Trump’s “might is right” foreign policy should concern Christians according to evangelicals, New York Times columnist David French and public theologian Curtis Chang, a consulting faculty of Duke Divinity School.
They dug into a theology of foreign policy in a recent Good faith podcast.
Here’s how French, a former staffer for the conservative magazine National Review, summarises Trump’s foreign agenda, not mincing words at all.
“Okay, so I’m going to use some language here, Curtis, that might seem a little strong, but you’re going to see why I say it. Okay. So the way to understand Trump’s foreign policy and his interaction with the world is to see him as a Vladimir Putin kind of figure. And so when I say that, what I mean, I mean it very intentionally in the sense that he sees America in many ways the same way that Putin sees Russia, so that America is entitled to dominate its neighbours, that America is entitled to dictate policy to its neighbours, that America is entitled maybe even to territorial expansion if it views it in its national self-interest. All of this, Canada is the 51st state stuff is MAGA trolls about it. Canada is not laughing at this. Canada is not laughing at this. And there are some indications in some of the trade negotiations that the Trump administration may have some interest in annexing part of Canada.”
French is speaking here in traditional conservative terms. Curtis Chang, putting on his theologian’s hat joins in to discuss how we might apply Biblical thinking to the situation.
“I think this actually gets to the importance of a theology of institutions with a nation being an institution. Because we’re not talking like what we were just talking about, that what’s happening is just there’s one person, one person like Trump who’s going rogue, but that he’s leading the entire nation to change its role and presence and character in the world. .. I always invite people to go to Colossians 1:15–17. It’s one of the most important passages in the New Testament.”
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15–17 NIV)
“It’s called the Hymn of Christ. Because apparently the early church regularly repeatedly sung this passage and it begins it with the words, the Son is the image of the invisible God, which means if we want to know what God is, like God’s like in the world, look at the sun, look at Jesus, right?
“So if we look at Jesus, we see somebody who is talking about, ‘Hey, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the last who says to people, if you care for the least of these, you’re caring for me.’ So Jesus, the Son is showing a God who cares for the weak, who is not just about might makes right, which was very much also the dominant worldview in first century Greco-Roman society is right. But so Jesus is a direct repudiation of this idea that look, all that matters is just power to dominate in the world. And so the son images this invisible God in his character, and then it says, but he’s not the only image. He’s the most perfect image, but he’s the firstborn over all.
“Now, here’s the key. Now the passage does not say the other image-bearing kind of beings are individuals or families or couples. What this hymn, this regular statement the early church said is, the other image bearing beings are that we want you to remember are thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. These are image-bearing beings that even this early small little church had this audacious political imagination to look out at all these empires, all these rulers at Caesar, and said, you know what your role is to image the invisible God. This God who cares for the weak cares for the poor who has power, but is not about just wielding power to dominate and get its own way. And so this is the way which we have to think about nations thrones, rulers, authorities, and other large institutions as they’re meant to image something about God. And I really believe there’s a such thing as national character that different nations image different aspects of God’s character.
“But David, I want to ask you, when you think about the American national character, what are some characteristics that you think are really what America was meant to image? Again, not perfectly, no image does this perfectly always with contradictions, but at its best, what is America trying to image should be imaging in the world?”
To which French responds: “I think at its best what we should be imaging is exactly what we state right up front in the Declaration of Independence. ‘That all men are created equal and were endowed by God with certain unalienable rights.’ And so if you begin with that premise, that declaration and the Declaration of Independence, that is a powerful moral declaration that has implications, really, that has implications that radiate across the world, especially as the United States has become more powerful in a more dominant economic and military power.”
Image: The Jefferson Memorial. Image Credit Derek Bruff / Flickr