Evidently, Donald Trump’s efforts at becoming a moral leader with his stroll to St. John’s church, Bible in hand, have tanked spectacularly, because a new book of essays released Monday, “The Spiritual Danger Of Donald Trump: 30 Evangelical Christians on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity” asks evangelicals to rethink their vote. The Christian Post:
“Our plea is to white evangelicals to please take another look and ask, ‘Does this person measure up to biblical norms?’” Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, told The Christian Post. “We are not telling you what to include. But please prayerfully think about that. Even if you think the book will make you mad, given the title, I challenge you to read it and decide for yourself if there are any valid points that we are making there.” […]
“The book is not a book to tell people how to vote,” Sider stressed. “It is a book to call people to think biblically about this election and about the character of candidates.” […]
“We’re not just left-wing Democrats,” Sider said. “We are a whole range of views begging American white evangelicals to ask this simple question: ‘Does Donald Trump’s behavior and policies fit with or contradict biblical norms?’” […]
Topics include Trump’s instances of dishonesty, his past adulterous behaviors, his attacks on the media, the president’s past controversial statements on women, policies restricting immigration and refugee resettlement as well as his administration’s policies to restrict welfare benefits, among other topics.
“One of the most common biblical themes is God’s special concern for the poor. But that doesn’t seem to be a significant part of his policy,” argued Sider, who also serves as distinguished professor emeritus of theology, holistic ministry and public policy at Palmer Theological Seminary at Eastern University in Pennsylvania.
No, Trump hates the poor. One of the biggest cons of his regime is that he’s the friend of the working man. And he’s only doing harm to the Christian “brand” if you will, as long as they stay with him.
“I want to say to my Christian friends, especially the evangelical ones who most support Trump: I hear you. Christianophobia is real,” [sociology professor George] Yancey wrote. “I have studied and debated it with those who do not believe it exists. Trump has promised to protect Christians. The seeking of political control is one way to try to deal with Christianophobia. But it is the wrong way.”
Yancey contended that Trump “can’t fix what troubles Christians” because he can only offer a political solution while the issue is “cultural.”
“What Trump can do is make the situation worse by turning culture against us further,” he wrote.
That is the size of it. After Trump’s election, a lot of people, myself included, began calling evangelicals “evangelical wingnuts.” This situation, like everything, just proves up Rick Wilson’s hypothesis, that “everything Trump touches dies.”
Christianaphobia? Seriously? Is that what we’re calling intelligent concern (to put it mildly) over a subsect of bullies using the cross as cover for theocracy? You know, I was more or less fine with all this up until I hit that part. Now? It’s sounding like CYA for four decades of aligning themselves with some of the ugliest mainstreamed elements in American politics.
They can go do what they want. But had they bothered to follow the examples of Jimmy Carter and Reverend Barbour, maybe, JUST maybe, they would be somewhere other than the hole they jumped in. As it is, they best OWN what they did before thinking about being forgiven.
Yep. Big “fan” of the Reverend Doctor William Barber II; and his National Poor People’s Campaign. Can’t wait to see what sort of numbers of like-minded folks he gets for the Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March this Sunday in DC. This guy is the real deal. The Christianaphobia issues are far more in the minds of some Christians than they are actual–this is a country founded on Christian values, wouldn’t know it from slavery and other horrors that defy faith, but it remains a country founded on those values and I don’t think Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s lawsuit challenging prayer in school was the horror it is made out to be by many Christians. It had to do with separation of church and state, which dangers, when breached, our founders understood far better than apparently many of us do now. Thinking Jews, Muslims and Sikhs haver far more to worry about re suppression of their faiths in today’s climate.
The authors used to the term as a way in to the target audience. White evangelicals have felt besieged for probably a decade now. They are not wrong. Some of the Kossacks are absolutely brutal and often fail to differentiate between the Trump supporters among white evangelicals and the rest of the white evangelicals as well as the non-white evangelicals and all the other versions of christian. These Trump-supporting white evangelicals deliberately fail to see how their own actions precipitated the criticism.
Yeah, well, after watching that crowd bully anybody who didn’t climb on their train when they were on top of the world, I have ZERO pity for them, Dana. As the saying goes, careful how you treat folks on your way to the top…because you’ll be seeing them again on your way to the bottom.
And it’s very important to separate white evangelicals from black ones. I don’t get disturbed when a black person I know starts getting all “thank you, Jesus, god is good” in my Facebook feed, because they see their evangelical beliefs as a tool to grow their own lives, not a weapon bully and bludgeon others. I would be deeply concerned if I saw a white person going on like that, but more likely it would be about how they were being persecuted by all the (alleged) anti-Christian sentiment in America. I have never heard a black Christian of my acquaintance claim they were being persecuted for being a Christian.
Well the way they are presenting this is a somewhat of a unique look at what this guy stands for which is essentially big business and screw the the working man and if you are poor you are just shit out of luck. That’s a long way to what Jesus taught. His total wealth was the clothes he was wearing. And yet he had the greatest impact of anybody around.
Jesus didn’t choose to focus on the material. He wasn’t saying that the material wasn’t important, he was trying to emphasize greater riches. For Trump, money and power are it. Silly things like character are for losers.
People often forget that the quote from Paul in the Bible was not “money is the root of all evil,” but “the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” So it was really about making money a sort of god.
John8:44
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with truth, because their is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 12:43
For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
Matthew 7:22-23
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name.
And the I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me , you who practice lawlessness.
May God’s word set you free.
ooh, clobber verses. Try those on the people who back Himself, not here.
Just remember, Terri. If you follow p j’s advice and “try those on the people who back Himself,” you’re liable to have another quote thrown back in your face: “The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose.” While it’s not biblical–it’s actually Shakespeare, from “The Merchant of Venice”–I have heard a lot of “religious” folks who throw it back to “uppity” people trying to rebuke the modern Pharisees into acting more like their Savior and less like folks seeking power and wealth in this life in this world.
And almost never do any of them get the point of having scripture thrown in their faces.
And what Shakespeare was citing with that quote was the second of the three temptations of Jesus, the one where Satan uses Scripture to justify Jesus throwing himself off the cliff and calling on God’s power to do it. I’ve been thinking a lot about those temptations lately and how they’re metaphors for how the religious right has consistently failed itself.
Thanks terri. I often point that out to those loyal to this child murdering pathological liar. The pretext is Jesus pointing out to the Jews that, although they may be the decendents of Abraham, they were not the children of Abraham because they did not have his faith, nor did they listen to God, and do the things God asked them to do. Given the golden rule is one of two greatest commandments, how does that square with loyalty to this soulless, heartless, sadistic, arrogant, priviledged cretin you may ask. I think Jesus sheds his light on the obvious. It doesnt. Given the fervor of their belief in the afterlife & the awaiting judgement, it seems they might be trembling with fear & awe at what God knows…everything. uh oh.
If people are “Christianophobes”, it’s because of the fundies who are anything BUT Christian, regardless of the names on their churches and the stickers on their vehicles. Too many of them don’t seem to read the books where Jesus is alive and teaching SOCIAL JUSTICE.
I will save white evangelicals the price of the book: “Vote the values you claim to profess.”
Or maybe stop professing them if that’s just too hard.
Trump is the closest thing to the Antichrist. I hope he doesn’t trigger the Apocalypse. Once I went to where Armageddon is supposed to take place at the border of Israel and Syria and it gave me chills. BTW, I am far from religious as a quasi agnostic, a neo-neo-neo-gnostic to be precise.