People keep asking why evangelicals love a toad like Trump.

[RealGuyinChicago]

There are lot’s of reasons, but I think the core of it is this:

The central concept of the evangelical movement—the born-again experience—is easily manipulated.

Trump presents himself as recently “born again,” so nothing he did before that matters. I was imbedded in that movement. I heard people brag about how bad they used to be. The more depraved they were before conversion, the better their “testimony” would be.

Trump kind of did that. He admitted to having a crazy life —while never proving details of course. Grifter ministers amplified that by calling Trump a “baby Christian,” still new to the faith.

Evangelicals were titillated by imagining the decadence of Trump’s “former” life. At the same time Trump flattered them by implying that he’d given it all up to become just like them. It was powerful bullshit.

Evangelicals marched to the polls to vote for the new, “born again” Trump they wanted to see. Not only was he just like them, he gave them permission to express their deep anger at those who weren’t.

The Trump show is intoxicating to some people. But like other hard drugs, it’s a bad idea to shoot Trumpism into your veins too often.

[AlexSFCA]

1. they like him cause he delivered them overturning roe

he is now immortalized into rethugs hall of fame for decades thanks to the 3 justices he picked.

[JanLip]

10. Yea

I just saw a guy on the television yesterday crying and thanking Trump. Made me 🤮🤮
He was saying because of Trump he was the one who overturned RVW. Trump is a deceiver and made so much money off it. Sad

[Jade Fox]

2. Very well explained. Thanks! nt

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Trump isn't born again, the christofascist know damn good and well he isn't.

They made a deal with him. Their support for his help in getting Roe overturned. IMO, the deal was supposed to get Pence in the WH on his coat tails if possible. The Pig turned on Pence though.

What appeals to a group of fanatic monotheists whose world view is based on a dictating male divine being? Whose world view is based on patriarchy in the home, in the church, in the organized religion?

Answer: a christian theocracy with a new nobility (them) and a big daddy authoritarian (ala God) dictator, Trump.

DeSantis will do in a pinch I bet.

[RealGuyinChicago]

9. It's a grift of course (nt)

[Thomas Hurt]

11. To the Pig yes, the christofascists have been working on a christian theocracy here since Reagan.

[Cosmocat]

21. Correct

nm

[Wounded Bear]

4. You get a lot of that in 12 step programs...

Lots of drunk-a-logs and drug-a-logs that stretch credulity. Many people sharing their stories are sincere, but some are just there for the attention, and those usually drift off elsewhere eventually.

There's a reason they call them "flocks" and the preachers "shepards." Authoritarians come in two flavors. One type wants to lead, and the other types craze leadership, often no matter how dysfunctional and disreputable it might be. Like they say, sheep exist to be fleeced.

[harumph]

5. Nope. They do not actually believe he's reformed.

They don't give a shit. You're saying they're fools. I'm saying they're
deliberately malicious. They know who he is. They lie so much to
themselves, it makes them convincing when they parrot those
lies for public consumption. They're angry and embittered and
they like what he does to people they hate.

Ever seen a multi-level marketing scheme? Ever noticed the unreal hype that pushers of these
schemes parrot. It almost sounds like they believe it. Almost. They're the very worst kind of
people - saying it's a 'broken world' while doing their best to make it worse.

[Mariana]

16. It's amazing how some people will bend over backwards

to give Christians the benefit of the doubt, and make excuses for them, no matter how much harm they cause

At least the OP isn't insisting that that they can't be Christians, because only non-Christians would ever be so awful.

[RealGuyinChicago]

17. I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt

For many of them, Trump’s profession of faith offers nothing more than plausible deniability. They don’t care if it’s true. But some are truly duped.

And some evangelicals are just hypocrites.

[bluestarone]

6. This stupid fucking decision from THIS SC. will be the biggest fireworks display for the

RELIGIOUS RIGHT! I can hear it now. trump is truly GODS CHOSEN! FUCK all of them and TFG too!

[raccoon]

7. Excuse me, you misspelled the word "turd."

I can’t understand that either he’s a serial adulterer, a grifter, a con artist, what else?

[Baked Potato]

8. If pure "evil" provides their needs, that "evil" is God.

They can assign godlike attributes to whomever or whatever delivers to them even a smidgen of what they consider to be due them in their lives, be it real or spiritual.

Those feelings and beliefs are easily used and manipulated for effect, obviously.

[cyclonefence]

12. You are absolutely right about this

and it's hard for people who did not grow up observing evangelicals to understand or believe. The deeper the sin, the more glorious the salvation once the sinner comes to Jesus and is born again.

As a child in WV I was transfixed by televangelists welcoming the worst sinners they could dig up--and telling of their own disreputable pasts with all the drinking and girl-chasing, although I grew up in an atheistic household. You really have to study these guys on TV if you don't have perssonal experience with them.

You're right; they love Trump more because of how horrible his past sins have been. I think an evangelical could get born again on his deathbed, sinning right up to the moment before he died, and be sure he was going to heaven.

[misanthrope]

13. Because he's THEIR toad

It's tribalism, pure and simple.

[lees1975]

14. Trump has never become "born again"

In Evangelical doctrine, that requires repentance, confession of sin, acknowledgement of the divine and human nature of Jesus as the Christ and as the only spiritual power to forgive sin and bring spiritual restoration with God. Trump, when directly asked, claims to never have done anything requiring repentance and forgiveness, and that he believes God doesn't have anything to do with his behavior. He has openly stated this in several prominent Evangelical forums and interviews, which is why you don't ever see much of it. Supporting someone who denies having had a born again experience would raise questions and cause a credibility issue. So they are silent.

