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In reply to the discussion: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time [View all]Lonestarblue
(9,958 posts)The report says that 7 in 10 of us affiliate with an organized religion, even though fewer have actual church memberships. I do not believe we should be called a religious nation. We are a democracy, with a set of secular laws that govern how we operate as a country. Religion should have no role in government policy, especially when it claims that laws should be based on a particular religion, as white evangelicals do.
The decline in church membership is not surprising. Fewer people want to hear white evangelical pastors preaching white supremacy and racism, hatred for LGBTQ, demonization of women for having sex before marriage and for having abortions, hatred for immigrants (unless theyre white), or insisting that conservatives need to wage a civil war to get rid of all the liberal policies they dont like.
The white evangelical support for Donald Trump was a mystery to most everyone, but they saw an opportunity to push their agenda for religious nationalism and their favorite victimization trope of their loss of religious freedom (i.e., the freedom to persecute immigrants, discriminate against women and people of color as well as all LGBTQ, pass laws criminalizing the behavior of LGBTQ and women who have abortions, etc.).
While the religious right complains that they are persecuted and blames liberals and Democrats for the decline in religious participation, they should first look in the mirror at their own behavior. It is their blatant hypocrisy in saying they believe in Christian principles but behaving in a manner that is hatefuland un-Christ liketoward women and minorities. The evangelical right traded their right to respect for political power when they chose to worship Donald Trump for what he could give them instead of following the Christian values they claim to hold but fail to demonstrate.