{"id":6970,"date":"2017-05-16T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T05:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=6970"},"modified":"2017-05-16T10:21:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:21:20","slug":"lord-have-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=6970","title":{"rendered":"LORD HAVE MERCY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am more convinced than ever that Christian support for Trump is a collosal mistake.\u00a0 What ever happened to invoking the founding fathers like Madison on the indispensability of character in our politicians?
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The piece below is by Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for George W. Bush.\u00a0 It is from John Fea’s terrific blog, The Way of Improvement.\u00a0 At the very least, read the final three paragraphs of Gerson’s article. <\/strong><\/div>\n
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By Michael Gerson<\/a><\/span>
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Even in an era of marriage diversity, it remains the most unlikely match: President Trump and his loyal evangelical base. In the compulsively transgressive, foul-mouthed, loser-disdaining, mammon-worshiping billionaire, conservative Christians \u201chave found their dream president,\u201d according to<\/a> Jerry Falwell Jr.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a miracle, of sorts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a recent analysis, the Pew Research Center found<\/a> that more than three-fourths of white evangelical Christians approve of Trump\u2019s job performance, most of them \u201cstrongly.\u201d With these evangelicals comprising about a quarter of the electorate, their support is the life jacket preventing Trump from slipping into unrecoverable political depths.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The essence of Trump\u2019s appeal to conservative Christians can be found in his otherwise anodyne commencement speech<\/a> at Liberty University. \u201cBeing an outsider is fine,\u201d Trump said. \u201cEmbrace the label.\u201d And then he promised: \u201cAs long as I am your president, no one is ever going to stop you from practicing your faith.\u201d Trump presented evangelicals as a group of besieged outsiders, in need of a defender.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

This sense of grievance and cultural dispossession \u2014 the common ground between The Donald and the faithful \u2014 runs deep in evangelical Christian history. Evangelicalism emerged from the periodic mass revivals that have burned across America for 300 years. While defining this version of Christianity is notoriously difficult, it involves (at least) a personal decision to accept God\u2019s grace through faith in Christ and a commitment to live \u2014 haltingly, imperfectly \u2014 according to his example.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In the 19th century, evangelicals (particularly of the Northern variety) took leadership in abolitionism and other movements of social reform. But as a modernism based on secular scientific and cultural assumptions took control of institution after institution, evangelicals often found themselves dismissed as anti-intellectual rubes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The trend culminated at the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, in which evolution and H.L. Mencken were pitted against creation and William Jennings Bryan (whom Mencken called<\/a> \u201ca tin pot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor half-wits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards\u201d). Never mind that Mencken was racist, anti-Semitic and an advocate of eugenics and that Bryan was the compassionate progenitor of the New Deal. Fundamentalists (a designation adopted by many evangelicals) lost the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, even in their own minds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After a period of political dormancy \u2014 which included discrediting slumber during the civil rights movement \u2014 evangelicals returned to defend Christian schools against regulation during the Carter administration. To defend against Supreme Court decisions that put tight limits on school prayer and removed state limits on abortion. To defend against regulatory assaults on religious institutions. Nathan Glazer once termed<\/a> this a \u201cdefensive offensive\u201d \u2014 a kind of aggrieved reaction to the perceived aggressions of modernity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those who might be understandably confused by the current state of evangelicalism should understand a few things:<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, evangelicals don\u2019t have a body of social teaching equivalent, say, to Catholic social doctrine. Catholics are taught, in essence, that if you want to call yourself pro-life on abortion, you also have to support greater access to health care and oppose the dehumanization of migrants. And vice versa. There is a doctrinal whole that requires a broad and consistent view of social justice. Evangelicals have nothing of the sort. Their agenda often seems indistinguishable from the political movement that currently defends and deploys them, be it Reaganism or Trumpism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second, evangelicalism is racially and ethnically homogeneous, which leaves certain views and assumptions unchallenged. The American Catholic Church, in contrast, is one-third<\/a> Hispanic, which changes the church\u2019s perception of immigrants and their struggles. (Successful evangelical churches in urban areas are now experiencing the same diversity and broadening their social concern.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Third, without really knowing it, Trump has presented a secular version of evangelical eschatology. When the candidate talked of an America on the brink of destruction, which could be saved only by returning to the certainties of the past, it perfectly fit the evangelical narrative of moral and national decline. Trump speaks the language of decadence and renewal (while exemplifying just one of them).<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In the Trump era, evangelicals have gotten a conservative Supreme Court justice for their pains \u2014 which is significant. And they have gotten a leader who shows contempt for those who hold them in contempt \u2014 which is emotionally satisfying.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cost? Evangelicals have become loyal to a leader of shockingly low character. They have associated their faith with exclusion and bias. They have become another Washington interest group, striving for advantage rather than seeking the common good. And a movement that should be known for grace is now known for its seething resentments.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am more convinced than ever that Christian support for Trump is a collosal mistake.\u00a0 What ever happened to invoking the founding fathers like Madison on the indispensability of character in our politicians? The piece below is by Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for George W. Bush.\u00a0 It is from John Fea’s terrific blog, The Way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,43,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","category-christianity","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6970"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6981,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6970\/revisions\/6981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}