The Logic of Intersubjectivity. Darren M. Slade
a second, I need to check with the president if it is true” (“Trump Supporter Admits He Believes Trump”). Jerry Falwell Jr. echoed this sentiment when he declared that nothing could make him forgo his support for Mr. Trump, claiming it “may be immoral” for evangelicals to refuse offering the same type of support (Heim, “Jerry Falwell Jr. Can’t Imagine”).
33. See Cunningham, “In Love with Donald Trump.” McLaren’s fictional character, Old Skunk, captures the fear-based rhetoric of the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign, “When people are worried or afraid . . . you just have to give them somebody different to blame for their problems. If they call somebody else dirty or bad, they will feel clean and good. If they hurt somebody who won’t hurt them back, they will feel very powerful, important, and safe. It works every time” (CSS, 13; cf. TSS, 20).
34. According to Baylor University, “Trumpism” is a type of anti-government nationalism that combines pro-Christian rhetoric with overt xenophobia, misogyny, and a tribalistic fear of diversity. Those upholding Trumpism describe themselves as “very religious,” are typically white evangelical, believe the United States is a Christian nation, and believe God is an authoritative and judgmental deity. They believe Muslims are a threat to national security, men should run the government and earn more than women, working women are defective mothers, and the LGBTQ community should not have equal rights. See Froese et al., American Values, 7‒27.
35. Mohler, “Mohler, Jr. Discusses Evangelical Support for Trump,” 00:29‒01:21; emphasis in original. Roger Olson parallels these sentiments, “My fellow evangelicals who continue to support and even defend Trump in spite of everything he has said about the weak and vulnerable people of the world: It is time to admit you have been wrong and stop defending the indefensible” (Olson, “An Open Letter”).
36. For details on Mr. Trump’s mental instability, immoral behavior, corrupt practices, and connection to multiple crime syndicates, see Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump; Woodward, Fear; and Brockenbrough, Unpresidented.
37. Moore, “Have Evangelicals Who Support Trump Lost Their Values?” Interestingly, McLaren notes that President Trump’s mother was, in fact, an impoverished migrant to America who tried to escape economic hardship, the very kind of people that Mr. Trump has vociferously vilified during his campaign and presidency (McLaren, foreword to Poacher’s Pilgrimage, xvii‒xxii).
38. Galli, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office.”
39. Galli, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office.”
40. Barnhart, “Nearly 200 Evangelical Leaders.” What is interesting, though not surprising, is just how Christian leaders on both sides will appeal to Jesus’ communion with sinners in the first century to support certain theological beliefs. See for example, McLaren, foreword to Love is an Orientation, 9‒11.
41. McLaren, foreword to Love is an Orientation, 10‒11.
42. Global Center for Religious Research, “An Open Letter to Evangelicals.”
43. For instance, in an open letter dated September 1998, James Dobson demanded that Christians abandon support for President William J. Clinton for his consensual affair with a White House intern. Most of Dobson’s remarks would apply directly to President Trump today, but Dobson has remained steadfast in his support for Mr. Trump regardless and has not demanded Christians abandon their support (see Dobson, “Dedicated to the Preservation of the Home”; italics in original). As McLaren writes, “The things we are against often define us, so we are easily manipulated in this way. Consider some of the conservative political pundits who have never espoused any inclination toward Christianity. They gain millions of Christian followers by opposing the political enemies of conservative Christians” (VA, 106).
44. McLaren, “Q and R: When Do I Leave.” McLaren writes elsewhere, “The ugliness of this ungenerous pseudo-orthodoxy is driving young people away from faith in unprecedented numbers, and it threatens to leave major sectors of organized religion a bastion of regressive and reactionary angry old men, along with the women and young people who defer to them” (McLaren, foreword to Generous Orthodoxies, xvi).
45. See Henry, “Who are the Evangelicals,” 69‒94; Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, esp. 2‒17; Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism, 1:13‒18; and Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story, 17‒25.
46. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 4.
47. McCune, “The Self-Identity of Fundamentalism,” 9‒34; Balmer, “Critical Junctures in American Evangelicalism,” 55‒66; Blythe, “Missouri Synod,” 31‒51. Cf. McLaren, “A Brief History of the 21st Century,” 16.
48. Cf. Rodes, “Last Days of Erastianism,” 301‒48; McMullen, “Institutional Church as House Church,” 1‒18; Schmitz, “The Authority of Institutions,” 6‒24; and MacCulloch, Christianity, 112‒54. According to McLaren, this “organizationalism” is the mechanistic process of making believers mere cogs in a larger assembly line of commercialization. Promoting Christianity as an “organized religion” becomes the bête noire for those who simply want to join a “spiritual community” (COOS1 §12c, 196).
49. Huntington, “Robust Nationalism,” 31‒40; Aronowitz, “Considerations on the Origins of Neoconservatism,” 56‒70.
50. What is deemed neo-Evangelical in this study is often identified merely as “Evangelical” (capital ‘E’), the “Religious Right,” or “fundamentalist” throughout McLaren’s corpus. Significantly, McLaren still identifies as an “evangelical” (lowercase ‘e’) in the sense of being committed to the canonical Jesus’ preaching of the evangelium (cf. §7.4.2). “I am happy and honored to consider myself an evangelical . . . the more modest ‘small e’ evangelical” (GO §6, 116). For him, if other “evangelicals” behave in ways contrary to the good news of Jesus Christ, they become “betrayers” of the gospel (AMP §Intro, 12). See also, McLaren, “Between Mixed Martial Arts.”
51. See Marsden, “Fundamentalism and American Evangelicalism,” 22‒35; Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 15‒26; Catherwood, The Evangelicals, 91‒144; Collins, Power, Politics and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism, 54‒86; Quebedeaux, The Young Evangelicals, 5‒17; Fitch, The End of Evangelicalism?, 48‒122; and Balmer, “Critical Junctures in American Evangelicalism,” 67‒75.
52. Streett, “An Interview with Brian McLaren,” 8.
53. McLaren, “Making Waves,” 29. As McLaren remarks, “[Evangelical] activists may use the word ‘love’ to justify their