Finding Faith ... in learning a little bit more about my fundamental neighbors

I want to thank New York Times columnist David French for a piece titled "Why Fundamentalists Love Trump" that he wrote today in his weekly newsletter.

As you can see from the art above, French writes about "law, culture, religion, and armed conflict." And even though he doesn't state so, I'd ascribe a label of "conservative" to him. Whether that's fair, or my bias, I'm not sure.

But I can say one thing for certain, while I don't always agree with him, he tackles difficult subjects and is a fine writer.

And today's piece on why American fundamentalist Christians love Donald Trump is a very well written piece, and helps me better understand people who call themselves Christians, and still support the former president.

In a brilliant phrase, he calls the idea of Christians supporting a man who isn't religious, has been divorced twice and has had affairs outside his marriages ... "head-spinning." But, he writes, you can't understand it unless you understand "how" fundamentalist Christians believe. Further writing: "And while fundamentalist ideas can often be quite variable and complex, I’ve never encountered a fundamentalist culture that didn’t combine three key traits: certainty, ferocity and solidarity."

These traits, French argues, lead to believers that by their very nature have to be all in. And if that means they see Trump as their standard-bearer, then they most certainly will overlook his many warts to be all in.

He goes into much more depth of course in his newsletter piece, but that's the nuts and bolts of it. And I am grateful for the writing.

I had just started seminary in late 2016 when Trump was elected president, and I have no problem admitting that I was flummoxed. I wondered how anyone who considered themselves a Christian could vote for him, much less even admit to a propensity of liking the man. As his presidency played out, right up until the violent end, I became even more confused as to how so many millions of Christians galvanized around him.

All I could think to myself was ... no wonder why so many people don't like us Christians.

As a side note, there is a healthy debate that is ongoing in our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. There are a great many members and clergy who would like to see our churchwide office drop the word "Evangelical" in the name just because of the connotation it conjures up. Some cannot stand the thought of our brand of Protestantism being misunderstood for fundamentalist Christianity in America.

It is not my intention here to contribute to the religious culture wars tearing apart the country. I write merely to state that this particular piece of journalism helped me to understand something that was a mystery to me for the past nearly eight years. I will not insist that my brand of faith is any more "right" than the next. I suppose that's for the good Lord upstairs to decide.

But I do enjoy getting to understand other strains of faith, whether that be of Christianity, or another faith entirely. And Mr. French did a great job helping understand just one little piece of my fundamentalist Christian neighbors. And getting to know our neighbors is the only way we can see our way through to love them.

And so, today, I thank Mr. French for furthering my understanding of my neighbor. Great work, sir!