With the disapproval of the President's job performance extending above the 60% level in the controlled and intimidated media, the Republicans have abandoned running on the issues, and are doing their dead level best to distract voters by focusing on matters irrelevant to the government and to election issues. Of course, the determination of which party is more "Christian" has once again reared its ugly head.
It has worked in the past for Republicans, convincing the conservative, Evangelical branch of American Christianity--which is based on a false interpretation of the Bible and on practice stemming from that pseudo-Christian perspective--to support them. This gave them just enough of an edge to break deadlocks in some elections, opening the door to a flood of Christian nationalists which completely changed the platform and direction of the GOP, abandoning its former values and principles for what can only be accurately defined as fascist.
These same white supremacist, Christian nationalists also became stealth intruders into Christian churches, hijacking the pursuit of truth with a brand of fundamentalist heresy I label as the Darby-Scofield intrusion, a literalist perspective that completely alters the church's historical theological and doctrinal views, changing churches into cults and political groups seeking what Christians once called "worldly" power and influence, abandoning their spiritual lifeline.
But that seems to have come to an abrupt conclusion.
As conservative Evangelical churches lose members like a sieve, a slide that directly correlates to the beginning of movements like the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority, the accusations that Republicans make against Democrats, that they are Communists, Muslims, baby-killers and Atheists, all at the same time, don't have the audience appeal they once did, A significant portion of the American population, according to multiple surveys, rejects the religious-political blending of conservative Evangelicalism with right wing political extremism, including the influence of white supremacy and Christian nationalism. There are a couple of reasons for this.
Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds, But People Can Figure It Out For Themselves
The current political leader of the GOP is Trump. If there is a more notorious, and obviously morally bankrupt individual anywhere in this country, we'd know about them by now. The argument made by Republicans, especially conservative Evangelical Republicans, about Democrats being "godless" and having thrown God out of the party, which is a lie of course, is totally and completely nullified by their unqualified support for a man who has openly denied the very core Christian doctrine of salvation by openly stating, directly to Franklin Graham of all people, that he has done nothing requiring God's forgiveness.
That is, in the fundamentalist, conservative Evangelical doctrine, what is known as the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and it is the only unforgivable sin in the Bible. Graham, who continues to support Trump, has gone to great length and expense to attempt to cover this statement up, made on camera during an interview in which Trump didn't have enough knowledge about Christian faith to avoid saying so directly, in so many words.
But how is it possible to claim that one can't be Christian and support abortion rights, or any of the dozen things on the list of Republican moral no-no's, when the party's own leader is a proud serial adulterer, a convicted rapist, a treasonous rebel against the United States constitution, a pathological liar who slept with a porn star while his third wife was pregnant with their son? How can you clam the Democrats are "Communists" when the party's leader lays out the red carpet and falls all over himself with tissues and toilet paper for the world's most notorious Communist to wipe his butt and blow his nose? Being a mendacious suck-up to Xi Jinpeng doesn't support the weak claims of the campaign arm of the RNC that the Democrats are the communists.
Nor does Trump's long standing political love affair with Kim Jong Un, the other notorious communist leader of the world, and enemy of the United States.
The number of ignorant and-sorry but I have to say it--stupid Americans who still support him and live under rocks where they have no clue about what is true has dropped below the point where this ignorance can help the GOP. It does not appear to be working and, in fact, it is having the effect of convincing a growing number of voters that electing Trump and the GOP was a huge mistake.
The Intrusion of Trump's Version of Right Wing Extremism Into Conservative Evangelicalism is Causing a Mass Exodus of Both Individual Members and Entire Church Congregations
Trump counts on his belief that most of his followers are too stupid, ignorant and weak-willed to understand and know the truth. When the statement is made, that if you're Christian, there are certain issues that cannot be supported, implying that one is not Christian at that point, or at least, is not as good of a Christian as the one making the accusation, it might be a good idea to make sure that there is no fault found in the one making the accusation. It completely undermines the argument, that Christians can't vote for something perceived as immoral or "unchristlike," when the accuser is a full throated supporter of Trump, whose lifestyle is an example of the kind of licentious debauchery that the Bible condemns in no uncertain terms.
