White evangelicals
Credit: Michael S. Williamson
LUVERNE, ALABAMA — Clay Crum opened his Bible to Exodus Chapter 20 and read verse 14 one more time.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” it said.
He prayed about what he was going to do. He was the pastor of First Baptist Church in the town of Luverne, Ala., which meant he was the moral leader of a congregation that overwhelmingly supported a president who was an alleged adulterer. For the past six weeks, Crum had been preaching a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, and now it was time for number seven.
It was summer, and all over the Bible Belt, support for President Trump was rising among voters who had traditionally proclaimed the importance of Christian character in leaders and warned of the slippery slope of moral compromise. In Crenshaw County, where Luverne is located, Trump had won 72 percent of the vote. Recent national polls showed the president’s approval among white evangelical Christians at a high of 77 percent. One survey indicated that his support […]
Fascinating article. I read this the other day. It clearly reveals how bible belt christians view Trump as an instrument of god. In their eyes he is a very flawed instrument even. But, they keep swallowing down revelations of uncomfortable truths about him – however personally revolting – because he is their path for ridding America of abortions, which are to them so vile.
It would seem possible that there could be a tipping point, where these people’s support of Trump could end. But it would have to be Trump’s doing something profoundly evil in their eyes – what that would be I can barely imagine. So long as Donald Trump continues to anoint new Supreme Court justices who will soon rid the country of Roe vs Wade, Trump will remain golden to this segment of society.
If we miss this truth we miss the key component of why Trump exists as America’s dark President. These people give Trump his rock hard, unchanging, faction of core support. Then, if the country remains apparently economically healthy, Trump garners sufficient support from middle America to stay in power.
It’s a deft, if ghastly, formula.
I couldn’t have said it better!
This article dovetails well with the following SR article about the psycholigal condition called the “Dunning–Kruger effect.”
That effect is about individuals who, the less they understand something well, the more convinced they are that they DO understand it.
Added to this is the new discovery that things which trigger “partinsonship” also further strengthen the person’s belief in the correctness of their beliefs.
A profound knot to unravel. But we must stay aware of these issues if we can hope for positive changes.
*partisanship
These people are delusional. And there is a societal danger with anyone who is delusional regardless of the source of that delusion, although delusional religious people are the worst since they are completely unwilling to compromise. They are unwilling to compromise because their lives are not about the here and now, but about heaven and it’s large kitchen with lots of appliances. They sacrifice the 100 years or so of the only consciousness they will ever have for a pipe-dream dreamed-up by some Joseph-Smith-wannabee 2,000 years ago. You have to have the mental capacity of a child to think that heaven is a place with lots of appliances. They want the same lives they have had with a dose of perfection added.
And it is clear from this article that the roots of religious fundamentalism are racism and white supremacy. They talk about Trump supporting the pro-religious agenda yet ignore the fact that he is kidnapping brown babies from their brown parents. They ignore it because the people are brown. They want Trump to support their ‘white’ way-of-life and, quite frankly, these people sicken me.