San Antonio Spurs basketball coach Gregg Popovich is angry and frustrated about Donald Trump’s election. He was particularly upset with Trump’s’ rhetoric during the campaign.
I can’t imagine being a Muslim right now or a woman or an African-American, Hispanic, a handicapped person. How disenfranchised they might feel. For anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all that. Not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenure and tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic. I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of the whole thing to me.… Everybody wants him [Trump] to be successful, it’s our country, we don’t want it to go down the drain. Any reasonable person would come to that conclusion, but it does not take away the fact that he used that fearmongering and all the comments from day one. The race-baiting with trying to make Barack Obama our first black president illegitimate. It leaves me wonder where I’ve been living and with whom I’m living…My final conclusion is, my big fear is, we are Rome.[1]
What is the essence of Popovich’s remarks? First, he believes that anyone who voted for Trump was voting for intolerance, bigotry, hatred and distrust of women, and intense hatred and fear of homosexuals. Second, Popovich says that Trump’s opposition to Obama amounted to fearmongering in which he was trying to make the first black president illegitimate.
This fact is that many of the millions that voted for Trump were not necessarily enamored with him or approved of his rhetoric. They voted for Trump because it was a vote against Clinton and her policies which meant it was also a vote against a continuation of the policies of President Obama and the Democratic Party. In spite of all the bitter rhetoric on both sides, the campaign was substantially driven by fundamental differences in the worldviews of those who had to make a choice between the two candidates. This conclusion is easily confirmed by examining the results of thousands of other elections in America. From local and state government elections to the Congressional level, there was a backlash against the Clinton/Obama vision of America which was being driven by an overreaching cabal of governmental, cultural, academic, and media elites that sought to impose a sterile, secular, humanistic worldview on a nation that would not let go of its Judeo-Christian roots.
Popovich and others of the liberal persuasion fail to see that there are two camps, one on each side of the fault line that divides America: those promoting a humanistic secularism and those upholding the Judeo-Christian foundations of the nation. Liberals see themselves as the gatekeepers of what is culturally acceptable and denigrate and marginalize those who dare to disagree, i.e., Christians, conservatives, and those opposed to a growing nanny-state socialism. Liberals believe the culture wars are over and that they won. Because they are now in charge, they will dictate what is truth for the moment and what conduct is unacceptable. However, whether approved by the majority or not, the humanists’ truth is relativistic and has no basis for determining what is right and wrong. Their relativistic answers for what ails both men and culture are based on a false understanding of man and his origins. Their humanistic philosophy is disconnected from reality (truth) and ultimately leads to failure in both individuals and societies.
Even after the election, liberals continue to perpetuate the party line in support of the illusion that Clinton lost the election because Trump’s rhetoric appealed to the baser instincts of less-educated white people who are fundamentally racist, anti-women, and homophobic and which propelled a “white-lash” of votes. This tactic has been used by liberals for many years including Barack Obama. During his 2008 campaign for the presidency, Obama attempted to explain his difficulty in winning working-class voters in Pennsylvania and the Midwest because of their frustrations with economic conditions.
And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.[2]
Hilary Clinton used the race and religion tactic in trashing Trump’s supporters at a mid-September campaign fundraiser.
You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [applause and laughter from the audience.] The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.[3]
Clinton then said some of these people were “irredeemable” and “not America.”[4]
Approximately 120 twenty million Americans voted in the presidential election. Using Ms. Clinton’s calculations, she believes thirty million Trump voters are deplorables, many of whom she considers irredeemable and not reflective of American values. In spite of a half-hearted apology the following day, she continued her assault.
It’s deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people.[5]
For the liberal gatekeepers of a politically correct culture, they believe they are the only ones allowed to judge the views and voices of the people and determine what is hateful and intolerant. Those that have been judged as having violated the humanistic standards of what is acceptable must not be given a national platform to spread their message to millions of other people because they belong in that basket of deplorables. This is operative mindset of liberals and the reason why the voice and influence of Christianity in America has been denigrated, muted, and marginalized for the last several decades as our elite humanist overlords rose to power in every facet of American life.
