#Nevertrump Evangelicals Must Face the Music

[rug]

BY NEIL J. YOUNG JULY 13, 2016

Donald Trump continues to divide American evangelicals. Or at least that’s what the dwindling #NeverTrump crowd continues to insist, despite the evidence. This week, new polling found nearly 80% of white evangelicals say they will vote for Trump.

That’s good news for Trump, but a stinging rebuke to those who have made the case that “real evangelicals” should not support The Donald.

In last week’s Times op-ed, Peter Wehner, former speechwriter for George W. Bush and leading voice of the #NeverTrump crowd, dissected the “theology of Donald Trump” which he found to be “incompatible with Christianity.” “If you trace that worldview to its source,” Wehner wrote, “Christ would not be anywhere in the vicinity.”

Like other leaders of the #NeverTrump brigade, Wehner’s missive was inspired as much by the evangelicals who are supporting him as it was by the candidate himself. Responding to Trump’s meeting last month with more than 1,000 evangelical leaders in New York City, Wehner pointed to the “problematic” embrace of Trump by evangelical luminaries like Jerry Falwell, Jr., Franklin Graham, and James Dobson who recently vouched for Trump’s born-again status before saying he couldn’t confirm for sure Trump’s conversion.

http://religiondispatches.org/nevertrump-evangelicals-must-face-the-music/

[Hoppy]

1. TRUMP? BORN AGAIN? Now that's funnier than anything ol' Hoppy could ever come up with.

[whatthehey]

2. Well nobody sensible expected actual relligious principles

Adultery only matters when Democrats who don't sufficiently hate gays and choice are involved.

Religious experience and even basic knowledge only matters when the person lacking them is a liberal.

And I can't recall a time when loving neighbors and turning the other cheek ever mattered to the religious right, which is the vast majority of both the religious and the right of course. Red letters are there to scold people with not help them.

Their only actual principle on display is one I can only criticize however due to their hypocrisy in pretending it's not what really drives them over and above the word of their putative lord and savior, because I have the same principle. That of sociopolitical allegiance primarily to party.

What they lack in scriptural (well the nicer parts thereof) embodiment they make up in political savvy, because they know that despite handwringing from the..errmmm holier than thou on both the left and the right, US politics really is a two team sport and that the only hope they have of advancing their spiteful and grasping real religious principles is if Republicans, regardless of sin or amorality, are in power.

[rug]

3. “One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.”

[whatthehey]

4. Yeah they do a poor job of hiding it don't they?

That's what you meant, right? You of course would never joke about being personally crippled to an actual physical cripple of course, being the fine upstanding example of Christian behavior that you are.

[rug]

5. What do you think?

You can shine you're shoes
and wear a suit
you can comb your hair
and look quite cute
you can hide your face
behind a smile
one thing you can't hide
is when you're crippled inside

you wear a mask
and paint your face
you can call yourself
the human race
you can wear a collar
and a tie
but the one thing you
can't hide is when you're
crippled inside

well now you know that your
cat has nine lives babe
nine loves to itself
but you only got one
and a dog life ain't no fun
mamma take a look outside.
you can go to church
and sing a hymn
judge me by the color
of my skin
you can live a lie until you die
one thing you can't hide
is when you're crippled inside.

[whatthehey]

6. You said it. Only the author knows intent. Own up.

[rug]

7. If you think John Lennon is mocking the disabled, do go on.

[whatthehey]

8. I'm questioning you. You responded to me with it, not him.

Either you think evangelicals are crippled inside or I am. Which is it rug?

[rug]

9. And you bizarrely took the obvious message of the song as an attack on disabled people.

Either you are obtuse or you're picking a personal fight Which is it, whatthehey?

[Cartoonist]

13. Actually

John had a problem with the disabled. Not one of his better qualities.

[rug]

14. I'll be damned. You're right.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/video-john-lennon-mocking-disabled-surfaces-article-1.2368543

I hadn't heard that.

[cutroot]

10. The evangelicals are not Christian in thought word or deed.

They are sycophantic power junkies.

[TlalocW]

11. Ha. As if "Real Evangelicals" aren't going to go with the person they think will give them power

However little that power turns out to be.

In 2011/2012, "Real Evangelicals," were constantly going on about how their party shouldn't nominate a Mormon because they're not real Christians until Mitt won the nomination, then they couldn't run to the cameras fast enough to declare him a true Brother-in-Christ.

If Wehner were truly honest, he wouldn't just be dissecting Trump's theology but his own party's. He would also find it incompatible with Christianity.

TlalocW

[rug]

12. That is exactly what it's about, political power.

Fortunately, they've bet on the wrong horse.