{"id":3362,"date":"2016-03-07T07:35:23","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T12:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=3362"},"modified":"2016-03-07T07:38:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T12:38:35","slug":"quote-for-the-day-or-whos-sitting-in-our-pews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=3362","title":{"rendered":"Quote for the day, &#8212; OR &#8212;<br>Who&#8217;s sitting in our pews?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is fun.  A <a href=\"http:\/\/sbcvoices.com\/evangelicals-and-donald-trump-its-not-him-its-us-joel-rainey\/?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SbcVoices+%28SBC+Voices%29\" target=\"_blank\">pastor writing at <i>SBC Voices<\/i><\/a> nails the role of evangelicals in this year&#8217;s election.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Simply put, if Donald Trump becomes the GOP nominee, American evangelicals will be largely responsible.  There is simply no excuse for this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now, recall Albert Mohler&#8217;s remark to NPR <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=3340\" target=\"_blank\">a few days ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We have taken comfort in the fact that there have been millions and millions of us in America. And a part of that evidence has been the last several election cycles, with the evangelical vote being in the millions. And now we\u2019re having to face the fact that, evidently, theologically-defined &#8212; defined by commitment to core evangelical values &#8212; there aren\u2019t so many millions of us as we thought.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Scan the comments (most of them by pastors) at the <i>SBC Voices<\/i> post I linked to above, and you&#8217;ll see they are nearly unanimous that Trump is unfit for the presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Even stopped clocks are right twice a day, <i>et cetera<\/i>, <i>et cetera<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Here is what strikes me: The pastors know so little about their flocks, and have so little influence.  <i>They don&#8217;t understand Trump&#8217;s appeal; or that Trump is the voice of their congregations&#8217; subterranean envy and resentment and malice; or that Nietzsche was right: Christianity is the revolt of everything that crawls against everything that soars.<\/i>  Of course their flocks are wild for The Donald; he&#8217;s trashing their betters.<\/p>\n<p>I can sympathize with the pastors&#8217; confusion &#8212; a little.  You can&#8217;t blame a pastor for wondering, Why do they come sit in my church every Sunday morning when their idea of a great man is a cheap blowhard like Donald Trump?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve wondered for years: Are these guys idiots who actually believe all this crazy stuff, or are they cynical whores who <i>service<\/i> idiots who actually believe all this crazy stuff?  Given what I am convinced is genuine bafflement at Trump&#8217;s appeal, I think the answer must be the former: They&#8217;re idiots.  They&#8217;ve no idea who is sitting in their pews, or why they&#8217;re there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is fun. A pastor writing at SBC Voices nails the role of evangelicals in this year&#8217;s election. Simply put, if Donald Trump becomes the GOP nominee, American evangelicals will be largely responsible. There is simply no excuse for this. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=3362\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3362"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3368,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362\/revisions\/3368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}