Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

The Super Saints

The last few days I've noticed a rising amount of dismay on the Internet at statements made by evangelical leaders.

"Because Abraham lied, Moses disobeyed God and David committed adultery, Trump should get a pass on his personal behavior."

"My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values."

"Voters of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, create jobs, and oppose the Iran nuclear deal. Ten year old tapes of private conversation rank low on their hierarchy of concerns."

Obviously many in this country are unfamiliar with the evangelical world. I've read evangelicalism among the millennials is different. I hope that is true. You would be wise to consider the following things about evangelicals.

1) pious
2) self righteous
3) attracted to any message of doom
4) attracted to individuals delivering a message of doom
5) warlike in spirit

People who believe they are on a mission for God are not kind people. The loudest among them become the day's charlatans.

Evangelicals tend to collect around charlatans and follow them off a cliff.

They tend not to think for themselves. Tend to stick with whatever their leaders tell them. Reluctant to venture out to information not approved their leaders.

Be not surprised when the evangelical Christian world sticks with Donald Trump and follows him right off the cliff.

When that happens they will get up, shake their heads a bit, dust off their feathers, climb back up to where they started, and do it again with the next charlatan that comes along. They never learn.

14 comments:

  1. Your description of evangelicals is sad but true. There's a lot of brainwashing going on in the evangelical tent.

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    1. Evangelicals have high levels of fear and anger. They're constantly looking for demons.

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  2. It's actually been sad and freaky scary to watch what is happening to the so-fall Christians in this country. They are selling their souls and turning themselves in to pretzels trying to stay on the Trump Train. -

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    1. Evangelicals are terrified of Islam. Christian evangelicals & Muslim fundamentalists have much in common. They're from the same root, fundamentalism. I believe Christians are going to regret the positions they took in this election. I believe they've lost the respect they thought they had earned.

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  3. Interesting perspective. I have not thought of them this way, just as misguided and not inclined to think for themselves, but I do not disagree with your description.

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    1. You need to have lived in the South, the 'Bible Belt,' to have experienced true Evangelicalism. Believe me it is alive and well there.

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  4. My goodness. Here I've been an Evangelical Lutheran for all these years -- even serving as a missionary and pastor for a time -- and the whole while I've been under the misapprehension that "evangelical" was based in the "evangel," or "good news" of the Gospel. All this time, I'd assumed that the euangelion (Greek for good news) was meant to bring joy, peace, and healing.

    Clearly, I missed something. I am able to whomp up a bit of a warlike spirit when someone cuts me off in traffic, and there have been times when messages of doom have appealed ("Die, crabgrass!") but beyond that? If you've got it right, I've clearly failed to live up to the evangelical nature of my faith.

    Ah,well. Onward and upward.

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    1. It's obvious you've never crossed paths with the kind of Evangelical I've described. Doubtful you have many in California.

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  5. Linda, you are correct that " Christian evangelicals & Muslim fundamentalists have much in common". Some of your readers may get offended.
    I am agonostic.

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    1. I speak from experience. I will never cease to sound the alarm about fundamentalism.

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  6. Donald Trump has risen this far, in my opinion, because of a couple of things:

    1. the country's current 'sly' form of racism. They are so convinced that life is in the shitters because we've had a black president for the past 7 years. Stats prove them wrong, but they don't worry about that.

    2. they are equally afraid of a woman for president. Goes against the whole bible-thumping mentality that women should be subservient to their man.

    3. The Tea Party took them SO far right of center, that's it divided the party terribly. That rift allowed a jackass like Trump to flourish, when the rest were split in two. He came lambasting his way into the party (figuratively and literally), and simply overpowered them all. Now they are having to live with the aftermath.

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    1. I totally agree. Actually, the Republican Party has about six serious factions, evangelicals being one, and they seriously dislike each other. It will be difficult to make them work in harmony. Because of their infighting they provided a place for Trump to set up camp. I see no evidence he's conservative or Republican.

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  7. I agree with everything youve said, Linda. I have observed Christians leaning towards fundamentalism are for Trump, but also many Catholics and mainstream Protestants. It is quite scary. It got me thinking that it's the same as trying to "suggest" Christians AND Trump supporters use critical thinking, logic and facts in deciding what to believe. They have decided what they want to believe and nothing, NOTHING will change their minds. But it's the rabid Trump supporters that are the truly dangerous. The KKK types, white supremacy groups, women haters, any minority haters, gay haters, Jew haters and good old boy rednecks. Think Hitler and what he was able to accomplish. If Trump loses, we could be in for terrible times. And if Hillary loses, we could be in for terrible times. A no win situation. I'm glad I'm old.

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    1. I think TV, social media, and the Internet have further robbed Americans of the ability to thing critically. People today seem attracted to groups. There's not a lot of encouragement to think independently anymore. Do that and somebody's going to take you down on social media. We all have too much information on each other. It's really painful in the church where individuals believe God has spoken directly to them. There's no wiggle room at all. It's their way or you're out.

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