Fea
says that this book is an attempt to make sense of Trump’s draw to
Evangelicals. He does this by looking at the 2016 election,
understanding what he calls the Evangelical Playbook, then going
through Evangelicalism’s history in America, how fear govern’s
how Evangelicals get involved in politics, and finally how
Christians believe the United States was founded as a Christian
nation.
Christopher
Lasch says: Nostalgia
freezes the past in images of timeless, childlike innocence.
Fea says that Evangelicals are backward looking, rather than
understanding change and figuring out how to incorporate the Gospel
in the changing times, they want to go back to a different time.
Marilynne
Robinson has said that “fear is not a Christian habit of mind.”.
He talks about separation of church and state. Evangelicals want to
combine the two, but do not recognize that this constitutional
principle has always served as a safeguard to protect the church from
the temptations that come with worldly power.
Fea
notes that political power is not intrinsically evil, but because of
human fallibility, it degrades into evil. Even if “good” people
use it.
This
book is the story of why so many American evangelicals believe in
Donald Trump.
Chapter
1 - The Evangelical Politics of Fear
How
did Trump win over the Evangelicals and thus win the nomination for
the Republican Party and eventually the Presidency? Fea traces this
to the politics
of fear.
This fear is the sense that the nation is releasing itself from its
moral underpinnings, what Christians feel the nation was founded on.
This is the exploration of this chapter.
Fea
traces this back to the beginning of the nation, about 1800 during
the campaign which elected John Adams. Political fear amplifies
concerns and spreads them to the general population. It is dangerous
for that reason. Joseph Bivins says that “moral
panics” tend to “rely on presumptions more than facts they
dramatize and sensationalize so as to keep audiences in a state of
continual alertness.”
Fear
of Mulims is current. There was a segment which thought that Obama
was a Muslim. He
represented an American future that most white evangelicals were not
yet willing to accept.
No matter how much Obama said words which sounded Christian, a large
segment of America, mostly Evangelicals did not believe him. His
programs and views did not match Evangelical values.
Trump
mimicked his GOP rivals Evangelicals and learned how to communicate
by their example. Fea talks about how the different candidates fared
against Trump with Evangelical voters and how Trump distinguished
himself from them or he questioned their integrity.
Many
evangelicals love this blending of God and country, and Cruz knew it.
But
with fear running high, none of the other candidates resembled a
strong man. Trump did. Trump did not emphasize his past, his riches
or power, rather he was an outsider, ready to stand up for those who
were being steamrolled by the system.
Chapter
2 - The Playbook
Fea
starts the chapter off by saying that Christians are only to fear God
and nothing else. On the other hand, we are not promised security,
safety or prosperity.
On
the other hand, humans have a natural fear when we perceive we are
threatened-in whatever way.
We
are shifting away as a nation from the Judeo-Christian values we
thought were the bedrock of American society. We are living in an
age
of fracture
or as James Davison Hunter said, we are in culture
wars.
Evangelicals
voted for Trump because they have been conditioned to a way of
thinking about political engagement that emerged in the 1970s and
1980s as a direct response to these cultural changes.
After
World War II, the church flourished in America. Both attendance and
membership grew until the mid-1960’s. In the 1950’s the Supreme
Court stated a demarcation line between church and state. This has
upset the conservative Christians who used to benefit from the
demarcation. Government could not get involved with religion and the
government could not be used to advance religion. Out went prayer
and Bible reading in schools.
To
top that immigrants coming into this country were from places which
practiced Islam and Buddisam and Hinduism. While the majority of
Christians support the Civil Rights movement, that stopped when the
government told schools and religious schools they could lose their
tax exemption if they did not desegregate. Historian
Mark Noll has argued that race and civil rights served as an entry
point for the white conservative evangelical critique of active
government. …
When
President Jimmy Carter, a self-proclaimed “born-again Christian,”
supported the Green v. Connally decision, he alienated many
conservative evangelicals who ran these academies.
Many
of these culture warriors found intellectual support for their agenda
from Francis Schaeffer, an evangelical guru who attracted hundreds of
bright young Christian minds to L’Abri, his chalet and study center
in the Swiss Alps.
This was particularly Roe vs Wade which Schaeffer thought dehumanized
the unborn. This influenced Jerry Falwell who connected Schaeffer’s
ideas with everything moral which the Evangelical movement had.
