Christian Evangelical voters are sold a "pig in a poke" when they join the Trump cult

"...Christian nationalism a la Trump makes Trump the god..."

Donald Trump and Uses and Misuses of the Bible

Echo opinion essay published by Nicole Russell in the Las Vegas Sun: Trump has poisioned Christian Evangelicals

Many (wrongminded😓😡) evangelical Christians ✝️ have convinced themselves that voting for Donald Trump is the best way to win over the culture war, get prayer back in schools and restore the United States to its theocratic roots.  (Wrong❗🆇)

This is prominent in evangelical strains across the U.S., but especially in the South, in the Southern Baptist Convention and, of course, in Texas.

People Question Trump's Biblical Literacy After He Touts Bible Classes

Evangelicals, particularly, lean on the call of Jesus to his own disciples to bring good news to all and tell them of the hope that faith in Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection offers. By spreading the good news evangelicals hope to return the U.S. to a more conservative, God-honoring state.

Christian nationalists take this a big step further and, as Christianity Today defines it, “believe American identity is inextricable from Christianity,” and it is their duty to restore this via policy and politicians.

Religious influence has always existed in American politics. Today’s modern evangelical convergence into politics started with Ronald Reagan and heightened with George W. Bush. His candidacy galvanized millions of social conservatives, Christians who voted on just a handful or sometimes even one topic: abortion. Evangelicals found hope in a born-again Texan’s leadership, which seemed faith-based yet tangible, strong yet compassionate.

But still the country has continued to shift away from any kind of faith-based values. While some continued to pour their lives into mission work, charitable organizations or churches, more and more looked to politics to be their earthly religion, and Republican leaders to be their god.

Enter 2016, Trump. After eight years of Barack Obama, Trump seemed to be the leader to change America’s course. Even though almost nothing about his personal life demonstrated that he held true faith in God, or anything but himself. Even though he didn’t seem to even try to live in a way that demonstrated upward values, Trump was charismatic, promised conservative victories and courted Christians who were easily manipulated. This year, Trump is doing the same thing with the same results.

At the end of 2023, according to the Pew Research Center, 55% of white evangelical Republican voters said they would vote for Trump. Now that he has clinched the Republican nomination, that number has probably risen. At the grassroots level, this means that in churches across Texas, pastors will endorse Trump from the pulpit, and other Republican candidates down-ballot, violating tax law. Organizations such as NEXUS Mountain Network, a Christian-based social network, will promote the idea that evangelicals have a right and a duty to be politically active and advocate for Christian nationalism.

The problem with all this isn’t that evangelicals are involved in politics — they should be. Heck, everyone, regardless of religion or creed, should show some interest in civics. It isn’t that evangelicals encourage their friends to vote or are pro-life, or even that they think America would lose its identity or freedom if we fail to preserve our cultural inheritance.

The biggest problem, mostly, is that evangelical Christians have decided political power is the way to usher America back to its roots and that Trump is not just the salve but the key, the leader through which to do this.

Trump’s candidacy has recognized and glorified Christian nationalism: Now, it’s more vocal, determined, and — ironically — more hypocritical than ever. Trump rarely espouses Christian values in his personal life, though he did champion religious liberty and claimed to be pro-life while in office. He lured populist voters and attracted fringe extremists — the kind of people who fly from Texas to the Capitol to participate in an insurrection, get arrested, and claim they were just restoring Christian values to their beloved democratic republic.

God did not call Christians to follow Trump or the American political system, or even to preserve America’s heritage above all. Christian nationalism a la Trump makes Trump the god and makes power the goal, rather than faith or even embracing the values Christ spoke of: loving him above all and our neighbors as we love ourselves. This isn’t right.

Nicole Russell is a columnist for the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram.

Pig in a poke is an English idiom which means a kind of deceptive trick. It is a blind bargain. A purchase which turns out not to be what the seller claimed it was

P.S. Maine Writer- In my opinion, Christian Evangelical voters are being duped into believing the oldest con game known. They are being sold a "pig in a poke". 

Do Nothing Republicans have no plan to improve America

Republicans have done nothing for us? Echo opinion published in the Abilene Reporter, in Texas, by Richard O'Shields.

In June of 2021, moderate and traditional wings of the Southern Baptist Convention wanted to denounce rioters on January 6, 2021, but couldn’t get a vote. Why was thereso little outrage❓

A Mississippi minister responded that most people are positioned in the middle on these issues but are just trying to live their life, work, pay the bills and go to church. (Maine Writer- So, 😦😩"most people" are also Americans, is that right❓🗽) With only a few leaders displaying backbones to stand up to a group of liars, obstructers, bullies and those willing to overthrow our democracy, a dilemma has arisen in this country.

Republican leaders said they back police, but (incredulously!) not those attacked on January 6, or the FBI. They love our troops but are undermining Ukrainian soldiers in Vladimir Putin’s war as he murders thousands of innocent people. Republicans say they love teachers but then they lie about what teachers teach our kids.

