‘Any Real True Believer’ Will Support Trump in November, John MacArthur Says

You wrote:

Yet as much as I am a free-market Capitalist, those who speculate the market much higher for housing and are making huge, massive profits while displacing the poor and disadvantaged need to be called out.

One problem, I believe, is that many Christians just know nothing about economics or any of the housing issues to which you refer. I certainly don’t. I actually can’t remember ever studying anything about economics in my life. I somehow missed it in my undergrad liberal arts core. I do remember studying government, but not economics.

I hear what you’re saying, but I have no real understanding of how the system works to do what you’re saying. It’s an abstraction. I suspect many other Christians are in the same boat.

John Fea, in his 2016 book Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump, wrote (p.14):

Trump’s famous slogan is, at its core, a historical one: it assumes that there was a moment in the American past that was indeed “great.” Of course, national “greatness” is often in the eye of the beholder. A bygone era that may have been great for one group of people may have been oppressive for others.

Since Trump rarely says specifically which era in the American past he thinks was great, we can only measure his understanding of greatness through the moments in American history that he regularly invokes. Sadly, whenever Trump turns to the past, he usually alludes to some of the nation’s darkest moments. He looks back fondly on those times in American life when our leaders sought divisiveness over the common good and discrimination over the celebration of diversity grounded in human dignity.

Not long ago I would have scoffed at this. But, I’m just starting to understand this issue in more complex way. I’ve read four books since George Floyd’s death about Jim Crow laws and the civil rights era. They haven’t been partisan books by activists, but works by responsible historians. So, I admit I’m certainly a “babe in the woods” on these matters. Maybe it’s best to say I’m now at the point where I have an idea of how much I don’t know. Did the Groveland Four think America was so great in 1947? I think not, and they had little reason to think so.

But, even as I admit how little I know, it’s kind of frightening that, even still, I suspect I know more than most.

I still do not understand why it is more greedy for a landlord to charge the going rate than it is for a tenant to expect a lower rate. I also do not understand why it matters what color the hypster is if they are willing to pay the going rate for rent.

If the going rate is really that high, why wouldn’t some residents who were paying $500 a month sublease their apartments for $1500 and live in their car?

Would the community be better off without the medical jobs so that housing was cheaper?

[TylerR]

John Fea, in his 2016 book Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump, wrote (p.14):

Trump’s famous slogan is, at its core, a historical one: it assumes that there was a moment in the American past that was indeed “great.” Of course, national “greatness” is often in the eye of the beholder. A bygone era that may have been great for one group of people may have been oppressive for others.

Tyler, I’m no expert on history any more than you are, but I think the problem when people say “America was never great” is that what they really mean (whether they realize it or not) is “America was never perfect” (as if any nation founded and run by humans could ever be perfect). It also depends on what you mean by “great.” For the Christian, will *any* government be “great” before the Kingdom? Was Israel under David or Solomon “great?” There were some really dark moments in Israel during those reigns. Would an Israelite at the time of the exile been able to talk about the greatness of Israel or would the dark moments mean that Israel was never great? What about under Josiah? With a completely biblical view of what “great” really means, there is NO earthly kingdom, government, or system that can be truly great, defined in those terms, and yet even when we study the OT, we can see that Israel was at some points greater than at other times.

However, if we are defining great in more human terms, then yes, I believe that America, even with its faults, some of which are major, has been one of the greatest nations on earth, and there have been many periods that were greater than others, even if for some people the great moments would be different ones. There have been many struggles to overcome, and dark moments in America’s past, but even in terms of how races are treated, America today can be seen as “great” when compared with most, if not all, of the other nations on the earth, all of which have had their dark moments (many of them darker than any in America).

Looking back in America’s history, I believe America has been greater at times in our past than it is now, even if in some major ways (no more Jim Crow or redlining) America is better now, while still being noticeably worse in others (more out-of-wedlock births and legalized abortion), and I think that most objective observers can see that as well. And I won’t even try to get into the obscenely twisted way some are trying to define America as being defined by and only profiting from slavery and racism, while ignoring the things that truly made America a better place at its founding than most if not all of the other nations.

Finally, why does everyone assume that “Make America Great Again” (an expression I don’t use, although even President Clinton used it in at least one of his speeches) has to mean an exact return to a particular time period with both the bad and the good? Other than maybe for a very few, when has it meant exactly “America must be the 50’s again” including the problems of that era? Why can’t it mean (and I think it does for many, if not most) a return to two-parent married households, with less divorce, no legal abortion, more respect for each other and for authority, etc., without bringing back the things done wrong (e.g. obvious racism, Jim Crow, etc.) in the past? A nation will be greater when it turns away from wrong and does justly, loves mercy, and more of the people in it “walk humbly with their God.” Of course, those qualities depend on the ministry of the church, and people turning away from their sin and to Jesus as Savior, not a political system, but passing laws that encourage and reward righteousness and discourage and punish evil (i.e. trying to follow Romans 13) is not a bad thing, and certainly hoping for that is not.

