Tag Archives: religion

A leap of faith

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What does religion have to do with a presidential election? A lot, for some.

Trump in 2020: source: The Washington Post

Religion and politics make for a combustible mix. Just as the Bible can be invoked to support almost any side of an argument, so can partisans – especially Christian evangelicals – use religion as they see fit to make their political cases.

Just ask journalist McKay Coppins of The Atlantic. He attended scores of rallies for Donald J. Trump and analyzed the prayers people offered at them. His conclusion: many evangelicals see America as a chosen land that has fallen into sin and they see Trump as the country’s divinely anointed redeemer.

“Trump’s supporters attribute America’s fall from grace to a variety of national sins old and new—prayer bans in public schools, illegal immigration, pro-transgender policies, the purported rigging of a certain recent election,” Coppins writes. “Whatever the specifics, the picture of America they paint is almost universally—biblically—bleak.”

Opening a Trump gathering last winter in Durham, New Hampshire, for instance, one minister invoked both the former president and the Divine: “We know what he did for us and how he strove to lead us in honorable ways during his term as our president—in ways that brought your blessings to us, rather than your reproach and judgment …. We know the hour is late. We know that time grows shorter for us to be saved and revived.”

At another rally, a woman offered the following prayer shortly before New Hampshire’s Republican primary: “Lord, you have a servant in Donald J. Trump, who can lead our nation … Help us to overcome any obstacles tomorrow so that we may deliver victory to your warrior.”

And in Iowa, at yet another gathering of the faithful, a minister waxed passionate. “Be afraid,” he told the crowd. “For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. And when Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”

Trump in 2015, source: Getty Images via NPR

To such folks, American voters will not just hire an executive to oversee affairs of state for the next four years. No, Europeans and other foreigners may do that prosaic sort of thing. But Americans, instead, will choose a sword wielder in a pitched battle of good versus evil, a person who can carry forward the divinely appointed role the U.S. occupies in the world.

The notion that the U.S. has a blessed mission may seem bizarre to many – certainly to those living in other perfectly fine and, in some ways, more civilized countries. But the idea of a supernatural connection is baked into our national consciousness.

Think about how we begin many sporting and other public events by singing “God Bless America,” that patriotic plea Irving Berlin wrote in wartime 1918 and revised in prewar 1938. Consider how the motto “Annuit Coeptis” (‘He favors our undertakings’) is carved into the wall above a doorway in the U.S. Senate chamber and how “In God We Trust” appears above the Speaker’s rostrum in the U.S. Capitol’s House chamber, as well as on U.S. currency. Mull over the 1954 addition to the Pledge of Allegiance of the phrase “under God.”

That idea of a divine connection even puts a halo of sorts around the nation’s founding. “Faith in America,” a 2022 survey by the Deseret News and the Marist Poll, reported that 55% of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution was inspired by G-d. The figure rises to 65% among Christians and to 70% among those who practice some religion. But even 45% of those who do not practice a religion believe the Constitution was divinely inspired.

And, as perhaps has been reflected by the embattled Louisiana law mandating displays of The Ten Commandments in publicly funded K-12 and university classrooms, nearly half of Americans (49%) say the Christian Bible should have “a great deal” of or “some” influence on U.S. laws. That’s according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. This is so, even though 49% of U.S. adults say that religion is losing influence and that this is a bad thing, Pew reported.

Harris, source: AP via WFTV9

While the fervor Trump generates among Christian evangelicals gets a lot of attention – and while some of his religious backers see Kamala Harris and the Democrats as nothing short of demonic – Harris hasn’t been deserted by people of faith. Emerging groups such as “Evangelicals for Harris” urge Christians to back Harris, extolling her religious commitment.

“Her faith journey started when she was a little girl, singing in the children’s choir at the 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, where she was born and raised,” the pro-Harris group says in describing “Kamala’s Faith Story.” “This was where she learned to have a living faith, one that expresses itself through one’s life, especially through service to others, particularly the vulnerable and powerless.”

In a nod to the varied religious influences on her, the site’s writers add: “While a deeply committed and faithful Christian, Vice President Harris has great respect for other faith traditions. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan and relatives in India took her to Hindu temples. She joins her husband, Doug Emhoff, in Jewish traditions and celebrations.”

Source: John Pavlovitz

And some religious figures are waxing passionate in condemning Trump. North Carolina minister John Pavlovitz, for instance, offers his critiques on sites such as The Good Men Project. “Donald Trump is not Christian and never has been,” the minister writes. “He is cruel, immoral, vile, racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, vulgar, criminal, hateful.”            

