Evangelical support of Trump (1 Viewer)

[The Commish]

I don't understand it either, but I haven't been able to get my hands on an Evangelical other than my mother who voted for him because of her hatred for Hillary.  Talking to her today she'd vote third party if she had to do it over again.

I don't know any Evangelicals that voted for him and they are as baffled as we are here in the FFA.  The best I've heard, is the SC nomination, but when the follow up question of "Keeping the status quo was really worth all this?" I usually see  responses as if they hadn't thought about that.  

 

[bagger]

Just exposes the mass hypocrisy that segment practices. Why should this be any different.

 

[lazyike]

Matthew 23:12 Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall exalted. 

And this is the reason this Christian does not support Trump( I should say one of the reasons besides his indecency)

 

[lazyike]

Matthew 23:12 Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall exalted. 

And this is the reason this Christian does not support Trump( I should say one of the reasons besides his indecency)

Evangelicals say that despite this he was better than Clinton. I say your support during the GOP primaries is what got Trump elected where you had better choices

 

[moleculo]

Matthew 23:12 Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall exalted. 

And this is the reason this Christian does not support Trump( I should say one of the reasons besides his indecency)

Many people say That Trump is very humble.  Like, the most Humble president ever. Not like crooked Hillary who isnt humble at all.  Trump does very Well on all Humble tests. #MAGA

 

[lazyike]

Many people say That Trump is very humble.  Like, the most Humble president ever. Not like crooked Hillary who isnt humble at all.  Trump does very Well on all Humble tests. #MAGA

Lol!!!!!!!!!! Thats what many people who are complete fools say.

 

[moleculo]

honestly though, I don't think it's that far out for evangelicals to support Trump.  I know we all like to call out the blatant hypocrisy, but Trump has done a good job (the best job, really) of playing to this base.  He knows where his bread is buttered, and he is happy to pay lip service to the things they care about:

• anti-abortion
  
• anti-science
  
• anti-"evidence" based 
  
• pro-business rights to discriminate
  
• anti-LGBTQ in military
  
• pro-religousisness
  

don't focus on Trump the person and instead focus on official policy.  Take Trump the person out of the equation and look at his policies and you can see why evangelicals like him.

 

[lazyike]

honestly though, I don't think it's that far out for evangelicals to support Trump.  I know we all like to call out the blatant hypocrisy, but Trump has done a good job (the best job, really) of playing to this base.  He knows where his bread is buttered, and he is happy to pay lip service to the things they care about:

• anti-abortion
  
• anti-science
  
• anti-"evidence" based 
  
• pro-business rights to discriminate
  
• anti-LGBTQ in military
  
• pro-religousisness
  

don't focus on Trump the person and instead focus on official policy.  Take Trump the person out of the equation and look at his policies and you can see why evangelicals like him.

Trump is a narcissist,  racist man who shows he has no heart when he allows his staff to talk him out of allowing dreamers to stay. Don't give me that pro-religious baloney that deep down under this administration is masked evil

 

[moleculo]

Trump is a narcissist,  racist man who shows he has no heart when he allows his staff to talk him out of allowing dreamers to stay. Don't give me that pro-religious baloney that deep down under this administration is masked evil

You are looking at the man. That's my point.  Separate the man from the policy. He is giving evangelicals what they want, policy wise. 

 

[lazyike]

You are looking at the man. That's my point.  Separate the man from the policy. He is giving evangelicals what they want, policy wise. 

But the heartless policy is to tear families apart and deport. The policy is that we don't want blacks from Haiti and African nations. That's not in Christian doctrine. That just blind hypocrisy. The policy can't help but become the man. Certainly we can't take all immigrants but while we should vet for character we should not vet by skin color

 

[Kal El]

Then I think you mean to include non-Christians. If that’s true, why aren’t you in favor of a theocracy?

I don’t mean to be argumentative. I just have trouble reconciling this. Maybe I don’t understand your definition of “need”.

The simplest answer why I absolutely despise the idea of a theocracy is that morality cannot/ should not be legislated. Theocracies are notorious for squashing personal freedoms, and I will not abide that.

My definition of need is that everyone needs to be shown love, God is love(despite many people's attempts to prove contrary), Jesus is God, ergo Jesus is love. At any rate, He has some great teachings. 

