'Our faith compels us': Christian resistance to Trump gathers steam
30 replies, posted
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/26/trump-christian-vote-midterms-resistance-protest-tax-cuts-policies
In a church parking lot in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Rev Vince Anderson was pouring sweat as he pounded his keyboard and belted out his “dirty gospel” anthems. Taking aim at a string of Donald Trump’s policies, Anderson repeatedly roared: “I don’t think Jesus woulda done it that way.”
Whereas most focus on Jesus’s teaching to protect the poor and vulnerable, Vote Common Good is honing in on places that voted in Republican representatives in 2016. Exercise your democratic right to get them out, is the essence of its campaign.
In the 2016 presidential election, 81% of white evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Two years on, Pagitt estimates that between five and 20% of those voters are “moveable”.
“Representatives of Christianity were buying into political agendas that very often do not reflect the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth,” he added. Those that did not follow the example of the Good Samaritan, or biblical commands to protect the poor and vulnerable, “cannot claim to be Christian,” Anglican Bishop Michael Curry said.
Religion doesn't even mean anything anymore. It's all just retrofitted onto someone's pre-existing political leaning.
It's nice to see a church being so vocal about the blatant hypocrisy of major "Christian" figureheads and organized Christianity as a whole.
Here's hoping their message is able to convert some people who might otherwise be ignorant of the extent of their hypocrisy.
maybe a top down approach might take a bite out of the growth of self ritious evangelicals but its their rank and file that have to change their own lives and stop believing Trump to be the 2nd coming.
I'll believe it when I see it.
(Which, incidentally, is why I'm an atheist)
It's literally only ever been a thing to retrofit around your purposes
The modern bible is pretty much designed to be interpreted in any way you want
I mean this isn't new. One of the deadliest conflicts in human history was fought between Catholics and Protestants
The religious right is bonkers and absolutely un-christian.
It's cynically expected, but I still don't fundamentally understand how they can vote for a business magnate who literally lives in a golden tower and spends every day of his life carefully performing all seven of the cardinal sins. Everything he does is diametrically apposed to all of Jesus' examples and teachings.
There's even a passage explicitly saying "it's harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle".
And Jesus threw out people using temples for money making.
And he was all about that "love thy neighbor" "turn the other cheek" "let he without sin cast the first stone" forgiveness and repentance thing.
And his entire schtick was healing poor people for free.
And yet there's plenty of right wing christians who think it's morally wrong to have subsidized healthcare, think prisons should be all about punishment and redemption is impossible, think Trump is an upstanding guy who should never be criticized, and think their pastor having multiple private jets is necessary "to spread the name of Jesus".
And also think the problem with Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't that they were full of rapists, but that they were full of gay rapists.
Tons, tons of people who call themselves christians don't actually read the bible. They just go to church and listen to their pastor. They use religion as an excuse to otherize people, and think anyone who doesn't fit in with them is evil. They don't care about the messages, they just recite the required passages without thinking about them or applying them to their lives, and revel in being part of "the GOOD group of people, unlike everyone else, who is by default BAD".
Of course, if they actually DID read the bible, they might stop believing it. That's what happened with my sister and I.
well, okay, with me it was somewhat different, but I don't want to shit up the thread with a religious argument
Not that that describes all christians, or even all right wing christians, of course. Just a disappointingly high number of them.
I'm surprised none Christians haven't compared Trump to the Anti-Christ yet, they did that plenty with Obama.
The type of Christian that believes that "Anti-Christ end times premillennial dispensationalism" nonsense is the type of Christian who would follow Trump to begin with.
have you not heard the gospel of supply side jesus?
It's also funny how crazy Republicans were so eager to call Obama the Anti-Christ, but comparing Trump to Hitler, Nazi or a Fascist is a big no-no - that's too far. Even calling him a bad person is too far for them.
Obama the Anti-Christ? That's fine.
Trump is bad? You've crossed the line, buddy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
They worship this. It's essentially, the amount of money you have is direct correlation to how much God loves you.
Most American Christians definitely don't seem to actually believe in their own faith. If they did they'd know they've become the very Romans that crucified the messiah in the first place.
It is absolutely paramount that Dear Leader is treated respectfully and obediently listened to at all opportunities. Disrespecting Dear Leader is treason. Questioning Dear Leader is treason. Challenging Dear Leader is treason.
Don't forget that the Bible is also explicitly pro-immigrant, completely contrary to the rhetoric so much of the Religious Right is spewing. It is a command from god himself in the Old Testament that the new nation of Israel welcomes the alien from a foreign land and loves them as equals, and Jesus himself was forced to flee his country at birth from a young age because people were trying to murder him.
* Treason is punishable by death.
