False Idol -- Why the Christian Right Worships Donald Trump

[swag]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/christian-right-worships-donald-trump-915381/

ALEX MORRIS

Excerpt:

. . . In other words, for the God-fearing evangelical, gay marriage, abortion, and the evils of socialism — as opposed to racial injustice, family separation, or income inequality — put America squarely in the path of the wrath of God. “Parts of the Old and New Testaments imply very strongly that there’s not just a judgment of individuals, but there’s a judgment of nations,” says historian Diana Butler Bass. “People who sin are keeping the nation away from a moral goodness that needs to be present, because they think that God’s coming back and is going to destroy everything, and they want America to be on the right side of that equation. They want to stand before God and say, ‘We did your will. We created a godly nation, and we’re the remnant. We’re your true people.’?”

For an outsider, this may seem extreme, even unhinged, but it’s what televangelist Pat Robertson was talking about when he blamed 9/11 on abortion, or Hurricane Sandy on gay marriage. “When Christians get all worked up about religious liberty, it’s usually because it’s some law or cultural practice that impinges on what they think it would mean to be a godly nation,” Bass continues. “If you have to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, then what happens in the minds of the people who are living inside of this worldview is that you’re contributing to evil. It’s way more than a wedding cake. It’s participation in sin.”

In that sense, the victimization certain Christians feel is very real. “I believe that Christians are being targeted by the gay and lesbian movement,” Franklin Graham tells me. “We’re not targeting them. I’m not targeting them.” Metaxas, the radio host who was at the September 29th meeting, agrees. “With Roe v. Wade,” he says, “and Obergefell” — the same-sex-marriage case — “the real issue was never: Should people be allowed to do something that they want to do? The issue was: Once they have that legal right, are they then going to use that to bludgeon people and say, ‘You must approve of what I’m doing’? The government has no right to coerce an American citizen to do something that goes against his ideology.”

Especially, the argument goes, when America was founded on that ideology — and blessed because of it. In his promises to Christians and his overt nationalism, Trump uniquely equated American salvation with American exceptionalism, asserting that to be great “again,” America had to come down on the right side of those very wedge issues that the religious right felt would be their reckoning. Even more, he affirmed and evangelized the belief that it is not only acceptable but actually advisable to grant cultural dominance to one particular religious group. “The white nationalism of fundamentalism was sleeping there like a latent gene, and it just came roaring back with a vengeance,” says Thornbury. In Trump’s America, “?‘religious liberty’ is code for protection of white, Western cultural heritage.”

By creating a narrative of an evil “deep state” and casting himself — a powerful white man of immense generational wealth — as a victim in his own right, Trump not only tapped into the religious right’s familiar feeling of persecution, but he also cast himself as its savior, a man of flesh who would fight the holy war on its behalf. “There’s been a real determined effort by the left to try to separate Trump from his evangelical base by shaming them into, ‘How can you support a guy like this?’?” Jeffress tells me. “Nobody’s confused. People don’t care really about the personality of a warrior; they want him to win the fight.” And Trump’s coming to that fight with a firebrand’s feeling, turning the political stage into an ecstatic experience — a conversion moment of sorts — and the average white evangelical into an acolyte, someone who would attend rallies with the fever of revivals, listen to speeches as if they were sermons, display their faithfulness with MAGA hats, send in money as if tithing, and metaphorically bow down, again and again, at the altar of Donald Trump, who delivers the nation from its transgressions.

. . . more at link

[Duncan Grant]

1. Highly recommended - bookmark it for future reference.

If you find trump Christian group think incomprehensible, this article will provide some clarity.

It’s been my experience that evangelical Protestants have little or no understanding of the origins of the Bible, the history of Christianity, or the ministry of Jesus Christ. (Critical thinking isn’t a requirement for membership.) This piece helps explain why true believers will sacrifice democracy — if it means they can provoke Jesus into “the rapture”. That’s not hyperbole. The longing for the kingdom of God is foundational.

And on it goes; the fortress of circular reasoning cannot be penetrated. It is after all, eternal.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Bigotry at its worse. No less. Their campaign mode is to prey on immigrants, ...

gays, women, nonwhites, ethic minorities, the weak, etc., all of these groups have been targeted negatively by these so called 'Christians' that include among them the worse of humanity, which includes Nazi fringe groups, neo-Nazi, bullies, older whites (not all of them), etc., all of whom fear the loss of 'power'.

They pray and preach not for the meek, but for the almighty dollar, and those who show a remarkable abilities to steal and take from others without working for it, the hard earned assets of others. In other words, the worse side of America.

[dalton99a]

3. +1. They are shameless hypocrites and vile bigots

like the monster they worship

[Haggis for Breakfast]

4. Whatever happened to "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" thing ??

If they keep worshipping trumpie, then they are guilty of violating the FIRST commandment ! If they can't get past the FIRST one, how in the Hell can they claim to espouse the entire thing ?

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Absolutely excellent point!! These religious hypocrites are deliberately ignoring the vile crap ...

rump and cronies are engaged in, and committing against their fellow person, and are instead, heaping praise and other such nonsense on rump. This is another reason I lost all faith in these so called religious organizations, for instead of standing up, and saying 'NO, This is wrong!', they've been going along w/ the actions of rump and his cronies.

When you see these organizations sprouting nonsense such as help thy fellow person, etc., it reeks and drips with stinking hypocrisy. These organizations are led by persons who describe themselves as 'religious', but this description defies belief to all but the most brainwashed among us. These persons are involved solely for the money, and power. Nothing else. Thus, they insert themselves in political matters for purely selfish reasons, and overlook the blatant human failings that the rest of us see so clearly.

Thank goodness that there are more truer, more down to earth teachings that teach that all of us has value in the totality of things, that all of us have worth, and that there are valid reasons that government is, for, and by all of the people, not just rump and cronies, not just a few of us.

This is why the rule of law is being championed by good people everywhere. And those involved with rump and his illegal doings are being charged w/ crimes, and convicted right and left, all done in the open, by no less than all of us via our juries, our elected prosecutors, our elected judges, based upon on the laws our elected representatives created with our say so (such as the Amendments, voter initiated propositions (that are voted on later), etc.).

Nothing is being done in the dark. Rump's whining, moaning, and screeching tells me one thing...that this is someone who knows they are guilty, and thus gets louder and louder, as justice comes closer and closer.

[flying rabbit]

6. K&R