The word “Christian” has taken a real beating in the past several years. I mean it has been pulverized. It’s now become synonymous with evangelical wingnut and that is so sad. Many people, myself included, identified as Christians in the pre-Trump era. I even wore a wooden crucifix on a braided string. A friend had carved it for me. I thought it was stylish and I was proud to wear it.
I stashed it in the drawer, where it sits to this day, when the Powers of Evil down in Texas, to wit David Barton the so-called educator and religionist, got the evangelical wheels greased and had broadcaster James Dobson lie his ass off to the world that Donald Trump had been “born again.”
Then the baton was passed to Robert Jeffress, Pat Robertson, you know all the names and they ran with it. Talk about fake news. The Trinity Broadcasting Network and the Christian Broadcasting Network announced the glad tidings that “baby Xian” Trump had their support for president of the United States. An evangelical wingnut of my acquaintance declared unto me that “God had revealed” to Robert Jeffress, I believe it was, that Trump would be in office for eight years and Mike Pence for eight years after him. It was head-exploding time back in 2016.
There were some real Christian pastors who saw the situation for what it was. William Barber was one. John Pavlovitz was another.
Pastor Pavlovitz republished what you are about to read this weekend, when the MAGA cult convened in North Carolina. It was originally written in August, 2018 and has been updated.
It was true then, is true now and will be true of the MAGA cult for as long as it exists.
The Miserable People
Miserable.
Every time I see them, this is the word that prevails.
Whenever I encounter a supporter of Donald Trump on social media now, or scan the crowds at his propaganda rallies, or see his surrogates bloviating on talk shows or pounding upon pulpits, I am left with the same conclusion: they are a people bereft of joy.
The emotional deficit is continually on display:
In their contorted, sneering countenance; in their so readily brandished middle finger; in their steady spit shower of verbal filth. With each angry gesture and with every slandering epithet, they reveal in high-definition detail what it looks like when someone loses the light inside them.
War does this to the human heart. These people are at war with the world.
They’re against the gays.
They’re against immigrants.
They’re against Muslims.
They’re against foreigners.
They’re against scientists.
They’re against atheists.
They’re against Liberals.
They’re against the Democrats.
They’re against the Media.
They’re against teenage shooting survivors.
They’re against athletes and entertainers.The world in their heads is composed almost entirely of enemies and adversaries—and as a result they are perpetually disgusted. If I had that many threats to fight, I’d be unendingly pissed off too. I’d probably pity them a lot more if I didn’t have to endure them.
These are the wildest of ironies: they had their president for four years, their politicians commandeering Congress, the Supreme Court tilted in their favor—and yet they still now manage to feel themselves oppressed, still picture the world unfair, still rage against a machine they’ve made and are part of. So many of them claim faith in Jesus, and yet live in almost polar opposition to his example.
The only time they do smile or show anything resembling joy, is to reflect the arrogant, self-satisfied sneer of their leader; almost always in the face of someone else’s heartache or misfortune, almost always when someone else loses something. They only happiness they seem capable of manufacturing, is in response to pain.
I try to imagine what it feels like to be so afflicted with contempt for the planet: to be so viscerally sickened by the breadth of diversity around me, to be relentlessly in a fear-birthed battle posture—but I can’t.
Thank God, I can’t. If you can’t imagine it either, consider yourself fortunate.
I realize that this has become the difference now; the dividing line in this version of America. It is between joyful people and miserable people; those who live open-handed toward the world and those whose fists are balled tightly; people who are driven by compassion and those fueled by anger; people who want a bigger table—and those feel it belongs solely to them.
As disheartening as it is to witness people this internally toxic, it’s a cautionary reminder of who we do not want to become, of what we can’t let the fight do to us.
We have to fight to keep goodness inside us, despite the outside badness; to never be defined by how many things we hate.
I want my default response to this life to always be hope and not derision.
May we who oppose this national malignancy, never become so devoid of lightness that we resemble those who celebrate it.
May we never applaud someone’s suffering, never weaponize our religion to do harm, never grow comfortable with hearts that are only capable of anger.
May we never lose our laughter, our softness, our lightness in this life.
May we never become as miserable as those who support our former President.
That is when we know we’ve really lost.
The MAGAs are a miserable lot. Their get togethers are on a par with Orwell’s Two-Minute Hate. A meaningful life and meaningful relationships with others are not based on whether you hate the same people or not, or who you intend to destroy when your party regains one or both chambers of Congress.
Meaningful living is founded on principles which seem to entirely elude the MAGAs. Those principles — kindness, cooperation, tolerance, patience, inclusivity, for openers — can be found in the actual teachings of Christ, not the prosperity consciousness drivel. I feel very safe in saying that Jesus’ dream for your life is not for you to have so much money that you can take your secretary shopping at Gucci’s and spend $6,000 on her at lunch. One of the prosperity consciousness pastors, Jesse DuPlanis, boasted about this very thing.
I don’t believe that Pastor Pavlovitz has his own jet, let alone a fleet of them. And I know he doesn’t have a pamphlet called “How To Believe God For A House” because I checked. Charlatan Kenneth Copeland has both those things.
I speculate that Pastor Pavlovitz would like to see things restored to pre-Trump sanity, with respect to religion, as would I. Maybe I’ll even take my beautiful, hand carved cross out of the drawer someday and wear it again.
