There may come a day when American Christians can climb out of their basement churches and their secret rooms tucked away in attics and garages all across this nation. A day when they can express their faith openly and not worry about losing their jobs or their social standing. There will be Christian TV networks and radio syndicates spreading the good word. There will be books and magazines, websites and blogs, by Christian writers no longer fearful of censorship or government harassment. Businesses will be able to post the Ten Commandments, musicians and screenwriters will be permitted to express their faith through their art, and there will be Bibles in every hotel room. Rappers and athletes and politicians will be able to proudly declare their faith without fear of retribution, thanking Jesus from the podium, the end zone, the well of the U.S. Senate. And just maybe, they might even be embraced by a major political party, whose candidates openly court their votes.
Crazy? Perhaps. But the dream came a step closer this week thanks to one Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who announced, during the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Summit, the creation of a Religious Liberty Task Force. Where, oh where, does he find the courage?
After a year and a half of public humiliations at the hands of his boss, I was beginning to wonder if Jeff Sessions had a backbone at all. Trump insulted him, criticized him, and openly expressed his regret at ever hiring him. Trump could have put a saddle on his Attorney General and rode him onstage at his next rally, and Sessions would merely smile and neigh. The one time Sessions did the proper thing, recusing himself from the Russia investigation, it bought him nothing but grief. What could possibly cause a man to stay at his post, working for someone who mocks and belittles him personally, especially someone whose public morality is totally at odds with Session’s religious beliefs?
As it turns out, therein lies the answer. Sessions has been putting up with it all in the name of a greater good. While everyone has been distracted by his contentious relationship with his benefactor, Sessions has been focusing on what really matters: making sure weed stays illegal. Clearing the voter rolls of undesirable voters. Separating migrant children from their migrant parents. Helping white C-students finally get a chance at a college education. Restricting women’s access to abortion. Protecting homophobic merchants from the gay. Keeping the bathrooms Transgender-free. If there was a poster child for the hypocritical evangelicals who have turned a blind eye to Trump’s personal failings in pursuit of policy goals, it would be Jeff Sessions.
He was one of Trump’s first enablers, willing to ignore the three marriages, the tabloid affairs, the boorish personal behaviors, the bankruptcies, so they could find common cause in border walls and Muslim bans. Politicians are human beings, of course, not angels, and nobody is without sin. And evangelicals are all about redemption, washing away the sin, being born again. Trump, however, has no interest in redemption, because he doesn’t believe he’s capable of sin. Seven deadly sins? For Trump, they’re more like the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.
The truth is, Trump doesn’t give a damn about religious liberty, he has no problem with gays, and he was pro-choice before he was against it. And I’m pretty sure that even the most ardent Trumpers know this. They didn’t vote for him because he’s a boy scout, they voted for him because he’s rich, angry, and white. They may lose their jobs, their healthcare, their health, due to Trump/Republican policy initiatives, but it sure is fun watching Liberals squirm at the words “President Donald Trump.” Maybe Sessions, who still teaches Sunday School at his Methodist Church in Mobile, should pay special attention to Proverbs 12: 26. “The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.”