On Christian Tribalism

So this article has been making the rounds among my Facebook friends.

Dying before We Reach the Promised Land: How moral degradation didn’t come for evangelicals, but from them

To quote from part of it:

This has helped provide me with some context for the most confusing phenomenon I have observed in my life: the evangelical capitulation to President Donald Trump.
No, confusing isn’t quite the right word. During the run-up to the 2016 election, it was mystifying. Infuriating. Even, at times, heartbreaking.
At this point, we hardly need to re-litigate all the things that make President Trump unworthy of Christian praise. He has shown himself to be proudly against almost everything Christians claim to be for.
He is a vain and cruel man, obsessed with power and wealth. He sows fear and distrust, stoking the very worst impulses of our society. He is quick to speak and slow to listen. He notoriously has no respect for sexual morals or women’s bodies—be they Rosie O’Donnell’s or his own daughter’s. And as to the truth, well, you treat your washcloths with more respect.
He is, in other words, exactly the sort of person you would expect the Religious Right to lambast with their famous smear machine. That, as you may be aware, did not happen.
Evangelicals—the white ones anyway—voted for Trump in waves. They didn’t just help him get elected; they were the key to his victory. Aided by the support—sometimes begrudging, sometimes enthusiastic—of several high profile evangelical leaders like Wayne Grudem, James Dobson, Eric Metaxas, and Jerry Falwell, Trump got just the sort of minority vote he needed to win.

I agree with the author that this is infuriating. (and- something- I've- often complained about on this blog many times this past year).

However it also has a long history.

Ever since Constantine, the church has supported all sorts of kings, emperors, and rulers who did extremely non-Christian things.

How to explain all this?

My theory is this:
All dominant ideologies have about only one or two generations where they represent a real idea.  After that, they simply represent an identification with your chosen tribal group.

In other words, there are very few real Christians in America--that is, there are very few people who actually take the message of the Gospel seriously.  Most people simply identify as Christian because it's what their friends and family identify as.

Some Christians perhaps have had "born-again" experiences, but spiritual renewal is very hard to maintain in the day-to-day struggle.  People get tired, and worn out by their struggle to pay their rent, or raise their kids, or advance in their jobs.
And eventually natural human instincts re-assert themselves and they become selfish and greedy and impatient --just like everyone else.
This is why it is impossible to distinguish Christians from non-Christians just based on their good deeds alone.  The atheists are often just as kind, thoughtful, loving, etc. as the Christians are.

Now, perhaps at this point you're thinking: "Gee, you're hardly the first person to point this out.  Quit trying to pass other people's ideas off as your own."
 And I know.  Google "Christian Tribalism" and your see lots of people have already written about this.  And I've been influenced by other people's writing.

But it occurred to me the other day how many seemingly confusing things can be perfectly explained once we accept this explanation, and view Christianity not as a set of beliefs but as a tribe identification.  Allow me to enumerate a few of them.

* Recently a friend of mine from Facebook, someone who's living in Grand Rapids, posted this:

There is such CRUSHING poverty in this city, this city with a church on every corner... it's confusing.

A couple other people in the comments expressed their similar concern about this, but no one was able to give a satisfactory answer.
But actually the answer is quite simple.  Indeed, it would be confusing if we expected that going to church every Sunday correlated with any obligation to take the Gospel messages seriously.  But going to Church is simply a sign of identifying with your chosen group (and distinguishing yourself from the other groups who don't go to Church.)

* Many of the cultural wars that Christians have fought over the years do not advance the Kingdom of God at all.  The bitter battles over having the ten commandments in the court house, for example:



But to what purpose does having the ten commandments in the Court actually serve?  Does it make people behave better?  Does it convert non-believers?
No, it's simply symbolic.  The presence of the ten commandments in the court house indicates that one group is able to proclaim their dominance over other groups.  The absence of the ten commandments indicates that this group is losing their dominance in the culture.  In other words, it's a tribal conflict, not a religious conflict.
This is the same with just about any issue in the culture war that you can pick out.  The battle over whether to say "Happy Holidays" versus "Merry Christmas", for example.  Every year certain people make a huge deal over saying "Merry Christmas," and yet no one could argue that the central message of the Gospels would be advanced by forcing everyone to say "Merry Christmas".

This also explains why so many religious and conservative - leaders - have - histories - of  - sexually immorality, and yet do not lose their leadership standing.  From a tribalistic standpoint, whether or not the sexual codes of conduct are actually being followed is of secondary importance to the religious and political victories.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  You could list examples all day.

And this explains why the Christians rallied behind Trump.  The actual beliefs did not matter at all.  What mattered was that Trump was part of their tribe, and Hillary Clinton was clearly part of the other tribe.

Other Notes
* To my mind, the fact that religious beliefs so strongly correlate with geographical location is yet another indication of Tribalism.  If religious identification were actually based on the quality of the beliefs themselves, we would expect that they would be evenly dispersed.

* Although it's a bit of a cliched example by now, the history of Northern Ireland is a perfect example of how religion is nothing more than tribalism.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky vs Canadian Journalists Video Audio 1988