Religious Right pays a price for support of Trump

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2020/11/crawling-out-from-under-rock-and.html

I've seen some comments from those in the religious right who acknowledge that American Christianity is already paying a heavy price for the irresponsible departure from mission and purpose of some for the purpose of supporting Trump. People who didn't support him are not leaving the Christian faith, but they are no longer supporting those leaders and institutions that did, and the drop in support is being felt.

[northoftheborder]

1. Good. They deserve to be unsupported.

There are Christians and churches who DID NOT support Trump.

[AZ8theist]

13. Doesn't matter.....

There are WAY, WAY, WAY too many RUBES in this country.

The filthy rich preacher BULLSHITTERS will do just fine....

[no_hypocrisy]

2. That's what happens when you follow a False Prophet.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Good! Karma does have a way of biting back.

[Mike Nelson]

4. Well...

... Halleluiah!

[BComplex]

6. I know, right? It's about damned time!

When are they going to wake up and realize they are all supporting the damned devil himself in the way they vote.

[Aristus]

5. Donald Trump (with a little advance field-work from George W. Bush)

turned Mrs. Aristus from a conservative Republican Christian evangelical into a storm-the-barricades liberal Democrat.

And while I'm grateful for the transformation, I won't be sending Trump (or Bush) a thank-you card anytime soon.

[BComplex]

8. I'm so happy for you, Aristus! That must make it a lot easier to live at home!

I can't imagine having a spouse that couldn't see the problems with the republican thinking. My husband turned himself around before we got married, and that was 22 years ago. Before bush, and before trump.

To tell the truth, if he hadn't, we probably wouldn't have gotten married.

[Aristus]

11. One can't help whom one falls in love with.

Conservative Christianity was always a bad fit for her anyway.

Enculturated by a wealthy right-wing family, she was just too smart, compassionate, and independent-minded for the kinds of crap that crowd is expected to espouse.

She left their sociopolitical fecklessness behind ages ago.

She also expresses indifference to the possibility she might be cut out of the will.

[BComplex]

44. That's quite a turn-around.

Floaty hearts for love! It's good medicine, as the Native Americans would say.

[Vogon_Glory]

7. I agree with much of what the article says, BUT

I don’t think that the Evangelicals have reached the point where payment is due. True, they’ve lost a lot of contemporary worshippers due to their slavish devotion to Trump and other scammers, but they still have enough political clout to sway elections in red-tinted swing states to keep red State and congressional districts red and people like Joni Ernst and John Cornyn in the Senate.

I like to think that they’ve lost most of their moral authority, but alas for the Republicans and those who do follow the true teachings of the Nazarene, they’ll still be tagging along after right-wing preacher-politicos for years to come.

[lisa58]

9. Very Happy to Hear🙏

[orwell]

10. Who could have figured...

...that supporting the "AntiChrist" would be bad for business...

[AllaN01Bear]

12. i still feel that many of those churches should loose their tax exempt status .

or am i just dreaming.

[Escurumbele]

18. You are correct...the worst part about tax free religious churches is the many scams they support

I have a friend who is our mechanic, and by his shop there was a guy who started a "church", people were donating a lot of money, giving him stuff, which I think he sold for personal profit. He and his wife each drove beautiful Mercedes Benz, they dressed very well (less well in church), and were living a life of pleasure. I don't know if they grew as a business and moved from that place to a bigger one, but it was obviously a scam.

My friend got to know them, and according to him the guy and his wife were the most remote from pure and holly.

Take away the tax exempt from religion and those con pastors will disappear.

[lees1975]

42. Lets get strictly constitutional here...

I am a firm believer in religious liberty and in complete separation of church and state and all of the ways that has been defined over the years. I am as much opposed to taxing churches as I am to the once common practice of giving tax money to churches because both actions erode the wall of separation that Jefferson clearly articulated in his letter to the Connecticut Baptists who were worried about it in 1788. However, I do not believe it violates either religious liberty or church state separation to distinguish between actions and practices which define a church body from those of other institutions, including business enterprises owned by churches which make a profit or an organization that has a clearly partisan bias or perspective. There are rules which, if enforced, do a good job of distinguishing between protected religious liberty and activities which are either profit-generating or politically partisan in nature.

In short, just enforce the rules. Don't tax the churches that are following them in practicing their religious liberty.

[Arthur_Frain]

43. Why not originalist constitutionalist here?

There’s local churches where I’m at that own acres. With multiple buildings on them. And how do they shelter what money they come into? They buy even more real estate. And neither our muni nor our state see a sou out of all that because of an arcane rule, one that had more to do with accessibility of a place to exercise your freedom of speech than anything else. The reason for churches to remain tax free doesn’t exist anymore, least of all in an age where freedom of speech is exercised on social media, and everyone has a cellphone.