 

[Kal El]

congrats, you have that.  YW

Then I must have woken up in Narnia today, because that is certainly not this country.

 

[Koya]

Then I think you mean to include non-Christians. If that’s true, why aren’t you in favor of a theocracy?

I don’t mean to be argumentative. I just have trouble reconciling this. Maybe I don’t understand your definition of “need”.

Someone can believe that we all need Jesus, without expecting or even wanting the gov't to play a role in pushing that upon us.  Heck, someone could believe that we all need Jesus, and not feel they themselves should impose that upon you (while others might proselytize). Doesn't mean they don't believe it. 

 

[Juxtatarot]

My definition of need is that everyone needs to be shown love, God is love(despite many people's attempts to prove contrary), Jesus is God, ergo Jesus is love. At any rate, He has some great teachings. 

Do you think love is impossible without a deity?

 

[cockroach]

Then I must have woken up in Narnia today, because that is certainly not this country.

hmmmm, I guess that makes us mortal enemies then?

I think if you were right and not grossly exaggerating the matter, then RiversCo would've already had that 2nd Civil War he pines so hard for. 

 

[Juxtatarot]

Someone can believe that we all need Jesus, without expecting or even wanting the gov't to play a role in pushing that upon us.  Heck, someone could believe that we all need Jesus, and not feel they themselves should impose that upon you (while others might proselytize). Doesn't mean they don't believe it. 

Thanks for trying to explain. However, I don’t think I’ll ever get it. If I were Christian, I’d absolutely support a theocracy. I’m very thankful that many of our most important founding fathers were not Christians but rather Deists (Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, etc.). If they were Christians, America wouldn’t be the country it is today.

 

[Kal El]

hmmmm, I guess that makes us mortal enemies then?

I think if you were right and not grossly exaggerating the matter, then RiversCo would've already had that 2nd Civil War he pines so hard for. 

I may have been exaggerating, but it does seem like there is no discourse where the people remain friends.

 

[Kal El]

Do you think love is impossible without a deity?

I believe God has shown us the best example of love, at least. 

 

[Juxtatarot]

I believe God has shown us the best example of love, at least. 

Then your answer is no?

 

[Kal El]

Then your answer is no?

I've never given it much thought, honestly.

 

[Beef Ravioli]

I can tell you why I voted for him as a person of faith. I am sure most liberals / non religious folks won’t agree with my reasoning. I am not sure I agree with my reasoning! 

To be honest, I really struggled with it. I did not vote for him in the primaries and I considered and prayed about voting third party in the election. I determined that a third party vote was really a vote for Hillary and in my opinion they don’t come any more vile and criminal than a Clinton. 

Things like the Supreme Court, pro life, military, etc were and are important to me and according to their campaigns they ran on I voted Trump. I knew it was POSSIBLE that Trump was lying and he would not follow through on anything but I was CERTAIN that I would not be in favor of almost everything Hillary stood for. 

I still cringe when I see him texting, I know he was/is an immoral person but he was the choice I was given in our system. Overall I have been pleased with the job he has done but if given the opportunity I would prefer a person with a higher moral pedigree, I just wasn’t given that opportunity. 

Flame away! 

 

[Don Quixote]

While there are certainly many who did not choose Trump until the choice became Trump v. Hillary, Trump was getting decent evangelical support before that.  Jerry Falwell, Jr. endorsed Trump pretty early on.  In the primaries, he won heavy evangelical states like South Carolina.  So, I think it was a mix of evangelicals who were early supporters based on their support of his "MAGA" agenda, and later people who viewed him of the lesser of two evils when it came down to him versus Hillary.

 

[timschochet]

I can tell you why I voted for him as a person of faith. I am sure most liberals / non religious folks won’t agree with my reasoning. I am not sure I agree with my reasoning! 

To be honest, I really struggled with it. I did not vote for him in the primaries and I considered and prayed about voting third party in the election. I determined that a third party vote was really a vote for Hillary and in my opinion they don’t come any more vile and criminal than a Clinton. 

