Prop Master
As a lifelong fan of cinema, I’ve always been fascinated with movie props. I remember when a traveling exhibition of famous film props was going to be in a nearby city and I was determined to see it no matter what it cost and what classes I missed (which, being in film school at the time, would’ve probably been seen as a viable excuse by many of my profs). As my friends and I wandered from room to room we marveled at the Death Star from Star Wars, the golden calf from The Ten Commandments, the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the flying bicycles from E.T. and more…it was a movie lover’s paradise.
Movie props serve a very specific purpose: they try to make a world that is not real seem real. They “prop up” the illusion of authenticity (not the real origin of the word “prop,” but you know…puns) and extend the willing suspension of disbelief. A well-made prop can fool people a little too well, as when Robert Zemeckis tricked “Back to the Future” fans into believing the hoverboard was real, resulting in a lot of disappointed people when Mattel deceptively marketed a toy version. Conversely, a poorly-made prop takes the audience out of the moment, and can become a source of public mockery no matter how viable the filmmaker’s excuse may be.
Put succinctly, a prop enhances an illusion. George Lucas understood this well when he made the original “Star Wars” trilogy, with one of the key concepts he passed on to his prop masters being the need for a “lived-in” look, rather than the new-and-shiny aesthetic so many science fiction films embraced. In a 2015 interview, legendary set designer Roger Christian described what they were going for and the initial struggle to communicate that vision to the crew:
“Most of the crew had a hard time understanding, because they thought science fiction should be like Flash Gordon. So George showed them Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone’s great cowboy movie, and that was very dusty and very real. That was the look that we were trying to get. After that, I was aging the sets and throwing dust on them and making everything look very natural.”
— Roger Christian, set designer for Star Wars (1977)
In the past couple of days, the word “prop” has been used a lot of folks to describe President Trump’s raising of a Bible at a photo-op held at a Washington, D.C. church in the midst of the recent riots. He’s come under a lot of criticism for the way crowds near the church were cleared away with tear gas so that he could visit the site, a target of vandalism during the riots.
A lot of smarter people than me have written eloquently on this subject. I heartily recommend (even if I don’t agree with everything he says) Ed Stetzer’s article at Christianity Today, which doesn’t pull any punches despite his strong evangelical cred:
“To use the Bible in a photo op, after clearing peaceful protestors from Lafayette Park with, The Hill reported, “tear gas and smoke bombs hissing” so he could walk to a church, was simultaneously unhelpful to the current situation and at odds with the message of that Bible.” — Ed Stetzer
As I begin my journey of sharing more openly my journey regarding American politics, this is a very timely event, because it captures in a nutshell one of my foundational issues with Donald J. Trump: his relationship with what is commonly called the “Christian Right.” I’ll have more to write in the future about the Christian Right, how I feel about its aims, origins, and messages, but for now I’ll summarize what I believe with this:
I believe the Christian community, to Donald Trump, is more a power base to be harnessed than a constituency to be served.
You might read that and push back, as is your right. On the surface it could be argued that President Trump has served the evangelical Christian community well with his support of pro-life judges, his defense of religious freedom, and some of his foreign policy choices. And on a policy front I can’t fault anyone who agrees with those decisions for supporting him. If you’re watching your priorities advanced in this administration, supporting those actions makes sense.
But I can’t escape what seems to me a very clear truth about Donald John Trump: the choices he makes are the ones that he feels will best serve himself above all else. So yes, he makes policy decisions that appeal to many Christians, but at what cost? I would argue that the damage he does to the Christian witness along the way is so deep, so ravaging, and so painful that in the end the mission of God’s Kingdom suffers as much (if not more) than it would have otherwise.
This photo-op at St. John’s Church is a perfect example. Why do this? Was it to live into a President’s traditional role as “comforter-in-chief?” Was it, as Robert Jeffress of Dallas’ First Baptist Church claims, to proclaim that “God hates racism” and “God hates lawlessness?” If so, where were the words and actions to go with the picture? Why not meet with church leaders to discuss the situation and pray? Where was the invocation of Galatians 3:8, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile?” Where were the reminders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who rooted his message of “courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love” in the words of Scripture? Here was a moment like no other, to challenge the church of Jesus Christ to live up to what it says about coming alongside the marginalized, the oppressed, and the hurting…and all that seemed to matter was getting the picture. Bishop Marianne Budde said it simply and well:
“He didn’t come to church to pray, he didn’t come to church to offer condolences to those who are grieving,” she said. “He didn’t come to commit to healing our nation, all the things that we would expect and long for from the highest leader in the land.” — Marianne Budde, bishop of the Diocese of Washington.
As Dr. Stetzer points out, the actions of the moment didn’t echo the words of the Book. And I believe that has been true of his entire Presidency — a dissonance between the standards set forth in Scripture and the values that are clearly most important to him. I’m not talking about his policy decisions, which seem to me to be little more than calculated choices to shore up his base. I’m talking about his clear desire to maintain and even increase his executive power, demonize all those who criticize him, and fashion an alternate version of reality that puts him in the best light and diminishes anyone who is different, be it in gender, ethnicity, or ideology.
In that light, the book really was just a prop. But more than that…in my opinion, Donald Trump uses his entire Christian base as a prop. To him, the Christians in America are a means to an end. As props, they enhance the illusion that he is fighting for righteousness and a return to America’s supposed Christian roots (a topic for another day), and ultimately help him in his pursuit of more power.
But when he attempts to actually use the props, the illusion is shattered. It’s shattered because they are nice and shiny, instead of looking “lived in.” It never appears to be a natural part of who he is.
Here’s the part where people I dearly love often say, “You shouldn’t judge his heart. Only God knows his heart.” That’s true. But I also keep hearing Jesus’ words in Matthew chapter 7:
“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” — Matthew 7:15–20 (NLT)
I believe any honest look at the fruit of Donald Trump’s life and Presidency will show who he is and how he really understands Christianity. And when we consider that he is putting himself forward as a representative of the faith, I can’t help but think our witness is being tarnished in ways that will require a massive supernatural movement of the Spirit to undo.
I believe any honest look at Donald Trump’s life and Presidency will also show how he understands the Constitution of the United States and the pillars of our Republic. Again, like his evangelical base, I believe he sees these as little more than props as well…props he can manipulate to his advantage to enhance his illusion of control, consolidate his power, and (attempt to) silence his perceived enemies.
There’s a part of me that has hope. The events of the past few days and weeks have put the illusion front and center and shown it for what it really is. For many the suspension of disbelief is becoming less and less willing. For the first time, members of the GOP are standing up and calling him out. Even CBN’s Pat Robertson, someone I rarely agree with politically, spoke up:
“It seems like now is the time to say, ‘I understand your pain, I want to comfort you, I think it’s time we love each other.’ But the President took a different course.” — Pat Roberston on the 700 Club, June 2
Be careful, Mr. President…the props are coming to life.
