Jesus, Desmond Tutu, and Donald Trump Jr.

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So here's the deal: I'm not really a Bible-believing Christian anymore. But ... I think I'm a Bible-believing agnostic? Weird thing to say, I realize, but the point is that while I'm not really sure I have a grip on metaphysics I know my moral outlook is very much shaped by growing up in the church, and particularly my association with the Mennonite Church.

So that's why I found it so interesting that Donald Trump Jr. came in for some mockery and criticism this week. Here's what he said: 

“If we get together, they cannot cancel us all. Okay? They won’t. And this will be contrary to a lot of our beliefs because — I’d love not to have to participate in cancel culture. I’d love that it didn’t exist. But as long as it does, folks, we better be playing the same game. Okay? We’ve been playing T-ball for half a century while they’re playing hardball and cheating. Right? We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing. Okay? It’s gotten us nothing while we’ve ceded ground in every major institution in our country.”

Emphasis added. Peter Wehner took note of the comment at The Atlantic.

...the former president’s son has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.

Decency is for suckers.

 Ed Kilgore piled on at New York:

We have grown accustomed to the irony of conservative Christians all but idolizing a politician who is the most heathenish public figure of our generation, inordinately proud of his power over women in particular and supposedly lesser beings generally and incapable of confessing a single sin or weakness or defeat. But it’s still a bit jarring to hear this chip off the old block openly calling for an ethic of hatred, resentment, and vengeance against his imagined persecutors.

Wehner and Kilgore are right, but incomplete. It's easy to mock Donald Trump Jr. for his callow approach to Christianity, but honestly: Isn't he just saying the quiet part out loud? If America is nominally a Christian country -- most of us still claim the religion, however tightly or loosely those affiliations are held -- can we be said to be a society that "turns the other cheek?"

Think about where that phrase originates:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

That's a radical command. It's one that almost nobody -- least of all self-proclaimed Christians -- follows.

If we were that kind of society, we might not have a death penalty. If we lived by a "turn the other cheek" ethos, we might not have troops spread out around the globe, ready to deliver violence at a moment's notice. If that's who we were, we wouldn't have grown men continuing to use John Wayne as a model of masculinity. And honestly, I'm not sure I know if it's possible to build a society on a "turn the other cheek" ethos. What I do know is that we're not in danger of finding out anytime soon. Donald Trump Jr. is just expressing the way we already live.

What does it look like to live in that fashion? Michael Eric Dyson gets at the possibilities in a reflection on the legacy of  Archbishop Desmond Tutu: 

When people claim the political utility of forgiveness, they help stabilize a culture addicted to the satisfaction of petty vengeance, establishing in its stead a measure of justice supported by big-picture moral values and social visions.

“Thus,” Archbishop Tutu argued, “to forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest, since anger, resentment and revenge” undermine the common good. South African leaders borrowed from Black American kin in their fight against apartheid. Nelson Mandela promoted armed resistance against murderous white rule, while Archbishop Tutu advocated nonviolent resistance against white supremacy. As the head of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Archbishop Tutu believed that the only way to achieve a thriving democracy was for its citizens to come clean about their sins. He argued that Black forgiveness would remake South African society and pave the way for true justice.

This kind of work is -- let's be honest -- unnatural. Our instinct is never to turn the other cheek, but to repay injury with injury. The people among us who try to live by a "turn the other cheek" ethic are basically saints. And too often, their example can be misused by those who would happily inflict injury but naturally wish to avoid consequences for their actions. (Oh, all the people who love to quote Martin Luther King Jr. without following his example!) 

So: I have no respect for Donald Trump Jr. But he's an easy target. In our lives, in our politics, in our actions, most of us think -- even if we're not really willing to say -- that the biblical reference gets us nothing. He was just being honest about it.