Making it clear what audience he is addressing on that site, Pavlovitz headlines his note: “White Christian, It’s Time to Embrace Jesus’ Love and Reject Donald Trump’s Hatred Once and for All.” And he opens it with “Dear White Christian.”

Of course, Black religious leaders have also rallied around Harris. By the thousands, they have joined in Zoom calls and otherwise gathered to organize their support for her. Black women, in particular, have rushed to back her.

And some leaders have joined hands behind Harris. Pavlovitz has allied with Black singer and activist Malynda Hale to raise money for Harris. Together, they operate a site, “Christians for Kamala: Love, for the Win,” that so far has raised more than $155,000.

“We proudly support Vice President Kamala Harris as she champions true Christian values embodied in the teachings of Jesus,” the site’s authors say. “Now more than ever, we need to bring our personal spiritual convictions to bear and to speak with our voices, our time, our resources, and our votes.”

The Harris backers, however, may have a tall Calvary-like hill to climb in some quarters of America’s religious community. As NPR reported, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christians supported Trump in the past two presidential elections. And longtime conservative activist Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition says many remain grateful to Trump for efforts such as overturning Roe v. Wade. Democrats, he says, lag far behind Republicans reaching out to faith-based voters.

Certainly, the partisan divide is as wide as the separation between Heaven and Earth. According to the Deseret News/Marist polling, 81% of Republicans believe the U.S. Constitution was inspired by G-d, while only 36% of Democrats agree (though 55% of independents do). As Pew reported, though, most Americans want a president who lives a moral and ethical life:

And, in terms of Trump, Pew found that most Republicans and people in religious groups that tend to favor the GOP think he stands up at least to some extent for people with their religious beliefs. Two-thirds of Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP (67%) say Trump stands up for people with their religious beliefs “a great deal,” “quite a bit” or “some.” About the same share of white evangelical Protestants (69%) say this about Trump.

Interestingly, though, many Americans in both parties are skeptical of Trump’s attempts to portray himself as a religious person. Some 6% of Republicans and GOP leaners say Trump is very religious, while 44% say he is “somewhat” religious, according to Pew. Nearly half (48%) say he is “not too” or “not at all” religious. Overall, just 4% say Trump is very religious.

Some may see it as pandering on Trump’s part when, after the July 13 assassination attempt on him, he wrote on social media: “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will fear not, but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness.”

But, as reported by NPR, Republican politician and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy said of the shooting, which killed one person and wounded two others: “I personally believe that God intervened today, not just on behalf of President Trump but on behalf of our country.” And Texas Governor Greg Abbott, also a Republican, said: “Trump is truly blessed by the hand of God — being able to evade being assassinated.”

Whether Trump has truly had a “come to Jesus” moment as a result of his lucky turn of the head then is impossible to know. Will we continue to hear phrases such as that he used about President Joe Biden last September, when he said “let’s indict the motherf_____”? Such language would not serve him well among religious folks, of course.

Just what his religious backers believe is difficult to pin down. Journalist Coppins points to a confounding change in tone that has happened over the last few years among evangelicals backing Trump. Where in 2016 many of them saw Trump as an “unlikely vessel” — a nonreligious person who could be a “blunt, utilitarian tool in God’s hand” – more recently, they have recast him as a “person of faith.” Some 64% of Republicans now see him that way, according to a recent Deseret News poll by HarrisX.

To be sure, seeing a thrice-married philandering felon with a history as a sexual abuser and dishonesty in business as a religious person might take a big jump. Perhaps a great leap of faith. Apparently, that’s a hurdle at least some Americans — maybe an aging and shrinking minority — are willing to make.

Baby Steppes: Memories of Kazakhstan

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I’ve not yet seen Paris, but how many seasoned travelers can boast of spending time in cafes in Almaty, Astana and Karaganda? Clearly, I’ve got a leg up on veteran globetrotters.

Our three-week stay in Kazakhstan, for an eight-student photojournalism trip, was nerve-wracking at times. Reservations and credit cards were foreign ideas in some hotels and cold-water walkup flats in crumbling Soviet apartment blocks were the norm. Being unable to read street signs or tell taxi drivers where you want to go (my Kazakh is as good as my Russian) was also unsettling. And long, dusty bus rides and rickety train rides through the barren steppe gave us far too much time for reading.

