10-10-2018, 05:09 PM
Rather than create one overly long post, I place some additional links here:
Anti-Trump Evangelicals Are On A Nationwide Bus Tour To Flip Congress
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/flip-congress-bus-gop-midterms_us_5bbb73b0e4b028e1fe3fcc8b
Evangelical Christians who oppose President Donald Trump have launched a cross-country bus tour to help dislodge the Republican Party’s control of Congress during this year’s midterm elections.
Driven by the belief that Republican lawmakers have failed to advocate for core Christian values, the “Vote Common Good” bus tour will hit more than 30 congressional districts where Democratic challengers are hoping to unseat Republican incumbents.
Doug Pagitt, a Minneapolis pastor and the executive director of Vote Common Good, said progressive Christians are disturbed at what they view as Republican lawmakers’ failure to “restrain and resist” the Trump administration’s worst impulses.
“Evangelicals care about the least of these, and I believe them when they say it,” Pagitt told HuffPost, referring to a Bible passage instructing Christians to care for vulnerable groups. “But then they vote for politicians that invoke policies that don’t care for the least of these.”
Pagitt believes many evangelicals are torn between longtime loyalty to the Republican Party and their own personal dismay at GOP policies that contradict the Bible’s call to welcome the stranger and care for the marginalized.
The Tiny Blond Bible Teacher Taking on the Evangelical Political Machine
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/beth-moore-bible-study/568288/
For decades, Moore never broke stride. In the past few years, however, she has felt out of step with the evangelical community. During the 2016 campaign, many of its leaders not only excused Donald Trump’s boorish behavior but painted him as a great defender of Christianity—evangelicals’ “dream president,” in the words of Jerry Falwell Jr. More recently, a series of high-profile pastors have been toppled by accusations of sexual misconduct. The deferential reserve that defined Moore’s career has become harder for her to maintain.
Moore was flying home from a ministry event in October 2016 when she decided to compose the tweets that changed her life. That weekend, she had glimpsed headlines about Donald Trump’s 2005 comments on the now infamous Access Hollywood tape. But it wasn’t until that plane ride, with newspapers and transcripts spread out in front of her, that Moore learned the full extent of it—including the reaction of some Christian leaders who, picking up a common line of spin, dismissed the comments as “locker-room talk.”
“I was like, ‘Oh no. No. No,’ ” Moore told me. “I was so appalled.” Trump’s ugly boasting felt personal to her: Many of her followers have confided to her that they’ve suffered abuse, and Moore herself says she was sexually abused as a small child by someone close to her family—a trauma she has talked about publicly, though never in detail.
The next day, Moore wrote a few short messages to her nearly 900,000 followers. “Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” she said in one tweet. “Are we sickened? Yes. Surprised? NO.” Like other women, Moore wrote, she had been “misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to.” As pastors took to the airwaves to defend Trump, she was trying to understand how “some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal.”
Moore believes that an evangelical culture that demeans women, promotes sexism, and disregards accusations of sexual abuse enabled Trump’s rise.
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
One thing this Evangelical resistance (however minimal) suggests is the degree to which Trump's behavior generates ethical crises even in those who support his general goals and SCOTUS picks. Will enough of this resistance really help turn red districts blue though? Also interesting is how GENDERED the Evangelical resistance is. Will enough wives rebel against their husbands?
Anti-Trump Evangelicals Are On A Nationwide Bus Tour To Flip Congress
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/flip-congress-bus-gop-midterms_us_5bbb73b0e4b028e1fe3fcc8b
Evangelical Christians who oppose President Donald Trump have launched a cross-country bus tour to help dislodge the Republican Party’s control of Congress during this year’s midterm elections.
Driven by the belief that Republican lawmakers have failed to advocate for core Christian values, the “Vote Common Good” bus tour will hit more than 30 congressional districts where Democratic challengers are hoping to unseat Republican incumbents.
Doug Pagitt, a Minneapolis pastor and the executive director of Vote Common Good, said progressive Christians are disturbed at what they view as Republican lawmakers’ failure to “restrain and resist” the Trump administration’s worst impulses.
“Evangelicals care about the least of these, and I believe them when they say it,” Pagitt told HuffPost, referring to a Bible passage instructing Christians to care for vulnerable groups. “But then they vote for politicians that invoke policies that don’t care for the least of these.”
Pagitt believes many evangelicals are torn between longtime loyalty to the Republican Party and their own personal dismay at GOP policies that contradict the Bible’s call to welcome the stranger and care for the marginalized.
The Tiny Blond Bible Teacher Taking on the Evangelical Political Machine
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/beth-moore-bible-study/568288/
For decades, Moore never broke stride. In the past few years, however, she has felt out of step with the evangelical community. During the 2016 campaign, many of its leaders not only excused Donald Trump’s boorish behavior but painted him as a great defender of Christianity—evangelicals’ “dream president,” in the words of Jerry Falwell Jr. More recently, a series of high-profile pastors have been toppled by accusations of sexual misconduct. The deferential reserve that defined Moore’s career has become harder for her to maintain.
Moore was flying home from a ministry event in October 2016 when she decided to compose the tweets that changed her life. That weekend, she had glimpsed headlines about Donald Trump’s 2005 comments on the now infamous Access Hollywood tape. But it wasn’t until that plane ride, with newspapers and transcripts spread out in front of her, that Moore learned the full extent of it—including the reaction of some Christian leaders who, picking up a common line of spin, dismissed the comments as “locker-room talk.”
“I was like, ‘Oh no. No. No,’ ” Moore told me. “I was so appalled.” Trump’s ugly boasting felt personal to her: Many of her followers have confided to her that they’ve suffered abuse, and Moore herself says she was sexually abused as a small child by someone close to her family—a trauma she has talked about publicly, though never in detail.
The next day, Moore wrote a few short messages to her nearly 900,000 followers. “Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” she said in one tweet. “Are we sickened? Yes. Surprised? NO.” Like other women, Moore wrote, she had been “misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to.” As pastors took to the airwaves to defend Trump, she was trying to understand how “some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal.”
Moore believes that an evangelical culture that demeans women, promotes sexism, and disregards accusations of sexual abuse enabled Trump’s rise.
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
One thing this Evangelical resistance (however minimal) suggests is the degree to which Trump's behavior generates ethical crises even in those who support his general goals and SCOTUS picks. Will enough of this resistance really help turn red districts blue though? Also interesting is how GENDERED the Evangelical resistance is. Will enough wives rebel against their husbands?
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
