The return of King Cyrus
Katherine Stewart points out that some militant Christians see Trump as a new King Cyrus.
Cyrus, in case you’ve forgotten, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. and became the first emperor of Persia. Isaiah 45 celebrates Cyrus for freeing a population of Jews who were held captive in Babylon. Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful.
The point is, you see, that it doesn’t matter whether Cyrus is a good person or not, the point is what he does for The Believers, who are the only people who matter.
As the Trump presidency falls under siege on multiple fronts, it has become increasingly clear that the so-called values voters will be among the last to leave the citadel. A lot of attention has been paid to the supposed paradox of evangelicals backing such an imperfect man, but the real problem is that our idea of Christian nationalism hasn’t caught up with the reality. We still buy the line that the hard core of the Christian right is just an interest group working to protect its values. But what we don’t get is that Mr. Trump’s supposedly anti-Christian attributes and anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of his attraction.
Today’s Christian nationalists talk a good game about respecting the Constitution and America’s founders, but at bottom they sound as if they prefer autocrats to democrats. In fact, what they really want is a king. “It is God that raises up a king,” according to Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher who has advised Mr. Trump.
What they like, in short, is the absolute power. They like the dominance, the force, the tough guy. What else is God, after all? The ultimate bully, tyrant, thug, dictator. God is a shit. God creates inferior beings in order to make them suffer for eternity because they don’t crawl to him in the correct way. Trump would do that if he could.
The great thing about kings like Cyrus, as far as today’s Christian nationalists are concerned, is that they don’t have to follow rules. They are the law. This makes them ideal leaders in paranoid times.
“When are they going to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians?” Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, asked in 2016. If you’re hearing those boxcars pulling up in the distance, as it were, you don’t merely overlook the antisocial qualities of a prospective leader, you embrace them as virtues.
It is, of course, more of a guy thing. Much more.
Another important thing to understand about Cyrus is that he is not a queen. In the Christian nationalist world, legitimate political power is largely male power. Mr. Drollinger insists that the Bible describes only “male leadership.”
So from that point of view, Trump’s contempt for women is a plus, because the only alternative to contempt for women is being ruled by queens.
This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.
They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.
Short version: they love a bully.
They can speak for themselves. This is the Christian right I grew up with. A lot of us tried to point it out, but we were being accused of not “being nice”, of “stereotyping believers”, of “making shit up”. The extreme tolerance and unctuous kowtowing to religion has led to a misconception of religion as just another way of seeking truth. So many people didn’t see this coming only because they refused to listen to those of us who lived it, and preferred to send reporters to talk to a few people, then come back and report what “nice” people they were, with beliefs that might be a bit…unscientific…but harmless.
It’s tempting to people like me to say “told you so” or “neener neener neener”, but the danger is too great to waste time in pointless snickering.
Precisely, iknklast.
Was the original Cyrus a complete fucking idiot?
It goes back to Frank Buchman, founder of the Oxford Group/Moral Re-armament, saying ‘I thank God for a man like Hitler’ back in 1937(8?)
When you believe that god gives direct guidance and instruction to the ‘correct’ believers, you have instant chaos as each believer projects their own wishful thinking upon their deity of choice. In attempting to sustain any coherent policy in the face of proliferating self-ordained prophets, a hierarchy has to be established.
While all Oxford Groupers were told to ‘seek guidance,’ they always ‘checked’ such guidance with their chain of command, which meant in effect that they convinced themselves that The Leader spoke directly for god. The OG actually, publicly, stated that ‘Frank’s guidance is always right.’ A line echoed by the fascist ‘Mussolini ha sempre ragione.’
The Bible encourages dictatorial power, not only among ‘good’ tyrants like Cyrus. Since kings serve at the discretion of god, tyranny and conquest have to be expressions of god’s will. Hence ‘Slaves, honor your masters.’