But then there was the magic of the place. There were, for instance, Almaty’s “random taxis,” where you stick out your hand and, voila, some guy happening by in an old Lada or somesuch with an invariably cracked windshield stops to whisk you away (with the help of hand-signals and mumbled Russian). There was the city’s Green Market, an immense bazaar where you can buy just about anything. There was Panfilov Park, a gorgeous island of green that commemorates 28 Almaty soldiers who died fighting Nazis (immense memorials, including an eternal flame that brides and grooms pose near on weekends).

Almaty, the financial center and biggest city in the country, is a pedestrian-friendly place of tony shops, nice parks and rising new apartment towers. A leafy, cool place that stretches downward from the snow-covered Tian Shan mountains, the city was great for a morning run. It’s a busy town. It is home to the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE), the most visible sign of the nascent capitalism that could – if managed well – turn the country into a substantial regional force.

Almaty’s financiers could help enrich a population that, despite the rise of a middle class, is still relatively poor by western standards. At $1,322 yearly, Kazakhstan’s per capita income ranks it 94th globally, just below Tonga but well ahead of China, according to NationMaster.com. By contrast, each resident of No. 1-ranked Luxembourg boasts an income of $37,500. Some 1.26 million people live in Almaty and, income issues aside, it felt like most of them were shopping in the Green Market when we were.

Astana, for its part, is an enormous World’s Fair. The new capital city, which officially became the seat of Kazakhstan’s federal government in 1998, is much more of a car place (fancy cars predominate, too, for the status-minded Kazakhstanis). Giant buildings with stunning architecture are great to look at, but challenging to get to. It’s pretty, glitzy and new. In an odd way, it has a Washington-like feel, with monumental buildings and a feeling of power, but nowhere near as intimate as Almaty. If Almaty — population over 700,000 — were New York, Astana would be D.C.

Still, Astana has huge promise. From its spanking-new Eurasian National University, where we met with journalism instructors facing many of the same issues we do at UNL, to the wonderful new U.S. embassy, the place seems fresh and new. That freshness could help sweep away the old Soviet apartment blocks over time. Some of those five-story apartment blocks, with their steel doors, security locks, overgrown common areas and sewer smells, made South Bronx highrises seem palatial. One hopes most such places will disappear in Almaty and Karaganda, as well.

In some ways, Astana is a bold, optimistic statement. Just think about the religious nature of the place. A gleaming mosque, a stunning synagogue, Roman Catholic and Russian churches coexist, with representatives sometimes meeting in a huge glass pyramid built to celebrate the world’s religions. It all reflects the ebullient attitude of the country’s founding president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has kept power since Kazakhstan emerged from the Soviet Union in 1991. His long reign has been helped by the nation’s vast oil and mineral riches (despite sometimes questionable elections, he seems popular and the big question mark over Kazakhstan’s future is who will come next once the 70-year-old leader steps aside).

Then there’s Karaganda, the regional center where we spent our final week. There’s something tragic about the place, probably because it was shaped by the KarLag system, part of Russia’s Gulag internal-exile system. Many people in Karaganda, it seemed, had ancestors connected in some way to the KarlLag, as prisoners, exiles or guards. And folks there, even the Russians, still seem suspicious of Russian things – most notably, blaming rockets launched from the Baikonur space base for headaches, high blood pressure, joint pain and weather changes.

Outside of Karaganda, we visited the village of Dolinka, where barracks and other buildings from the KarLag remain. The place seemed desperately poor to Western eyes, but residents don’t seem to feel that way (and there were plenty of satellite dishes on ramshackle houses). Indeed, I’ll never forget the young Russian college student who was appalled at my suggestion that it was a poor town. Her friend lived there, she said, and didn’t think it poor at all. Poverty, it seems, is relative (though running water, heat and the chance to get an education would seem to be handy universal barometers).

Karaganda is a place where Peace Corps folks and missionaries are reaching out in earnest to the local population. Saving souls or helping people think well of America is certainly not a bad thing. Already, the public seems enamored of things American, as reflected by the constant stream of music videos in cafes and restaurants, as well shop names (U.S. Polo Assn. has an outlet there). College students in an English club, which is helped along by U.S. aid, were fascinated to hear us talk about the U.S. Western cultural elements dominate: I’ll never forget the boy in Dolinka, about 10, who strummed his crude homemade guitar and talked about Pink Floyd.

