Well, it’s worth a shot I guess.
But anti-abortion groups already say they don’t care that Trump’s COVID therapy relied on fetal tissue.
So why should Evangelicals even care if he’s totally f%$king evil.
9 Likes
If you go and look at the actual people involved, they have a history of liberal activism and many of them have strong womens choice statements of their own. These are not the people you are mad at.
6 Likes
Back in the day Evangelicals weren’t a partisan political entity at all. They were as varied any other group of people, like “science fiction fans” or “gardeners.”
So the situation is kind of like if someone convinced a large subset of the nation’s gardeners into voting for one party (presumably the Greens), while simultaneously radicalizing the Party into ever-more-crazed positions on using produce as a tool of fascism.
And now the people who were just into gardening because they like fresh tomatoes are being told that they had a duty to spend the last 50 years organizing to provide a counter-narrative. And maybe they should? But it still feels like they got the short end of the stick.
7 Likes
I think part of the problem is that you really don’t need to try to find a Bible quote he’s gone against. You can just open the book at random.
10 Likes
Well, maybe. Although according to their own dogma, a lot more is required of Evangelicals than gardeners. If the name/brand of Evangelical Christianity is being used for something improper, aren’t they morally required to do something about it?
6 Likes
I mean, there was this guy…
Born-again Christian Evangelical Deacon who teaches Sunday School and builds houses for the poor. He asked himself “what would Jesus do?” and quite reasonably concluded “probably carpentry.”
He just never tried to argue that Evangelical Christians had a moral responsibility to support the Democrats at all cost.
18 Likes
As soon as I wrote it, I knew I was painting Christians with too broad a brush there, and I should have stopped short of what I said. As we’ve all discussed here before, the word “Christian” now encompasses so many incredibly disparate people that the word has arguably lost all categorical meaning.
Apologies for my generalization. We’re all a little on edge around here lately. 
16 Likes
It means, ‘someone who professes a belief in Jesus Christ.’ As soon as you say that means, ‘someone who acts as a believer should,’ or ‘someone who fits a stereotype of an intolerant believer,’ you’re well down the slippery slope of, ‘well, this unbeliever is more of a real Christian than that hypocrite,’ or ‘this believer isn’t a real Christian because he preaches tolerance and compassion,’ and turned it from having some categorical meaning to a mere expression of approbation or opprobrium.
Moreover, there’s a commandment about taking the Lord’s name in vain. Some of us believe that the real sin against that commandment is doing the Devil’s work in the Lord’s name - bringing His name into disrepute by so doing. Cussing and swearing is small potatoes by comparison, the most harm that does is to make people say, ‘his God isn’t that great, he uses language like that and gets away with it.’
Recall that ‘overturning the furniture and chasing people away with a whip’ is within bounds.
6 Likes
Yet another pointless, still-born effort that will do absolutely nothing at all but make those who already feel this way, feel even better about themselves. Don’t they realize that if his supporters expected him to live up to those standards it would serve as a reminder that that they themselves should live up to them as well? And that is a consideration they will avoid at all costs.
1 Like
Understood. It’s hard for me as well because when someone talks to me about faith or religion it makes so little sense to me, like they were telling me they have an invisible third head growing out of their shoulder and I am left thinking “You skipped over the second head you obviously don’t have”. But I do have a lot of friends on the religious left and they have been strong advocates for progressive causes – even if they haven’t always organized as an explicitly Christian Left movement. So I get a bit defensive about the “where were they at X.”
3 Likes
Yeah, its best not to do anything, anything else is just self serving. /s
This makes my day. And describes many of my (totally secular) work interactions today.
3 Likes
I’d expand that to ‘someone who professes a belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ.’ Pontius Pilate and Herod Agrippa believed in Jesus, he was stood there right in front of them, but they didn’t believe what he said.
Because that has never happened before in the history of Christianity.
7 Likes
Fair enough, but I didn’t mean to imply they should do nothing. As ‘evangelical-aligned’ (as you implied above, and I agree) they ought to know there’s very little wiggle room in their brethren’s minds, and if their concern is in getting him out of office, there are far more effective places to put their money (billboard are costly).
Though he’s also a fisherman, just to cover the bases.
11 Likes
All I can say is that if a group were tarnishing the reputation of something I cared that deeply about, to the point where they were advocating the opposite of its core values and people were lumping me in with them I’d do something to counter that after a decade or two.
5 Likes
One billboard: Costly
Engaging people all over the Internet: Priceless*
*But probably more for raising the profile of the organization than accomplishing the stated goal.
4 Likes
Jesus wasn’t, but Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint James the Great and Saint John were. Saint Matthew was a tax collector too, which must cause some concern among devout Republicans.
8 Likes
