MAGA CHRISTIANITY AND THE COLLAPSE OF MORAL IMAGINATION

The misuse of Scripture is not a partisan problem. It is a human one. I have already written about the ways progressive politicians conscript the Bible into the service of expressive individualism. But the same failure of moral imagination appears—often more dramatically—on the MAGA Right, where Scripture is invoked not to form a people but to fortify a tribe.

Here, too, the Bible becomes a prop in a political morality play. Here, too, the living Word is reduced to a set of slogans. And here, too, the result is not simply bad exegesis but a deformation of the civic imagination.

This is not a critique of conservatism. It is a critique of a movement that has traded the cruciform shape of Christian faith for the muscular theatrics of political combat. When public figures such as Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, the late Charlie Kirk, and Eric Metaxas invoke Scripture, they often do so in ways that collapse the biblical story into a narrative of grievance, domination, and national chosenness.

This is not Christianity. It is Christianity without a cross.

The Temptation to Turn Jesus into a Tribal Warrior

One of the most striking features of MAGA‑aligned Christianity is its willingness to recast Jesus in the image of a political strongman. When Marjorie Taylor Greene declares that Christians need to be “warriors” who “fight like hell,” or when Charlie Kirk insisted that Jesus would support aggressive border policies because “nations need walls,” they are not reading Scripture. They are projecting their political instincts onto the text.

The Sermon on the Mount becomes optional. Enemy‑love becomes naïve. Meekness becomes weakness. The cross becomes a symbol of grievance rather than self‑giving love.

This is not merely a theological distortion. It is a civic one. A democracy cannot survive when its dominant religious rhetoric sanctifies retaliation.

The Bible as Prop for the Strongman

The most iconic moment of MAGA biblical theater occurred on June 1, 2020, when Donald Trump held a Bible aloft in front of St. John’s Church after protesters had been forcibly cleared. The gesture was not devotional. It was symbolic—a display of cultural dominance.

The Bible became a stage prop.

This pattern continues. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, frequently frames his political agenda as a direct extension of biblical authority, yet his appeals often flatten Scripture into a set of culture‑war talking points. Eric Metaxas, once a thoughtful evangelical writer, now treats political loyalty as a test of faith, declaring that opposing Trump is equivalent to opposing God’s plan.

In each case, Scripture is not allowed to interrogate political power. It is used to sanctify it.

Christian Nationalism and the Shrinking of the Biblical Story

Christian nationalism—promoted by figures like Kirk, Metaxas, and Doug Mastriano—collapses the biblical narrative into a myth of American chosenness. Passages about Israel’s covenant with God are applied wholesale to the United States. The result is a civil religion that confuses providence with privilege.

This is not the biblical story.

The God of Scripture judges nations—including His own people—when they abandon justice, humility, and care for the vulnerable. The prophets do not bless national greatness. They call nations to repentance.

When MAGA leaders treat America as a new Israel, they replace covenantal responsibility with cultural entitlement.

The Misuse of Romans 13

Few passages have been more abused in recent years than Romans 13. During the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited it to defend family separation at the border. The text was invoked as a blanket endorsement of state power, as though Paul were writing a permission slip for cruelty.

But Romans 13 is not a charter for authoritarianism. It is a call to civic responsibility within a moral order shaped by love of neighbor. It cannot be severed from Romans 12, where Paul commands believers to “overcome evil with good.”

When Romans 13 is used to justify injustice, it becomes a weapon rather than a witness.

 

Strength Without Sacrifice

A central theme of MAGA Christianity is the celebration of strength—winning, dominating, humiliating enemies. This rhetoric is championed by Trump and spiritualized by Metaxas.

But biblical strength is always cruciform. It is strength expressed through sacrifice, not swagger. It is power poured out for the sake of the weak.

When Christians sacralize domination, they abandon the very heart of the Gospel.

The Crisis Beneath the Crisis

The misuse of Scripture on the Right reveals the same deeper ailment I identified in progressive misuse: the collapse of the moral imagination.

A healthy moral imagination:

• receives the world before trying to control it
• recognizes that power is for service, not self‑protection
• understands that the kingdom of God is not reducible to electoral victory

MAGA Christianity does none of these. It treats the biblical story as a justification for political combat. It assumes the moral life is about defending the tribe rather than loving the neighbor. It collapses transcendence into nationalism.

This is not conservative Christianity. It is Christianity without repentance.

Why This Matters

Some will ask why any of this matters in a secular age.

It matters because when Scripture is used to sanctify domination, our constitutional republic becomes fragile. When the Bible becomes a weapon, civic trust collapses. When religious rhetoric is fused with political grievance, the common good becomes impossible.

A society that treats the Bible as a tool of tribal power will eventually treat human beings the same way.

Toward a More Faithful Public Theology

The task before us is not to reclaim a Christian nation. It is to recover a Christian imagination—one shaped by the cross rather than the flag, by humility rather than triumphalism, by neighbor‑love rather than grievance.

This requires:

• Humility: allowing Scripture to judge our politics
• Courage: resisting the seduction of power
• Truthfulness: refusing conspiracy and bearing honest witness
• Hope: trusting that God’s kingdom does not rise or fall with any election

A faithful public theology—whether conservative or progressive—must hold together two commitments: the radical welcome of Jesus and the radical transformation His grace demands.

To lose either is to lose the Gospel.

And as my Oklahoma kin and Texas friends might say: much of MAGA’s biblical rhetoric, like that of the progressives, is “all hat and no cattle.”

 

CODA: The Misappropriation of Edmund Burke by Later Conservatism

Although many in the modern conservative movement label Burke as the founder of modern conservatism, they do so by often detaching him from his robust Christian foundation. Burke is presented as a pre-modern champion of ideological conservatism defending free markets, limited government, and national identity without regard for context instead of the last great Christian statesman of the pre‑ideological age.

Burke did not defend tradition for its own sake, nor did he oppose change as a matter of principle. He defended the moral and religious inheritance of society because he believed it was the means by which God forms virtuous citizens. Later conservatism often treats tradition as a political tool rather than a sacred trust. It emphasizes order over compassion, stability over moral imagination, and ideological certainty over humility. In doing so, it transforms Burke from a Christian statesman into a conservative mascot — a transformation that obscures the theological depth of his vision.

Edmund Burke’s Christian faith is the key to understanding his political philosophy and his views on human nature, tradition, authority, reform, and justice which all flow from a deep Christian moral imagination. He believed that society is a fragile inheritance shaped by Providence, that political authority is a stewardship under divine judgment, and that compassion for the vulnerable is a Christian duty. Burke stands as a thinker whose wisdom remains urgently relevant in a world still tempted by abstraction, hubris, and the allure of political salvation.