Civil Commotion

Here are Trump’s Pious Pitchmen:

The full list of board members, as shared by the campaign:

• Michele Bachmann – Former Congresswoman

• A.R. Bernard – Senior Pastor and CEO, Christian Cultural Center

• Mark Burns – Pastor, Harvest Praise and Worship Center

• Tim Clinton – President, American Association of Christian Counselors

• Kenneth and Gloria Copeland – Founders, Kenneth Copeland Ministries

• James Dobson – Author, Psychologist and Host, My Family Talk

• Jerry Falwell, Jr. – President, Liberty University

• Ronnie Floyd – Senior Pastor, Cross Church

• Jentezen Franklin – Senior Pastor, Free Chapel

• Jack Graham – Senior Pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church

• Harry Jackson – Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church

• Robert Jeffress – Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas

• David Jeremiah – Senior Pastor, Shadow Mountain Community Church

• Richard Land – President, Southern Evangelical Seminary

• James MacDonald – Founder and Senior Pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel

• Johnnie Moore – Author, President of The KAIROS Company

• Robert Morris – Senior Pastor, Gateway Church

• Tom Mullins – Senior Pastor, Christ Fellowship­

• Ralph Reed – Founder, Faith and Freedom Coalition

• James Robison – Founder, Life OUTREACH International

• Tony Suarez – Executive Vice President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

• Jay Strack – President, Student Leadership University

• Paula White – Senior Pastor, New Destiny Christian Center

• Tom Winters – Attorney, Winters and King, Inc.

• Sealy Yates – Attorney, Yates and Yates

Y’all would think a bunch of Holy Men couldn’t be so cheaply seduced as a promise of influence from a flashy, well-documented liar who tends to leave his debts unpaid.

I never imagined the grifters would be so blatant or, for that matter, desperate for attention.

Russell Moore, to his credit, manages to get it exactly right:

Keep it up, guys — Please! — keep it up. Nobody with two eyeballs can feel any confusion any longer about the truth of Christianity.

A 60’s documentary about the Keweenaw Peninsula, home of my alma mater, and construction of the lift-bridge, by the Michigan Department of Transportation. The lift-bridge is still there, still going up and down.

As every news-junkie must know by now, Donald Trump is holding a closed-door meeting today with on the order of 1000-evangelical leaders. Somebody snuck into the hotel and managed to snap the agenda.

Most of the names on the program are probably familiar to all of us: Ralph Reed, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Franklin Graham — all people on the outskirts of public life, all figures of widespread and deserved ridicule.

Trump has already won the evangelical rank-and-file; they were the first group to move his way. Accordingly, their ‘leaders’ will almost certainly back Trump so that they can continue fleecing their sheep. Expect high praise for Trump when the meeting is over, along with some modest caveats about how “no candidate is perfect but he’s with us on the important stuff.”

This won’t do Trump much good. His campaign is broke, lacks rudimentary organization, and disintegrating into staff/family warfare, and sane, decent-minded adults don’t care a hoot what evangelical leaders think about anything, anyway — especially since the awful mass-killing in Orlando. For 8-years the Republican Party has single-mindedly devoted itself to making the government dysfunctional, and nobody in his right mind is going to reward them by installing their incandescently-crazy wrecking-ball candidate in the White House.

Here’s a pastor who thinks Pastor Jiminez is right on the money.

Keep it up, man — Please! There can hardly be anybody left any more who can’t see the malice at the bottom of Christian thought.