More
because I met his brother: Christian
Reconstructionist
Rousas John Rushdoony
Fea
notes that control of the Supreme Court is essential for the
Christian Agenda. Legislature and Executive are nice additions. Once
all of this has been accomplished, then Christian laws can be written
and passed.
In
2010, James Davison Hunter said that since the early 1980’s the
Christian witness has been political.
It
is not only important that the right kind of justices and lawmakers
be put into office. But they needed to have high moral values. James
Dobson said about Clinton: character
DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without
it. How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral
integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world.
Until
2016, the Playbook was not very successful. But Christians had been
indoctrinated into the rightness of the plan. Despite
its failure to deliver on its promises to reclaim the nation for
Christ, the Christian Right has shaped the political sensibilities of
millions and millions of conservative evangelicals.
Trump
worked hard to marshall the Evangelicals. But what to do with his
morality? Some preachers said that they had led him to Christ. Others
said to treat him like a baby-Christian, learning his way.
What
were Christians to do? The alternative was Hillary Clinton. The
problem was that they used the same defenses Hillary did of Bill when
they defended Trump. They just hated Clinton. Clinton also was a
flawed candidate, which made it easier to vote for the lesser of two
evils in the Evangelical’s eyes. She just did not seem to make room
for those who had religious reasons for opposition to her positions.
Fea
says that Evangelicals cherry-pick the Founding Fathers words,
selecting words that support them, but ignoring statements when they
do not.
Chapter
3 - A Short History of Evangelical Fear
Despite
the biblical passages exhorting followers of Christ to “fear not,”
it is possible to write an entire history of American evangelicalism
as the story of Christians who have failed to overcome fear.
Fea says that Christians have not always managed their fears in a
healthy way.
Reagan
used the phrase shining
city on a hill.
This is taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Also John
Winthrop’s 1630 talk
A
Model of Christian Charity.
Winthrop used a carrot and a stick-the carrot to be like the city
shining; the stick, fear of failing God. In Massachusetts, there was
the fear of other groups and dissent.
In
the colonies, it was thought that Catholics were the great menace to
Christianity, being the same as the great beast. English relations
with the French did not help.
There
was the pitch by Lyman Beecher about American exceptionalism. This
led to America being a favored nation by God. Beecher too was
concerned about Catholic ties to the Pope and what it meant for
American independence. Right before the Civil War, this push against
Catholics became fevered. Talked about the Know-Nothings party.
He
goes into several other concerns. What Fea is showing is that
Christian fear politics is nothing new and is embedded in any
politics which Christians participate in.
In
some ways, the Civil War was about differences in culture. The
North-individualistic, industrial, humanist; the South-communal,
agricultural, and Evangelical. The South had more to fear because
their labor was powered by slavery. They had had a series of
rebellions which fueled this fear: 1800
(Gabriel Prosser), 1822 (Denmark Vesey), 1831 (Nat Turner), and 1859
(John Brown.
The ideas out of the North fueled this unrest.
The
South defended slavery as sanctioned by the Bible. But they did not
follow the Biblical injunctions on slavery and how to treat slaves.
The South took the story of Cannaan’s curse by Noah as the reason
that Blacks were inferior. the
people of the South—and eventually the Confederate States of
America—believed that they were living in a Christian society
precisely because they upheld the institution of slavery.
Black’s rights were thought to be a modern concept, not rooted in
fact or tradition or Scripture. Historian
Charles Dew has made a compelling case that it was white supremacy
and the fear of racial mixing that caused the South to secede from
the Union.
Success
did not breed content. Instead it leads to change, which leads to
more fear. By about 1915, the modernists had control of the various
denominations, leaving the fundamentalists out of the mainstream.
Both the modernists and fundamentalists both thought of the United
States as a Christian nation. The difference was the fundamentalists
tied the nation’s Christianity to the Bible. Since
the Bible was the source of all morality, attacks on its authenticity
would inevitably lead to social chaos and the eventual collapse of
the republic.
This led the fundamentalists in the South to tie their Christianity
to a racist version. Also universities were leaving their orthodox
roots and embracing new thoughts.
Chapter
4 - The Court Evangelicals
Fea
starts this chapter out with a quote from CS Lewis’ Screwtape
Letters about making politics your religion. He then tells the story
of Petrus
Damiani
who meets the apparition of Saint Severin. Severin wanders the earth
because he paid more attention to the matters of State than the
matters of the soul. The story illustrates that being involved with
the inner workings of power is dangerous to a person’s spiritual
life. If
it is not obvious by this point, the skills needed to thrive in the
court were different from the virtues needed to lead a healthy
Christian life or exercise spiritual leadership in the church.