Perhaps my favorite memory of Karaganda will be the city’s sprawling downtown park. There’s a delightful amusement park, where we challenged our nerve on a rickety old Ferris Wheel that looked like it hadn’t been oiled since the fall of the Soviet Union. And one of the students, Megan Plouzek, and I got to run an impromptu marathon around the park (14 circuits approximated 26.2 miles, and I managed five while Megan logged about eight, covering more than 15 miles). The marathon was the brainchild of a local American former college athlete now working for a missionary group, and drew about 15 competitors.

Kazakhstan seems very much a country still emerging. Its economic system, dependent on natural resources, needs to diversify. Its educational system, despite such dubious features as college students occasionally paying teachers for grades, offers a way up for the people. Its government-funded foreign-study programs, which pay full-freight for students who qualify in exchange for five years work back in the country, represent a smart bet on the government’s part.

But I believe the country will make a mark globally over time. Already a regional powerhouse in Central Asia, it could ride its oil wealth and strategic location between China and Russia to great things. I suspect Americans will hear much more about the place in coming years, and it makes me feel like we got a ground-floor view. Paris can wait.

Kazakhstan: Divine Thoughts

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Religion seems to be a modest affair here in Kazakhstan, tolerated if not exactly encouraged. Almaty features a stunning Russian Orthodox Church, interestingly located in the heart of a park dedicated to World War II soldiers. The park, filled with oversized monuments including an eternal flame, seems very Soviet in style. And so, it’s perhaps fitting that the Russian Orthodox Church is there. It’s as if it’s making a statement about the centrality of all things Russian, whether in history or culture.

It was intriguing to spend some time in the church yesterday. Women, and a few men, would come into the ornate church, kiss icons, light candles and make elaborate signs of the cross on themselves. Most of the visitors were older folks, most looking more Russian than Kazakh. I suppose they were praying for relatives and friends and they found something helpful in visiting the icon-filled space. Perhaps the bevy of images of saints and of Jesus and the place’s general solemnity was comforting. Most seemed in need of something, an understandable thing, of course.

The other day, a group of us visited a mosque not far from the church. It was quite different. For one thing, we saw only one woman in the place and she wasn’t praying. Men, instead, were the supplicants and many were fairly young. There were no icons, only a wall with elaborate swirls and writing at the front. There were no chairs, only carpet for prayer (silent, but an active affair, with much standing, kneeling and prostrating). Sarah Tenorio, who took the photo below, and Elizabeth Gamez were allowed in and, as a mark of liberality here, were not required to cover their hair. We later learned that the mosque was built since Kazakhstan declared independence from Russia.

And today a few of the students are visiting the Mormon church services here. This place is far more low-key, based in the bottom floor of a nondescript apartment tower block far from downtown. There are few signs even noting its existence and, true to Mormon style, no crucifixes (they prefer to focus on the risen Christ, I was told by one of the missionaries there). The group, about 130 or so folks including a number of young Americans who incongruously call themselves “elder” or “sister,” is keen to sign up more members here.

We’ve been told that the authorities here are not fond of such small churches. They tolerate Islam, perhaps because it’s such a big part of the culture of Kazakhs, and they seem to value Russian Orthodoxy, perhaps for the statement it makes about the importance of things Russian. But recently there was a campaign against a Hare Krishna group from Russia that set up a compound outside town. We were told the place is being bulldozed after some legal action, since a local developer wanted the land. One could imagine that other small groups keep their profiles low to avoid similar troubles.

My guess would be that religion has not taken as powerful a hold here as in some other Central Asian spots because of economics and decades of official atheism under the Russians. On the economic front, if the system meets basic needs and provides a bit more for the people they may not feel as keen a need for something transcendent. Kazakhstan has developed a substantial middle class, it seems, and it’s not surprising that religion would be a light affair with many of those folks. Further, one imagines that students in Russian-controlled schools were discouraged from zealous practice and religious leaders were relegated to largely ceremonial roles.

The big question, though, is whether Kazakhstan can hold firm against the Islamic tide that grips others not far from here. Muslim groups in China, Uzbekistan and even parts of Kyrgyzstan have grown quite assertive, worrying both the local systems and folks in Moscow and Washington. Russia has had huge problems with Islamic terrorists, who seem to regard it as poorly as they do the West. Will affluence, if it comes, lead to Saudi-style revivalism, where the sons of the rich look for meaning following fiery imams and even the likes of Bin Laden? Or, will downturns in the economy, if they come, lead people to extremism? With the Kazakh president here expected to pass the baton in a few years, and the economy suffering from some real-estate induced trouble lately, all sorts of things could bubble to the surface unless the transition is handled well. It all bears watching.