He's also turned down opportunities to choose Evangelical pastors as his "spiritual advisor," but even though there are several, like the pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, like Robert Jeffress, who Trump calls his "favorite pastor", who would be willing to completely change their doctrine and faith practice to get the title, he's gone with someone most Evangelicals would label an apostate heretic, Paula White, a prosperity gospel prophetess who is a zero on several essentials of Evangelical doctrine, like the inerrancy of the Bible and the closure of the canon, the fact that she is a woman but is a prophetess, preacher and pastors a church, and that she also does not acknowledge the "born again" doctrine of Evangelicalism, but relies on a "spiritualist" approach instead.

They are fascinated with him because they chase the kind of power he has, based on use of money, to do all the worldly things they are unable to do by following their doctrine. They made a deal with him to get what they wanted. The Bible says that even Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, and that the "elect" can be deceived.

[Cosmocat]

22. Yep

MM

[Mariana]

15. They don't have to make excuses for him being an awful person.

It is not the least bit out of character for the Christian God to raise up someone like Trump to rule over the United States. The Bible is stuffed with stories about utterly vile men whom God put into positions of great power over others, and showered with his favor and his blessings.

[roamer65]

18. They are willing to whore themselves out to spread their theocratic fascism.

[GoCubsGo]

19. They knew he'd help get them what they wanted: Courts packed wtih theocrats.

The Supreme Court, included. They're willing to overlook the fact that he's one of the shittiest, most non-Christian individuals in existence, if he can install radical right-wing judges on all the courts.

[keep_left]

20. "Cheap grace" is at the heart of it. And what Ted Kennedy called "Neanderthal justices".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Discipleship

The book was written by a Protestant (Bonhoeffer), but the "doctrine of cheap grace" is most often an accusation made by Catholics arguing with Evangelical Protestants, particularly those of the Southern Baptist and/or fundamentalist variety. The "name it and claim it"/"blab it and grab it"/"Gospel of health and wealth" Christians--nearly all of them nondenominational Protestants--usually get the most severe criticism from Catholics. By the way, this is one of the only things that liberal and radtrad Catholics agree on (somewhat). Of course, so many radtrads have jumped on the Trump Train that they have precious little moral street cred left at this point.

Then there are the "Neanderthal justices", a term coined by Ted Kennedy after the whole Bork disaster. Drumpf made it clear that he would rubber-stamp whatever court appointments Charles Koch and the Federalist Society wanted. That's all they care about. A very few conservative Christian leaders warned their followers about Trump's degenerate lifestyle over the years, but no one listened.

[JI7]

23. Because of Racism. White evangelicals are just white Supremacists

[RANDYWILDMAN]

24. Just another Trump sham, all part of the grift

he might have sold it that way, no truth to it whatsoever.

Evangelicals see what they want, not the truth, but what they want.

His grift is so obvious, if you can't see it, you are in the cult and we can't help you.

[RealGuyinChicago]

27. Exactly (nt)

[brooklynite]

25. I have to disagree...

He never professed to be Evangelical (at most he claimed to be a Presbyterian) and to the extent he had a "crazy life" he never repented of it. As with everything else, Trump's relationship with Evangelicals was strictly transactional.

[RealGuyinChicago]

26. True. But here's the thing with Trump

In many cases, Trump depends on a very indirect kind of messaging. He lets followers read into him what they want to see. So, sure, he never directly said he was an evangelical. But he never said he wasn’t evangelical. And he didn’t go out of his way to contradict others’ suggestions that he was.

Trump followers are not big on studying details. They think he’s one of them and Trump is fine with letting them think it.

[lees1975]

28. They don't share common theology, but they share a common ideology

and those Christians who have been lured into Trumpism by the few social issue bones he has tossed them are willing to throw away a lot of what he doesn't like to get what they want. And he's willing to use them and give them things that would be of no consequence to him once he is in power in order to make the deal.

They both share white supremacist ideology and neither Trump nor the evangelicals in the reconstructionist, dominion theology, "kingdom now" movements, which is where most of the political faction can be found, have any use for democracy.

America's founding fathers, in separating all religious practice including Christianity, from its representative democracy, actually set the Christian church free to be exactly what Jesus intended it to be. Now false apostles and prophets are putting on a veneer of Christianity with the intention of using it for their own purposes and for their own benefit. The alliance between the Christian right and right wing Republican politics, which is the domain of the prosperous and exists to expand their prosperity, will eventually unravel and fall apart, largely because the billionaire side of it indulges in unlimited immorality that Christians generally can't tolerate. But not before this aberration of the Christian faith is used to its fullest extend to destroy a democratic government that is the only major obstacle to complete domination by the richest of the rich.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/06/how-doctrine-and-theology-of-american.html

[cherish44]

29. I like the ones who think Trump is a Good Ol Boy who drinks beer and drives a pickup

works a blue collar job, drinks beer, rides a big Harley, shoots a big gun....You know a Good Old Boy (probably grew up in Alabama).

Ok Trump has never done a day's work in his life that involved getting his hands in dirty. I'm sure he probably can't shoot a gun, drive a truck (especially a stick shift) and he's the Yankee-est Yankee who ever Yankee'ed. (I'm a Yankee, who has done all those things by the way).