One problem, I believe, is that many Christians just know nothing about economics or any of the housing issues to which you refer. I certainly don’t. I actually can’t remember ever studying anything about economics in my life. I somehow missed it in my undergrad liberal arts core. I do remember studying government, but not economics.

I hear what you’re saying, but I have no real understanding of how the system works to do what you’re saying. It’s an abstraction. I suspect many other Christians are in the same boat.

I am also on that journey. Living in Grand Rapids has its advantages because the Acton Institute is located here. It regularly has conferences and symposiums that are specifically tailored for pastors and much of it addresses how to think Biblically, Philosophically, and Historically about economics and freedom. There is a very strong emphasis on natural law and I was introduced to aspects of Catholic Social Teaching through it. I realized that many other stripes of Christianity have had a greater emphasis on ethics than my background and I needed to catch up. As much as I’ve enjoyed the Acton Institute and it’s helped me immensely think through social and economic issues, to me they rely too much on natural law as their foundation. That is why I was so drawn to the works of Dr. Carl Henry with God, Revelation, and Authority. His ethics are grounded in Revelation. It’s just too bad that he can be so unreadable!

As for housing, I have a Christian Reformed pastor friend that worked for years with a large non-profit housing organization that helps people into homeownership and we had numerous conversations about what social and economic factors were causing the housing crisis. At one time, this same pastor used to work for the Republican party in the GR area, so he wasn’t some progressive liberal social justice warrior.

Not long ago I would have scoffed at this. But, I’m just starting to understand this issue in more complex way. I’ve read four books since George Floyd’s death about Jim Crow laws and the civil rights era. They haven’t been partisan books by activists, but works by responsible historians. So, I admit I’m certainly a “babe in the woods” on these matters. Maybe it’s best to say I’m now at the point where I have an idea of how much I don’t know. Did the Groveland Four think America was so great in 1947? I think not, and they had little reason to think so.

But, even as I admit how little I know, it’s kind of frightening that, even still, I suspect I know more than most.

I am currently reading a book on Jim Crow and Housing called “The Color of Law” written by a historian and its brutal to see how so much Federal, State, and Local government intervention was used in the 20th century to segregate African-Americans into ghettos. I was blown away to read how much the New Deal folks went out of their way to lift poor whites and white WW2 veterans out of poverty through FHA loans and other housing opportunities, while they intentionally segregated blacks into ghettos all over America and purposely didn’t help blacks and black WW2 veterans with the same homeownership opportunities. FDR made some crazy Faustian bargains with racist southern Democrats to get them on board with the New Deal.

I think you’re doing well Tyler in wrapping your head around all of this, much more than others who don’t acknowledge the problem or depend on conservative evangelical celebrity mega-pastors that they’re comfortable with, even if those pastors have no training and a shallow understanding of social ethics and political philosophy and theory. Its the process of being a life-long learner and it keeps us humble.

Do poor white people (I hate all this racial stuff, but I’m going to use it to illustrate) get good loans? No.

Do poor white people go to good schools? No.

Do poor white people get good jobs? No.

Do poor white people have higher crime rates than more financially stable whites? Yes.

Do poor looking white people with extensive criminal records get treated harshly by the police? Yes.

Would a poor looking white man be welcomed walking down the street on an upper middle-class neighborhood in the middle of the day? No.

So maybe this isn’t about race, but money being the access to power and influence.

My father died when I was 7 and we didn’t live great when he was alive. I remember my mom struggling hard to make ends meet. I was mowing lawns when I had no business doing it to make money when I was 9/10. I remember my mother being desperate about a year after my father died. We had next to nothing. She couldn’t get a job and take care of me and my brother at the same time. She drove to another town where the welfare office was. She picked up her pride and went in. She made us stay in the car (yes it was summer and hot and no a/c…and in a car). She went in. A while later she came out crying, weeping really… I have no idea what they told her in there because she refused to tell us… but it wasn’t good. She got no help. She was desperate. Somehow we made it by the grace of God.

I lived in poor neighborhoods all my younger life. Surrounded by black people. I went to school in mostly black schools. All my friends were black in elementary school and junior high. But in high school the black kids left the district and went to a different school that was perceived to be more “black” so I lost track. None of my friends who were black read any books. They were terrible at school. No interest in school.

The thing that led to my life being different was my family (and the grace of God though we were not Christians). Period. No one else cared.

To go to college I enlisted in the Marine Corps. Open to all…

I suggest racism has little to do with these problems anymore. Once they did. But in 2020 race is holding no one back. It’s attitude and desire.