If "those" Christians who support Democrats are wrong, and aren't Christian for supporting what conservatives say they can't support, then those Republican Christians who support Trump are at least equally unchristlike and wrong. And frankly, if correct theology and Biblical interpretation is applied, Trump does indeed measure far worse, because he is actually engaged in blatant immorality, while the accusations against Democrats are that they support certain immoral practices.
And what warms my heart is that I am seeing multiple posts on the social media sites spreading this Republican tripe that are answering back, and in some cases, are so overwhelming in numbers that whoever originated the post is forced to take it down.
Jesus Didn't Put Conditions on the Christian Salvation Experience. It's a Grace Gift, Not Conditioned on a Set of Theological or Political Beliefs
One of the major interpretation errors the Scofield-Darby Fundamentalists make in their interpretation of the Bible is making the words of Jesus, who Christians accept as a divine part of a triune God, equal with those of Paul and the apostles, or the Old Testament prophets. But it's a grave theological error to attribute a divine nature to Jesus and then not make his words the criterion by which all other written works are measured.
And that completely distorts their interpretation of the Bible. It also leads to a salvation experience that is based on specific personal works to earn it, and a set of doctrinal and theological affirmations to maintain it. Both of those ideas are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What Jesus actually said about what we now refer to as Christian salvation, or becoming a Christian, was simple:
"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I will also deny before my Father in heaven." Matthew 10:32-33, NRSV
"...what must I do to inherit eternal life? He [Jesus] said to him [the lawyer asking the question] 'What is written in the law? What do you read there?'
He answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he [Jesus] said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this and you will live." Luke 10:25b-28, NRSV.
Selective interpretation and application of a few disjointed parts of the Bible have led this fundamentalist Scofield-Darby cult to come up with a list of requirements for their version of the Christian salvation experience, which is based on praying a specific prayer that leads a person to cross into salvation when it is uttered from their lips. But the Bible's writers, including major apostles like Paul and John, do not support this list of requirements to be saved, and then requirements to maintain it or lose it.
According to Jesus, the simple acknowledgement of the greatest commandment, the second being like the first, is the gateway to salvation and eternal life. Paul repeats it when his words to the Philippian jailer, recorded by Luke in the Book of Acts, are simply spoken. The jailer asked, "What must I do to be saved?" And Paul replied with the simple grace statement, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your household, collectively, will be saved.
This is a work of grace, which means that once it has been done, it cannot be undone. Otherwise, its not grace, its works. There is absolutely no other requirement, including a requirement that one cannot support a particular political position or party.
Let's Think This Through, and Come to the Only Possible Conclusion
But if we take this Scofield-Darby Fundamentalism and its logic seriously for a minute, we can see why their view is the wrong view.
If it is wrong for Christians to vote for Democrats because "they support abortion," which is a simplistic statement, but I'll use this as an example, then it would be at least equally wrong for Christians to support a political party which refuses to acknowledge the crimes, moral bankruptcy, unrepentant adultery and alleged child rape of their leader, Trump. That includes his attempt to overturn a legitimate election and the continued silence, the equivalent of a lie, in refusing to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election in 2020. And that makes them guilty of sedition.
They can argue the finer points of Christian doctrine all they want, but the Constitution allows no religious test for holding office and the Christian doctrine of any individual candidate for office is irrelevant to their qualifications. But their character, moral values and public example are important, and Republicans refusing to acknowledge Trump's failures makes them the worse kind of lying hypocrites.
Democrats don't "believe in" abortion. That's not the correct term to use. What they believe is that the government has no place in determining a woman's health care choices. The belief that abortion is murder is not supported by either American law, or the Bible. So laws which restrict access to it are not only an invasion of personal privacy, they are also a violation of conscience to anyone who does not share or accept the conservative, right wing extremist view.
If Democrats are to be held accountable for abortion, then Republicans are to be held accountable for adultery, rape, child molestation, treasonous insurrection and all of the criminal acts of Trump while in office.
