Evangelical lambasts youth for putting morals&character over realpolitik. (Not The Onion.)

[DetlefK]

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-inspiring-generation-neo-fundamentalist-christians-opinion-1478921

... for it seems to be a uniquely Christian phenomenon that very often it's the character and beliefs of the individuals that are considered to be more important than the actual messages delivered.

...

A similar phenomenon appears in film, where devout Christians routinely refuse to support films when they have issues with the the bearer of the message.

...

All of this makes the embrace of President Donald Trump by millions of conservative Christian voters so fascinating, for many of them have finally been able to do in politics what they've historically been unable to do in pop culture: look beyond the personal failings of the messenger and support the work.

Yet while many older Christians have been able to set aside purity tests in the case of Trump, their children and grandchildren are reinventing the idea that character trumps content (no pun intended).

This inability of some young evangelicals to embrace a sort of realpolitik ....

To be sure, there is something ironic about devout churchgoers embracing a leader who has flouted conventions of morality, but there is equal irony in their children exhibiting a kind of neo-fundamentalism that deems the personal moral purity (or lack thereof) of the messenger to outweigh the work of that messenger.

...

The popular narrative that Trump-voting Christians sold their birthright for a bit of political broth may be the wrong way to look at what they've done. It may be, instead, the sign of a maturing political movement made up of individuals who, ..., were finally able to do in politics what they often couldn't do in pop culture: ignore the flaws of the individual and embrace the work ...

I think it's funny how this Evangelical argues that amoral day-to-day politics trump the morals of the Bible.

[ck4829]

1. RW Evangelicals will suddenly "rediscover" personal moral character's importance on January 21, 2021

Barring that Trump isn't removed from office earlier, that date will also be earlier.

Does the author of this Newsweek article REALLY not see that?

Really?

[DeminPennswoods]

2. Trump is the picture of Dorian Gray

for evangelicals. The picture of themselves revealing their true character they don't want to see, hidden away in the attic.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I don't see it, but does anyone else? I don't see Trump leading hoards of young people

religious or not, which is somewhat a comfort to me.

[Girard442]

4. Yeah those fuzzy-headed idealists.

Don’t they get that Jesus didn’t really mean all that stuff about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek? It’s all the smiting and putting to death, that’s what it’s really all about.

[Martin Eden]

5. "embrace the work"

Comfort the rich while turning away from the poor, the sick, and the stranger. Kids in cages, separated from their parents. Serving mammon and the foreign policy goals of a foeign adversary, whiile driving our nation deeper into debt.

Embracing the "work" is just as deplorable as embracing the man.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. That's what leapt out at me - this evangelical's "work" is appointing conservative judges

who have, he says, evangelicals' "values", and he thinks that's Trump's "work" too.

It's quite possible the young evangelicals are actually reading all the new testament passages about greed being bad, caring for the poor, welcoming refugees and are figuring out their predecessors have been ignoring their basic religious teachings in favour of keeping racism alive (which is where the "Moral Majority" and modern political evangelicalism sprang from).

[Martin Eden]

11. Today, a "conservative" judge is an ideologue or political hack

... often woefully unqualified to be in the judiciary.

Theoretically, qualifications and fealty to our Constitution were important to "conservatives." That might have been true at one time, but not in today's Republican Party.

[keithbvadu2]

6. Talk-the-talk but do not walk-the-walk.

Talk-the-talk but do not walk-the-walk.

How they witness means more than the empty words.

[lutherj]

7. The medium is the message.

Or the messenger is the message. Kind of the sum total of the New Testament, it seems to me.

[Takket]

8. Netflix documentary The Family

Watch that if you can and you will understand how the right wing voter justifies supporting politicians doing the opposite of biblical teachings.

To put it simply you need power to spread God’s word so God has no objection to you gaining power by any means necessary. It is the ends justify ANY means argument.

[BuffaloJackalope]

9. Chiafas is running the show over there.

The Right crucified Jesus on their Cross Of Gold a looooong tome ago.