Someone Needs to Grab America By the Bible
The other day I stumbled across an article from five years ago by Courtney Friesen titled Grab-em By the Bible: Wayne Grudem and Trumpian Biblical Ethics.
For those who don’t know, Wayne Grudem is a theologian known for books like Politics According to the Bible and an immensely popular Systematic Theology (Grudem’s ST is okay if you think of it as a biblical triage on key topics, but very bad as a systematic theology). On the whole, Friesen offers a trenchant critique of Grudem’s theology of politics and his practice of politics and ethics. According to Friesen:
Although he initially endorsed Marco Rubio in the GOP primaries, after Trump secured the party’s nomination, Grudem argued that voting for Trump was “a morally good choice.” Then, two days after the revelation of the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape that exposed Trump boasting about sexual assault, on Oct. 9, Grudem retracted this opinion, calling on Trump to withdraw. A mere 10 days later, by which time it was clear that Trump would not exit the race, Grudem retracted his retraction, insisting that it was still preferable to vote for Trump on the basis of his “good” policies, even if one could not support him as a person.
He comments on how Grudem’s support for Trump is indicative of a wider trend, a seduction even, in white American evangelicalism:
Grudem’s embrace of Trump is also symptomatic of evangelicalism at large. As it’s been often repeated, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. While some of this support has since eroded — not least due to the president’s unceasing dishonesty, steady revelations of sexual scandals, and the recent child separation immigration policy — many, like Grudem, have persisted in their loyalty. Yet, attaching oneself to Trump inevitably entails stark ethical compromises. In the case of Grudem, whose primary vocation involves writing and teaching on Christian Scripture, this effect is clearly apparent in the ways he presses the Bible into the service of a distinctly Trumpian ideological agenda.
Grudem remained dedicated and devout in his support for Trump even as late as 2020 when he responded to an article in Christianity Today which called for Trump’s removal from office.
However, I am not aware of anything nor can I find anything Grudem has said about Trump and the January 6 riot/insurrection. I know that Grudem is not in the best of health, he may have decided to retire from political commentary, but I do find the silence quite telling.