Trump and administration and everyone who voted for him?”
McClellan first characterizes the Trump administration with the following descriptors: “rank avarice,” “rampant sexual abuse,” “dehumanization of people groups in order to facilitate a genocidal campaign on the part of bad state actors,” “the selective accountability for crimes,” and “the erosion of the principles of democracy and liberty.” After that, he characterizes anyone who voted for Trump or agrees with Trump (presumably on anything) in this way: “If that makes your heart leap for joy, you have no concern for your neighbor–you just are advancing your own access to power and resources.”
Now, if you are honest with yourself, you realize three things: (1) the very descriptions are inflammatory, (2) they are all over-generalized accusations with absolutely zero concrete examples, and (3) you can point to several examples with Democrat politicians and the Biden administration that would fit those descriptions as well. “Rank avarice”: Nancy Pelosi’s stock market bonanza? The Biden grift of foreign companies and oligarchs? “Rampant sexual abuse”: Anal sex filmed in Senate hearing rooms? “The dehumanization…” –to what is this referring? Is McClellan referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Many people who object to it being described as “genocide,” and many of those people are Democrats. “The select accountability for crimes”: Again, really? “The erosion of principles of democracy”: The entire Russia collusion investigation started when the Clinton campaign feed false information obtained from Russian sources to the FBI for the sole purpose of undermining the 2016 election.
Even if you take issue with some of my examples (which are nonetheless true), I’m not trying to say, “all Democrats” are bad and “if you vote Democrat, you have no concern for your neighbor” (like what McClellan is clearly saying). All I’m saying is that there are plenty of examples of bad things and corruption in both parties and there are seeds of that in every administration somewhere. What McClellan is doing, though, is amplifying things in the Trump administration (not even giving any concrete examples; only inflammatory, generalized rhetoric) and insinuating that anyone who voted for Trump has a “heart that leaps for joy” when it comes to corruption. Given Peter Enns’ comments from my two previous posts regarding what partisanship is, and how Christians should be “anti-partisan,” McClellan’s comments can be the posterchild of rank, dishonest partisanship.
Storm the Capital Christianity…is Real Christianity? Huh?
To top it off, McClellan then turns around and says that that storm the capital Christianity is “absolutely real Christianity!” But McClellan sees Christianity as being “on a spectrum,” so it is just as much real Christianity as the love your neighbor/Sermon on the Mount Christianity. Still, according to McClellan, the “storm the capital” brand of Christianity requires “a very careful and studied renegotiation of the Bible that picks and chooses which passages it’s going to consider relevant so that it can construct the notion that Christianity ought to seek out its own interest and its own access to power and resources and ought to minoritize and marginalize and oppress folks who do not support that agenda. It is real Christianity, but it is pathetic Christianity.”
More than anything, this reveals McClellan’s fundamental flaw in his understanding of Christianity (let alone his entire take on the Bible). To the point, he sees Christianity as nothing more as whatever people with various political and social agendas make it out to be. That is how he approaches the biblical text and that is how he obviously sees Christianity. His definition and understanding of Christianity is nothing more political agendas and ideologies. He won’t come out and say it, but if you listen to him enough, it becomes clear that for him, political progressivism is “love your neighbor” Christianity, and Evangelicalism (or any Christian who is conservative) is equated with the “storm the capital” Christianity, even though almost nobody who voted for Trump thinks the violence on January 6th was a good thing.
But here’s the clever (and I’d say sinister) thing that McClellan is doing. By labelling all Christians who voted for Trump as “storm the capital” Christians, he is picking an extremely volatile and controversial event in order to whip up a highly emotional reaction so that people will react, not with their logic, but with their feelings. Let’s say you are a Democrat or “anti-Trumper.” I imagine when you read my response to McClellan in this post, there was a part of you saying, “I can’t believe Joel is defending January 6th!” The fact is, though, I’m not—I never have and I never will. I’m just getting beyond the superficial and inflammatory blanket rhetoric McClellan is using. But propagandists and political partisans don’t want details and critical thinking, because that might lead to the truth. No, they want inflammatory rhetoric to whip people up into a frenzy…they’re easier to manipulate that way.
Let’s take the summer of 2020 BLM riots—another touchy and controversial thing—for an example. During the day, there were “peaceful protests,” but during the nights, there were violent riots that ended up doing billions of dollars in damages and resulting in the deaths of about two dozen people over the course of that summer. If you look into the details and insist on critical thinking, you can see those two dynamics. Regardless of your opinion of BLM, the fact is most of the time there were peaceful protests during the day; but at the same time, there was really bad violence at night. If you are a propagandist and political partisan, you are going to insist it was all one or the other.
…and if you are an ultra-conservative doppleganger of McClellan, you’ll make a video in which you say Christianity is on a spectrum, with one side being the love your neighbor Christianity, that seeks to build up neighborhoods by promoting small business, and the other side being the violent riots and destruction Christianity, that seeks to burn down neighborhoods and attack courthouses in order to subvert democratic norms and a duly-elected administration. And if you don’t like Trump, then your heart was leaping at the sight of the flames, and you’d probably have demanded the release of Barabbas over Jesus. Oh, you’re a “real Christian,” but you’re pretty much guilty of crucifying Jesus.
As you can see, all that is inflammatory, partisan propaganda…and it is utterly asinine.
…like McClellan’s comments.
Regardless of your political leanings, whether you consider yourself more conservative or liberal, or whatever—and especially if you are a Christian—you should not let yourself get whipped up and taken in by blatant political partisans like McClellan.
