Why Evangelicals Stick with Trump

[DonViejo]

November 28, 2017 at 10:42 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

Stuart Rothenberg: “I’ve been watching evangelical voting behavior since I worked for Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation in the 1980s, and I’ve come to believe that, in most cases (though certainly not all), white evangelicals get their religion from their politics, not their politics from their religion.”

“That is, many evangelicals are first and foremost political conservatives drawn to a church (or a pastor) that confirms their worldviews and, in turn, their political views.”

“They gravitate to evangelical, fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches that are spread across the American landscape, particularly in rural and small-town America, because those churches hold views about the Bible and human behavior that are traditional rather than pragmatic. Not surprisingly, most of those church members are politically conservative, particularly on social/cultural issues but increasingly also on the role of government.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/11/28/evangelicals-stick-trump/

[yardwork]

1. So they're political right wingers first, religious second.

Many of them are personally very messed up individuals. I think that they seek out authoritarian organizations in order to find an environment that allows and supports and protects their power-hungry sadistic behavior.

That's why they like Trump.

[SummerSnow]

2. I thought Jesus was first in their life.

Trump before Jesus

[PJMcK]

3. Evangelicals get their religion from their politics

Mr. Rothenberg's point is directly spot-on.

The ways that many churches influence politics in America are many. The methods range the spectrum of American politics. On the Democratic side, churches have often been the focal point for Get-Out-The-Vote and registration activities. Sometimes these churches will use Jesus' teachings to make observations about current events.

On the Republican side, however, religion has been weaponized and bastardized so that the behaviors accepted by those adherents have little relation to the lessons Jesus taught. The perfect example of this weaponization is their use of Bible passages to support their political and social views: they use Old Testament verses to support their restrictive views even though they contradict what Jesus said in the New Testament. One example of this is the Right's attack on homosexuality where they quote Old Testament laws condemning it while never acknowledging that Jesus never said a word about the subject. Another example is when Jesus had mercy on a woman accused of adultery and prevented the crowd from stoning her to death. Today's rightwing Christians would stone her but forgive the man with whom she had the affair. Incidentally, isn't it curious that Jesus never said a word about the man in that story?

The political use of the pulpit by rightwing churches is an abomination to our political system. It has allowed bigotry, hatred and greed to dominate their world-views and justify wholly un-American values. As an atheist and an American, I find the Right's use of religion to be deplorable.