Why Christians in America Support Donald Trump

To be clear, despite their humble beginnings, Christians in Europe and North America have enjoyed being a rarity challenged the majority for centuries. The religion still has the largest number of followers in the world: almost 2 billion.

But in the United States, Christianity will likely become a minority religion within decades — for the first time in the country’s history. But instead of listening to scholars and clergy who imagine a post-Christian church returning to its humbler and more tolerant roots, Christians seem inclined to hold on to power even if it means making a deal with Trump.

It’s that promise of power that has caused Trump’s Christian base to ignore his lack of character and praise him with outlandish messianic comparisons — from King David to Jesus. A more useful comparison for Trump might be Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome. It was Constantine who was the first to use the authority of the state to expand Christian influence. He issued a declaration of toleration intended to halt the persecution of the new faith and then threw himself into building churches, overseeing doctrinal disputes, and promoting Christians to the higher ranks of society.

Most Christians hastened to praise Constantine’s sudden favoritism. However, there were some, such as the Donatists of North Africa, who objected and are now remembered as heretics by many theologians. The Donatists argued that Christians’ new proximity to power in Rome conflicted with the values ​​of the faith—and rightly so. Constantine’s imperial embrace of Christianity began what is now a long history of Christians saying they followed Jesus, an outsider who lifted up the poor and the lowly, only to line up behind any strongman who sides with them.

And the faith itself has been changed by access to the centers of power.

Centuries before the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official faith, Saint Paul reflected on Jesus’ death on a Roman cross and concluded that “God has chosen the weak things and the foolish things and the things that will not put the wise to shame.” In other words, Paul believed that God’s presence and work were most clearly manifested through people who had no claim to power, whose power came from their faith in God, not from their privilege. He thought that God’s choice to honor the humble made people more humble, hopeful, and persevering in the face of their trials.

If that were to be the case for Christians today, you could argue that Christianity was never intended to be a hallmark of the ruling class. The central symbol remains the cross, a reminder of how the Messiah came to save the world by surrendering to state violence. Christianity works best from the bottom up, where it hones its values ​​and voice from the place of the marginalized.

As a Christian, I therefore remain hopeful in these dark times. Sooner or later the church will have sabotaged itself long enough that it will be in the minority, and the arduous task of rediscovering our roots will become more urgent than ever before. Becoming smaller as a faith may not be the crisis that many believers fear. It may even be a blessing in disguise.

BG White is a scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity and recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Divinity School.