Power
tends to corrupt, and maybe not in the way which we think, but in
ways that we either lust for more or we want to please those who do.
So we do not stand up when we need to morally. Maybe this is why when
Christians have power, we tend to want to keep it and lose sight of
why we wanted power in the first place?
Talks
about how Christians defend Trump. Trump has his own circle of
powerful Christians which he keeps on a leash. In exchange, the
Christians feel like they have power to influence. So they want to
defend Trump to utilize that power. According to Fea, their role is
to sanitize Trump’s behavior in front of their fellow believers.
Fea
names three sources for Trump’s courtiers: Christian Right,
prosperity gospel leaders, and the Independent
Network Charismatics.
The latter has its roots in Calvary Chapel and Vineyard. Lots of
names in this chapter, most I do not recognize. The support is not
based upon Trump’s morality, rather that he is a fighter and will
bring about the changes these people want. But will he really or is
he using them as a puppet? Think about Hitler and how he used the
German church-not calling Trump a Hitler, rather the use of the
church by political power to the person’s own end.
It
seems to be that going through Trump, Christians are trying to change
the heart of the nation, the easy way-through power. This has not
really worked and as I have seen history, it corrupts the church,
making it ineffective for the gospel. Just ask the Catholics and
what happened to the church after Constaintine and all of the
European with shell State churches. The harder way is through
changing the hearts of the people to Christ.
Talks
about how Lance Wallnau said that Trump would be America’s
Cyrus-the one who liberated the Jews and let them return back to
Israel after the captivity. Cyrus was not a saint and neither is
Trump.
He
then goes into the agenda of the court evangelicals. Three things are
their focus: abortion, religious liberty and Israel. This was
written before the Dobbs
case was decided. Fea’s analysis about what will happen if Roe
v Wade
is overturned is: It
will just make it more difficult for poor women in red states because
they will have to travel to a blue state to get an abortion. It may
curtail the number of abortions, but it will bring our culture no
closer to welcoming the children who are born and supporting their
mothers.
Fea thinks that the money spent getting favorable politicians into
office would have been better spent assisting single mothers and
those who are trying to have abortions live with their babies.
Because
Protestantism and its values are no longer the majority basis for
consensus in the United States, Christians are now taking up that
religious liberty is a concern. This goes to the ability to adhere
to religious practices in places which have more gray areas than
churches. Such as Christian schools banning the hiring of gays. Also
for churches to openly endorse candidates-the Johnson Amendment to
the IRS code. the
attempts to repeal the Johnson Amendment exposed something deeper: a
serious flaw in the way that many conservative evangelicals think
about the relationship between church and state.
All would agree that the government should not be telling the church
what to preach. But in many ways the separation between the two
protects the church from being politicalized.
Billy
Graham learned the hard way how fallible political leaders are and
how it is easy to get into bed with the wrong one. He had a good
relationship with Nixon and endorsed him. It was only after the inner
workings of Nixon’s White House became known did Graham realize how
badly duped he was in supporting Nixon. Cal Thomas wrote: Christian
faith is about truth … whenever you try to mix power and truth,
power usually wins.
Also Henri
Nouwen: The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the
proclamation of the gospel is the greatest temptation of all.”
Chapter
5 - Make America Great Again
Fea
starts off by asking, was America ever a Christian nation? And if so,
what did it look like? The answer to that may be different to a
variety of people. Such as if you are a Black, would you say that the
discrimination they faced as part of a Christian nation?
The
assumption was that before the 1970’s, or maybe before, the
assumption was that America was a Christian nation. The thoughts of
the Founding Fathers varied from complete separation of church and
state to that religion was an integral part of the American
experience. Yet
anyone who wants to use these documents
[US Constitution, 1st Amendment]
to argue against the importance of religion—in the America of the
time of the founding—must reckon with early state constitutions,
such as those in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and South Carolina,
that required officeholders to affirm the inspiration of the Old and
New Testaments, to obey the Christian Sabbath, or to contribute tax
money to support a state church.
This
leads us to a second question: Is America a Christian nation today?
There definitely is the separation of church and state. But it is
predominantly filled with Christian people. We have both fulfilled
and failed at our ideas. When
we have failed to live up to our ideas we have made efforts to
correct our moral indiscretions.
But we are still a nation with faults, such as racism, violence,
inequality and materialism, practices
that do not conform very well to the ethical demands that
Christianity places upon our lives.
