Evangelicals chafe at Trump’s blasphemy + Christian songwriter losing his faith

[Leigha]

Trump's bigotry and womanizing behavior isn't defensible.

This thread isn't about me or you, it's about Trump and evangelicals. Why can't you ever stick to the topic, and not insult/attack/berate the people whom are discussing the topic? And didn't you get upset in another thread recently, where you were ''misjudged?'' I wasn't an evangelical by the way.

You're on ignore, going forward. It's not worth reading your nonsense anymore.

[Yazata]

I'm not convinced that "many evangelicals" are "riled up". Is there any reason to believe that a significant number of them are, that's more convincing than the opinion of some writer from Politico? Again, I think that this is another attempt by the democrats to create controversy where controversy doesn't exist.

My own sense is that Trump is more popular among evangelicals now than he was in 2016. He's certainly silenced the fears that many had in 2016 that he was just another New York celebrity liberal playing all the stupid voters for chumps. Since being elected, he's shown that he really believes in what he campaigned on. And that's a rare thing from a politician.

[Leigha]

How do evangelicals reconcile their faith views with cheering on Trump, I wonder? Jesus seemed like he would be a socialist, even though he believed in separating church from state. I doubt he meant to ignore your faith, so you can support your state. I can't see Jesus finding the border situation to be acceptable. I doubt Jesus would be okay with Trump's comments about women, and people of color. I doubt he would be for gaining as much wealth and toys as one can, before he/she dies. I honestly don't think Jesus would find the ''American dream'' all that dreamy.

So, I wonder...how do evangelicals reconcile their faith beliefs with their views about Trump?

[billvon]

Really? So supposedly evangelicals can overlook infidelity and sexually crude comments but they can't overlook him saying "god damn"? That's complete nonsense. 

Very true.  But that's evangelicals in a nutshell.

Tearing kids from their families and throwing them in freezing cages?  That's OK.  Rape?  Well, he said she said.  Sexual assault?  The women are ugly so they must be lying.  Admitting to sexual assault in his own words?  Well, fake news liberal media blah blah.

But saying "goddamn!"  THAT is unacceptable to their brand of Christianity!

[Yazata]

Trump's bigotry

If Trump was a "bigot", that might be a problem. But I don't perceive that he is.

In fact, I perceive him as making a last-stand against bigotry. Against the kind of identity-politics that tries to have everyone identifying with their own race, ethnicity or "gender" (as long as they aren't white or heterosexual male, it's forbidden for them) and encourages everyone to be as angry, alienated and militant as they can possibly be.

Trump on the other hand champions the United States and its symbols. The only way that the divisions that are tearing the country apart today can ever be healed is if people can come together with an identity that's broader than any of us and more inclusive than the narrower and more hostile identities that the 'race-class-gender' militants would have everyone (except whites) assume.

and womanizing behavior isn't defensible.

It wasn't that long ago that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the rest of the 'rat pack' were admired for being 'womanizers'. Hell, just look at the James Bond archetype. I'd guess that kind of thing is more acceptable in more culturally conservative circles today (which is where most evangelicals come from) than among the urban types. Though if you look inside the stylish bars and the nightclubs where urban hipsters go at night, you are going to see some pretty blatant, full-frontal sexual pickup action going on.

That same kind of action is going down in bars and road houses in places where evangelicals tend to live, so it's nothing new or outlandish in their world. So it's not something that they are really going to get judgmental about.

[billvon]

Trump's bigotry

If Trump was a "bigot", that might be a problem. But I don't perceive that he is.  In fact, I perceive him as making a last-stand against bigotry. Against the kind of identity-politics that tries to have everyone identifying with their own race, ethnicity or "gender" (as long as they aren't white or male, it's forbidden for them) and encourages everyone to be as angry, alienated and militant as they can possibly be.  Trump on the other hand champions the United States and its symbols.

Trump is a bigot because he has demonstrated prejudice against blacks, women, Muslims and Mexicans.  Not because what sort of symbols he likes.

It wasn't that long ago that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the rest of the 'rat pack' were admired for being 'womanizers'. 

