Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy (Rodney Wallace Kennedy) -- A Review
GOOD AND EVIL IN THE GARDEN OF DEMOCRACY. By Rodney Wallace Kennedy. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023. Xv + 225 pages.
Is
democracy under threat in the United States? You can make a good case that
efforts are underway, whether intentional or not, that are undermining our
democracy. We see this expressed in efforts to limit voting rights and extreme gerrymandering
of representative districts. We hear it in the arguments being made on the part
of growing numbers of people, especially persons affiliated with the Republican
Party, that the United States is a republic and not a democracy as if these are
mutually exclusive categories. As a response, I will simply point to the United
Kingdom, which is both a democracy and a monarchy. As with a republic, a
monarchy can be a democracy. The danger here is that even as democracy is being
undermined and devalued in the United States, autocracy and authoritarianism are
on the rise. It’s not just here in the United States but elsewhere, including
in places like Hungary, where Victor Orban has instituted a form of Christian
nationalism that many in the United States on the Right wish to emulate. Something
is afoot that is eroding support for democracy in the United States. That’s a
big problem.
The
current face of this authoritarian movement is Donald Trump, but he’s not
alone. We see similar traits in people like Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida
and recently announced Presidential candidate. When it comes to Donald Trump,
who often claims that he alone can solve the world’s problems, a claim that in
itself has authoritarian dimensions, has displayed admiration for figures with
totalitarian proclivities, such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping.
He has even expressed jealousy of Xi, who is President for Life, something he
seems to desire for himself. One might ask if Donald Trump is a threat to
democracy in the United States. The answer is, possibly. When I say that he is
a possible threat to democracy it’s not because of anything he has in his
power, but because he has developed a cadre of supporters with a near cultish
embrace of him. That cult of personality has become a significant power within
the Republican Party, much of which still believe that Trump is the current
President of the United States. The question that we face here, in reading the
book Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy is whether Trump is the
embodiment of evil, something akin to the Devil incarnate.
Rodney
Wallace Kennedy raises the possibility that Donald Trump is the embodiment of
evil in his latest book, Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy. It’s
a provocative perspective, one that I struggle with. I can see why he might
make that charge but there are elements of the argument that I feel are
problematic. Nevertheless, it is a conversation we need to have, especially in
light of the growing presence of Christian nationalism in this country, an ideology
that corrupts the gospel for political gain.
Regarding
the author: Rodney Wallace Kennedy is a Baptist pastor and homiletics
instructor at Palmer Theological Seminary. He has a Ph.D. in rhetoric from LSU
and it is his background in rhetoric that serves as a foundation to the book. While
Kennedy draws on his background in theology it is his background in rhetoric
that seems to drive Kennedy’s argument that Donald Trump is the embodiment of
evil and that he must be stopped for the good of democracy in the United
States. While I agree that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and that he
and the movement that has gathered around him needs to be stopped lest it
undermines American democracy, I found myself uncomfortable with some of his
rhetoric about whether Trump embodies evil. It seemed to me that he has pushed
his rhetoric too far. Apparently, he is aware that some of us might feel that
way because he acknowledges that this might be true for at least some of his
readers. Nevertheless, Kennedy believes the threat is such that rhetoric some
might think is overblown is necessary. He may be correct, but I need to
register my discomfort at points.
Some of
my concerns involve how I perceived some of the ways Kennedy envisioned the way
good and evil work. I may have misread Kennedy’s intent in the book, but at
points, it seemed as if he was suggesting that good and evil are two equally
powerful cosmic powers, with Trump who in this picture embodies evil, is seen pulling
the strings of this movement of evil in our land. Do I believe that Trump is
capable of evil? Most certainly. We know him to be a serial liar, a
philanderer, and more. But is he the devil or a narcissistic conman? I tend to
lean toward the latter. It has never appeared that Trump has a true ideology.
He's just about himself, and somehow, he's been able to con a lot of people
into believing what he apparently believes about himself, that he alone can
solve the world's problems. I will admit that when I hear Trump make such
claims, in light of support from a significant number of Christians, he almost
sounds like he might be the anti-Christ! But surely Christians wouldn’t embrace
the anti-Christ, would they?