It is important not to look at our yesterday through the eyes of
nostalgia. In
the end, the practice of nostalgia is inherently selfish because it
focuses entirely on our own experience of the past and not on the
experience of others.
Nostalgia is a form of tunnel vision which gives us eyes to only see
one thing and not others.
He
notes that Robert Jefferies makes several assumptions and false
references to the past, such as 52 out of 55 signers were evangelical
Christians. See his sermon called America
is a Christian Nation.
The
belief that the United States is a Christian nation is a form of
idolatry.
He notes that God saves people not nations. I think Fea must have
read CS
Lewis’ Weight
of Glory
essay.
Fea
then gets into preachy mode. He points out that in our system of
government, the government is of the people, not of the church.
While as a Christian, we believe other religions are in error, it is
not for the State to enforce correctness. Also, society and the
state are run by humans and humans have sin lurking, even the best of
them. We are not to place our trust for salvation in politics, but in
God.
Trump’s
Make America Great Again is not necessarily to make America a
Christian nation. Also If
we can nail down the era or eras when America was “great,”
perhaps we can begin to make progress on the question of whether
Trump’s campaign slogan has any merit.
Trump has not said when it was great, so we do not know what he is
aiming for.
He
talks a bit about the America First Committee of 1940/41 and how it
attracted anti-Semitic people such as Henry Ford and Charles
Lindbergh. Fea says that commentators could not miss the connection
between these people and Hitler’s concentration camps. But I did
not think the concentration camps were known by very many people
until after the war.
Trump
had perfected the politics of fear by the time of his nomination in
2016.
Trump
is about departing migrants. Is he trying to imitate the Operation
Wetback program of the 1950’s?
Law
and Order was Nixon’s slogan in 1968 in the wake of the race riots
after RFK and MLK were assassinated. Trump used it as well to raise
the level of fear.
Fea
says that Trump does not care how things were used in the past, he is
only caring about himself and the present. Other presidents have seen
their term in office as continuity with the past. Not Trump. Alexis
de Tocquevile says that
only does democracy make men forget their ancestors, but also clouds
their view of their descendants and isolates them from their
contemporaries.
Conclusion
Fea
admits he is not an expert, nor trained in making political
decisions. He is a historian. History
is a limited discipline.
Historians are good at giving context to what happened, not in
providing direction. Christians have a diverse set of priorities,
not just the three listed previously. He gave a lecture on this and
the result: The
diversity of opinion among politically savvy Christians was evident
in the personal notes and emails I received after that lecture.
He
notes that the average age of the conservative Christian Evangelical
is 57. The Evangelicals he teaches have a different set of priorities
than these older ones.
Within
a year of Trump’s election in 2016, Fea and several professors from
his college did a tour of the South with an emphasis on the Civil
Rights movement. He noted that the movement had a different emphasis
than what he is seeing today. It had Hope,
humility, and a responsible use of American history defined the
political engagement and social activism of the civil rights
movement.
Which raises the questions he had at the start of the book: How
might evangelical politics change if we replaced fear with hope? How
might evangelical politics change if we replaced the pursuit of power
with the cultivation of humility? How might evangelical politics
change if we replaced nostalgia with history?
Can
evangelicals recover this
[the Civil Rights movement]
confidence in God’s power—not just in his wrath against their
enemies but in his ability to work out his purposes for good. Can
they recover this hope?
The
historian Christopher Lasch once wrote this: “Hope does not demand
a belief in progress. It demands a belief in justice: a conviction
that the wicked will suffer, that wrongs will be made right, that the
underlying order of things is not flouted with impunity. Hope implies
a deep-seated trust in life that appears absurd to most who lack it.”
It is not the optimism that things will get right if we elect the
right people, but that God is working out his purpose in this world.
It is not the avoidance of pain and suffering, but knowing that it
has a purpose.
But
too often fear leads to hopelessness, a state of mind that Glenn
Tinder has described as a “kind of death
Fea
notes that the Civil Rights movement did not have political power.
(My thinking is they had moral power). They did have access, but used
that access to speak truth, such as the state of the Vietnam War.
Most
of all, though, the civil rights movement was shaped by people of
humble means who lived ordinary lives in ordinary neighborhoods.
David Davison Hunter talks about a Faithful Presence: [A]
theology of faithful presence first calls Christians to attend to the
people and places that they experience directly.
That would be first and foremost, those people who are closest to us.