It wasn't that long ago that saying "that's mighty white of you" was OK.  A guy who was ok with blacks using the same restaurant as whites, as long as they kept to their own bathrooms, schools and women, was considered enlightened.

Times change.

Though if you look inside some of the nightclubs where hipsters go at night, you are going to see some pretty blatant, full-frontal sexual pickup action going on. 

Do you equate "pickup action" with sexism?  Interesting.

Here's a guide:

Guy trying to pick up women at a bar by offering to buy them drinks - not sexist.
Guy who grabs women by the pussy because he's famous and thinks he can get away with it - sexist (criminal, even.)

[Leigha]

Trump is the President of the US, that is what makes it an issue, imo. Comparing him to James Bond or a random celebrity, or music artists...what does that mean? That because our culture celebrates men in some movies and music as being sexist/womanizing (which is sad), we should accept that in a President? He's also racist.

When you're the President of the US, the bar should be higher.

[Yazata]

Trump's bigotry and womanizing behavior isn't defensible.

This thread isn't about me or you, it's about Trump and evangelicals.

But it does seem to have become about you.

This thread is ostensibly about conservative evangelicals supposedly becoming estranged from President Trump.

But your posts seem to all be about how much you hate the man and about how morally evil you perceive him to be. That would only be relevant to the thread topic if your hugely judgmental opinion about the President was widely shared among the evangelical Christians that voted for him in 2016.

I don't think that it is.

[billvon]

Trump's bigotry and womanizing behavior isn't defensible.

This thread isn't about me or you, it's about Trump and evangelicals.

But it does seem to have become about you.

This thread is ostensibly about conservative evangelicals supposedly becoming estranged from President Trump.

But your posts seem to all be about how much you hate the man and about how morally evil you perceive him to be. That would only be relevant to the thread topic if your hugely judgmental opinion about the President was widely shared among the evangelical Christians that voted for him in 2016.

I don't think that it is.

[C C]

Trump is the President of the US, that is what makes it an issue, imo. Comparing him to James Bond or a random celebrity, or music artists...what does that mean? That because our culture celebrates men in some movies and music as being sexist/womanizing (which is sad), we should accept that in a President? He's also racist.

When you're the President of the US, the bar should be higher.

I agree. Setting aside any coarseness before the arrival of technological communications, the POTUS is expected to be a skilled poseur or virtue signaler -- it comes with the image and posturing territory of being regarded as a world leader. At least publicly pretend and formally behave professionally or like a disciplined adult, regardless of however many sex worker transactions, adulterous affairs with celebrities, and sleeping with East German spies is going on behind closed doors. Probably several Presidents contributed to or set the standard for maintaining a public facade, long before Trump. He has a superficial moral tradition to live up to in that latter regard.

Lloyd Bentsen: "... I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. ... you're no Jack Kennedy!"


Secret tapes reveal JFK’s duplicity in Cold War, civil rights
https://nypost.com/2015/02/15/secret-tap...il-rights/

But Patrick Sloyan writes that neither Kennedy brother was genuinely sympathetic to their cause, concerned as they were with losing the support of white southern Democrats in ’64.

“ ‘Stop them,’ the president told Harris Wofford, his special assistant on civil rights. ‘Get your goddamn friends off the buses.’ ” Kennedy believed that the event was intended to embarrass him and put him in “a politically painful spot.”

Kennedy was so nervous about Martin Luther King Jr. that his secret recordings reveal him telling brother Bobby, “King is so hot these days that it’s like having [Karl] Marx coming to the White House.”

The president had already betrayed the civil-rights movement, failing to keep a campaign promise to end literacy tests for voting and appointing racist judges in the South.

He met with King at the White House, and informed him that despite promises he had made during his campaign, civil-rights legislation would be delayed for political reasons.


Did LBJ Say ‘I’ll Have Those N*****s Voting Democratic for 200 Years’?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-vo...emocratic/

There’s no question that Lyndon Johnson, despite championing the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and signing it into law, was also a sometime racist and notorious vulgarian who rarely shied away from using the N-word in private. For example, he reportedly referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as the “n_gger bill” in more than one private phone conversation with Senate colleagues. And he reportedly said upon appointing African-American judge Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, “Son, when I appoint a n_gger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a n_gger.”