Donald Trump, my Presbyterian brother

In my little Presbyterian corner of the Christian community, there is much hand-wringing over the nation’s leading demagogue describing himself as a Presbyterian. “He’s not actually on the rolls of any Presbyterian church,” we are quick to say. The talking heads on cable TV demand that we moderate Presbyterians renounce the demagoguery of the Donald, but they will not give us any airtime to do so. “We don’t need some Presbyterian clergy person to tell us what a Presbyterian is, we have Trump the Presbyterian and he’s much more entertaining than you.”

trumps-macys-new-yorkOur Stated Clerk even sent the Donald a letter earlier in this primary campaign season reminding him that the Presbyterian denomination’s actual position on refugees and immigrants stands in opposition to his campaign rhetoric. As far as I know, he has not responded, not even a tweet.

We can see where this is going. There will soon be long news programs on the inherent racism, sexism, and Islamophobia in the Presbyterian DNA going back to John Calvin and John Knox.

With Trump as our loudest un-appointed spokesperson, Presbyterian Churches will be the target of vandals who spray-paint “DOWN WITH PREDESTINATION!” on our church doors. Men wearing khakis and blue blazers will get harassed by the TSA at airports and Presbyterian women will have to surreptitiously remove their James Avery Presbyterian symbol nose rings before they leave church for Applebee’s Sunday lunch. The Unitarians will hold vigils in front of Presbyterian Churches with signs that say, “Dump Trump!” “Denounce the Demagogue!” and “Presbyterians, Go Back to Scotland!”

O.K., that probably will not happen.

But, since I cannot seem to convince the world that Trump is not one of us, I have decided to embrace him as a brother, and explain him to the world.

He is the greatest performance artist ever.

Some have speculated that he’s secretly trying to get Hillary Clinton elected, but I think it goes much deeper than that.

Donald Trump gets easily bored with the shenanigans of most rich men. Trophy wife? Done that. Conspicuous consumption? Been there. Reality TV show? Tired of it. Run for president? Now, that sounds like fun.

This campaign is the uber-rich man’s version of the redneck’s famous last words, “Hold my beer and watch this.”

Trump will soon reveal that his campaign is pure satirical theater, a performance artist’s pièce de résistance. He is actually still the liberal he used to be and his rhetoric on the campaign trail is a work of art designed to reveal the darkest part of the heart of America’s soul. Total depravity is the only Presbyterian doctrine that is provable with evidence, and Trump is generously providing us with all the evidence needed to convince us of The Truth.

“You think racism is no longer an issue in the U.S.? Watch this!” And his poll numbers climb as he insults Mexicans and encourages beating up an African-American man.

“You think sexism is fading away? Watch this!” He insults women and his poll numbers climb.

“You think we’ve come a long way since we interned the Japanese in 1942? Watch this!” And he proposes banning entry to the U.S. for Muslims. When asked “even those returning from overseas deployment in our armed services?” his spokesman replies, “All of ‘em,” and his numbers continue to climb.

Serious people say, “This is not funny anymore,” but like all edgy comics, once he has made everyone uncomfortable, he’s just getting started.

By the time he finishes this campaign, he will have given it his all. He will have fully developed the character of the American Demagogue and no matter what he says in the future, no matter how many times he protests, “It was art! Art, People! When the Donald does performance art, he does it better than anyone has ever done it before!” he will never be able to separate himself from this role. As Captain Kirk is to William Shatner, as Archie Bunker is to Carroll O’Connor, the American Demagogue of the 2016 campaign will be Trump’s career-defining role.

He will have sacrificed everything for this role, his energy, his reputation, and his future career as a performance artist. (But not much of his money, he wouldn’t go that far). But, he’s done it all for his country, to bring us to repentance, to hold up a mirror and show us what we’re really made of. “You think you’ve come so far,” his performance tells us, “but you ignore the fact that you have perfectly normal looking people walking around who will cheer when someone with money and a bunch of bravado says we need to institute a religious test for travel into this country. Wake up, people! Make America great again! Repent of your racism, your nationalism, and your Islamophobia!”

Just you wait and see. This has to be what he’s doing. He can’t possibly be serious, even if he is a Presbyterian. But, he’s not. No, really. He’s not.

The Church Is Like A Family. Your Family.

“When I became an adult, I put away childish ways . . .” 1 Corinthians 13:11

Presbyterian Disaster Relief volunteers get playful.

If the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. breaks out of the doldrums and thrives for generations to come, she will do so because our generation answered God’s call to lead her members to a higher level of self-differentiation.

What is self-differentiation? It is the ability to think and act calmly and clearly according to one’s deepest values and principles even in the midst of a highly anxious emotional system. People who are highly differentiated can disagree with others over significant issues and still maintain a good relationship with them.

Years ago, I helped two different couples prepare for their marriages. One couple (The Stones) agreed with each other about all the major issues they could identify from religion and politics to child-rearing philosophy and money management. The other couple (The Golds) did not. She was raised Catholic, he was raised Jewish. She was Republican, he was a Democrat. She came of age in rural California, he came of age in urban Atlanta, the deep South.

Conventional pre-marriage counseling would have predicted that the Stones, having everything in common, had a far greater chance of staying married than the Golds. However, the Stones have divorced and the Golds continue to enjoy a very happy marriage. The missing question in conventional pre-marriage counseling is the level of self-differentiation of the couple. The predictive factor I did not include in the brief description of the couples above was how playful the Golds were around their disagreements and differences and how serious the Stones were about everything. The Golds continue to live comfortably with their disagreements and enjoy engaging and teasing one another about canceling out each others’ votes on election day. The Stones divorced because they could not accept each other’s differing views over the very small issues that inevitably showed up. Mr. Stone’s absent-minded habit of leaving the toilet lid up escalated into accusations of disrespect, a spiral of passive-aggressive behavior from both of them, followed by a yelling match that sent Mrs. Stone to the divorce lawyer.

In a counter-intuitive paradox, the playful people are the grown-ups.

What does this have to do with the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., or any other denomination?

I predict that after our disagreements over gay ordination, gay marriage and the Middle East calm down, we will find different divisive issues in the future (which is as risky a prediction as foretelling market volatility at some point in the future). The pendulum may swing back and forth between conservative and liberal, but we will never go to a General Assembly in which all the votes are unanimous. (How boring would that be?)

Our future health as a denomination does not depend so much on whether we can assume God-like power over the minds of others so that they agree with us and start acting and thinking right. It depends on our ability to love one another in the midst of our disagreements. It depends on our ability to win graciously and lose without resentment. It depends on our ability to speak, not in the tongues of mortals or of angels, but in the language of grown-ups who love each other.

When have you seen church leaders or members of your family acting in a highly self-differentiated way? How has that affected you and your family and/or church?