Proto-Protestantism: Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, and Trumpism

03 April 2021

Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, and Trumpism

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/02/eric-metaxas-2020-election-trump/617999/

Metaxas has simply applied the logical outworkings of his position. Christianity and the Kingdom of Christ are equal to Western Civilisation and in order to maintain supremacy over that vast complex and its institutions one must embrace the ethics of mammonism – power, wealth, and even violence in order to maintain it. It is the ethic that is literally antithetical to what Christ laid out in the Sermon on the Mount – the same discourse in which he stated unequivocally you cannot serve God and Mammon. In other words they are different belief systems, different religions with different gospels.

Metaxas' former associates at BreakPoint, equally compromised figures like John Stonestreet have tempered this Babel-ethic somewhat – they are restrained in part by other Christian impulses. The end result is not Christian either but appears more so than the hard line taken by Metaxas. For his part, Metaxas has taken off the restraints, seemingly because he has given himself to a specific (if tragic) narrative.

The tensions that led to his departure from the Colson enterprise were kept quiet and yet it seemed there was some kind of tension that arose with the advent of the Trump era and his support for him. His actions post-BreakPoint make this clear. He now has his own show, has partnered with the apostate TBN channel, and has thrown in heart and soul with Trumpism. His former sacrilege associated with VeggieTales now seems trivial in light of the stuff he's associated himself with.

The irony or tragedy here is that he thinks he's resisting fascism at work within the US order and yet it's long been clear that he's never understood what fascism actually is. He has lionised Dietrich Bonhoeffer and is now identified with his 2010 biography and so in his own mind (and in the minds of some Evangelicals) he is an expert on the subject. Numerous scholars have argued his biography is more propaganda than actual history. He has sought to impose a twenty-first century American Evangelical meta-narrative on Bonhoeffer and thus grossly misrepresents him and his context. Though he has set himself up as an expert, he does not understand Bonhoeffer nor his theological or political milieu. He tries to present him as something akin to an American Evangelical which he most certainly was not and only demonstrates that Metaxas is either letting an agenda drive his historiography, or he's in way over his head – or more likely both.

Bonhoeffer is not a hero to those who adhere to New Testament Christianity. That said, Metaxas has (again with no small degree of irony) fallen in with a mindset quite opposed to what Bonhoeffer actually stood for and yet it is no closer to Scripture either.

In fact he's fallen into a trap and the irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. In his zeal to combat fascism (but never understanding what it is) he has actually succumbed to it and is much closer to it than he is the ideology of Bonhoeffer, let alone Scripture.

For decades the Evangelical movement has perpetuated myths about fascism. Figures like Gene Edward Veith have insisted it was a Left-wing movement and as such they have been blind to its real sources, nature, and philosophical matrix. They have confused Totalitarianism (which can appear in any power-construct) with Leftism and it has limited their ability to understand the dangers of Right-wing politics, monopolistic capitalism and even Sacral Christendom. In all cases (and yes, certainly in the form of Stalinism) Totalitarianism can be the result. But instead of combating fascism, Metaxas (in identifying Christianity with Right-wing nationalism and a mythologised narrative regarding Western Civilisation) has fallen into the very same trap social conservatives and Catholics did in 1930's Spain, Italy, Croatia, and France. And we must not forget the same phenomenon took place with Catholics and Protestants in both Hungary, and yes, Germany.

That's the great irony in Right-wing circles right now. The ideologues and intellectuals who are warning about fascism are fighting a straw man even while they promote (to varying degrees) the ideologies that lead to fascism and in some cases are already diluted forms of it. The truth is once again stranger than fiction.

In some respects Metaxas' conduct toward the bicycling protestor in August of 2018 says it all. He got mad and punched the guy from behind, knocking him from his bike. It was a case of street thuggery, though in his mind he was resisting it. He then (as expected) lied about it. His ethics are already bankrupt and so his response to the incident did not surprise me. But it's clear his wife was shocked – not at the bicyclist mouthing off at Trump supporters but the fact that Metaxas (her husband) attacked him – the thing Metaxas would later deny.

It's not hard to imagine the scenario. He had just come away from a Trump address at the White House and was 'pumped up', even drunk on the power he had plugged himself into. You're in the big leagues when you're getting invited to the White House. And while riding high and walking down the street of the capital city, he was put off by a mouthy bicyclist. The punch was tantamount to a declaration – we don't have to listen to you people, and your days are numbered.*

That's why political thugs think they can strike with impunity – because their faction is ascendant. It's nothing new. This is the nature of politics. I don't expect it to change or ever be any different. But it's not something compatible with Christian ethics – a notion Metaxas has altogether abandoned by his alliance with Trumpism.

He's expressing the ethic of raw power and like the German and Italian old-school conservatives who initially were uncomfortable with the raw Right-wing ideology of fascism, they too were ultimately transformed by its ideas and in many cases ultimately embraced it.

Metaxas has totally lost his way and so taken is he with this new political triumphalism he's even willing to break ranks with his one-time allies. Trump is his messiah, the West is his kingdom, America its capital. He has abandoned Christ and replaced him with a counterfeit.

Unless he repents and completely reverses course, his story is not going to end well.

In the meantime his rising profile has undoubtedly made him very wealthy and he continues to deceive the multitudes with his sham self-serving historiography and manipulation of history in order to fit his present political context and narrative.

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*Or as Rod Dreher, the supposed 'retreatist' put it – 'Sometimes you have to use violence to preserve order.'

That's the world speaking. The sword of state exists to preserve order by means of Providence. Even in a worldly context it's not the task of individuals to judge and punish other individuals and in terms of Christian ethics, Romans 12 teaches us that while the Romans 13 order is legitimate in this present evil age, the citizens of the Kingdom should have nothing to do with it.

When maligned, Christians should rejoice. But sacralist ethics demand you strike back. They live by the law of Lamech, not Christ.