Why would police, our military troops and teachers vote Republican? What have the Republicans done for us❓

We know the Republicans do not want to solve the immigration problem on the border. Former U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm outlined their (missed❗) opportunities in his opinion letter. "I hope and believe most Texans are getting tired of the border security blame game and we want our elected folks to do something to secure our borders❗"

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's multibillion-dollar political stunt on the border with Mexico pulls as many as half the Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers away from their local field offices. Why would anyone with family connections to countries south of Texas vote for them❓

Most of us are in the middle, when it comes to government issues. But, we especially love our freedoms. Please take a couple days researching these issues and vote like your kid’s future is at stake.

Richard O'Shields in Abilene, Texas

🗳️ Vote Blue!  Vote Biden Harris 2024

Christian nationalism! The more I learn the worse it sounds!

Tish Harrison Warren is an Anglican priest.

The State of Evangelical America published in The New York Times by Tish Harrison Warren.

There are few evangelical Christians who have gotten as much media coverage or criticism in the last decade as Russell Moore. He previously served as the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the policy wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, and became a prominent evangelical voice opposing a Trump presidency. 

Moore is currently the editor in chief of Christianity Today, which The Times’s Jane Coaston called “arguably the most influential Christian publication” in the United States. I asked Moore if he would speak to me about the evangelical movement and his new book, “Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America.” This interview has been edited and condensed.

Tish Harrison Warren: The subtitle of your newest book is “An Altar Call for Evangelical America.” What do you mean by evangelical America?

Russell Moore: What I mean by “evangelical” is people who believe in the personal aspect of what it means to be a follower of Christ. That includes the way that we understand the Bible, the way that we understand the need to be born again.

In your book, you discuss how increasing secularization isn’t going to end the culture wars. In fact, you say it may heighten them. Why do you think that?

I was in a session several years ago in which a researcher had done a survey about religious people’s reactions to immigrants and refugees. And she was stunned to find that the more active evangelistic work a church did, the more welcoming they were to refugees in their communities. I was not surprised at all, because evangelism presupposes the possibility of conversation and persuasion. And not the coercion of raw power.

When churches have given up on evangelism, this means they’ve given up on actually engaging with and loving their neighbors. That’s bad news for everybody. You end up in a situation where these warring groups in American life are seeking some kind of total victory, where somebody is the final, ultimate winner and somebody is the final, ultimate loser. That ratchets up the stakes of culture wars dramatically.

Your book delves into Christian nationalism as a component of the evangelical movement. How would you define Christian nationalism? And how has it affected evangelicalism in the United States?

Christian nationalism is the use of Christian symbols or teachings in order to prop up a nation-state or an ethnic identity. It’s dangerous for the nation because it’s fundamentally anti-democratic. Christian nationalism takes a political claim and seeks to make it ultimate. It says: If a person disagrees with me, that person is disagreeing with God. No democratic nation can survive that, which is why the founders of this country built in all kinds of protections from it.

Christian nationalism is also dangerous for the witness of the church, because Christian nationalism is fundamentally, at its core, anti-evangelical. If what the Gospel means is for people to come before God, person by person, not nation by nation or village by village or tribe by tribe, then Christian nationalism is heretical.

Christian nationalism assumes outward conformity enforced by social or political power. It transforms the way that we see reality with the assumption that the really important things are political and cultural, as opposed to personal and spiritual and theological.

It’s been hard for me to evaluate how widespread this is. Anecdotally, I know a lot of Christians, including a lot of evangelicals, and they would not be considered Christian nationalists. So I often wonder: Is this fringe?

It is affecting almost every sector of American Christianity in varying ways. It’s similar to the Prosperity Gospel of the last generation. Most American Christians wouldn’t identify themselves as Prosperity Gospel adherents. Yet many of them were adopting key pieces of that understanding of the world.

Studies have shown the way that Christian language is being used in Europe and in other places to prop up populist authoritarian movements. You can see this in the way that survey data show how white evangelicals in America are becoming much friendlier to outright authoritarianism — as seen in the January 6, insurrection. I don’t think that it is merely fringe at all.

We can’t talk about the rise of Christian nationalism without bringing up Donald Trump. 

You said that he was morally unfit to be president and received intense backlash — even from Trump himself. Were you surprised by the severe criticism from certain Christians for your denunciation of Trump?

It didn’t surprise me that there would be overwhelming buy-in once Trump became the Republican nominee. One of the things I was worried about is that people would say: I’m not supporting him, I’m just voting for him because I think the alternative is worse. I feared, at the time, that the way that American politics works right now is inherently totalizing, so there would not be people after Trump was elected who would, for instance, support him on some judicial appointments and oppose him on a Muslim ban or whatever the issue is. And I think that has proved to be the case. Trump has transformed evangelicalism far more than evangelism has influenced Trump.

