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is Trumpism helping or harming the position of Christianity in America?


mcsluggo

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33 minutes ago, FanboyOf91 said:

Not so much rotting the church from within as much as revealing the existing rot.

 

The rot is politics in churches,or one rot anyway.

 

Trump didn't change that existing dynamic though.

 

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Trump is not a Christian, so I don't know why they have all gotten behind him. He doesn't really stand for anything, especially Christianity. They're only supporting him because for some reason "GOP" equals "God"...and "patriotism".

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6 hours ago, twa said:

I'll go with harming, but probably not more than many Christians.

 

 

I beg to differ, until Trump the hypocrisy of the layity was a matter of theory and anecdotal evidence. The past 35 years, since Reagan began courting the Christian vote, we have been preached at that Christian valyes MUST be expressed by our President. It’s why they demand that he be sworn in on a Bible, it why they demanded clergy support and voice on behalf of Trump during the campaign. It’s why Dobson started spreading that bull**** story about Trump’s supposed conversion. Once they had that cover then it was just a matter of excusing everything as a matter of before and after. That was good enough for older white Evangelicals.

But not their kids...and especially not their grandkids. The Trump effect is a very real thing being seen throughout white Evangelical Christianity in America. The kids were already abandoning the church, now they are fleeing. 

And that’s just the kids who were raised in church. Evangelism right now among this group is nearly impossible with the growing white Evangelical support for Trump who has yet to demonstrate a SINGLE Biblical value. Just about the only Biblical character he reflects is King Saul who is used as a punishment to Israel for crying out for a king. 

Now those old white Evangelicals have convinced themselves that Trump is all part of God’s plan so to oppose Trump is to oppose the will of God.

I can’t tell you how disgusted I am by this mountainous level of horse****. I was talking with a friend who is still in ministry about this today, the younger clergy are just waiting to bury the problem (literally) in the hope that the church survives long enough to repair the damage.

 

Oh, and Bill Hybels resignation because of sexual harassment, along with too many other high profile Christians living compartmentalized lives. And Franklin Graham becoming a Falwell, and seemingly undoing his father’s work of unifying the church.

People ask me where I’m goong to church now, I tell them that I’m in transition...I leave out that the transition has been five years now.

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4 minutes ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

I beg to differ, until Trump the hypocrisy of the layity was a matter of theory and anecdotal evidence.

 

I'm calling BS :ols:....don't shoot me. 

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18 minutes ago, Rdskns2000 said:

Among the current believers, no.  As long as Trump does what they want, they don't care about how hypocritical they look.

No, sorry.

They simply do not see themselves as hypocritical. Their support is ENTIRELY self justified. It’s everyone else who doesn’t get it.

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14 hours ago, Rdskns2000 said:

Among the current believers, no.  As long as Trump does what they want, they don't care about how hypocritical they look. As for new followers, yes.  People see what Christianity is now; they aren't flocking to it.  They are fleeing it.

 

13 hours ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

No, sorry.

They simply do not see themselves as hypocritical. Their support is ENTIRELY self justified. It’s everyone else who doesn’t get it.

 

To Redskns 2000:  I agree, current believers don't think Trump is harming their movement at all.  But the question is "Is Trump harming their position?"  Their position is entirely dependent on how many tens of millions of adherents they have.  Your last 2 sentences are the important thing.  As current believers die off, they are not being replaced.  As head count decreases, their political power does too.  My theory is that they aren't being replaced because would-be recruits see them as hypocrites (as you noted) or, even worse, having repugnant values.  Hell, the Nones (of which I am one) are now roughly 25% of the population.  Just 10 years ago, they were 16%.  For the Millenials, that number is roughly 35% (as of 2014).

 

To Ashbury, I also agree, but i don't think it matters.  Evangelicals self-perception really has no bearing on their political position.  Their power comes from numbers, and those numbers are decreasing fairly rapidly.  It matters not what people already in the club believe, it matters their ability to recruit.  From 2007 to 2014, Christians went from 78% of the population to 71%.  It's a decent bet that those figures have fallen even faster from 2014 to now given Trump and many other factors. 

 

All figures above according to Pew.  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/

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Trump has done more to ensure a secular future for this country than anything secularists could have ever accomplished on their own.

 

He is going to be a plastered as the face of Christian hypocrisy for an entire generation of American youth. I hope the Church enjoys its short term bargain with this monster.

