Maybe it was the napkins. I’m not really kidding.
Yesterday Tim Wildmon, the President of the American Family Association, described his awe-inducing experience rubbing shoulders with powerful people in luxurious settings at the White House. Would you believe…the napkins weren’t paper? Acting on a tip from Franklin Graham, Wildmon pocketed one of those linen napkins and resolved to take it home with him.
You can listen to the audio here (though I’m not sure I recommend it.* If you dare, skip ahead to 12.00).
The napkin episode was emblematic. Wildmon was in awe of his surroundings and made liberal use of his iphone to document his presence in the White House. You might say this is normal behavior. It’s cool to be able to eat dinner with the President of the United States. But what’s striking is the deeper meaning Wildmon attaches to events like this.
It means that evangelicals are accepted. It means they’re not looked down upon. It means real progress is being made in winning their culture war and making life difficult for people who aren’t like them.
Wildmon seems easily awed by power and wealth, a common fault of insecure people everywhere. “He’s not ashamed of us,” Wildmon declared. While most Republican leaders are embarrassed by evangelicals, he said, Trump is “proud of us.” The importance he places on this tells us a lot about Wildmon and the evangelical movement he embodies.
It’s a movement seeking to conserve its place at the table. In response to power reaching out a welcoming (if transactional) hand, evangelical elites seem to feel great relief and a sense of safety. They revel in their place of prominence. In doing so, they forget the gospel. The good news that Jesus saves wretched sinners makes anything a President can offer seem rather boring in comparison.
The whole thing would be pitiful and poignant were the Christian Right’s agenda not so noxious. Wildmon does not, after all, seem cynical. He appears instead as a person you might pity in other contexts. He takes comfort in the idea that Trump is not ashamed of him, and even that isn’t true. It’s a reminder that not all of the evangelical elites are cut from the same cloth. Some, like Ralph Reed, are just as transactional as any other political power brokers. But others, like Wildmon I suspect, are lying to themselves before they lie to their followers.
It’s all very sad. As I’ve said before, if you want to find Jesus Christ, look to the margins. If he’s not enough for you, by all means, go to the White House and find another god.
*The AFA is one of the leading anti-LGBT groups in the country, with a long history of hateful and outrageous behavior. Their current campaign is a boycott of Target, because bathrooms.
Colorblind Christians 
I’m a follower of Yeshua & aside from the question of WHY these alleged “christians” were there [visiting their god of this world], I would like to know if “white house” napkins were exempted from “THOU SHALT NOT STEAL”?
LikeLike