ONE-OFF MOMENTS OF GRACE WON'T SAVE US

David French's work at The New York Times has surprised me: not only has been a harsh critic of Trumpism, he's also sharply critical of evangelical Christianity in America because so many churches value Donald Trump and the Republican Party more than they value the teachings of Jesus. Reading his columns also reminds me of my time as a Catholic, and then a vaguely Christian adolescent -- I didn't turn atheist until I was seventeen, and members of my family continued to be believers.

So I was willing to give French's latest column, "The Grace That Gives Us Hope," the benefit of the doubt -- the religious beliefs of most Americans are closer to French's than they are to mine, so I was hoping he had actually spotted a path away from Trumpism that ordinary Americans mightbe inclined to follow. But he hasn't.

French writes about the response of some Mormons to a recent attack on a Latter-Day Saints church in Michigan that killed four people.

A member of the L.D.S. Church, Dave Butler, started an online fund-raising campaign ... for the family of the shooter. He was killed at the scene and had left behind a wife and young child.

As Sonia Rao, my newsroom colleague reported, the money rolled in. It took only two hours to raise $7,000. By the 12-hour mark, the total reached $100,000. By Friday, more than $300,000 had been raised, much of it donated by Latter-day Saints.

... In true imitation of Christ, who — according to Christian theology — died for us while we were still sinners, Latter-day Saints did not wait to pour out their love. They just gave it, unconditionally, to a family they did not know.

I can be a stony-hearted bastard, but this does move me. But does it reflect an impulse that could save America? French thinks so.

America has witnessed two remarkable acts of forgiveness in the last month. Erika Kirk forgave the man who killed her husband. Latter-day Saints loved the family of the man who massacred their brothers and sisters. A nation that produces such acts of such love is a nation that still has life. It’s a nation that still has hope.

On Tuesday, Kelsey Piper, a staff writer at The Argument, responded to the Latter-day Saints church’s act of love with a beautiful and true statement. “If America is going to make it,” Piper wrote, “it will be because people choose forgiving things they should never have had to forgive over hurting people they have every right to be angry with.”

I wish I agreed, but I don't.

One problem with these acts is that they're perceived as extraordinary. The Christians who praise them see them as over and above -- which means that the Christians who approve of them don't need to question their own behavior. My interpretation of Christian forgiveness is that every Christian should be as forgiving as Erika Kirk says she is. But most American Christians don't expect that. They think her statement of forgiveness was admirable but not morally necessary. That's why they had no cognitive dissonance when Donald Trump took the stage shortly after Kirk and said he hates his enemies. Admirers of Kirk and Trump came away from that event still admiring both of them, because they don't think Christianity requires forgiveness of enemies.

Traditional morality might help us overcoming Trumpism, but the aspect of traditional morality that would be the most useful is moral condemnation, not forgiveness.

We might be saved if right-leaning Christians had a single moral standard, one that would compel them to condemn brutality, heartlessness, corruption, and contempt for the law by people on their own side. Many of them don't approve of Trump's methods even if they approve of his stated goals -- but they would need to recognize that, for instance, the brutality of the ICE crackdown, the terrorizing of children and the elderly, the incarcerations without due process, is all wrong according to their moral code, which they need to apply even if it means their side loses. They need to stop forgiving "their" politicans for deeds they would find unforgivable in "our" politicians.

Needless to say, I don't expect this will ever happen.

Look, I get it. I remember doing moral backflips in reaction to Bill Clinton's exploitative sex life. It seemed necessary to defend him because bad people -- Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, the Kochs and Scaifes -- wanted him destroyed. I'm not proud of that moment. I wish we'd jettisoned Clinton the way we later jettisoned the likes of Anthony Weiner and Andrew Cuomo.

Right-leaning American Christians need to apply their professed moral code to their politicians. And also -- because they mostly regard themselves as great patriots -- they need to apply their secular moral code as well. They should demand respect for the law because that's what the Founding Fathers they claim to revere would have wanted. They should defend free speech for everyone, not just for themselves. They should condemn the self-dealing that has increased the Trump family's wealth by billions.

They won't, of course -- but that's the moral awakening that could save us.