America cannot give evangelicals what they want
A decade or two ago, no one had trouble figuring out what White evangelical Christians wanted from the federal government. Alongside supply-siders and national security hawks, they made up the triumvirate of the GOP base and were willing to embrace their allies economic and foreign policy positions to ensure support for abortion restrictions and anti-gay policies. (During the Cold War, they were enthusiastic partners with national security hawks in the battle against godless communism.)
But social policy is no longer at the heart of the agenda of the demographic. Instead, it has become nearly indistinguishable from the MAGA movement.
Conservative commentator and evangelical Christian David A. French acknowledges in a piece for the Dispatch: We know that opposition to abortion rights motivates white Evangelicals far less than their leaders rhetoric would suggest. Eastern Illinois Universitys Ryan Burge, one of the nations leading statisticians of American religion, has noted, for example, that immigration drove Evangelical support for [Donald] Trump more than abortion.
As for gay rights, the Public Religion Research Institutes annual values survey shows a majority of White evangelical Christians still oppose gay marriage, but that substantial majorities in every major religious group favor nondiscrimination laws that protect LGBTQ people, ranging from 59% among white evangelical Protestants to 92% among religiously unaffiliated Americans. Moreover, even opposition to gay marriage is declining because of a massive generational divide on the issue between older evangelicals and more tolerant millennials and Generation Xers.
So what, then, do these voters want? Many essentially see politics as a great battle between White, Christian America and the multiracial, religiously diverse reality of 21st century America. They want someone to help them win that existential fight. Government is there not to produce legislative fixes to real-world problems but to engage their enemies on behalf of White Christianity.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/09/america-cannot-give-evangelicals-want-they-want/
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Probably Jennifer Rubin's best column EVER.
50 Shades Of Blue
(9,958 posts)Pantagruel
(2,580 posts)the % of non-white evangelicals and their voting patterns?
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)a Christian "Republic" of the United States
No public schools, only christian schools
No abortion or birth control
No unions
One party, theocratic gov't
all minorities back in the closet and or in their place
No welfare or other social programs
No immigrants of a darker skin tone
Marginalized religions and denominations they don't like
blasphemy laws
Girard442
(6,066 posts)...they intend to take it by force and stealth. They can do it.
Martin Eden
(12,862 posts)They can't win a battle against reality, but these "patriotic Christians" will leave a trail of blood in their efforts.
Who would Jesus kill to ensure the stranger is NOT welcomed?
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)They're doing a damned fine job of it, too.
They're sick, imo.
Not one cell of objectivity in their brains; they react only to conditioning, not reason. The authoritarian mantra.
lees1975
(3,845 posts)It's wrapped up in a perspective of eschatology, "end times" and God's judgement scenarios, that have emerged from completely erroneous interpretations of final judgment, second coming of Christ passages, particularly the books of Daniel and Revelation, blended with a measure of "Anglo-Israelism" from the late 19th and early 20th century when this particular brand of end-times interpretation started spreading in the churches.
Skittles
(153,138 posts)to the day when what these sanctimonions racist assholes want DOESN'T MATTER
would be great if it was in my lifetime