Tax the a Rich. Feed the Poor. Til there are no rich no more.
Especially the churches. Tax them all.

[Richard D]

14. May they shrink enough . . .

get them down to the size where we can drown them in a bathtub

[Escurumbele]

15. The hope is that people will stop once and for all believing in fairytales and treat them as such

When we read a story by the Brothers Grimm, they are wonderful, they have messages but all and all we know what they are, fabricated stories, beautiful but nonetheless made up.

When people read fairytales from religious books then they are supposed to "have faith" and believe what they read. There is something very wrong with that.

When people stop believing in the fairytales that religions provide, they may start taking more control of their lives and caring more about real people.

[CrispyQ]

16. You can almost tell what kind of Christian someone is by the political party they identify with.

I'd like to keep religion out of government & politics, but this comment by Colbert is spot on.

[dlk]

17. The curtain has been pulled back and the snake oil salesmen have been revealed

They have repeatedly told the world who they really are. Nice to know some of their followers have begun to believe them. Ultimately, it's more about passing the collection plate than anything else.

[kimbutgar]

19. The last 4 years have turned me so much off of Christianity

I was raised Catholic and every time I heard a priest support MF 45 I realize I will never support that church.

I look at these wealthy evangelicals leaders supporting MF 45 and think they are really supporting the anti christ.

[Squinch]

20. Love the way these articles are coming out now, AFTER the "American Christianity" community

has sucked their fill at trump's sagging teat for 4 years.

[BobTheSubgenius]

21. Along with the "drop in support" should come "a massive change in tax status."

How are they acting like churches?

[TygrBright]

22. But as long as they can save imaginary babies and children, they'll stick with the insanity. n/t

[NurseJackie]

23. Ha, ha-ha, ha-ha!

[LearnedHand]

27. Ugh, this horrible creature always reminds me of bat boy

[NurseJackie]

31. Copeland is the poster boy for what can go wrong with excessive facelifts, botox and hair implants.

[LearnedHand]

32. Step AWAY from the surgical knife

[paleotn]

30. Reverend Shyster.

Your gawd's kung fu is not strong, Ken Copland.

[BrightKnight]

24. Neighbor hating, money worshiping, conceal weapon, monkey trial, fake Christians... nt

[Firestorm49]

25. This is a very good article. Thanks.

[calimary]

26. GOOD!!!

GOOD-GOOD-GOOD!!!

[Warpy]

28. They're DYING from it

but too many are so dependent on having a larger community centered around a charismatic conman will admit it and change either their focus or their behavior.

[paleotn]

29. The secularization of America....

Reason number 2,457 for the freak out on the reactionary right, fueling their support of a fascist dictator. That support may prove to be a last futile grasp at relevance outside the hinterlands. And even there evangelicalism isn't growing as rural populations shrink. I hope I live long enough to see their regular attendance drop to what it is now in the UK. Roughly 14% of the populace. 36% in the US.

[Traildogbob]

33. The Cross

They love to wear, people like Ka’Lee MagaNinnie and the Christian Right, have adopted the cross to represent “t” for tRump not the crucifixion of Christ. When he is re-elected all the crosses in the world will be upper case “T’s” to honor the second messenger God sent to right the world.
After conviction of treason, with all the newly approved ways to execute criminals, we should add nailing to, not a cross for him, but a capital “T”. Then Christians can all wear upper case T’s instead of lower case T’s to honor their savior Donny diapers.
If he rises from the dead in 3 days, we are fucked.

[Sneederbunk]

34. A plethora of false prophets.

[Evolve Dammit]

35. And friends and family are leaving each other. The divide is too great and is fanned by the right.

[Upthevibe]

36. lees1975....

Thanks for the post. I hope that these churches and evangelical leaders lose a majority of their flock and the money they lust after. If they don't lose the supporters they now have, I feel somewhat certain that they will gain very few if any new followers.

[lees1975]

40. The real leaders of Evangelical Christian churches

are the ones who don't get caught up in the celebrity status of para-church ministers and self-proclaimed "spokespersons" and "leaders". There are plenty of Christian church leaders who stayed true to the doctrine and theology they preached and taught and as a result of that, couldn't support Trump.

[Roc2020]

37. Good. And the GOP is the party

that will suffer the most because in one hand religiously cultic clinging to Trump and waving the bible in the other

[Grins]

38. "...paying a heavy price..."?

Where? Proof, please. Because I don’t see that at all.

[lees1975]

41. This is from within the largest Evangelical denomination in the country

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/june/southern-baptist-sbc-member-drop-annual-church-profile-2019.html

[barbtries]

39. oh well.

tax the church.