Things like the Supreme Court, pro life, military, etc were and are important to me and according to their campaigns they ran on I voted Trump. I knew it was POSSIBLE that Trump was lying and he would not follow through on anything but I was CERTAIN that I would not be in favor of almost everything Hillary stood for. 

I still cringe when I see him texting, I know he was/is an immoral person but he was the choice I was given in our system. Overall I have been pleased with the job he has done but if given the opportunity I would prefer a person with a higher moral pedigree, I just wasn’t given that opportunity. 

Flame away! 

This is an honest answer and thank you for it. 

I understand your opposition to “everything that Hillary stands for,” as a right wing conservative Christian, that makes sense for you. But you also referred to her as “vile and criminal” which implies that you have a moral problem with her and it wasn’t simply about her policies. 

So I guess I’m curious about what makes Hillary vile that does not apply to Donald Trump, and in what way she morally outraged you that would not apply to Donald Trump. 

 

[adonis]

I can tell you why I voted for him as a person of faith. I am sure most liberals / non religious folks won’t agree with my reasoning. I am not sure I agree with my reasoning! 

To be honest, I really struggled with it. I did not vote for him in the primaries and I considered and prayed about voting third party in the election. I determined that a third party vote was really a vote for Hillary and in my opinion they don’t come any more vile and criminal than a Clinton. 

Things like the Supreme Court, pro life, military, etc were and are important to me and according to their campaigns they ran on I voted Trump. I knew it was POSSIBLE that Trump was lying and he would not follow through on anything but I was CERTAIN that I would not be in favor of almost everything Hillary stood for. 

I still cringe when I see him texting, I know he was/is an immoral person but he was the choice I was given in our system. Overall I have been pleased with the job he has done but if given the opportunity I would prefer a person with a higher moral pedigree, I just wasn’t given that opportunity. 

Flame away! 

If you and other folks like yourself showed your lack of support for Trump, it's possible he'd be impeached and you'd have Pence, also a conservative, and someone much more stable, who seems to be considerably more moral than Trump (but that's a bar that doesn't get any lower).

It's not just his texting.  It's how he responds to world events, it's his rhetoric, how he doesn't stand up to white nationalists/supremacy, his history with women not just his wife but with assault, his attacks on the free press, on our intelligence community, on the judicial system.

In your quest to see your ideological goals achieved, you and others like you continue to support a man who is undermining the very fabric of our country, and trashing our international standing, and the office of the presidency.  Do your political goals mean that much to you, to pursue a Trump scorched earth policy to get it?  

Get rid of him, honestly admit he's a terrible person and has no business in office, and you'll likely end up with Pence.  You'll get all the benefits, and none of the same complaints.  It's a no brainer.  

The only conclusion reasonable people can make when faithful/evangelical folks continue to support Trump is that they have no moral standards for the presidency, and care more about outcomes than decency, morality, standards of conduct...basically all the things these folks have been pretending to care about for decades....when presented with Trump, they throw it all away in the name of "Policy achievements!".

Do your values mean so little?  Is your support so easily purchased?

ETA: I don't mean this as a flame, but more as a plea.

 

[Beef Ravioli]

The ways most of you feel about Trump, I get it. I feel that way about Hillary more. I do not agree with her policies, I believe whole heartedly that she is as crooked as they come and I believed if she became our president it would be the worst possible outcome we could have gotten. 

I voted for Trump knowing full well who I was voting for. I knew it was possible that he was just as crooked as Hillary but that there was a chance he was going to do what he campaigned on. So far he has done that.

Someone brought up Pence. He is another reason I did vote for him. I wouldn’t be upset at all if for some reason he became the president, whether during Trumps term or in future elections.

For those that feel I have compromised myself, you may be right. I still question it. I do find it hypocritical of many of my friends on the left that point at all the crude and evil things that Trump has or possibly done yet you turn a blind eye to all the things that the Clinton machine has or possibly done for decades now. That’s my opinion and I know for many of you, you think that’s crazy.

Is it possible if the Democrats has run someone else against Trump, that I would have voted for them? Possibly. But your last two standing, Hillary and Bernie would have not gotten me to change my vote. 

By the way, I voted for Cruz in my primary (Ohio). Rand Paul was someone I was interested in, primarily because of his small government views but he was out before I had a chance to vote for him. Not a Kasich fan at all. 

