How Trump and Falwell Jr. became evangelicals' "golden calves" despite obvious moral transgressions

[marmar]

How Trump and Falwell Jr. became evangelicals' "golden calves" despite obvious moral transgressions
In the Falwell dynasty and the Trump presidency, many Christians found representatives who promised worldly power

ASHLIE D. STEVENS
NOVEMBER 7, 2020 8:30PM


(Salon) Late Thursday night, a video began circulating on Twitter of a small crowd of women in bright red MAGA hats kneeling outside the Clark County Election Department, rocking back and forth with arms lifted in furtive prayer. "We give our hearts to you in the name of Jesus," one of them can be heard saying. The rest called out individual prayers that Donald Trump would narrow the gap between him and Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the state. In the end, their prayers were not answered.

The jokes wrote themselves. "Ma'am, please stop, we have separation of church and state here," one Twitter user wrote, while another posted, "Me when I get to Chick-fil-A, but then realize it's a Sunday." It's funny; in my sleep-deprived state, the speculation that God sent those women to voicemail made me laugh out loud. But as someone who was raised in the church, the image was also heartbreaking (there's no other word for it, really) in a way that is difficult to fully express.

How, after all that has transpired over the last four years — children kept in cages, the consistent dehumanization of marginalized communities, disparaging veterans and POWs, credible allegations of sexual assault, the blatant lies, the Stormy Daniels hush money — can someone who calls themselves a Christian support that man? It's a question that I've been asked, and think about, a lot.

....(snip)....

Trump's followers don't care about the president using tear gas and riot police to disperse protestors in Lafayette Square so he could pose in front of St. John's Church, clumsily brandishing the Bible as a prop, so long as he promises them preferential treatment, often at the expense of people of color and immigrants. As Michael Gerson put it in his 2018 cover story for the Atlantic, evangelicals now regard themselves, "hysterically and with self-pity, as an oppressed minority that requires a strongman to rescue it. This is how Trump has invited evangelicals to view themselves. He has treated evangelicalism as an interest group in need of protection and preferences." .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/07/trump-jerry-falwell-christian-voters-evangelical-golden-calf/

[keithbvadu2]

1. Political Christians rather than Christians of faith.