Evangelical leaders endorsed Trump. Now his fanatics are destroying the Evangelical Church.

[DetlefK]

For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
— Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22 NRSV (1989)

When the evangelical wing of the Republican Party saw that a lying, cheating, thieving philanderer who couldn't even quote a single line from the Bible was the rising new star of the Republican Party, what did they do?

Did they object?

Did they oppose this godless man of selfishness, sin and greed?

No.

They latched themselves onto him like parasites. They endorsed the false prophet because they wanted to profit off his influence to increase their political power.

And now they realize that abandoning their religious ideals for the sake of political power leads to bad consequences for their religion.

NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN THAT!!!

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/evangelical-trump-christians-politics/620469/

The election of the elders of an evangelical church is usually an uncontroversial, even unifying event. But this summer, at an influential megachurch in Northern Virginia, something went badly wrong. A trio of elders didn’t receive 75 percent of the vote, the threshold necessary to be installed.

“A small group of people, inside and outside this church, coordinated a divisive effort to use disinformation in order to persuade others to vote these men down as part of a broader effort to take control of this church,” David Platt, a 43-year-old minister at McLean Bible Church and a best-selling author, charged in a July 4 sermon.

Platt said church members had been misled, having been told, among other things, that the three individuals nominated to be elders would advocate selling the church building to Muslims, who would convert it into a mosque.

...

What happened at McLean Bible Church is happening all over the evangelical world. Influential figures such as the theologian Russell Moore and the Bible teacher Beth Moore felt compelled to leave the Southern Baptist Convention; both were targeted by right-wing elements within the SBC.

...

“Nearly everyone tells me there is at the very least a small group in nearly every evangelical church complaining and agitating against teaching or policies that aren’t sufficiently conservative or anti-woke,” a pastor and prominent figure within the evangelical world told me. (Like others with whom I spoke about this topic, he requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.) “It’s everywhere.”

...

The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian faith.

It gets even funnier down in the article when Evangelicals lament that evangelical believers are prone to political extremism because the evangelical Church did not spend enough time and effort to properly indoctrinate their believers into the core beliefs.



NO, YOU DUMB FUCKS!!!

YOU SUPPORTED AND ENDORSED A MAN WHO REPRESENTS EVERYTHING YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO OPPOSE!!!

YOU SOLD THIS FALSE PROPHET TO YOUR CONGREGATIONS AS A RIGHTEOUS MAN!!!

IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT YOUR CONGEGRATIONS HAVE ABANDONED GOD AND WORSHIP TRUMP AND HIS FOUL CREED OF HATRED!!!

[luv2fly]

1. Good

Let them eat their own through infighting. No tears.

[Lovie777]

2. Good . .

GOD is shaking his or her head in disgust.

[Act_of_Reparation]

27. Guess he should have written a better book, then.

[Effete Snob]

3. They've been on the wrong path for decades

[NotHardly]

12. It's tjhe "lie down with dogs" problem in real time... or

... the "I didn't know the leopards would eat my face" issue. Either way, I'm kinda OK with it being the Joker's "You get what you f*cking deserve."

[hibbing]

4. " anti-woke"

Sounds like a lot of racism going on.

Peace

[2naSalit]

5. Self inflicted demise...

How fitting for those who live by self fulfilling prophesies.

[underpants]

6. Disinformation in a church? I mean....

[LakeArenal]

11. White Jesus says he's in!!!!!

[we can do it]

7. Good riddance assholes.

[tanyev]

8. Their Lord and Savior Donald Trump doesn't peddle all that woke "Love one another" BS!

Blowback.

[brewens]

9. A guy I went to school with is going to be a preacher. His sister replaced Von Ehlinger, the Idaho

state rep facing rape charges. He's tall good looking dude that I think might be seeing a private jet in his future.

He posted some big long article for a Christian publication rationalizing their support for the former guy. It was mostly the god choosing imperfect men bullshit, aimed at making them feel okay about it because they got their judges.