Faithful
presence . . . would encourage ambition, but the instrumentalities of
ambition are always subservient to the requirement of humility and
charity.
The
humility on display during the civil rights movement was just as
countercultural then as it is now.
He says that non-violence is always counter-cultural.
Many in the movement practiced what theologian Reinhold Niebuhr
described as “the spiritual discipline against resentment.”
How do you practice this? Are there resources on this?
To
African-Americans, going back to “better” times is to go back to
Jim Crow and slavery. The
leaders of the civil rights movement could not make appeals to a
golden age. They could only look forward with hope.
Their appeal to the past was for liberty, freedom, or justice. The
appeal of MLK to a Christian nation was not an appeal to a state run
church, rather an appeal to Christian values. Civil Rights leaders
used
the past as a means of moving forward in hope and calling the church
and the nation to live up to the principles they were built on. While
many white Americans today succumb to the narcissism that tells them
that their place in the story of the nation is not worth serious
reflection, King and his followers had a clear-eyed understanding of
the past
Fea
ends the book with How
might hope, humility, and history inform the way we white American
evangelicals think about politics and other forms of public
engagement?
Evaluation:
How
did somebody like Donald Trump with all the moral baggage he
possessed win over the Evangelical Christian vote? That is the
subject of this book. This book is a bit dated, reading it during the
2024 election campaign, since it was written in 2018. Still, it is
good background.
The
main reason which Fea explores is the politics of fear. He traces
this back to the American colonial days when those who came to this
new land to escape religious persecution, set up their own standards.
Then as the United States expanded and those who were not of English
descent, feared the Catholics, particularly since the French were on
their northern border. Then slavery-both the slave revolts and the
northern abolitionists. Then as we went into the 20th Century, the
changing ethnic makeup and ethics of the country brought this fear of
change.
But
there were other reasons which Fea talks about: the mid-20th Century
brought power to white Protestants. But the Supreme Court limited the
integration of Church and State in the 50’s and 60’s.
Evangelicals felt the State was intruding when the Supreme Court
decided that Christian colleges would lose their tax-exempt status if
they were segregated. This propelled Reagan into the presidency over
Carter. The Playbook Fea talks about was to infiltrate the court
system with favorable judges. Eventually, Evangelicals felt a need
for the Strongman to fight through for power. Trump fit this, despite
his morals. There was some justification that Trump was now a
Christian, even though he seems to deny that.
Finally,
has the push for power been effective, not so much in terms of
gaining power, but in terms of spreading the Good News-note literally
the term evangelical means gospel or good news. Fea answer is no,
because now the message of the gospel has been hidden by the quest
for power.
Fea
finishes the book by comparing the Civil Rights movement of the 50’s
and 60’s. There emphasis on Hope,
humility, and a responsible use of American history
is the path Fea thinks is the way out of the quagmire the
Evangelicals are in now. Believe
Me
is a good book to read for understanding and enlightenment on a bit
of our political situation. It covers the infatuation the
Evangelicals have with Trump, but not the bigger picture of the rest
of his popularity.
Notes from my book group:
Fea
says he is writing this book as a means to figure out why Donald
Trump is persuasive with Evangelical Christians. What reasons does
Fea give? Are they convincing? If you consider yourself an
Evangelical Christian, do you look favorably on Trump? If so, do your
reasons correspond with Fea’s? If not, why do you favor him?
How
much interest do you think God has in our elections? If you think He
is interested, does he intervene? If so, how so?
Do
you think God wants Christians to intervene in elections? If so, in
what ways? With what kinds of issues? If not, what leads you to that
conclusion?
Fea
says that James Davison Hunter thinks that by looking for political
power, Christians have lost the ability to change the world through
presenting transformative good news. Why does he think this? How does
he say this loss of ability happens? Do you agree?
Fea
notes that political power is not intrinsically evil, but because of
human fallibility, it degrades into evil. Do you agree with his
statement? How does power corrupt even “good” people? Can a
Christian wield power without being corrupted?
What
is the politics of fear as Fea describes it? How have you heard fear
used in the most recent political campaign? Is it effective? What
effect did it have on you? As a Christian, how do you respond to
fear?
Joseph
Bivins says that “moral
panics” tend to “rely on presumptions more than facts they
dramatize and sensationalize so as to keep audiences in a state of
continual alertness.”
Is this true? What effect does it have?
The
term “strongman” is used. How is it defined? Why is a strongman
desirable? How do the Evangelicals reconcile the need for a strongman
to represent their values in politics today?