I was surprised by the aftermath of the “Access Hollywood” tape. When the “Access Hollywood” tape was released, I was saying to people around me: “Don’t say ‘I told you so.’ We need to have empathy for Trump-supporting evangelicals who are really hurting at this revelation.” But what ended up happening is that white evangelicals made peace with “Access Hollywood,” if anything, quicker than the rest of America did❗

I received a castigating email from a sweet Christian lady who had taught me Sunday school when I was a kid. And none of it argued: “You’re wrong about Trump’s moral character.” The argument was: “Get real. This is what we have to have in order to fight the enemy.” That was surprising to me. And disorienting.

In your book, you tell a story about how an evangelical person said to their pastor: “We’ve tried to turn the other cheek. It doesn’t work. We have to fight now.” Why do certain evangelicals feel so embattled now?

Some of it is a response to legitimate fears. There are many people in American life who assume that religion itself is oppressive and should be done away with. And there is a general sense of crisis and decline in American life, and it’s translated into religious terms. In many cases, I would not disagree with the diagnosis about some of the things that are wrong. What I would disagree with is the sense of futility and giving up on what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy.

I would also point to the decline in personal evangelism. When you have people who are trained to share the Gospel with their neighbors, they have an understanding from the very beginning that people in my community aren’t my enemies, they’re my mission field. This changes the way that you see people.

When that starts to diminish, there’s a lack of confidence and a frantic looking about for whatever tool is at hand. Ideological zealotry becomes the tool at hand.

I mentioned in the book about how many pastors talk about referencing Jesus’ call to “turn the other cheek,” only to have blowback from people in their congregation because they say that that doesn’t work in times like these. The assumption is that we’re in a hostile culture as opposed to a neutral culture — as though the Sermon on the Mount is delivered in Mayberry, not ancient Rome. And the assumption also shows a lack of confidence in the means that God has given us to advance the church through proclamation and demonstration.

A moving part of your book is when you write about your father, who had a complicated relationship with the church.

He never lost his faith. But he was always very suspicious of church structures and found it hard to go to church for long periods at a time. When I was younger, I judged him for it. I thought that this was a spiritual defect. Now that I have more perspective and can see his life, I understand it.

You write about how his experience has given you compassion for folks who have left the church. And you often say that people don’t always leave the church because of what Christians believe, but instead because they don’t think Christians actually believe what they claim to believe. What do you mean by that?

When I first started in ministry, if someone came and said, “I’m losing my faith, I’m walking away from the church,” the cause was almost always one of two things. Either the person started to find the supernatural incredible. Or the person thought that the morality of the church was too strict in some way, usually having to do with sex. I almost never hear that anymore. Instead, the people that I talk to often have a sense that for the church, the Gospel is a means to an end — whether that end is politics or cultural control or cultural influence or something else. And in many cases they’re starting to question not whether the church is too strict, but whether the church actually holds to a morality at all. What is alarming to me is that some of the people I find who are despairing are actually those who are the most committed to the teachings of Christianity.

So with all this dysfunction that you are speaking about in evangelicalism, why are you still an evangelical Christian?

I think the fragmentation that’s happening to the evangelical movement right now is actually a necessary precondition for renewal.

I won’t give up on the word “evangelical.” There was a time when I did. I wrote an op-ed in 2016, in The Washington Post called “Why This Election Makes Me Hate the Word ‘Evangelical’” — but I’ve come around. I can’t find a good alternative shorthand to describe the kind of Christian that I am. But also because Tim Keller came with me to a class I was teaching at the University of Chicago, and one of the students asked why we would use the word “evangelical” when it’s become so politicized and toxic. And Tim responded, “Well, it’s because most of us evangelicals are in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the North Americans don’t get to just choose what we’re called because we’ve wrecked the brand.” The student said, “Fair enough.”

What do you think a healthy political engagement from evangelicals would look like?

It would mean a reordering of priorities. The church could see ultimate things as ultimate and other things as falling in line behind those ultimate things. That’s the fundamental shift.

I do think that we need to have the right ordering of our priorities and our loves, and also the right understanding of what it means to follow Christ. The figure of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels is not a frantic, angry culture warrior. He is remarkably tranquil about the situation around him. I think we need more of that. If our neighbors saw us loving one another and forgiving one another, even if they find our theological beliefs to be strange or even dangerous, that would be a good start.
An Announcement

I have some news. The past two years of writing this newsletter for The Times have been a profound joy and privilege, so it is bittersweet to announce that I will be leaving this post in early August, first for a brief sabbatical, and then to work on longer-form book projects. I am very grateful for my editors and colleagues at The Times. And for you, my readers, who have generously shared your lives, thoughts and prayers with me through thousands of weekly notes and emails. You have stuck with me through controversial pieces and lighthearted ones. You’ve walked with me as I’ve written my way through grief, doubt and joy. I cannot thank you enough. For fans of my work, I intend to keep writing. And I hope you will see my work in The Times, too, in the future.