A King for Jesus: What the Religious Right Sees in Trump

[rug]

BY ROGER O. FRIEDLAND
OCTOBER 26, 2016

What does the love of Jesus have to do with Trump? How to explain his overwhelming support from evangelical voters, who—for more than three decades—have formed the bastion of the Christian right? According to a Pew June 2016 survey 89% of evangelical voters wanted a President with strong religious beliefs. Trump cannot even pretend to qualify.

A number of analysts, particularly liberal ones, see it as the big reveal, that the Christian right is right, not Christian. The political right has captured the Christians, not the reverse. It’s about politics, class and honor, not God.

Arlie Hochschild, in her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land, based on her ethnography of Calcasieu Parish in Southern Louisiana, explores the paradox that white low-income citizens who depend on the state both hate it and love Trump. Her subjects were almost all believing Christians, mostly Southern Baptists and other evangelicals. Her account reveals the feelings of humiliation and rage behind their support of Trump, and the “ecstatic high” he provides them in his rallies where one of the posters proclaims “Thank you Lord Jesus for President Trump.”

White workers who can barely pay their bills, with stagnant wages and declining job prospects, are enraged and humiliated when they look at the taxes they pay. These are monies that could help them get by, tax monies that support people who do not work, and a government that is allowing others to “cut in line ahead of them” for those jobs that do exist through affirmative action for women and non-whites, and tolerance of illegal immigrants.

http://religiondispatches.org/trump-before-jesus-the-christian-right-v-the-liberal-state/

[anoNY42]

1. The excuse I hear is that "God worked through Samson...

even though Samson was a sinner" (or something of that nature).

Lost on the speaker is that this reasoning would work for electing anyone at all (including Hillary Clinton, of all people), and thus is absolutely meaningless.

You want proof of the illogical nature of religious thinking (as practiced), there it is...

[Jerry442]

2. "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field..." (Genesis 3, KJV) NT

[Mike Nelson]

3. What I get is...

...they say look at the issues: for example, Trump = anti-abortion. Pence = anti-gay. Hillary is pro-both. Many in the religious "right" are tied up in these issues. They have to stay out of Hell and it's their religion. However, if you add up all the things Jesus said about gays and abortion, you could put it all on the head of a needle. They've created their own religion, based on their own fear and guilt.

[Nitram]

4. We've known this for decades now. The Christian Right is right, not Christian.

[TygrBright]

5. DAYUM, that's skeery! n/t