His name is Mark Trigstead. I played football with hi in high school. He was our QB, and went to West Point. He looked to be on track to be their starting QB, but washed out for some reason. I think he went and got him religion right after whatever ruined his Army career. It must have been bad, because how well he is known and how many people I know that know him, and no one knows what it was or has ever said.

There's a hell of a lot of old poor peoples grocery money to be had out there.

[Ocelot II]

10. "There have always been mean people who cloak their unkindness in religious devotion."

Yup. But Trump and Trumpism have weaponized meanness, and evangelical Christians have given meanness the imprimatur of godliness.

Anybody who's been around churches at all knows that they are infested with holier-than-thou busybodies who insist that they're doing God's will when they complain that Mrs. Nelson has never done her fair share of work at the bake sale and she should be kicked off the committee and that we should be using the old blue hymnals and not the new red ones because they aren't scriptural; and people get crazy mad about such things. But the fundies have gone completely hateful, like rabid wolverines, to the point where they are gutting their own congregations - which is fine with me.

[rurallib]

13. we wish them godspeed on their demise

{snicker}

[Jilly_in_VA]

14. There was an article yesterday in WaPo

about the other side of the Evangelicals, pastors who have left Evangelical Churches (or in some cases been thrown out, the way John Pavlovitz was) and have begun their own movement. It was really enlightening. If it's still there today I will post it. Apparently their churches are doing well.

[TeamProg]

15. Me vs. every Evangelical that I meet.

Me: How old is the earth?

Evangelical: Seven thousand years old.

Me: How old is the universe?

Evangelical: We aren't sure, maybe seven thousand years old, maybe forever.

Me: How long has God been around?

Evangelical: Oh, well, God has been around forever.

Me: So, how can we human earth creatues be THAT important if God has been around for all time and we've only been around for seven thousand years?! How special are we? What was God doing with all of his free time?


* crickets *

[lonely bird]

16. Religion...

Is about social control. At least the three so-called Abrahamic faiths are.

Which brings us to this:

When you mix religion and politics you get politics.

[packman]

17. Remove that tax break and see how soon they abandon politics

Can fleece the flock for only so much using politics, but religion and belief in that invisible God is a forever shearing.

[Traildogbob]

20. Mormons were

Threatened of a Tax free ending for their black racism. Now any black dumb enough to believe in that cult is welcomed, actually recruited like a black at a Trump KKKlan jamboree. Optics.

[paleotn]

18. "MBC is no longer McLean Bible Church...."

that it’s now Melanin Bible Church." - From an email floating around the McLean congregation.

Well, surprise, surprise. The Reich wing movement in evangelical world is animated by what? Racism? Who could have guessed?

There's been a strong, racist undertone in evangelical world from the start. It hasn't abated one bit since the desegregation fights.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. If ever two "allies" truly deserved each other ... nt

[Traildogbob]

21. Spell check

Evilgelical hypoChistians. (White Jesus folks) everybody knows Jesus was white. Look at the pictures. There is always white glass in the stained glass in churches. Gotta be real. Good AND Santa are white too. There was a big segment on Fox, proving it.

[hermetic]

22. We need to start screaming,

or at least complaining loudly, about their tax exemptions. Write letter to the IRS? I dunno, but somebody needs to do something because it's just become ridiculous. Maybe I should change my name to Hermetic Church and quit paying taxes?

[LuvLoogie]

23. It's the systemic racism and bigotry.

That is their religion, whether they admit it or not. Their piety is a shroud.

[Blue Owl]

24. Donald tRump the false profit

[Deep State Witch]

25. Reaping the Whirlwind

“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 8 ).

[Martin Eden]

26. Evangelicals think they are victims

But they are their own worst enemies.

[Act_of_Reparation]

28. The way people talk about this...

...you'd think Christianity was just fine and dandy before Trump came along.

Not so much the case, though.