Fea
says that Christians are only to fear God and nothing else. On the
other hand, we are not promised security, safety or prosperity. Do
you think he is right in his synthesis of the Christian response to
fear and what it means to live in a society?
James
Davison Hunter says that Evangelicals
voted for Trump because they have been conditioned to a way of
thinking about political engagement that emerged in the 1970s and
1980s as a direct response to these cultural changes.
True? If so, how have you seen this? Where do you think this
conditioning will end up?
In
the 1950’s, the Supreme Court created a demarcation line between
Church and State. Describe what the Court said this separation should
be. Do you agree? What do you think the proper boundary line should
be, if any? Why? If another religion became predominant in the United
States, do you think they should follow the same rules you laid out?
Fea
notes that Christians supported the Civil Rights movement until
during the Carter years, the Supreme Court said that private
Christian colleges needed to desegregate. If there is separation
between Church and State, why did the Court decided that segregation
in private, religious colleges needed to take place? How would this
affect other areas where a church could teach something, but the
court would rule otherwise in its institutions of learning?
Christian
leaders' stance on the morality of a politician should matter. What
did they say about President Clinton? Did they apply the same
standards to President Trump? If not, what was the difference? Did
they change?
When
you think of the term city
on a hill, what
do you imagine? What attributes? How do politicians use it?
What
is American exceptionalism? What does it look like? Can this be
achieved?
Describe
the concept of Cannaan’s curse. Do you think this is what Noah
intended? Do you think God honored that curse?
Does
success lead to less or more fear?
Many
Christians of all stripes considered America to be a Christian
nation. Describe the varieties of ideas which this invoked? What does
the term mean to Christian Nationalists? What did Martin Luther
King, Jr mean? What do you think when you hear that term?
What
do you think the Christian leaders who are associating with Trump are
trying to accomplish?
How
does Fea describe that power corrupts?
How
does fear play into this corruption?
Are
there parallels between how Hitler used the German church and how
today’s politics is working through the American church?
Do
you think the type of Cyrus is correctly being applied to Trump?
What
does political power do to how the gospel is presented? Are the two
inherently in conflict?
What
period of time would you consider America as a great nation? What
were the strengths which America portrayed during that time? What
weaknesses? How would different groups, such as African-Americans,
Asains, women, …? Consider those times?
How
do the strengths and weaknesses stack up against America today?
Fea
says that The
belief that the United States is a Christian nation is a form of
idolatry.
Discuss this statement. What is idolatry? How does Fea think it is
idolatry?
What
would America as a Christian nation look like? How does it differ
from today?
Fea
notes that he is a historian and that historians are good at giving
context to situations, but are not trained to provide direction.
During a discussion on current events, what types of information do
you seek? From whom? How do you know if the information you are being
given is trustworthy?
Fea
asks at the start of the book, How
might evangelical politics change if we replaced fear with hope? How
might evangelical politics change if we replaced the pursuit of power
with the cultivation of humility? How might evangelical politics
change if we replaced nostalgia with history?
What are your answers to these questions?
He
also asks, Can
evangelicals recover this
[the Civil Rights movement]
confidence in God’s power—not just in his wrath against their
enemies but in his ability to work out his purposes for good. Can
they recover this hope?
How can this be achieved?
“the
spiritual discipline against resentment”
is a phrase that Reinhold Niebuhr used. Why does Fea say we need
this today? How do you practice this?
Fea
wants to move forward from today’s situation. What does Fea
consider moving forward? What would you consider moving forward? How
does this get accomplished?
Fea
says he is writing this book as a means to figure out why Donald
Trump is persuasive with Evangelical Christians. Did he accomplish
this? How? What understandings do you take away from this book which
you did not have before?
How
do you want your life to change because you read this book?
Many
of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why
the title of Be Me?
Does
this book work as a review of modern involvement of Christians in
politics?
Did
the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?
Every
book has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world
view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
In
what context was religion talked about in this book?
Why
do you think the author wrote this book?
What
would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What
“takeaways” did you have from this book?
Are
there solutions which the author presents?
Do
they seem workable? Practicable?
How
would you implement them?
Describe
the culture talked about in the book.
How
is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
What
economic or political situations are described?
Does
the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the
arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
How
did this book affect your view of the world?
Of
how God is viewed?
What
questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
Talk
about specific passages that struck you as significant—or
interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What
was memorable?