Another word they overuse and abuse is “patriot”. Similarly to Christian, it is word that I no longer say. I’m sure we come up with more words they have co-opted and twisted to their purposes. Another person said that when GQP folk say they did their research, ask them which laboratory did they use?
You’re absolutely right. That’s another word that has been demeaned. A friend of mine was kind enough to call me a “patriot” the weekend in March, 2017 when the GOP plan to get rid of Obama care finally fell so resoundingly on its butt. I had blogged on it along with soooo many other people and this gal praised us all as “patriots.” Nowadays, if somebody called me a patriot, I would be terrified that they thought I broke windows at the Capitol on January 6.
They’ve also usurped the American Flag. These days when I see a flag attached to a vehicle, flapping and shredding in the wind, fading from the sun and rain, I know the driver is a MAGA. Do they not know that is the ultimate disrespect and abuse of the flag? When I see them at rallies with the flag shirts and hats, I know they’re MAGA. They think they own the flag now and maybe they do because that’s all I think when I see one anywhere but on a flagpole now. I’m an old hippy and remember when those very people were apoplectic when the flag was made into clothing in the 1960’s. Someone down the road from me has a yellow Don’t Tread on Me flag on his fence. I know what that means too.
Not just the American flag – all the fake flags that are clearly neo-Nazi. Thin blue line, blood and soil, coiled snake, 2nd amendment writing on it, etc. To me these are all examples of defacing the flag, not honoring or improving it. Also, the coiled snake one is no longer “don’t tread on me”, it’s “dont’ f*** with me”, which is ironic for people who claim to be so incrediby concerned about “the children”.
X-tianity got it’s bad name way before the orange buffoon graced us with his presence. Many, if not all, of those names mentioned (i.e. fat pat robertson) were broadcasting their hate for decades before former guy. Let us also not forget x-tian behavior centuries before these yahoos came along: it does not have a good track record and since it is demonstrably wrong, it will never have a good one.
I’ve thought a lot lately about the dark ages and how in some capacity they seem to be revisiting us, especially through the tantrums of the talibangical far right types. They’re banning books, restricting educational choices, eliminating women’s health choices, taking away voting rights, tormenting people of color, LGBTQ, and women, etc. It’s all about saying ‘no’, taking (not giving), about reducing our lives instead of expanding them. Yes, I agree with the writer above, these are miserable people, and holy crap, there are a hell of a lot of them. Whiney, whingey, bitchy cretins. No wonder they like Putin. He’s doing to his people what these people want done to us. No rights, no privileges, no nothing.
Everything said here is so true. I was extremely proud to fly the flag my son died for. Not anymore. I have come to loath seeing it. I despise the word patriot and although I’m blessed beyond words to be saved by Christ, I do not have a Christian symbol on my vehicle any longer. I try mostly to follow Christ’s example of being a humble Christian, not bragging about it. I turned Independent from Republican beause that party, minus a few, have become the party of liars and are creating division. We are no longer the United States of America. It’s sad and disturbing.
I came up in the south. I can remember a time when all the southern states had a confederate battle flag in the state flag. For us the civil war never ended. It was about dominance. They used every means possible to assert dominion over everything – just because. Religion is an arm of this. The legislature fell to this and now they aim at voting rights. Those who oppose don’t “get it”, don’t fell the burn of satisfaction when you know you “got ’em this time”. It’s a greed like stealing and getting away with it because “ain’t nothin they can do but take it”. We all have to endure this now. I suspect so many have to die off and a new generation of more tolerant people have to come forth. But be vigilant until then and take heart!
They have been pissed off since the Civil.War.
Add to.the list of people they hate:
Catholics
Episcopalians
Methodists who don’t hate gays sufficiently
Anyone above the Mason -Dixon unless they are Grumpier
Education
Reading anything but the Bible which they read very selectivel
Libraries
Bookstores other than the Christian ones
Anyone not Christian
Feminists
Civil.rights activists
Voting by people not white men
As a librarian with two.grad degrees, a lifelong feminist,,and a Sudden who reads could lively. I am.pretty much everything they hate. I wss wretched my unhappy there for 12 years. I will.never go back. My husband didn’t return for either parent’ s funeral, mostly because he couldn’t afford the flight,but also m to avoid his family members. I have lived from.Miami to Maine, visited 8 countries tries and loved in a 9th for 7 years,,and this is the worst place I have ever spent time in.
Funny, you talk about all the words and symbols these guys have coopted. It makes me think of all the left-wing BDSers and Jew-Haters (Ihan Omar, Bernie Sanders, Tlaib, Roger Waters, the Women’s March people, half of all student groups on campuses across the world) who have co-opted words like Social Justice, and resistance, and fairness and “in our lifetimes” and all terms like that and poof, they are twisted to refer to all the bad Jews and Israel. I cannot look at any term that even implies “social fairness” without knowing that the purveyor of that message hates Jews and wants to destroy Israel for things he thinks knows, but does’t actually have a clue. I now see that REAL Christians, like you Ursula, feel very much the same way when people who ONLY have hatred in their soul do the same definition twisting to suit THEIR political aims and hatreds. Sad, ain’t it?