Kennedy
writes that the thesis of Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy is
that Donald Trump provides us with a "template for understanding what is
evil and what is good. He represents a form of evil that finds withering
condemnation in Scripture, philosophy, and rhetoric. Trump is the most conspicuous
advocate of the evil that often lurks in the religious realm, posing as
goodness, greatness, strength, and wisdom" (p. 25). It is this template
that Kennedy seeks to address, bringing together his reading of scripture and
philosophy, together with his use of rhetoric, to uncover Trump's threat to
democracy.
Through
the chapters that follow, Rodney Kennedy explores various dimensions of this
template of evil. He begins his sense of what faces the country with Donald
Trump in chapter one by exploring the concept of good and evil in Proverbs,
using the author of Proverb's contrast of the wise and loose woman. In this
model, Trump represents the loose woman who entices the unwary into his web of
evil. He suggests that similar tropes appear in Plato's "Phaedrus." According
to Kennedy, “Trump is the evil rhetor who turns Yahweh’s wisdom upside down and
who tries to draw others into his wrongheadedness and confusion by creating
ethical chaos” (p. 102). Kennedy continues to draw out this wisdom theme, in
chapter two, where he turns to the Psalms to create a picture of evil. He
chooses to draw on the Psalms because, as he notes, the Hebrews “used praise as
a primary weapon against evil” (p. 106). What we find in the Psalms, he
believes, is a battle plan against evil that is rooted in praise and prayer.
Chapters
three and four use rhetorical theory to explore the concepts of evil and good. He
begins in chapter three focusing on the rhetoric of Hitler, suggesting that
Trump mirrors in some ways Hitler's rhetoric. In this case, he points to how
both figures made use of the idea of victimization. We often hear from Trump
that he is the victim of one form or another of a “witch hunt.” In doing this
Trump often uses religious memes, appealing to feelings of victimhood on the
part of some Christians. So, how did he take a nation that prided itself on its
tolerance to embrace racism? He suggests four things that Trump was able to use
in developing his response. First, he points to white resentment over President
Obama being President. Second, Trump largely gained control of the Republican
Party (though the 2022 Midterm results suggested that his power was weakening).
Third, he convinced a lot of people he could make things better and safer.
Finally, he carefully controlled his public image (p. 150). Then in chapter 4, Kennedy offers an
alternative form of rhetoric in the form of a vision of the good as represented
by the Czech democratic leader Vaclav Havel. Kennedy points out how Havel
contrasted with Trump, in emphasizing qualities that emphasized: humility,
empathy, and irony. It is the latter that we need, not Trump’s rhetoric.
Finally,
in chapter 5, Kennedy lifts up the songs of democracy by Walt Whitman along
with songs from the African American prophetic tradition, as well as the
biblical Song of Solomon. In this chapter, Kennedy seeks to offer a different
vision of society, wherein democracy can be preserved. He suggests that Whitman
envisioned a society where everyone is involved and welcomed as opposed to the
current partisan effort to appeal to the base. He writes that "the
experience of being one united people—an actual 'united' States of America is
the ground on which we can stand together as we argue, judge, evaluate,
deliberate, discern, and draw the lines that make politics work. In a thriving
democracy, everyone knows that politics is the conversation that people have to
discover the goods we have in common" (p. 201). I agree with this
assessment of democracy. While democracy is not a biblically defined political
principle, it does seem to me to be the best, if not a perfect system that
reflects values that many of us discern present in the teaching of Jesus.
I don’t
disagree with the premise of the author that democracy is under threat from
certain elements of our society, including Donald Trump and his followers.
However, though Donald Trump is certainly an embodiment of that threat, I fear
that by placing so much emphasis on him we may miss the greater threat to
democracy that is bigger than Trump. Donald Trump may go away, but the
antidemocratic sentiment, which seems to be combined with a certain evangelical
spirit, will remain. Thus, I struggled reading the book. I know that there is a
lot of truth to be found here. Nevertheless, at points I felt like he was
pushing the envelope too far, creating even more tension than needs to be
present. In the end, whether my view of the book is correct, we do have a
problem in our land. Democracy is under threat. Donald Trump might be an
embodiment of evil or simply a narcissistic conman. Whatever is true, he is certainly
the current face of a big problem facing our country. That many Christians have
embraced his message is truly concerning. Here, in Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy, Rodney Kennedy raises an issue of concern that
we need to pay close attention to, even if, as is true for me, there are
elements of rhetoric here that could push things too far.
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