"Making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it..."

"They’re destroying the blood of our country... They're ruining our country. And it's true they’re destroying the blood of our country. That's what they're doing. They're destroying our country."

"They don't like it when I said that -- and I never read ‘Mein Kampf.’ They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that’ - in a much different way. No, they're coming from all over the world. People all over the world,” 

“They could bring in disease that's going to catch on in our country, but they do bring in crime. … They're destroying the blood of our country. They're destroying the fabric of our country."

Donald Trump (December 20, 2023)

I wish to note at this point that I have not read Mein Kampf... but I can recognize "blood & soil" rhetoric when I see or hear it. 

I'll also note that the former president's argumentation - that Hitler said that "but in a much different way" - suggests some familiarity on the part of Mr. Trump.

Finally, this kind of language is reminiscent of the eugenics movement and the "one-drop" rule... abhorrent pieces of our American heritage.

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. 

President Andrew Shepherd (from the film 'The American President")

As evangelical followers of Christ, we don't have to live this way. Historically, we have.

“Whenever there is a threat to that Christian nation – whether it be immigration, Catholics coming in in the 19th century, or slave revolts overturning the white social order – it’s the evangelical Christians who are leading the charge against that social and demographic change.”

The phrase of “evangelical fear” should be oxymoronic. The Bible offers the command to “fear not” or similar ideas extremely frequently. A belief in the God of the Bible should be coupled with a freedom from anxiety.

“It’s very strange and somewhat ironic that anyone who reads the Bible will find a lot of exhortations against fear,” says Fea. “Fear represents a kind of lack of faith in God’s sovereignty or God’s will to work out his purposes. I love the quote from Marylinne Robinson: ‘Fear is not a Christian habit of mind.’ Fear is a product of the broken world that we live in, but fear is not a place where one can dwell and still claim to be an evangelical Christian. It produces negative consequences.

“What’s striking here is that evangelicals have in almost every circumstance where there’s some kind of change in the culture, have not responded with hospitality to the stranger, with grace, with hope, with the idea that people who are different from them have been created in the image of God and have that dignity and worth. Instead they have built their walls and protected themselves against people they fear Fear. [It’s] an inherent contradiction for anyone who takes the Bible seriously. That’s what I’m trying to call people to think about in this book. Why are we so afraid? We love to claim a big God who controls everything and will work out his purposes for good as it says in Romans. Their politics is driven by fear much more than any kind hope.”

interview with evangelical historian John Fea

Let's remember how the story ends... and not fall prey to those who would stoke our fears for their personal gain.

When this was done I looked again, and before my eyes appeared a vast crowd beyond man’s power to number. They came from every nation and tribe and people and language, and they stood before the throne of the Lamb, dressed in white robes with palm-branches in their hands. With a great voice they shouted these words: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb!”

Revelation 7:9 PHILLIPS