Trump's stunt at St. John's is the result of American churches bowing to power

No one should have been surprised by President Donald Trump’s co-opting of the symbols of American Christianity — a church, the Bible — to speak Monday to the white evangelical base that made his election possible.

From the founding of this nation, the church and the Holy Scriptures have been used by the state with the church's permission to dislocate people, rain violence upon them and declare the sovereignty of American empire and white male flesh.

The American church sold itself long ago to perpetuate the myth of America’s divine destiny for the paltry price of access to power and respectability.

In its insatiable desire for proximity to power, the church has fallen prey to this seduction, repeatedly bowing down to the twin golden statues of capitalism and empire.

Shored up by white evangelicalism and its propaganda machine, the American Christianity that informs the popular imagination takes the grand gospel — which envisions a new heaven and a new earth committed foremost to human flourishing and care for the earth — and drowns it in the bathtub of individual piety and soul salvation.

I am disinterested in the outrage of my colleagues, whether feigned or heartfelt, around Trump’s use of the Bible and the church to further both his political ambitions and American imperial violence, domestically and internationally.

It is intrinsically disingenuous to be outraged by a visual act while remaining silent about the ways American Christianity makes violence and oppression more palatable, especially when you’ve silently watched other rhetorical acrobatics, informed by the truth that you can sell most Americans almost anything that is wrapped in God-language and stamped with the imprimatur of the church.

If American Christianity is to embrace God's earthly reign and not empire, the church must be committed foremost to structural change.