Edited by No Excuses
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am agnostic.  I went to Episcopalian school for 3 years and Catholic school for 6.  I have tried to study as wide a range of religions as I can, and generally I find truth in most of them.  However, that truth which I have come to believe in is antithetical to what I see practiced today in many Christian churches.  I see so much appealing to our basest inclinations with less and less of a leadership to be our better selves.  Religion is becoming more and more tribal with less cordial interactions between groups.  Everything becomes a zero sum game.  Sadly, Trump's embrace of and by much of the Christian population seems more symptomatic than causal.  

 

As I think about church becoming more and more enmeshed in politics, I think about how this is happening simultaneously with ever larger amounts of money in our politics.   Isn't there a quote in the bible about how hard it is for a rich man to get to heaven?  I believe it is something along the lines of "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven?"  As we combine money, faith and politics, I can't help worry we make it harder for church to be a conduit to salvation.

 

One slightly different view though may be the difference in acceptance of Trump across minorities.  Maybe it is just my sheltered east coast reference frame, but I am under the impression minorities as a whole tend to be more religious than non minorities.  Whether this is due to historical pushes or needs to feel there is something after this life to even out injustice from this one, the percentage of believers and fervor with which it is applied seems greater amongst the often down trodden.  The cynical have often referred to this as opiates for the masses.  Is it a signal of not so universal acceptance of Trump that these people are least likely to be his base?  

 

Christianity is a religion of belief that not all that is buried remained so.  Perhaps like a phoenix from the ashes, a better religion may yet arise? 

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7 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Evangelical support for Trump is so absolutely ridiculous. No exaggeration or hyperbole, it is perhaps the greatest display of bull**** I've ever seen.

At the risk of offending some folks, in all seriousness  if a person chooses to believe the biggest lie of all time, trump's lies are small potatoes. They've already spent a lifetime convincing themselves of the reality of a myth, so convincing themselves of anything isn't going to be too hard.

 

as to these evangelical supporters of Trump?

remember,, they hate you even more than they love their religion. They will pervert their religion to justify how much they hate you. They will condemn their own soul by their own rules and justify all of it so they don't have to stop hating you.
And if they are right and they DO end up in front of a judgment.. they will blame you for their own damnation.

 

~Bang

 

Edited by Bang
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30741558_600232890336057_663743884666996

 

Quote
 
 

Speaking with televangelist Jim Bakker last week, “Christian leaderMary Colbert explained that Donald Trump is part of God’s Master Plan and that anyone who opposes the President will be cursed.

And then, just for good measure, she extended the curse to the critics’ children and grandchildren.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/04/04/christian-leader-god-will-curse-the-kids-and-grandkids-of-anyone-who-criticizes-donald-trump/

Edited by LD0506
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15 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Evangelical support for Trump is so absolutely ridiculous. No exaggeration or hyperbole, it is perhaps the greatest display of bull**** I've ever seen.

 

i agree with you. political christianity, political evangelicals, i have really very little positive that i can say about that whole thing. at the same time, the country was given two options, and those options, alot of people would say, were not very good. 

 

just kind of thinking out loud here, so i'm trying to think of it like this- why would an evangelical vote for hillary? (serious question)

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5 minutes ago, grego said:

just kind of thinking out loud here, so i'm trying to think of it like this- why would an evangelical vote for hillary? (serious question)

The number one reason that ANYBODY should have voted for Hillary is that she was, of the two, far and away the better choice.

 

If they were looking for the more religious candidate, that'd be Clinton as well and again, it's not even close. Trump is, by far, the least Christian president we have ever had. I'm a better Christian than he is and I'm atheist.

Edited by Sacks 'n' Stuff
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34 minutes ago, grego said:

 

 

just kind of thinking out loud here, so i'm trying to think of it like this- why would an evangelical vote for hillary? (serious question)

 

Aside from the obvious answer that, regardless of your feelings about them personally, one option was extremely well qualified for the position and the other is comically unqualified, one of many other reasons to vote for Hillary, or at least not vote for Trump, would be to avoid yoking your movement to such an immoral, unchristian person.  

 

It's amazing that a population of people who claim to be so concerned with the long-term consequences of their actions (i.e., going to heaven or hell), would so pathetically lose sight of the long game here and opt for the short-term win.  

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Additionally, I'd say that there exist evangelical communities who aren't beholden to the corporate Christian sellouts. Evangelicals who care about the poor, about social justice, etc., could (and did) easily see in Clinton policies more likely to address the issues they think are most important for Christians to support.

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49 minutes ago, JCB said:

Additionally, I'd say that there exist evangelical communities who aren't beholden to the corporate Christian sellouts. Evangelicals who care about the poor, about social justice, etc., could (and did) easily see in Clinton policies more likely to address the issues they think are most important for Christians to support.

No one denies that. But what you have is what you have because of the evangelicals and other Cs that are beholden to the sellouts.

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