[Joel Shaffer] But if you would come to my urban neighborhood, which is in the process of being gentrified by real estate speculators to reshape the neighborhood for college students and white secular hipsters, you will realize that the primary social issue (along with further criminal justice reform measures) that impoverished and working-class minorities face is lack of affordable housing. Investors (from Chicago, NY, Dallas) have bought up older and start-up houses for cheap and renovated them and flipped them or keep them and charge 3x what they used to rent for. Most cities like GR are landlocked and crippled by zoning laws.

• Grand Rapids has an amazingly affordability index: Plymouth MN (where my brother-inlaw lives) compared to Grand Rapids, MI Image below
• Some view Gentrification positively (I do!): “as a natural cycle: the well-to-do prefer to live in the newest housing stock. Each decade of a city’s growth, a new ring of housing is built. When the housing at the center has reached the end of its useful life and becomes cheap, the well-to-do gentrify the neighborhood. The push outward from the city center continues as the housing in each ring reaches the end of its economic life.”
• On zoning: Don’t like it … organize to change it. I’m sure it beats the Minneapolis 2040 plan!

If you define gentrification as Craig defines it, I like it too. If you define it as relining designed to keep minorities out of home ownership, then that would be a problem. All matters equal, I have yet to see proof that individuals are being discriminated against for loans based on race. If I do see that I will call for action to stop that. What we do see are certain “regions” being discriminated against (redlining). If those regions are revitalized by people who can get loans, then that should be a good thing. Further Senator Tim Scott and President Trump have been working on Opportunity Zones to try to address these problems. That is a good thing.

[JD Miller]

If you define gentrification as Craig defines it, I like it too. If you define it as relining designed to keep minorities out of home ownership, then that would be a problem. All matters equal, I have yet to see proof that individuals are being discriminated against for loans based on race. If I do see that I will call for action to stop that. What we do see are certain “regions” being discriminated against (redlining). If those regions are revitalized by people who can get loans, then that should be a good thing. Further Senator Tim Scott and President Trump have been working on Opportunity Zones to try to address these problems. That is a good thing.

Redlining is no more! It’s a lie! The CRA law and reporting demonstrates that!

Redlining is no more! It’s a lie! The CRA(link is external) law and reporting demonstrates that(link is external)!

Thank you for the links. It is amazing how a little bit of information puts a whole different perspective on things. It is amazing how hiding that information allows people to slant the conversation in a whole different direction. It reminds me of Romans 1:18 where the unrighteous suppress the truth. Although I have not drank the woke coolaid, I have tried to be compassionate to the downtrodden and have listened to their concerns. That is why I was concerned about redlining. Your added info is very enlightening.

Economics is a personal hobby that I study fairly lightly. For those interested in getting some basics, the Econtalk podcast is excellent. The host is the best interviewer I’ve ever heard and is a libertarian/classical liberal.

I realize I wrote Paul earlier when I should have wrote Joel. It has been decades since I watched Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, but evidently my subconscious went there.

What I’ve read recently to better understand the context of Jim Crow laws and the civil rights era:

• The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward. This classic, endorsed by MLK, Jr., was written by the dean of Southern historians in the mid-1950s after Brown v. Board of Education, and revised three times (the last being in 1974). It advanced the so-called Woodward thesis, that Jim Crow laws did not follow immediately on the heels of the Civil War, but were a calculated step backward after Reconstruction that deliberately disenfranchised the entire black population and reversed racial progress. The thesis is much more nuanced than I’m presenting it (racial prejudice certainly still existed during Reconstruction). But, it’s a horrifying look at how a culture deliberately took a step back towards pure evil.
• The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow by Richard Wormser. This is a short history of the entire Jim Crow era, with particular focus on eyewitness accounts. It is the most horrifying book I’ve ever read and literally changed my perspective forever. I will never think of my country the same way again. You wonder how the Nazis constructed concentration camps? Then, wonder how a “Christian” people did this to other human beings in America. Sin can warp the mind worse than anything else. Terrible.
• Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King. Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACPs legal strategy to destroy Jim Crow, using the Groveland Four case (from late 1940s Florida) as a foil. One of the most readable, enjoyable books I’ve ever read.
• Grand Expectations by James Patterson. Part of the Oxford History of the United States series, focusing on 1945-1974. Essential for capturing the greater context to understand the civil rights era.

I’m listening to the Oxford History entry on the Reconstruction era right now. I plan on listening to a detailed history of the pre-Civil War era slave issue (likely Impending Crisis, by Potter) after that.

josh p - exactly right. EconTallk is a great podcast and Russ Roberts is one of the coolest (mentally and emotionally keeps his cool) interviewers out there. Lots of folks in the U.S. of A. would do well to study economics. Money and a better economy do not offer salvation, but does explain a lot of how people are motivated and act.

Joel, What does someone like Thomas Sowell not understand that he should?