Re-Post by popular demand.
Trump as The Corinthian makes too much sense:
“… created to be the darkness, and the fear of darkness in every human heart. A black mirror, made to reflect everything about itself that humanity will not confront”
You know, there are evangelical Christians who are not conservatives. Dr. King was a Baptist before he was ever a civil rights leader, and all of his speeches were sermons. I do not imagine he would like Mr. Trump very much. An awful lot of the people we call evangelicals just use religious symbols to dress up a defense of privilege.
Here’s one of my heroes:
This makes a lot of sense. In my experience (grew up Southern Baptist), Evangelical Christianity isn’t really about faith, it’s about certainty. People want to build their house on the bedrock of Jesus. They want to be unwavering in the storm. They want to be free from doubt.
Trump reminds me a lot of George W. Bush. People like that don’t have the common sense to doubt themselves. In the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary, they’re capable of the mental gymnastics required to convince themselves that they’re right. That kind of confidence is contagious. It’s appealing to people who, deep down, aren’t really sure; people who are scared of the ambiguity and uncertainty that permeates everything in life. So they latch on to these guys. They’re confident because Trump is confident.
Lets not be too surprised. Evangelical Christians are really often quite awful at being Christians when it comes in between them and a frothy mug of haterade.
This. Spot on. They should read John chapter 9, wherein Jesus endorses agnosticism.
He’s not doing too well this time around.
This is such a tragic case of unrequited love.
You are correct. The conservatives are also called Fundamentalists and the two terms are often conflated.
I get the impression a lot of Trump support comes from people who have latched onto him because he’s in the lead, it’s a snowball effect. They are so concerned about another Democrat in the White House they support him because he’s nominally a Republican (though in a lot of ways, he’s actually not a Republican at all), and they think he can beat Hillary with his brashness and unreal/surreal personality (Bernie isn’t even on their radar yet.) These are people who don’t actually ever do much thinking about realistic policy, they want easy simple answers, whether those “answers” solve anything or not.
Wow, nicely said.
I previously believed that the church turned folks a bit crazy, but lately I realized that it is the crazies that find the church. On the surface that doesn’t mean much, but to me it questions mental stability and maybe even genetic programming. Good point about the confidence being contagious, explaining how people can easily get swept into something that they may otherwise reject.
Also worth reading: Fred Clark’s take on Trump’s popularity with evangelicals: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/08/25/white-evangelical-voters-donald-trump-and-the-evolution-of-the-religious-right/
He links it to disappointment with other evangelical candidates in the past - W’s failures and Carter’s diplomacy. Trump reeks of success to those who don’t know what success really looks like.
Such as The Slacktivist. (Pretty sure I found the blog via BoingBoing in the first place)
(EDIT: @Daedalus beat me to it)
Evangelical Christians love Trump because he has the character and mores of their god.
Perfect. They lack the fortitude for self reflection so they practice philosophical hucksterism instead, faking it until they believe it.
You could have stopped right here. Good call.
You’ve got it dead on correct. Well put!
This is it exactly!
I have to admit that, upon reflection, I now find this guy a lot less threatening/creepy:
When that image makes me contemplate a potential Trump presidency…
Also: exactly as thin-skinned. Trump seems just like the kind of guy who’d sick forty she-bears on some children taunting him for being bald, if he were president.
I do not get why so many evangelicals are such supporters of strong borders. There is a very strong case to be made in both old and new testaments for hospitality and openness toward refugees and migrants in general. Sodom and Gomorrah were not condemned for homosexuality, but lack of concern for strangers and selfish rejection of social justice. A number of places in the Bible place a strong emphasis on social justice and care for those who have nothing as an essential part of faith (as in, if you don’t care about these things, you are basically sodomites in the Biblical sense of the word, especially if you are religious).
