Trump threatens to change the course of American Christianity
“If you want to understand white evangelicalism in the age of Trump, you need to know Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas.” Washington Post
Wapo is not completely wrong on this…
“Trump has forced them [evangelicals] to embrace a pragmatism that could damage the gospel around the world, and force many Christians to rethink their religious identities and affiliations.”
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]“Trump has forced them [evangelicals] to embrace a pragmatism that could damage the gospel around the world, and force many Christians to rethink their religious identities and affiliations.”
Seeing the follies of the GOP, I now consider myself an independent
well, pragmatism is a dangerous philosophical heresey. It does seem like Christians forget that from time to time. When I was growing up I was taught, “it’s never right to do wrong to get a chance to do right.” Does that apply to politics in America?
[Jim]Aaron Blumer wrote:
[The Washington Post says:]
“Trump has forced them [evangelicals] to embrace a pragmatism that could damage the gospel around the world, and force many Christians to rethink their religious identities and affiliations.”
Seeing the follies of the GOP, I now consider myself an independent
Count me 100% with Jim here. I did pull the lever for a probable criminal to avoid the possibility of having a definite criminal in the White House, but I’ve made clear for at least the past 25 years that I endeavor to be Biblical first, conservative second, and I pull the lever for the GOP simply because they are at least 10% right on the issues of prenatal infanticide and gun rights. I do not relish the possibility of standing before God when my time here is over and needing to defend voting for someone who stood for unlimited abortion.
But that said, given that there is a dearth of semi-reformed Baptistic candidates of a non-FBFI bent who can win elections, I think the Post’s comment is silly at best. As long as there have been elections, people have voted for someone they disagreed with somehow. Sometimes it’s minor issues—like when I voted for W despite misgivings about his (and Olasky’s) ideas of “compassionate conservatism”—and sometimes it’s really big things, like when feminists gathered around a serial adulterer and probable rapist, one of them even saying she’d perform a sex act on him herself for keeping abortion legal. (as Susan B. Anthony spins in her grave, were that possible)
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Pragmatism has been the practice in a large segment of evangelicalism for many years. While its demonstrated in different ways, it is often obvious when it comes to politics. Back in the late 1970’s and early 80’s we were almost giddy with what looked like pre-millenialism.
I’ll confess that I voted for Trump for the sole reason of the need of a Supreme Court Justice but now that that’s over I wish he’d just go away and that the wimpy GOP would go with him.
“Get off my lawn!”
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
Jim, mostly agree, but I see ethics as overlapping with “Communication,” since Trump regularly uses Twitter and press conferences to, pardon the cliche, throw people under the bus who (mixed metaphor warning) went out on a limb for him.
As an example, more than once he pressured congressional leaders in a particular direction on health care, then soon after they moved in his direction got on Twitter or a press conf. and broadly dismissed their work as worthless or worse. There are many worse examples; I’m just not remembering them at the moment.
When this is all over, he should write the sequel to Carnegie’s famous tome. How to Lose Friends and Fail to Influence People.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
No worries, Joe. I was holding out for the piranha tank. :^) Would need a carbon dioxide cartridge if it were going to be the shark tank.
Seriously, praying that Trump will learn to mind his manners and be effective. Otherwise it’s going to be a long four years in the same way it was a long eight before.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The Washington Post nails it.
Trump and the GOP exploited the evangelical vote as they usually do.
We look like pragmatic idiots, as I knew we would. We have to stop falling for the same empty promises every four years or so, and we have to stop trying to ‘save Christian America’. American politicians can not and will not usher in (or preserve) the kingdom of God. We should know this.
The GOP is as gutless and feckless as ever. The GOP represents nothing other than just naked ambition for political power and their slavish obedience to their donors and interests.
The Democratic pushback in 2020, after Trump loses his reelection bid, is going to be a sight to behold. I just hope that they don’t nominate some insanely progressive politician like Elizabeth Warren. I’m not optimistic about that, though.
