Donald Trump's Rededicate 250 is Religious Kayfabe

The Christian worship performance scheduled for the National Mall is a religious show

⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5-8)

Today on the National Mall there will be a lot of people praying to be seen by others. They will be conducting a government sponsored religious performance called Rededicate 250. Many will have pure consciences. They earnestly believe that their spiritual duty is to make their country reflect a certain political ideology. They believe Christianity and America are intertwined and inseparable. They believe if the leader of their political movement says something is true, then it is not only true, it is gospel. I grieve for them.

In The Christian Past That Wasn’t, I quote theologian Derek Rishmawy’s article on Americanism, which roughly corresponds to aspects of Christian nationalism. Here’s the relevant section:

Theologian Derek Rishmawy considers the notion of an American covenant to be heresy. In Americanism, according to Rishmawy, God “has a special love for us, and our history demonstrates the unique role that God has played in the founding of our nation, as opposed, to say, Russia, or Mexico. Why? Because America has made God her God, ‘honored him’ as no other nation has, and so God has made her his nation.” In addition to the problems identified by Campbell, Rishmawy says Americanism “blinds us to America’s very real, human failures and sins,” such as “slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, or Manifest Destiny and the brutal, un-Christian treatment of the Native Americans (you know, the Canaanites standing in the way of God’s New Israel).” (pp. 90-91)

Many people seeking to rededicate the nation to Christ are caught up in Americanism. They have made Christianity an American religion led by a white European Jesus. Their religion casts out the stranger and views charity and compassion as weakness. Despite the call of Jesus to a kingdom not of this world, the Americanist clings to a rededicated United States as the kingdom that matters, the one worth marching for.

Recently, I pointed out in a column for Baptist News Global that Trump has no authority to dedicate the nation to Christianity (all of the performers save one Jewish rabbi are conservative Christians). The Constitution gives no power to the president to establish a religion. The First Amendment also prohibits Congress from establishing religion. Any proclamation or executive order is just show, or as the wrestling world calls it, kayfabe. Kayfabe is the process of protecting the business of wrestling by making sure it looks real, even when it is scripted. Rededicate 250 is religious kayfabe. The whole event will be full of scripted songs, sermons, and prayers. Everybody will seem so sincere, but it will be a performance, at least for most of those putting it on. I don’t doubt that many of the participants will be taken in by it. That’s what grieves me the most.

It also grieves me that the thousands who gather tomorrow will hear a narrative that will reframe the past. For instance, Ben Carson, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is slated to speak tomorrow and is among the chief reframers. Carson recently spoke to Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau. Listen:

At the beginning of this clip, Carson describes the faith of several founders. He makes it appear that they were devout Christians when in fact they were not all the same in their beliefs. He gets to Benjamin Franklin and repeats the story of Franklin’s call to prayer at the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787. Again, he gets it wrong. He says the delegates stopped to pray after Franklin moved that they pray and that is what rescued the Constitution. I say again because he has told this false story many times. Regular readers here will know that Franklin did indeed call for daily prayers, but the Convention did not vote on his motion, nor did they stop to pray. They continued to bicker and argue about the Constitution until the process was completed. For those who want to read more about this claim and the rebuttal to it, see this post and/or get my new book The Christian Past That Wasn’t.

Carson may tell the Rededicaters today that prayer to Jesus rescued the Constitutional Convention when in fact that is one story in the Christian past that wasn’t. He may also try to whitewash the Christian past that was. As one example, later in the clip above, Carson talks about the eradication of Indigenous people caused by the arrival of Europeans but reduces the theft of life and land to “migration.” Carson says, “Of course, people migrate and move around. They always have. They always will. Land changes hands. That’s not anything new.” What a stunning minimization of the atrocities suffered by Indigenous people, what Rishmawy called “brutal, un-Christian treatment of the Native Americans (you know, the Canaanites standing in the way of God’s New Israel).” I have come to see a Christian past that wasn’t, but also a Christian past that was. Christ was used as justification for taking life, freedom, and land from Indigenous people. Europeans claimed a land that did not belong to them in the name of Christianity and their king.

Reframing the past is what this administration does and is in fashion among Christian nationalists. You might recall the story of the Trump administration causing slavery exhibits to be removed from a national park in Philadelphia. This is just one instance of many of how Trump is seeking to remove and revise non-white history. The objective is to obscure the Christian past that was. Kayfabe or not, to the degree that Rededicate 250 helps obscure the facts, I hope it fails miserably.

As I am sure you can guess, I will not be on the National Mall today. I will be in a little church where politics isn’t on the order of service. For those who want to rededicate something, a better goal for all of us, I suggest, would be to rededicate ourselves to treating others the way we want to be treated. Since no one can dedicate a nation of 300 million or so people to any one thing, perhaps we should just focus on ourselves.

For more information about The Christian Past That Wasn’t, go to Christianpast.com.