Tag Archives: evangelical movement

Evangelical support still baffles

I remain a befuddled American patriot.

Donald J. Trump’s support among religious conservatives simply takes my breath away. I cannot fathom it. It’s real. I hereby concede that it’s solid and unbending.

The former Republican presidential candidate once boasted during the 2016 campaign that he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and not lose any votes, “believe me.”

You know what? I damn near believe him.

I had a private message exchange with a family member of mine. He’s a Trump supporter. He’s a young man of deep religious faith. He said he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, but acknowledged that the president has earned his support because of his support for judicial candidates who will make abortion illegal, which is my family member’s threshold issue.

Fine. That’s his call.

What still baffles me is how anyone can presume that Trump actually believes in anything on an ideological level. He once was a pro-choice Democrat on the issue. Then he became a pro-life Republican. He’s also wavered, throwing his support behind Reform Party candidates. He’s all over the pea patch.

Does he believe in anything? Does he stand for anything? Does he possess any core values, other than the values associated with self-enrichment?

The Rev. Franklin Graham — one of the nation’s leading evangelical leaders — says the president’s philandering is no one’s business. His behavior with the porn star and the Playboy model don’t matter, according to Rev. Graham. But this man once said that Bill Clinton’s behavior was clearly the nation’s business.

Donald Trump has managed to do the near impossible. He has managed to redefine what one once considered to be deal-breaking episodes in a politician’s life. Telling a TV interviewer that he could grab a woman by her pu***? Hey, no sweat, man. His bragging about his marital infidelity? Big deal, dude. His declaring that he’s never sought forgiveness, which is a fundamental Christian tenet? Pfftt!

So, the president trudges on through these questions about corruption. All the while he conducts a scorched-Earth retreat policy that lays waste to the media that report on it. He calls the media the “enemy of the people.” He lays waste to the reputation of others who seek to find the truth.

It’s all OK with those on the far right, the members of Trump’s “base.”

Color me baffled.

Don’t try to predict what God intends

Don’t you just love it when evangelists try to predict what’s on the mind and in the heart of The Almighty?

This little video snippet suggests two points to me.

One is that no one — no matter how godly he claims to be — should try to predict what God is going to do, or how he’s going to act if you do something that displeases him.

The other is that it’s perilous to meld spiritual matters into political ones, particularly when they involve the current president of the United States of America.

The video here is of Jim Bakker, the once-famous televangelist who’s pitching something called the “Trump Prophecies.” He says something about how Americans should be wary of what God will do if they go against the president’s agenda, his purpose in leading in the country — whatever the heck that all means.

Trump is doing God’s work on Earth, Bakker seems to suggest.

How does this guy know these things? Earth to Bakker: God’s work defies humankind’s meager, fallible ability to make bold predictions.

That’s why he’s God and none of us mere mortals — and that includes Jimmy Bakker — are not. Got it? Good!

My second point simply is that it continues to baffle me to the max why certain evangelical leaders remain faithful to Donald John Trump Sr. Can anyone out there point me to an example of how this man ever demonstrated a commitment to the Lord’s teachings prior to his being elected president of the United States?

This guy says things about women that should flummox evangelicals. He politicizes a speech at the Boy Scout Jamboree, injecting politics into an event aimed at paying tribute to the kindness and good work of the Boy Scouts of America. He continually demonstrates a level of narcissism and self-aggrandizement that run absolutely counter to the way Jesus lived during his brief time on Earth.

But these evangelicals love this guy!

Go figure, man.

If you can comprehend this, then y’all are far better individuals than I ever thought of being.