Actually, I’m not really optimistic for the United States, either.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
In the late 1970’s I attended a political rally with a group of fundamentalist Republicans, most of whom were in the Christian school movement, and a Republican US congressman. We were optimistic at the up and coming evangelical Republican candidates who were vying for our attention. The congressman informed us bluntly that many of those candidates were professing Christianity because it was politically expedient. He was right. I got fooled again in Florida in 1994 by a guy named Joe Scarborough, now with MSNBC. Gullible? Us?
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
The Financial Times ran a story on it that an agnostic friend of mine forwarded to me this week. Here’s a snatch:
But that’s not the way things look at the house on a hill in Auburn, Alabama, where Wayne Flynt lives with his wife of 55 years, Dorothy. As evangelical Christianity has grown more successful in the political realm, Flynt fears that it has been reduced to a sum of its slogans. Lost in the transition, he says, is the traditional evangelical standard for sizing up candidates — “personal moral character”, which includes such criteria as marital fidelity, church attendance and kindness.
“No one I know of would argue that Donald Trump inculcates moral character,” Flynt says. “What has happened to American Christianity is there is this afterglow of what a candidate is supposed to represent. It’s no longer moral character. It’s policy positions on things that bother evangelicals.”
Flynt says evangelical Christians are mainly mobilising against the sins they either do not want to commit (homosexual acts) or cannot commit (undergoing an abortion, in the case of men).
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
The concept of pragmatism is interestingly slippery.
On the one hand, I’ve argued that nobody consistently denies that the results of what we do are important in weighing whether those actions are right or wrong. On the other hand, almost nobody believes that a good result justifies absolutely any means that might achieve it.
So where is “pragmatism” between those extremes?
What makes the question even more of a head scratcher is the fact that what we often call pragmatism isn’t so much “a concern for results without adequately evaluating means” as it is “a concern for short term results without due considering for longer term—and probably more serious ones” or just “a concern for the wrong results.”
Arguably, the result of God being pleased and our choices having results that willingly serve His glory—and constitute “fruit” (in the John 15 sense) that endures forever—is a result that, if we really pursue it, pretty much eliminates what we would think of as pragmatism. But it’s still all about results.
So it seems if we have the right goals in mind, “means” and “ends” kind of dissolve into eachother. God is only pleased when we do what He wants in the way He wants it done.
Returning to politics, most of the “pragmatism” is really just short-sighted stupidity. It would be good enough in most cases if the desired results extended beyond a few court nominees and a bit of legislation. If voters and politicians had more long-term, big picture results in mind, they wouldn’t be thinking that electing someone like DT was a suitable means to their ends.
So I’m not sure “pragmatism” is really problem, so much as, “stupid, short-sighted pragmatism.”
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I can understand the broad disdain for Trump, and quite frankly share it, but at a certain point all of us engage in a degree of pragmatism. In politics last year, we decided to risk a scumbag over a flat out criminal who would have appointed a Supreme Court justice who probably would have made the 2nd Amendment a dead letter and would have enshrined Roe v. Wade for another generation.
And really, as long as I admit as much—that I voted for Trump knowing his many faults—I don’t know that I’ve knowingly done wrong. Where I’d go wrong would be to ape the fawning charactizations I’ve heard of Drumpf out of guys like Falwell and Jeffress—to ignore the fact that politics is a compromise, really.
Put gently, a lot of what we do in life is an engineering question, choosing one set of risks over others, and not a scientific/philisophical question of absolutes. Everybody’s a little grey, the goal is to choose the lighter gray, so to speak. Romans 3:23 precludes us finding white.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
In politics last year, we decided to risk a scumbag over a flat out criminal who would have appointed a Supreme Court justice who probably would have made the 2nd Amendment a dead letter and would have enshrined Roe v. Wade for another generation.
Last year was the first year I didn’t vote for the GOP candidate. I felt like I couldn’t, in good conscience, support Trump as a person, much less as a Presidential candidate. I ended up voting for Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn instead, and I would do it all over again if I had to.
Frankly, I think we’re going to see a lot more candidates from the GOP that we can’t support for a while, and I’m not sure that I can give a hard rule as to when we should or shouldn’t break with a candidate. But it seemed better to me to take a chance on an unknown and somewhat conservative candidate than not vote at all.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
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