Donald in race
redefines 'Christian voter', Why
are evangelicals 'flocking to Trump, shouting Hosannas as he flies overhead in
his private jet?' by Bob Unruh, 3/20/16, WND
These are the remaining
contenders for the presidential nominations of the two leading parties, and one
of them is almost certain to take residence in the White House early next year.
Given these names, the 2016 presidential race is poised to upset the status quo
in Washington.
It also could redefine
the conservative evangelical Christian voter, with an increasing number willing
to back a candidate who has supported Planned Parenthood and far-left political
candidates.
Pew
Research on Monday posted an analysis of the issue, based on exit polling. “As Donald Trump has racked
up big wins among self-described ‘born-again or “As Donald Trump has racked up big wins among
self-described ‘born-again or evangelical’ Christians in many of the early
primaries and caucuses, some religious leaders, political analysts and
researchers have questioned whether many of these self-described evangelicals
actually are evangelical
Christians,” the polling organization said.
Trump, himself, insists
he’s an evangelical Christian, calling himself a “total believer” and stating, “I’m one of
them.” But the Pew analysis
said those who described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians
mostly live that way, with “more than six-in-ten, for example, say they attend
religious services at least
once a week, and another 16 percent say they go to church once or twice a
month.”
“Fully 86 percent of
evangelicals say religion is very important in their lives, and 83 percent say
they pray every day. In addition, six-in-ten self-described born-again and
evangelical Christians share their faith with others at least once a month,
while an additional 16 percent say they share their faith at least several
times a year,” Pew reported, citing its recent 2014 Religion Landscape Study.
Why then, asked Stephen
Prothero at the left-leaning Politico, do so many evangelicals support Trump?
“The big puzzle in this
most puzzling of election seasons is why so many white evangelicals are
flocking to Donald Trump, shouting Hosannas as he flies overhead in his private
jet. On a Super Tuesday thick with primaries in the Bible belt, Trump won seven
states.”
It “wasn’t supposed to
happen this way,” Prothero wrote. “Donald Trump curses
like a bond trader. He mocks the disabled. He expresses no need for God’s
forgiveness. He seems about as familiar with the Bible (‘Two Corinthians’) as
ordinary Americans are with the loopholes of the IRS tax code,” he pointed out.
“He’s wrong for evangelicals on the issues, on theology, on piety, and most of
all on ‘values,’ the buzzword of the culture wars over the past half-century.”
‘How can this be
happening?’
The support for Trump by
many evangelicals comes despite alternatives in Ted Cruz, “the pious son of a
traveling evangelist,” Marco Rubio,”a staunch Catholic who won’t cotton to
abortion even in cases of rape and incest,” and John Kasich, who is part of “an
ultra-conservative Anglican denomination that went its own way after the
Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop.”
Conservative
Review senior editor Michelle Malkin noted a recent Drudge Report headline made an issue of Ted Cruz
supporters laying hands on the candidate as they prayed for him. “Funny, but I
don’t remember the Armageddon-style headlines about Donald Trump having hands
laid on him at his Trump Tower just a couple of months ago,” Malkin wrote.
The
Christian Post said famed Christian leader
Franklin Graham has warned that America “is in trouble.”
“You know that, and I
think what happens in people after a while just kind of give up. They think,
‘Well, what can I do? It just seems like things keep getting worse and what can
I do?'” he said.
He explained the
solution isn’t difficult. “If you don’t like who
your government is, then you need to stand up and vote for Christians and get
Christians to run for office, starting at the local level and filling
government up with a generation of Christian men and women who aren’t afraid to
take a stand for God and His laws and His principles,” he said.
Prothero noted Trump has
financially supported liberal causes and politicians. “How can this be
happening? There is no shortage of theories, mostly revolving around the man
himself. Some pundits have speculated that white evangelicals are attracted to
Trump because his mammon-and-megalomania message resonates with the prosperity
gospel of many evangelical megachurches, which emphasize health and wealth in
this world over salvation in the next. Or perhaps evangelicals are drawn to
Trump because they crave an authoritarian personality, which divides the world
into black and white, the rulers and the ruled. Some see Trump’s rise as
resulting from a fracturing of evangelical leadership; others see a breakdown
between pulpit and pew. Or maybe ‘values voters’ have morphed into ‘nostalgia
voters’ – fighting a culture war against an increasingly multi-religious and
multiethnic society. Still others suggest it could be that white evangelicals
view Trump as a modern day Cyrus – the Persian king who was not himself a
believer but nonetheless made the Israelites great again, by releasing them
from captivity, restoring them to their Promised Land, and rebuilding the
Jerusalem Temple.
