The evangelicals who support Trump appear to fall into several categories:
1. Racists: the vast majority of WHITE evangelicals supported Trump; the vast majority of BLACK evangelicals did not.
2. Followers of the “prosperity gospel,” an appalling perversion of Christianity that claims God wants everyone to be rich, and pushes the inverse: that rich people are favored by God. It should not have to be said that this is in total opposition to Christianity, as well as being an odd, modern throwback to the “divine right of kings.”
3. Misogynistic conservative Christians — the Christian Taliban, as it were — who would never, ever vote for a woman for president. Many “fundamentalist” Christians do things like forbidding women to wear “revealing” clothing (that is, short-sleeves and less than long skirts) or go into “mixed bathing” (that’s swimming to normal people). This isn’t even uncommon in parts of the South where I grew up. Pence exemplifies that view, which punishes and blames women for men’s inability to control their sexuality, and therefore puts constraints on women.
Ironically, many of these people are those who have insisted on “character” as a key element of a presidential candidate, but clearly true Christian character, or even basic decency, falls way behind the three criteria above.
The evangelicals who support Trump appear to fall into several categories:
1. Racists: the vast majority of WHITE evangelicals supported Trump; the vast majority of BLACK evangelicals did not.
2. Followers of the “prosperity gospel,” an appalling perversion of Christianity that claims God wants everyone to be rich, and pushes the inverse: that rich people are favored by God. It should not have to be said that this is in total opposition to Christianity, as well as being an odd, modern throwback to the “divine right of kings.”
3. Misogynistic conservative Christians — the Christian Taliban, as it were — who would never, ever vote for a woman for president. Many “fundamentalist” Christians do things like forbidding women to wear “revealing” clothing (that is, short-sleeves and less than long skirts) or go into “mixed bathing” (that’s swimming to normal people). This isn’t even uncommon in parts of the South where I grew up. Pence exemplifies that view, which punishes and blames women for men’s inability to control their sexuality, and therefore puts constraints on women.
Ironically, many of these people are those who have insisted on “character” as a key element of a presidential candidate, but clearly true Christian character, or even basic decency, falls way behind the three criteria above.