When it came down to it, I had two realistic choices, and I hate to say it, but in my opinion, I voted for the lesser of two evils. 

Peace! 

 

[McJose]

I do find it hypocritical of many of my friends on the left that point at all the crude and evil things that Trump has or possibly done yet you turn a blind eye to all the things that the Clinton machine has or possibly done for decades now.

As they say on "Mythbusters" (usually while looking at something that has completely failed or caught on fire):  "There's your problem right there."

 

[Beef Ravioli]

I truly appreciate you sharing and explaining your perspective. But, in the most respectful way, I think you're allowing yourself to fool yourself. You want to your friends see hypocrisy.

But your candidate

• Has been credibly accused by multiple women of sexual assault
  
• Is on videotape talking about how he sexually assaults women
  
• Would walk in on teenage girls changing
  
• Is currently being discussed as having sex with a porn star while his 3rd wife was pregnant
  
• Has never shown any sign of Christian faith
  
• Has never shown any interest in helping anybody other than himself
  
• Is completely willing to tell straight-up lies and does on a daily basis
  
• Has openly and in public minimized the acts of racists and Nazis even after being in office
  
• Has declared bankruptcy many times, which deprived his workers of their pay and he has forced workers and craftsmen to accept less than they're owed on many other occasions
  
• Nearly every week has the US taxpayer give money to properties which he still directly owns
  

These are only some of the items which are publicly known and indisputable.

Hillary

• Grew up in a house of faith
  
• Worked for virtually nothing to help the poor after finishing law school
  
• Has never had any infidelities as far as anyone has ever claimed
  
• Has a reputation of dishonest and self-dealing, which may be justified, but both are objectively and severely less than Donald Trump
  

Moreover, Bernie Sanders has never had any ethical or moral problem raised, as far as I know.

If you really wish to uphold the ideals which you say you do, I would think part of that would be being honest with yourself and seeking out the truth of the matters, so that your faith and support aren't misplaced. And I don't see that at all. So, again, if you simply want to identify yourself as a Republican voter who doesn't care about the values of their political leadership, that's fine. And nothing to really be that ashamed of nowadays. But you may seriously want to think and realize that that's where you're at.

If I wanted to take the time, I could google and copy and paste similar list that would make us wonder why Hillary’s not in jail.

 

[McJose]

He took the time to write out a well thought out post engaging you, and the only thing you did was say that if you did some googling and copying and pasting you could probably find some bull#### about Hillary that was just as bad. 

That sort of engagement doesn't embarrass you?

"I have proof that Hillary is just as bad as Trump but it's with my girlfriend.  She's from Canada.  I met her at Niagra Falls.  You wouldn't know her."

 

[H Jass]

Proninja always wagging his morality finger at FFAs’ opinions given what he actually did to screw some FFAs over in real life is always good shtick.

 

[McJose]

Proninja always wagging his morality finger at FFAs’ opinions given what he actually did to screw some FFAs over in real life is always good shtick.

Compelling  

 

[roadkill1292]

The ways most of you feel about Trump, I get it. I feel that way about Hillary more. I do not agree with her policies, I believe whole heartedly that she is as crooked as they come and I believed if she became our president it would be the worst possible outcome we could have gotten. 

I voted for Trump knowing full well who I was voting for. I knew it was possible that he was just as crooked as Hillary but that there was a chance he was going to do what he campaigned on. So far he has done that.

Someone brought up Pence. He is another reason I did vote for him. I wouldn’t be upset at all if for some reason he became the president, whether during Trumps term or in future elections.

For those that feel I have compromised myself, you may be right. I still question it. I do find it hypocritical of many of my friends on the left that point at all the crude and evil things that Trump has or possibly done yet you turn a blind eye to all the things that the Clinton machine has or possibly done for decades now. That’s my opinion and I know for many of you, you think that’s crazy.

Is it possible if the Democrats has run someone else against Trump, that I would have voted for them? Possibly. But your last two standing, Hillary and Bernie would have not gotten me to change my vote. 

By the way, I voted for Cruz in my primary (Ohio). Rand Paul was someone I was interested in, primarily because of his small government views but he was out before I had a chance to vote for him. Not a Kasich fan at all. 

