84 posted on 12/15/2015, 1:28:26 PM by Patton@Bastogne: “and that remark by Donald Trump, frankly, scares the hell out of me ... “
And it should, Patton. I do not know how much of Norman Vincent Peale's “power of positive thinking” stuff Trump has internalized, but he clearly is acting externally in accord with the “gospel of success” he learned in Marble Collegiate Church.
(I'm sending this to the GRPL Great Reformed Ping List because it has direct reference to the Dutch Reformed background of Donald Trump, something which will be relevant in Iowa but has been forgotten by most if not all of the national media.)
I'm willing to vote for a non-evangelical. The biblical standards for civil rulers are not the same as those for church office. King David was not deposed for his actions in the sphere of the civil magistrate, but would have had to be deposed for his actions in the sphere of the church.
Trump is better than a number of options on the Republican side, and far better than any of the Democratic options.
But if Trump becomes the conservative candidate of choice, we're going to have to have a long, hard discussion about how a man who grew up under the politically conservative and pro-business preaching of Norman Vincent Peale can interact with the Christian conservative base of the Republican Party.
Let's be fair. Trump grew up in what, by the standards of upper-class elite New York City society of the time, was a fairly conservative church. I know more than a bit about what it was like to be in elite upper-class Protestantism of the era when Trump was growing up. I know the Reformed Church in America quite well; even in its liberal East Coast regional synods, the RCA of that era was not really a traditional liberal Protestant denomination, though it has become so in more recent years. In the days before the demographic collapse of the mainline denominations and the rise of the modern evangelical movement, mainline churches were sometimes surprisingly biblical in what got taught by average members in Sunday School even if the preaching was problematic. And again, Marble Collegiate Church, by the standards of post-World War II New York City, was NOT a liberal church. It was not evangelical, but Trump's family could have found far worse places to worship.
I am prepared to believe that Trump understands at least something of what the Reformed Church in America taught in the Heidelberg Catechism. Maybe his “positive Christianity” isn't as bad as it sounds to Midwestern Reformed or Southern Bible Belt ears.
But Trump will have to do a lot to prove he's at least aware of what it means to be a Christian, let alone an evangelical Protestant.
I am not stupid. Neither is Trump. You do not win Iowa as a conservative Republican without spending a LOT of time in places like Northwest Iowa and Pella, where the RCA and CRC and other Dutch Reformed denominations remain strong. Trump will be asked MANY questions about his personal faith due to his background in the RCA.
Dutch Iowa farmers are not stupid either. They understand what the RCA is and will give Trump allowances for looseness. He's not a Baptist and can't be held to Southern Evangelical standards.
But a lot of Iowa “VanderSomethings” will see through Trump real fast if he's trying to sell snake oil to evangelicals. It might work some places, but it won't work in Iowa for a man with an RCA background.
I think a lot of Iowa Baptists and Iowa charismatics and Iowa nondenominational church leaders are on the phone to their Dutch friends asking, “You've talked to Trump. He's from your world. What do you think of him?”
The answers from people whose names start with Vander- or end with -stra, -sma, or -ga may have a lot to do with Trump's rise or fall in Iowa.
There are too many wolves in sheep's clothing these days.