Personally, I'm not into churches or ritual or even the Bible. But Jesus had some great messages that I meditate on a lot. That said, there are a lot of fake Christians around who seem to think Jesus' message needs to be reversed. And those are Trump followers. My old pal Frank Schaeffer wrote about that on his blog and made the tape above that you might want to watch today instead of going to church. His point: Trumps' white evangelicals are the only Americans who disrespect Jesus.
Based on their support for Trump, American white evangelicals are the only people in America who consistently seem to disrespect, reject and ignore the teachings of Jesus.Trump-supporting white evangelicals’ enabling of Trump’s Republican politics of lies of, cruelty, misogyny, favoring the wealthy, racism, and unpatriotic disrespect for our military prove that evangelicals are the only Americans we can say with certainty hate Jesus’ teachings.Liberal secular Democrat-voting Americans seem to follow the teachings of Jesus much more closely these days than do white evangelical Trump supporters. Weird, Huh?
In case you missed it on Friday, I thought I'd include a message from a friend who I met through Frank, a pastor in Wake County, North Carolina who is running for Congress, Jason Butler. It's a swing district but the current Representative is radical Trump enabler George Holding, a fanatic opponent of anything that helps working families or immigrants or minorities or anyone Jesus' gospel was meant for. I asked Jason what he thought about Holding's vote against the DREAM Act. "The Republican Party," he told me, "is in the midst of a decade long campaign to punish and exclude children of color. From voting against Dreamers, to border family separation, to cutting life saving assistance programs, to defunding City schools-- all of these serve one purpose: punish children. But yet, the vast majority of Republican voters and politicians flood into conservative Christian churches this time of year and claim to worship the baby Jesus-- a dark skinned immigrant Jewish boy. There is a massive disconnect happening here and it is time for this hypocrisy to be unveiled. In moderate districts all across the country, exactly like NC-02, where high numbers of voters claim a conservative Christian faith, we need to frame these elections as for the future of our children. Politicians, like Holding, who have consistently voted to punish children of color need to be held accountable. We live in a nation where kids in Flint, Michigan have lead poisoning from unsafe drinking water; where over 5,000 kids are homeless in the wealthiest county in North Carolina, Wake county; where Dreamers are pushed out; and where tens of thousands of immigrant children are living in detention centers. And all of this is being driven by Republican politicians who are supported by conservative Christians. It must stop. And it can. I believe that if Democratic candidates in moderate districts frame their progressive policies as providing the brightest future for our children then the Republican position can crumble and those like Holding will see their cruel positions that harm children be their undoing. We must make this happen as we are not only fighting for our own positions-- we are truly in a fight for the future of America's children."