When it came down to it, I had two realistic choices, and I hate to say it, but in my opinion, I voted for the lesser of two evils. 

Peace! 

You, and millions of other people of faith, exercised incredibly poor judgment and there's no nice way to wrap that criticism.

 

[AAABatteries]

I can tell you why I voted for him as a person of faith. I am sure most liberals / non religious folks won’t agree with my reasoning. I am not sure I agree with my reasoning! 

To be honest, I really struggled with it. I did not vote for him in the primaries and I considered and prayed about voting third party in the election. I determined that a third party vote was really a vote for Hillary and in my opinion they don’t come any more vile and criminal than a Clinton. 

Things like the Supreme Court, pro life, military, etc were and are important to me and according to their campaigns they ran on I voted Trump. I knew it was POSSIBLE that Trump was lying and he would not follow through on anything but I was CERTAIN that I would not be in favor of almost everything Hillary stood for. 

I still cringe when I see him texting, I know he was/is an immoral person but he was the choice I was given in our system. Overall I have been pleased with the job he has done but if given the opportunity I would prefer a person with a higher moral pedigree, I just wasn’t given that opportunity. 

Flame away! 

Beef Ravioli would be the posterboard voter for my 2-party answer to how we ended up with Trump. 

And to be clear, while not knowing BR I will make an assumption he’s a good person who wants good things for all people - he felt stuck because of 2 choices.

 

[AAABatteries]

At least we've reached the point where evangelicals are admitting they're fine voting for evil. 

Just to be clear - are ok with people who voted for neither Trump or Hillary?  Sounds like BR had to vote for some evil (in his mind at least). I felt the same way but not to the same degree and my lesser was a different person.*

*also, I’m just using evil here as others have been using it.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I think maybe there’s two different things going on here.  I don’t see how anyone can have a problem with @Beef Ravioli‘s logic.  But I wouldn’t call that “support.”  I think people have a problem with the high profile evangelicals who have wholeheartedly embraced him and continue to give him sky-high approval ratings, especially after feigning such outrage at Bill Clinton.  They’re the problem and the ones that make the movement look like a total fraud.

 

[AAABatteries]

Voting Trump is enough support to qualify as supporting.

This is where I disagree - for many, they still support him or say they would vote for him again - others wouldn’t.  In addition, many people (in my mind at least) votes for the ‘R’ and not for the person.  I don’t like it and have been railing against it but I get why people vote party lines.

 

[Gr00vus]

Its almost like combining government/politics with religion is a really miserable idea. Who could have foreseen that?

 

[adonis]

It's just interesting to me because it seems clear that Republicanism has subsumed evangelical(ism?) in that people care less about morality in their candidates than in the policies the candidates enact.  This is progress for evangelicals, because from Trump forward, they can no longer claim that Christianity, or being a moral person, is a litmus test for getting their vote.  That's done, with Trump, or at least intellectually/consistently it should be.

Folks don't care that they've elected the devil, so long as the devil does their bidding.  And the evangelicals are a bit conflicted about having the devil run things, but their 401k's are doing well, someone is in power who says he opposes abortion (but has a history of not, personally and politically).  But none of it matters because they're getting what they wanted.  They sold out their moral requirements for the person filling an office in order to get policies they favor.

For me, a person who has long thought evangelicals have had too strong a hold on determining our elected officials, actually applaud this development.  Great!  Now anyone, no matter how corrupt morally or politically can be elected to office.  Just one more step now to actually having evangelicals voting for actual policies that go contrary to their long-stated morality/values, things like abortion.

If the character of the POTUS is something evangelicals are wiling to sell-out on, why not major policies like abortion?  Why not just say - as for me and my house, we're pro-choice, but for our country - let each house decide because at the end of the day, what matters is our 401k balance and sticking it to other countries.

I mean...the dam has broken with Trump.  The evangelical line cannot be held for much longer.

 

[mr roboto]

So my mom is a classic example - she just said that Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem was a fulfillment of prophesy. 

I asked ‘What geopolitical reason does the US have for caring where the embassy is located?’

