According
to 2014 Pew data, the most recent available, 72% of Democrats say
religion is important or somewhat important in their lives and 76% of
Democrats say they are absolutely or fairly certain in their belief
in God.
Trump cast Tuesday's
special election in North Carolina and the 2020 presidential election
as a fight for the status quo, describing Democrats as the
"America-hating left."
Democrats, he warned the
crowd of supporters at a rally Monday, "want to dismantle,
demolish and destroy everything that you've gained."
Trump claimed the
Democrats are not religious and are trying to take away religion.
"Whether it has to do
with religion, our evangelicals ...what we've done for them and for
religion is so important. The other side, not big believers in
religion, I can tell you."
This is the same man who
accused Jewish people who vote for Democrats of “disloyalty or
knowledge.” It is also the same man who affirmed in a 2015 campaign
event he would “be looking at getting rid of Muslims and plenty of
other things.” Does this sound like a religious leader?
Trump is anti-Muslim,
anti-Semetic, and anti-Christian. Yes, anti-Christian. When a leader
condemns Christians who happen to be Democrats, he puts himself in a
position of judgment which he uses solely to divide and boost his
Evangelical base of voters. His condemnation of the opposition is
simply denunciation of fellow believers.
I wonder if you remember
him quoting a controversial radio host who called him the “King of
Israel” and “the second coming of God”? In a tweet, Trump
thanked Wayne Allyn Root, considered a “conspiracy theorist” by
the Washington Post and others, for the tweets, calling them
“very nice words.” And, he followed his tweets by saying “I am
the chosen one” during an interview with White House reporters
while referring to his role in managing the trade war with China.
Journalist Katherine
Stewart, who covers the religious right, explained in a New York
Times article (2018), the gist of the white evangelical view of
Trump is "that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to
bring the nation back to the Lord" and "that resistance to
Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God."
In a Netflix documentary
"The Family," which is based on a decade-plus of
investigative work by journalist Jeff Sharlet, it's explained that a
secretive group of conservative Christian power brokers – including
Vice President Mike Pence and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions –
preach an idea of the "wolf-king," a leader anointed by God
to enact the Christian right agenda. The ruthlessness or immoral
conduct of such a leader leaders isn't seen to be at odds with the
forgiving spirit of Jesus Christ. On the contrary, these evangelical
leaders believe God wants their leaders to be ruthless, because
that's what is effective.
Peter Montgomery of Right
Wing Watch monitored Christian right leaders speaking endlessly of
Trump as a chosen vessel for God's will, saying things like "God
has picked him up" and that Trump is "literally splitting
the kingdom of darkness right open" and that "the Lord has
put His favor upon him."
Trump loves hearing words
like "king" and "chosen" and is now parroting
them back. He plays on the messianic claims and clearly believes
himself to be a great man of history. Of course, this is nothing new
for the man: He has been self-absorbed, self-deluded and wildly
self-aggrandizing for decades. But now, Trump uses his appalling
narcissism to promote himself as heaven-sent. Religious – no,
rather extremely sacrilegious in his intent.
Timothy L. O'Brien,
Executive Editor of Bloomberg Opinion, says ...
“...
Trump sees that voting bloc (white evangelicals) – which has
forgiven his extramarital affairs, his racism and incivility, his
foul mouth and his lack of generosity in exchange for legislative
advocacy meaningful to them – as one of his firewalls in the
upcoming 2020 campaign …
“So
when Trump gazes into the sky at the White House and says that he’s
the chosen one, he’s not the type who thinks he can actually walk
on water. He’s the type who’s hoping that droves of evangelical
voters might keep falling for his shtick.”
(Timothy
L. O'Brien. “Donald Trump Is Not the Messiah, He's a Very Naughty
Boy.” Bloomberg Opinion. August 22, 2019.)
If
you believe Donald Trump is God's man, you are likely in a group that
for decades – Remember Bill Clinton's presidency? – insisted
character and integrity counted as critical components of
presidential leadership. However, now you turn a blind eye to Trump's
transgressions? I mean just ask yourself why “Chosen One” Trump
praises Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un – both leaders of unholy
regimes with Kim likely ruling as the worst persecutor of
Christians in the world.
And now the
Democrats, including Christian Democrats, are trying to demolish
religion. The truth is the American religious landscape is undergoing
a dramatic transformation. White Christians, once the dominant
religious group in the U.S., now account for fewer than half of all
adults living in the country.
The following chart uses data from the 2014 Religious Landscape Study to create a
religious demographic profile of the U.S. if the country were made up
of exactly 100 adults.
(Aleksandra
Sandstrom. “If the U.S. had 100 people: Charting Americans’
religious affiliations.” Pew Research. November 14, 2016.)
Evangelicals support of
Trump has more to do with fear than Christian belief or some
misguided idea of respect. White evangelicals, more than any other
group, are anxious about the decline of white America. They fear
losing the special status they’ve held onto for so long. They've caved into fear over hope.
Trump appeared at a time during which many
evangelicals' rising expectations had turned into existential fear,
and Trump was uniquely positioned to exploit that moment. That is the
veracity in any theory of the man being “The Chosen One.
America’s conservative
people of faith should seek a primary challenger to Trump and send a
message to the GOP that it will not compromise any longer. And it
should do so from a position of confidence and faith. Maybe such a
person would understand that Christians come in many denominations as
well as in many political affiliations.
"The
final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's
fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can
get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole
never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest,
the greatest and the most spectacular."
– Donald
Trump, The Art of the Deal
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