The secret of why evangelicals love Herschel Walker (and Donald Trump)
Last edited Thu Jun 23, 2022, 11:31 PM - Edit history (2)
The secret of why evangelicals love Herschel Walker (and Donald Trump)
Chris Cillizza
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 11:38 AM ET, Wed June 22, 2022
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/22/politics/herschel-walker-donald-trump-evangelicals-republicans/index.html
How to explain evangelicals enbrace of Trump and Herschel Walker, who have lived less than traditionally moral lives?
Here are excerpts of an interview with Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University and the author of "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation."
--snipped--
"In Walker's case, his vocal condemnation of absentee fathers now strikes a hypocritical tone.
Fortunately for him, social conservatives have proven quite ready to forgive and forget when politically convenient to do so. We've seen family values conservatives embrace the likes of Roy Moore, Brett Kavanaugh, and of course, President Trump in recent years, despite allegations of abuse and moral failings.
--snip--
Cillizza: In your book, you write that the rise of Donald Trump fits into a long pattern within the evangelical community. Explain.
Du Mez: When it became clear that White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump, pundits (and some evangelicals themselves) responded with shock and confusion. How could family values evangelicals support a man who seemed the very antithesis of the values they held dear? This question only intensified in the days after the release of the "Access Hollywood" tape, when only a handful of evangelicals wavered in their support of a man caught on video bragging about assaulting women. There is certainly hypocrisy at play here, but as a historian of evangelicalism, I knew that what we were looking at couldn't be explained merely in terms of hypocrisy.
For decades, conservative White evangelicals have championed a rugged, even ruthless "warrior" masculinity. Believing that "gender difference" was the foundation of a God-given social order, evangelicals taught that women and men were opposites. God filled men with testosterone so that they could fulfill their God-ordained role as leaders, as protectors and providers. Testosterone made them aggressive, and it gave them a God-given sex drive. Men needed to channel their aggression, and their sex drives, in ways that strengthened both family and nation.
Generations of evangelicals consumed millions of books and listened to countless sermons expounding these "truths." Within this framework, there was ready forgiveness for male sexual misconduct. It was up to women to avoid tempting men who were not their husbands and meet the sexual needs of men who were. When men went astray, there was always a woman to blame. For men, misdeeds could be written off as too much of a good thing or perhaps a necessary evil, as evidence of red-blooded masculinity that needed only to be channeled in redemptive directions."
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Basically it seems to me evangelicals use the King David excuse on Trump, Herschel Walker etc --In the bible, King David sent Bathsheba's husband to his death, so he could have her as his own. But because King David, a warrior king, was doing God's will politically and militarily all was forgiven.
Th point the author makes is that traditionalism especially concerning male/female roles and family is what is driving their political views and as long as their leaders strongly support their positions nothing else matters. Traditionalism even overcomes their racial bias Dr. Mez basically theorizes.
Haggard Celine
(16,845 posts)Back in Baptist Sunday School they used to talk about King David, who did a very bad thing, but he was still Gods Man! That fits there culture.
Marcuse
(7,480 posts)he conceived with Bathsheba and causing all kinds of turmoil in his family including incest rape.
SharonAnn
(13,772 posts)captain queeg
(10,196 posts)Its not the place to look for moral guidance. Ive rejected the Bible years ago. I try to see where some religious people seems to live good lives, but they are the definite minority. It seems like on balance religion has done more harm than good. I dont really think about it much, but sometimes I see or read something that sets me off. A couple days ago I saw a video about the ark of the covenant which certainly sounds like a fairy tale. There was a section about the Jews destroying Jericho. The version was somewhat different than the story Ive heard before but what got me was once they destroyed the walls they slaughtered every man woman and child in the city because god had decreed it. I hear shit like that and I want nothing to do with religion
Skittles
(153,160 posts)it's because of garbage they learn in church
and now the SC says it's OK for taxpayers to pay for that crap in school
Girard442
(6,070 posts)no_hypocrisy
(46,100 posts)RSherman
(576 posts)What about the golden statue of Trump that was at CPAC a couple years ago? People posed and took selfies. There are NUMEROUS passages in the Bible about not having graven images, the golden calf, etc. The MAGAs cherry pick the Bible and the Constitution.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)... and they've read about King David too.
I think a better explanation is that right-wing authoritarians are more drawn to evangelical Christianity. Evangelism has promoted cultural conformity more than any other Christian denominations in my opinion -- i.e., anger towards homosexuals, various subcultures, etc.
Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) overview:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarian_personality
RWA's are often hypocrites, such as when their "strong leader" doesn't practice what (s)he preaches in regard to more social conformity.
Ideas like merit mean little to them too. They just say stuff like, "God made some people chiefs, and others their servants." (As my evangelical sister has said to me.)
no_hypocrisy
(46,100 posts)I remember Trump at a campaign event, mostly for Jewish supporters, when he crowed that imminently that Ivanka was about to give birth (to her third child) and he was about to have a be-yoo-tiful "Jewish grandchild". I guess moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem wasn't enough.
lees1975
(3,856 posts)Comparatively, given the size of the denominations, the odds of being a female victim of sexual assault by a Southern Baptist minister are almost twice as high as being a child victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest.
I think there's something to this theory.
But, having grown up in an Evangelical church culture, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most of them have little to no idea what the Bible says or teaches about moral values, and little to no idea about their faith, other than the cliches their pastors tend to use from the pulpit to keep themselves in it. They lose most of the children and teenagers raised in the churches because their role models and examples are so shallow. And voting "conservative," no matter who bears the title, is a way to protect the culture in their view.
Southern Baptists have been absolutely hostile and loud in their condemnation of Mormonism as a cult, and do not refer to it as a Christian denomination, believing that following the Mormon gospel is a perversion of the gospel of Christ and leads to hell. But they were willing to support Mitt Romney, who believes that Mormons are destined to rule the world by taking over the US government, which is foundational Mormon teaching, rather than President Obama, whose actual personal religious beliefs are closer to their own.
keep_left
(1,783 posts)...because I'm used to hearing their abuse directed at Catholics for the exact same thing (and there is historical precedent for that before the days of the printing press). The Evangelicals are always going after the Catholics for that. But I can't say I'm surprised about their own illiteracy and the personality cult nature of their followers; we've sure seen plenty of it.
There is a whole cottage industry (actually, it's more like big business these days) in "apologetics", where the deluded followers of various denominations argue incessantly with each other over whose version of the truth actually is the TRVTH, forever and ever amen. They have books, CDs, TV shows, etc. devoted to this. And not just Protestants; the execrable EWTN network must devote at least 50% of their time attempting to convert Evangelicals to their brand of reactionary Catholicism.
Ironically, some of the most reactionary "radtrad" Catholics absolutely hate EWTN because so many of the "stars" on that network are converts from Protestantism, and are therefore apostates.
world wide wally
(21,743 posts)All of my Catholic friends (all my friends) would tell me that I couldn't go to heaven because I wasn't Catholic. Funny part was that I was told the same thing about them at my school.
I guess we're all going to Hell in a basket.
Bucky
(54,005 posts)andym
(5,443 posts)McConnell and conservatives will benefit as well with them. Doesn't matter at all how un-Christian these men are.