Today’s presidential election in the US is premised on fear – fear of what Trump would do if he gets into office and fear of what Trumpists would do if he doesn’t.
When the sun set on the Trump administration, with it went the most interest in Nigeria’s persecuted Christians in the history of U.S.-Nigeria affairs.
But with it also went the credibility of Christian conservatives in America and the shining hill city of US democracy as a whole.
An 18-year-old girl turned in her mother and uncle as insurrectionists but 197 Republican Representatives who could have been killed in the insurrection didn’t hold Trump accountable during the impeachment. How will this patriotic young American feel if Trump is not only reelected but pardons the so-called “hostages?”
My assessment of the Democrats and Republican administrations is this:
The Democrats were truthful about the situation at home (US) but deceptive about the situation abroad (Nigeria) while the Republicans were truthful about the situation abroad (Nigeria) but deceptive about the situation at home (US.)
Even in Nigeria as bad as things are, when the secret police invaded the parliament, Nigerian MPs defied them and acting President Yemi Osinbajo immediately fired the head of the Secret Police that same day. His courage in taking out President Muhammadu Buhari’s dreaded relative resulted in his being sidelined by Buhari’s kitchen cabinet after the president returned. However, the VP’s action is one of the shining moments of the presidency in defence of democracy.
Mike Pence (US VP under Trump, 2016-2020) and VP Osinbajo were decent Christian men and lawyers who had the unenviable duty of serving men not the least bit their betters.
But even after Pence chose to uphold his constitutional duty at risk to himself, almost 200 Republican Reps chose to side with ignominious history than defend democracy even though the insurrection was against the congress itself!
Trump’s presidency tested the validity of James Adam’s thesis that, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The immorality and irreligiousity of one man coupled with the complicity of others confirmed it.
Wilberforce famously said his chief life duties were the “reformation of morals and the abolition of slavery.”
This week I am convinced that the chief mission to America is
1. the reformation of unChristian manners of the church and
2. the abolition of racism
After January 6, 2021, I wrote:
“Ironically my conservative friends who are quick to quote Bonhoeffer’s heroism in the face of Hitler, are enablers of the coupists who yesterday overran the Capitol.
But their insurrection was not to overthrow an evil regime but rather to reimpose a deposed regime of a Hitleresque megalomaniac who superintended the deaths of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
The similarities are uncanny, as Trump is a Germanic racist, right down to some of the insurrectionists wearing pro Auschwitz regalia and one with an insignia that six million Jews killed were ‘too few.’
The American right is nothing if not hypocritical, aspirationally misappropriating honourable icons but acting diametrically opposed there to.”
Full disclosure, my earliest advocacy in DC was with Evangelicals Governmental Affairs in the 90s. It really doesn’t get anymore politically conservative than that. But the hypocrisy, betrayal, double standards, racism and outright heresy pushed me away from people I realised had the form of godliness but denied the power thereof.
As Brian Zahnd eloquently wrote, “It’s not the task of the church to “make America great again.” The contemporary task of the church is to make Christianity countercultural again. Once we untether Jesus from the interests of empire, we begin to see just how countercultural and radical Jesus’ ideas actually are:
Enemies? Love them.
Violence? Renounce it.
Money? Share it.
Foreigners? Welcome them.
Sinners? Forgive them.
These are the kind of radical ideas that will always be opposed by the principalities and powers, but which the followers of Jesus are called to embrace, announce, and enact.”
Instead today’s American Christian response is:
Enemies?
Designate opposing Americans as enemies within and set the military against them
Violence?
Attack the Capitol, threaten to hang the VP and send bomb threats to Springfield over lies about dogs/cats.
Money?
Tax the poor and exempt the rich. Try to cancel health insurance for millions of Americans.
Foreigners?
Build a wall, take away their children, call them animals and criminals, mass deport them, falsely accuse them of eating pets and blame them wrongfully for everything.
Sinners? Vilify them, condemn them, crucify them except if their name is Trump.
These are not the ideas or ideals of the Christ of God who gave his life for us.
I agree that “elevating political ideology over theology is idolatry. “
However, what is even more insidious in America is conflating theology with ideology which is heresy!
In Nigeria we fear the political violence of Muslim extremists and in America we fear the violence of Christian extremists.
I cannot deny the threat from claimants of my faith who a Muslim Nigerian-American professor has called “Talibangelicals.” We shouldn’t have Christian jihadist!
US conservative Christianity has lost its way and lacks the moral authority to decry human rights and fascism abroad when its bedeviled with issues at home.
Lastly, it is true that Trump spoke out for the persecuted in Nigeria. Under him, we finally secured the designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern for egregious religious freedom violations – a battle we had fought for over 20 years. However, Trump then turned around and banned Nigerians from the U.S. instead of granting them Temporary Protected Status.
The Biden administration on the other hand removed Nigeria totally from consideration as a country with religious persecution but then went ahead to reverse Trump’s ban of Nigerians.
So we have here the case of a doctor who diagnosed the patient rightly but gave the wrong treatment and a doctor who failed to diagnose the patient but gave the appropriate treatment.
As Jesus himself asked, one son said “yes” to his father’s request but didn’t do it and the other son said, “no” but later on went and did it – who of these two did his father’s will?
At the end of the day, Trump is just a typical Nigerian politician who hijacked religion for political ambition just like the Islamist APC party.
•Concluded
•Emmanuel Ogebe is a Washington-based lawyer and US Nigeria international affairs expert with the U.S. Nigeria Law Group, Washington.
