Civil Commotion

Russell Moore, concerned that people are beginning to understand who evangelicals really are as they propel Donald Trump toward the Republican nomination, and eager for a re-brand, helpfully points toward a guide to r-e-e-e-a-l evangelicals.

Some of the things you might have missed:

• Not everyone who calls himself an evangelical is an evangelical.   The pitiful Walter Mitty’s who are supporting the insufferable Donald Trump, for instance; they’re definitely not r-e-e-e-a-l evangelicals.

• Most evangelicals do not go to suburban megachurches.   They don’t pay attention to the things said by people like Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Robert Jeffress, for instance, who are universally acknowledged to be two of America’s most important (not r-e-e-e-a-l) evangelical leaders.

• Evangelicals love LGBTQIA people.

• Evangelicals love the arts.

• Evangelicals are pro-science.

• Evangelicals value quality education for all.

• Evangelicals are diverse and tolerant.

This is good stuff. Funny stuff. Does anybody know where Dave Barry is today?

Warren Throckmorton reprises some of the advertisements and film clips that aired during the Johnson/Goldwater debacle of 1964, adding:

I hope the GOP doesn’t repeat the past this year. As a lifelong Republican who was a child when Goldwater lost, I don’t recognize the party of my lifetime. My more liberal friends will tell me that I have been in a fog, but I say Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be in the majority among today’s GOP rank and file.

This man scares me. I think my party made a mistake.

I’ve made the point repeatedly over the past year that the modern Republican Party wouldn’t even consider nominating its former icons … Reagan, Eisenhower, Roosevelt — not one of them would enjoy any success today. It probably is too glib to say, at least amongst political scientists and historians, but the gist of the matter is that the parties have switched places. The pragmatic, educated, forward-looking realists who were once the Republicans have become the Democrats, and it is no coincidence that Trump’s victories yesterday gave him the suite of states that George Wallace claimed in 1968.

The great difference between now and 1964 is that the opposition party had a plausible candidate, Lyndon Johnson. This time around, the opposition party has Hillary Clinton — loathed by the Republicans, and trusted by nobody — and pie-in-the-sky Bernie. If Trump can keep his mouth shut long enough for a majority of the United States of Amnesia to forget that he is a vain, egomaniacal, cartoon-Mussolini, the Republic could be in real trouble.

What do you know? Somebody else has noticed the similarities between The Donald and the odious, spectacularly crashed-and-burned Mark Driscoll.

But there are evangelical leaders with whom Trump would feel quite at home. Like him, they are middle-aged men who refuse to submit to basic checks on their power and ego. Like him, the leaders of many “megachurches” are not known for the classic virtues of leadership — wisdom, patience, and humility. Like him, they are often lone charismatic figures who “get things done”— build new structures, attract more followers (and money) and establish a “brand.”

So long as there is growth, many evangelicals hesitate to address clear and troubling signs of egotism and even spiritual abuse.

The rise and fall of Mark Driscoll …

The question is, Why do men so blatantly at odds with evangelicalism’s professed values attract such manic support from evangelicals?

Because evangelicals are dishonest about their values.

Just so’s you know, “Dave M” is a Southern Baptist pastor. Think about the ignorance and paranoia this man must be peddling in his church — and that it happens tax-free.

O Lord, do we have the strength to carry off this
mighty task in one night? Or are we just jerking off?

Reverend Johnson, Blazing Saddles

Over at SBC Voices, the pastors are attempting to think-up a way to stop the Trump juggernaut.

I’ve said in the past that you’ve got to be out of your mind to allow Holy Men to go messing with grown-up stuff, and this is a stellar example of the principle; take an antacid, first.

I don’t know why the polls are so bad, but in general the polls show much greater support for Trump than actually exists.

Uh-huh.

• The pastors are as startled as everybody else by evangelical support for Trump; they don’t know who is sitting in their pews, and are just now waking-up to the latent malice in their flocks.

• Even though, for years, they’ve been preaching near- and outright sedition.

• Even though they’ve stood silent in the face of the belief that Obama is not an American, is a moozlim, plans to stay in office forever, et cetera, et cetera.

• Even though they’ve nodded approvingly through more than 7-years of single-minded obstructionism that has harmed the poorly-educated who are their flock more than anybody else.

• I am not surprised by the strong evangelical support for Trump. I am surprised that they are now the Republican Party, that the sane backbone has left and nobody but the crazies remain.

There is no reason to doubt that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee — probably the one person in America that could unite the different wings of the Republican Party.

I think a brokered convention is the best thing that could happen, because it would leave so much relict animosity in the party that it would be near impossible to unite to defeat her. I have about the same gag-me-with-a-spoon reaction everybody else does at the idea of Hillary in the White House, but I care for the Republic and its ideals a lot more than I care for the Republicans.