The issues that divide America are far more important than the winner of a single presidential election. However, the election was exceedingly important in deciding the trajectory of the nation in addressing those issues. Popovich does not address those issues that divide America other than to say that a vote for Trump was a vote for intolerance, bigotry, hatred and distrust of women, and fear of homosexuals. Because of Popovich’s distorted view, he feels America is a crumbling society reminiscent of the Roman Empire. Let’s examine that empire and determine if its decay was the result of a Christian worldview or false pagan and humanistic worldviews.
Roman Practices
The first widespread persecution of Christians under the Romans began under Emperor Nero in A.D. 64. There were many reasons why the Christians were harassed, hated, despised, imprisoned, tortured or killed during the first three hundred years of the church’s history. One of the principal reasons for the persecutions was the church’s beliefs which stood in opposition to Roman culture. Christian morality condemned Roman practices of abortion, infanticide, abandonment of infants, suicide, homosexual acts, and the degradation of women, all fixtures in the culture of the Roman Empire.[6] Which aspects of the culture of the Roman Empire do the humanists and secularists champion in today’s America? Substantially all of them: homosexuality, abortion (and infanticide in some quarters), suicide, and sexual degradation of women. So we see that it is the beliefs, causes, and practices of America’s modern liberals, progressives, and humanists that are similar to the practices of the failed Roman Empire.
Roman gods and the Roman state
The Romans were not anti-religious and dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to all gods. Also, the Roman rulers did not object to Christians worshiping Jesus and were very willing to give the Christian God a place in their pantheon of gods. But those prickly Christians had to insist that they worshiped only Jesus as God and his Father, the infinite, personal God. These beliefs were considered treasonous because they threatened the unity of the state. To make matters worse, the Christians believed their God established the absolute universal standard by which to judge not only one’s personal morals but the actions of the state as well. Because Christians adhere to higher moral standards of behavior, such behavior casts the humanists in a negative light. As a result, Christians are labeled as judgmental, non-progressive, and intolerant.
In the Roman Empire, any group that presumed to judge the actions of the state or question its authority could not be tolerated and were treated as enemies of the state.[7] By modern liberal standards, those early Christians would be labeled as intolerant, non-inclusive, and even bigoted. A similar judgment has been pronounced on many Christians in today’s America. As a result, humanist elites also see Christians as enemies of the state which has resulted in their loss of jobs; massive fines for practicing their faith in their businesses; denial of work in certain professions; enrollment at many universities; and banishment from certain media, cultural, and entertainment venues.
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The Roman world disintegrated because it was culturally and spiritually impoverished and no longer had a unifying common core of belief. The Christian virtues that had gained stature in the fourth century and offered a worldview built on the reality of divine truth had not time to infuse life into the dying empire. Likewise, the rise of the secular-humanistic worldview and its ascension to the corridors of power in all of America’s institutions have compromised and supplanted the once vibrant Christian character that permeated the nation’s central cultural vision. As a result there is no longer a unifying common core of belief without which American culture will eventually disintegrate. Popovich is correct in believing America is becoming Rome but not for the reasons he thinks.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] “Spurs’ Popovich on Trump’s election: ‘That disgusting’,” NewsMax, November 12, 2016.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/gregg-popovich-san-antonio-spurs-nba-donald-trump/2016/11/11/id/758509/ (accessed November 12, 2016).
[2] Gleanings, “Obama: ‘They cling to guns or religion’,” Christianity Today, April 13, 2008.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2008/april/obama-they-cling-to-guns-or-religion.html (accessed November 12, 2016).
[3] Amy Chozick, “Hilary Clinton calls many Trump backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P pounces,” The New York Times, September 10, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/us/politics/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables.html?_r=0 (accessed November 11, 2016).
[4] Dan Merica and Sophie Tatum, “Clinton expresses regret for saying ‘half’ of Trump’s supporters are ‘deplorables’,” CNN Politics, September 12, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/09/politics/hillary-clinton-donald- trump-basket-of-deplorables/ index.html (accessed November 12, 2016).
[5] Chozick, “Hilary Clinton calls many Trump backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P pounces,” The New York Times.
[6] Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001, 2004, pp. 25,
[7] Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1976), p. 24.