’I don’t know honey. It wasn’t the US’

’Mom, it was the POTUS. I sure hope he had some US policy reason.’

’All I know is Pastor John talked about how it’s part of prophesy.’

’Well usually interpreting events and people as fulfillment of prophesy happens long after the events happen and after retrospection people put some pieces together.’

’Well that’s not how it was with Jesus. People knew he was the Messiah.’

’Yeah, as told by folks writing 50+ years afterward.’

’Fine. I’m going home.’

 

[TobiasFunke]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-evangelicals-have-lost-their-gag-reflex/2018/01/22/761d1174-ffa8-11e7-bb03-722769454f82_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.556d3f3d6a89

This is the point I made yesterday:

From a purely political perspective, the Trump evangelicals are out of their depth. When presented with the binary choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, I can understand a certain amount of anguish. But that is not a reason to become sycophants, cheerleaders and enablers. Politics sometimes presents difficult choices. But that is no excuse to be the most easily manipulated group in American politics.

Our winner-take-all system forces you to choose sides no matter how distasteful you might find one side. We're seeing this now- all the Bernie folks and third partiers pointing their fingers at the Dems and issuing "I told you so's"  are ignoring the fact that if they'd held their noses and lined up behind Clinton NONE of this would have happened.

But that's different from condoning and supporting the person. Anyone who still stands with the man has, at a minimum, decided that whatever policy benefit you might derive, be it lower taxes or a conservative judiciary or whatever, outweighs condoning white nationalism, corruption, and in the case of evangelicals abhorrent behavior that goes against everything they claim to stand for.  And that's gross.

 

[timschochet]

The implication of Beef Ravioli’s post is that evangelicals supported Trump because he was the only alternative to Hillary Clinton.

But there’s a big problem with this argument: from the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy, he rose to the top of the Republican polls with a commanding lead which never wavered. That support included the vast majority of evangelical conservatives, who consistently supported Donald Trump over 17 other Republican candidates, all of whom were professed religious Christians with a record of far deeper support for conservative Christian values than Trump had ever demonstrated. 

The majority of evangelicals loved Trump from the beginning. 

 

[timschochet]

Trump is not Hitler but there is an important analogy for the purposes of this discussion: Adolf Hitler was a well-known anti-Christian and paganist, who surrounded himself with notorious anti-Christians such as Walter Rosenberg, yet the vast majority of German Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, enthusiastically supported him. The arguments their leadership gave at the time are illuminating: whatever Hitler’s personal views, his politics were favorable to what religious conservatives wanted, and it was felt that the Nazi movement would bring about a moral awakening of the German people. 

 

[sho nuff]

The implication of Beef Ravioli’s post is that evangelicals supported Trump because he was the only alternative to Hillary Clinton.

But there’s a big problem with this argument: from the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy, he rose to the top of the Republican polls with a commanding lead which never wavered. That support included the vast majority of evangelical conservatives, who consistently supported Donald Trump over 17 other Republican candidates, all of whom were professed religious Christians with a record of far deeper support for conservative Christian values than Trump had ever demonstrated. 

The majority of evangelicals loved Trump from the beginning. 

Been saying the same for a long time with people who claim they voted for him only because of Hillary.  Many of the most vocal supporters were supporters back to the primaries.  

 

[Joe Bryant]

I don't understand it.  

Trump is one of the least moral folks we've had as president in some time.  He's an incredible hypocrite, he treats people terrible, he's a horrible role model, his treatment of women is atrocious, he has cheated on his spouses repeatedly, he's ignorant of religion, yet he has their full support.

What in the world is going on here?

Has the evangelical world sold their souls, compromising on the longstanding stance that a moral leader is important, in order to get conservative policies passed?

Hi Adonis,

I don't have any answers or insights here. But I'll say I hear you on all this.

I don't get it either. I know the poll numbers and while I think defining "evangelical" as we've discussed on the boards in the past is difficult and part of the problem. I'm not going to argue there much.

I will say in my personal experience, I know a lot of people who feel like me and are unable to reconcile our faith with the President's behavior. That can get dangerous and into church lady finger wagging territory - one of the things Christians are often criticized for. But the bigger danger for me I think is people rightly seeing what you're seeing. 