“But here is a simpler
explanation, a profound change in the landscape that political observers have
almost totally missed: America’s evangelicals just aren’t. “But here is a
simpler explanation, a profound change in the landscape that political
observers have almost totally missed: America’s evangelicals just aren’t all
that evangelical anymore,” he wrote.
Pew said, however, that
to assess the landscape accurately, exit polls need to “differentiate between
highly observant evangelicals and those less devoted in their practice of the
faith as well as between evangelical Protestants and those in other Christian groups,
such as Catholics.”
“Christians – those who
do not identify with the born-again or evangelical labels – are far less
religiously active [than evangelicals],” Pew said. “For instance, just over
half of Christians who do not identify as born-again or evangelical say they
attend religious services at least monthly (53 percent) or that religion is
very important in their lives (52 percent). And most non-evangelical Christians
say they seldom or never share their faith with others.” Pew argued the “distinctiveness
of these self-identified evangelicals is clear within both parties.”
“Among those who say
they are evangelical and Republican, 85 percent say they pray every day; about
half of non-evangelical Republicans say the same. And most Republicans who identify
with the born-again or evangelical labels say they believe the Bible is the
literal word of God, which is more than three times the share of
non-evangelical Republicans who express this belief,” Pew said “Likewise,
self-described evangelicals in the Democratic Party are far more likely than
non-evangelical Democrats to say that they attend religious services regularly,
that they pray daily, and that religion is an important part of their lives.”
Pew said its research
“does clearly show that when those who say they are ‘born-again or evangelical’
are asked in more depth about their beliefs and practices, their responses are
most often further confirmation that their behaviors are closely associated
with evangelical Christianity.”
‘You’re a lot more harsh’ - Franklin Graham acknowledged many evangelical
leaders, like himself, are characterized as having a stronger tone than
evangelicals of previous generations. “Now, some people would say, ‘Franklin,
you’re a lot more harsh than your father. Your father wouldn’t have done this.’
When my father was born, the Ten Commandments were on the walls of every school
in America. When my father was born, the teachers still led classes with the
Lord’s Prayer. … We’re going to lose everything if we don’t get involved in
this next election, and we only have this next election, I think, for our
voices to be heard,” he said.
Prothero notes that
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and
another evangelical critic who has refused to support Trump, “says that the
group that used to refer to itself as a ‘moral majority’ is at best a tiny
minority, and a shrinking one at that.” “We have taken comfort
in the fact that there have been millions and millions of us in America,” he
said. “Now we’re having to face the fact that, evidently, theologically defined
– defined by commitment to core evangelical values – there aren’t so many
millions of us as we thought.”
Prothero contends many
evangelicals now are Republicans first and Christians second. Liberty Counsel
Chairman Mathew Staver, whose organization defends religious liberty, said the
2016 election will be the most important “of our lifetime.”
“This election serves as
a clarion call for every Christ follower to vote and advance the Lamb’s agenda
with the understanding that today’s complacency is tomorrow’s captivity. Let us
vote, not as white, black or brown people, but as people of the cross.”
Matt Barber, a WND
columnist, wrote, “We have abandoned our constitutional republican form of
government, and we are entering into a soft despotism.” Liz
Lemery Joy, a columnist at the Times Union of Albany, New York, contends the Bible “is very clear … about how
to choose candidates, and you don’t have to be a political scholar to figure it
out.”
“Your vote is your seed
into this state and this nation,” she wrote. “Every time you vote, you are
planting the seed for the kind of harvest you want to reap. As for me, I want
to plant seeds that will honor God, and create a harvest of blessing and
prosperity for my children and future grandchildren.”
Jerry Falwell Jr., the
president of the evangelical Liberty University, who endorsed Trump, says
he’s disheartened by Christians who judge other believers for supporting the
real estate billionaire’s candidacy:
It is sad to see
Christians attacking other Christians because they don’t support the same candidate
or the candidate who they believe is the most righteous. … God called King
David, a man after God’s own heart, even though he was an adulterer and a
murderer. You have to choose the leader that would make the best
king or president and not necessarily someone who would be a good pastor. Christian
Today said those Christians “owe
it to God to be discerning voters so we don’t offer to Caesar what belongs to
God alone.”
http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/race-for-white-house-redefines-christian-voter/
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