1) I agree with you that tons of Christians don't read their Bible or have any real understanding of what it says. With that said, you don't really either. For example, the very next verse after the one about it being impossible for a rich man to enter Heaven is explicitly about how it wouldn't be possible for anyone to enter heaven without God. Jesus's point isn't that rich people are inherently evil, but that it's impossible to get to Heaven on your own power, and rich people are even worse off because they're less likely to feel the need to depend on God. Many of the other verses you quoted are also being taken out of context and/or out of a consistent interpretation.
2) Jesus was, and the Bible generally is, almost amazingly apolitical. They never even hint at Christians using political power to get things done. It is entirely consistent to argue that government subsidized healthcare is wrong and believe in the Bible. On the other hand, Jesus was emphatic that individuals, and the church as the body of individual Christians, are supposed to be extremely generous to those around them. The idea of a pastor who lives in a mansion should be horrific to Christians everywhere.
As a Bible believing Christian, I've become extremely critical of the general church. In fact, I would venture to guess that ~80%+ of those who claim to be Christian aren't, and I think the strong support for Trump is a good example. Many Christians have started to put their hope in politics as a solution to the problems they see, a viewpoint that is completely antithetical to the Christian worldview. Because of this, they're willing to accept a monster like Trump, excusing his penchant for violence, his disgusting sexual deviancy, etc. because he'll prevent the political future that the left wing of the country want, but in doing so, they're throwing away the very essence of what it means to be a Christian.
The Bible envisions a community of believers who stick out of the culture around them because of their generosity, kindness, joy, etc., therefore leading people to the cause of those things, Christ. This message exists independently of the society around it and as soon as the church gets entangled in politics, it all starts to erode. It happened in the first few centuries of the church in Ancient Rome, and it is happening again now.
Wow I knew they worshiped money but i didn't think they'd be so open about it
Otherwords, they are truly sinful and heretical in Protestantism for violated the religion's core belief and they should treating as such not accepting them by mainstream public.
I remember when billy graham died people were going on and on about how many people he spread his firebrand evangelical christianity I had family that were enamored by the numbers but everytime I asked "Did he make the world a better place?" they just spouted the number of people he converted, ignoring the harm that his movement, which even disowned him, has caused.
High scores earn respect, especially because numbers are just digits and let you turn your brain off about what the statistics mean.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but as a former Christian myself, the argument that people who say their Christians but are terrible people aren't actually real believers is complete bullshit. It is literally No True Scotsman Falacy. It is nothing more than an excuse to refuse to acknowledge systematic issues within an ideology or religion's ranks. The reason Evangelicals are large have become pieces of shit isn't because they aren't true Christians, but because biblical literalism, along with any kind of fundamentalism, tends to lead down the path of trying to impose one's will on the rest of the world more often than not. They are convinced because everything they believe has been true since the beginning of time ("the bible says so") they absolutely do not need to question any of their actions whatsoever, no matter how virulent they may be, and that it is their duty to impose whatever they believe is good and righteous upon the whole world.
This has been true for the entirety of Christian history, not just recently. While I am not going to go so far as to say that believing that the Bible is the 100 percent literal word of god always leads down a bad path, it has done so more often than it has not - not just because people believe the bible is true, but because they believe their particular interpretation of the Bible is true. In the early centuries of the country, slavery was justified by Christians via a reading of the Curse of Cain as applying to black people. One hundred percent bullshit of course, but they nevertheless acknowledged it to be as literally true as any other thing that was more clearly stated in the Bible. And today, the Evangelical Rights' willingness to support people as despicable as Trump on the sole basis that he'll pass "god honoring" laws stems from a fundamentalist reformed interpretation of the Bible known as Christian Reconstructionism, or Domionism.
I don't think it's biblical literalism. I believe that's a large symptom, but I think it's more derived from people cherry-picking which verses to follow and ignoring all others. The link I posted about prosperity gospel does a large explanation of what verses are outright ignored in favor of a few handful that may seem supportive of their ideology.
that's what any church does though, they construct a gospel through their own interpretation of the bible. that's how you get shit like the prosparity doctrine or the even worse seed of faith churches. they emphasise the parts of the bible that support their narrative and construct an explanation for everything. Its no different than any fanfiction community that obsessively creates headcannon for everything.
That's really not true. The mainline Protestant branches such as Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, along with Roman Catholics and Orthodox do not cherry-pick verses. This is a product of the new non-denominational and charismatic movements that are sweeping Protestantism by storm these years. These people look at their ideologies first, their verses second and discard whichever of the latter do not fit.
no its not like they tear out verses but they all have their own slightly different interpretation of what they mean individually and as a whole
Seems like a good way to end up going to Hell rather than Heaven.
It's almost like thee might've been several hundred years of wars over this exact thing.
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