I'll just say I think there are a lot of people like me who are Christians and agree with the disconnect your describe. But clearly it's an issue as a great many do not. Not sure what to do about it other than do what I can with what I have. 

 

[apalmer]

Hi Adonis,

I don't have any answers or insights here. But I'll say I hear you on all this.

I don't get it either. I know the poll numbers and while I think defining "evangelical" as we've discussed on the boards in the past is difficult and part of the problem. I'm not going to argue there much.

I will say in my personal experience, I know a lot of people who feel like me and are unable to reconcile our faith with the President's behavior. That can get dangerous and into church lady finger wagging territory - one of the things Christians are often criticized for. But the bigger danger for me I think is people rightly seeing what you're seeing. 

I'll just say I think there are a lot of people like me who are Christians and agree with the disconnect your describe. But clearly it's an issue as a great many do not. Not sure what to do about it other than do what I can with what I have. 

Welcome to the club.  I attend a very conservative church where evangelism is one of the key components, and cannot believe the way the majority there accept Trump's actions with no hesitation.  FWIW, I attend this church only because my wife has been a member there her entire life and when we got married, it seemed reasonable to stay there since I had no strong church ties.  Despite over 65 years of attending there, she's now starting to say things like "we need to find a new church".  

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Tony Perkins: Trump Gets ‘a Mulligan’ on Life, Stormy Daniels

The Family Research Council head says that evangelical conservatives are willing to overlook Trump’s past behavior so long as he delivers for them on policy.

...

Perkins knows about Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who claimed, in a 2011 interview, that in 2006 she had sex with Trump four months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. He knows of the reports that Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford) was paid off to keep the affair quiet in the waning weeks of the 2016 election. He knows about the cursing, the lewdness and the litany of questionable behavior over the past year of Trump’s life or the 70 that came before it.

“We kind of gave him—‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,’” Perkins told me in an interview for the latest episode of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. ...

 

[apalmer]

Tony Perkins: Trump Gets ‘a Mulligan’ on Life, Stormy Daniels

The Family Research Council head says that evangelical conservatives are willing to overlook Trump’s past behavior so long as he delivers for them on policy.

...

Perkins knows about Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who claimed, in a 2011 interview, that in 2006 she had sex with Trump four months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. He knows of the reports that Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford) was paid off to keep the affair quiet in the waning weeks of the 2016 election. He knows about the cursing, the lewdness and the litany of questionable behavior over the past year of Trump’s life or the 70 that came before it.

“We kind of gave him—‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,’” Perkins told me in an interview for the latest episode of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. ...

I'm guessing Trump would be more than willing to do her over again.

 

[Mookie]

Wow, that's some serious philosophical gymnastics going on in there. 

And it seems they're willing to give Trump endless mulligans - Perhaps that's why his handicap is so low. 

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

I go to a bible church which supports a lot of foreign missionaries - so the church could be defined as evangelical, but it is not associated with any evangelical body.  All that said - there are more people against Trump in this church than for him.  They really, REALLY don't like him.  I would say if you polled the church it would be about 95% self described conservative/republican - but you would not know it these last couple years during the campaign and now presidency of Trump.  It is actually kind of comical to see some of the old ladies in the Women's Guild (or whatever they call it) get so righteously indignant about the president.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele blasted Family Research Council president Tony Perkins for giving President Donald Trump a “mulligan” on paying hush money to former adult film star.

-snip-

“I have very simple admonition: just shut the hell up and don’t preach to me about anything ever again,” Steele suggested.

“After telling me who to love, what to believe, what to do and what not to do and now you sit back and the prostitutes don’t matter, the grabbing the you-know-what doesn’t matter, the outright behavior and lies don’t matter, just shut up!” Steele blasted.

“They have no voice of authority anymore for me,” Steele concluded.

 

[skol asylum]

Franklin Graham is a buffoon. "Trump's alleged affairs are 11-12 years ago. He's matured alot since then. " I'm glad our 70 year old POTUS is finally of the age where he can begin to mature. Geez. On CNN now. Also complained about how Trump is constantly attacked. Don Lemon asked him if we've ever had another POTUS who he himself attacks everyone all the time. Cognitive dissonance with all the religious right defense of Trump.