General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet's stop insulting each other's intelligence by pretending the term Evangelical is something other
than the politically correct term for the Klu Klux Klan
The only way Evangelicals will ever turn on Trump is if Trump starts following the teachings of Jesus.
As long as Trump continues to feed them racism and greed they will gladly following right through the gates of Hell.
kimbutgar
(21,285 posts)I like that.
We need to make evangelicals a bad word like they did with liberal.
Xipe Totec
(43,892 posts)Shifting positions depending on circumstances.
BigmanPigman
(51,673 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,792 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)when Karl Rove told G.H.W. Bush that these people are like sheep who will vote for you if you pander to them. Since then the religion has become so politicized by the right wing that it is no longer recognizable as Christianity.
atreides1
(16,118 posts)It began with Rove's mentor, Lee Atwater!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
Baconator
(1,459 posts)There is just as much to justify their prosperity theology and racism as all of the warmer fuzzed bits.
Just depends where you look and how you choose to interpret it.
One is just as 'true' as the other...
dalton99a
(81,708 posts)They're fake Christians who literally worship the Anti-Christ
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Snake Plissken
(4,103 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)Snake Plissken
(4,103 posts)pnwmom
(109,025 posts)TomSlick
(11,150 posts)It includes a lot of Christians. [link:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evangelical|
The term "Evangelical" cannot be used to mean socially conservative Christians. There is no one who can speak for all Evangelicals. I belong to an evangelical church. Most of the talking heads who purport to speak for Evangelicals and I are miles apart.
I have argued this before only to be the subject of flamings but it is not helpful for DU to assume that being a Democrat and an Evangelical are mutually exclusive.
raging moderate
(4,318 posts)Some of the radical right have taken to calling themselves Evangelicals because they figured out that the Fundamentalist label was not considered cool. The Evangelical Lutherans are very different from the Evangelical Methodists, and they are very different from the "Evangelical" Dutch Reformed, and they are very different from Franklin Graham's "evangelical" group, and even they are very different from the "evangelical" Christian Identity (white supremacist delusional Christ and his Mother were Blonde blue-eyed) groups. What you are talking about is almost a tribe of mid-south people with roots in the British Isles, isolated in the woods and the prairies for several centuries and fearful of anybody outside their culture.
LAS14
(13,792 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)We alienate them at our peril.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)ConnorMarc
(653 posts)Since Trump they've finally caught on that that name is largely a political affiliation.
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)So they might disagree with you.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/september/1-in-3-american-evangelicals-person-of-color-prri-atlas.html
Or to split it yet another way: About a quarter of Americans (26%) are self-identified evangelicals. About two-thirds of those evangelicals are white (64%), while 19 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic, and the remaining 6 percent are Asian, mixed race, or other ethnicities.
SNIP
Like all Christians in the US, evangelical Protestants are experiencing a substantial racial and ethnic transformation, PRRI reported. Young evangelical Protestants are far more racially and ethnically diverse than previous generations.
Half of evangelicals under 30 years old are now nonwhite (50%), a far higher share than among evangelicals older than 65 (23%). PRRI found that 22 percent of young evangelical Protestants are black, 18 percent are Hispanic, and 9 percent identify as some other race or mixed race.
This generational split can also be found in the political sphere.
Only half of white evangelicals now identify as Republicans (49%), followed by independents (31%) and Democrats (14%).
Thekaspervote
(32,823 posts)Oh.. you mean the EVILGELICALS
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)knows that there are ALSO progressive evangelicals. It's hard enough for them to be in the minority in their churches without the left also hating on them, and insisting they don't exist.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-evangelical-deborah-fikes-214410
NEW YORKEarlier this summer, Deborah Fikes, a former executive adviser of the World Evangelical Alliance, which represents some 600 million evangelical Christians in 129 countries, decided she needed to take a stand in the presidential race. Long before the hot-mic tape that would reveal Donald Trumps propensity for groping women, Fikes determined the real estate mogul simply was unsuitable for the presidency. But the brief essay she wrote in the New York Times didnt decry Trumps extremely casual acquaintance with the Bible, his history of marital infidelity and his generally un-Christlike desire to always punch back twice as hard. She made a case that was almost unique among her fellow evangelicals: Hillary Clinton, she argued, was not the lesser of two evils but in actuality the more Christian candidate and therefore far more deserving of their support.
"Many well-intentioned evangelicals have been drawn to the Republican Party platform with the hope of making an impact on culture and voting their values," she wrote. But, for the first time in my life, I feel compelled to reject my communitys unquestioned political alignment with the G.O.P. and challenge my fellow evangelicals to reconsider.
Around the world, evangelicals reject the ideologically rigid positions that have become the norm for American conservatives. In other countries, she wrote, evangelicals view capital punishment as barbaric, accept the reality of climate change, reject torture by their government, endorse nuclear arms control and cant understand why anyone would oppose gun reforms. All of these stances are viewed as being pro-life and pro-family, Fikes wrote.
And then she took it a step further. Those same evangelicals, she said, consider Hillary Clinton a sister in Christ and someone who lives out the Golden Rule in all the good she has done for women and children. Many affectionately call her Sister Hillary.
SNIP
grantcart
(53,061 posts)pnwmom
(109,025 posts)whathehell
(29,111 posts)We have a winner!
Baconator
(1,459 posts)Doesn't mean it isn't justified or for the greater good.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)bigotry is indeed just bigotry. Should we start hunting down the religious with the pedophiles?
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)Baconator
(1,459 posts)lapfog_1
(29,243 posts)into one political group... one that supports Trump no matter what.
One can be forgiven if there is a certain stereotype mow associated with the term.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)group as being evil money grabbers or terrorists we should accept that. That is excrement upon excrement. I think FL Obama's guidance that "When they go low we go high" Is more in line with my values. The problem when you start digging with lies and bigotry there is no bottom, as Trump has shown. You are free to follow Trump's methods, I will follow Obama's. I am not an Evangelical but there are people who consider themselves Evangelical here and I will stand up for them.
lapfog_1
(29,243 posts)once the media created fog is lifted, the stereotype should disappear as well.
People have an innate need to classify and objectify.
So on the other side of our political divide, we constantly see exactly what you describe ( "all Muslims are terrorists, etc ) and we rightly object to this. It is a little slower when it is our turn to be propagandized into thinking of a group through media provided spectacles.
I see a big pickup with truck "nutz" hanging from the hitch and a big American flag flying from the flag stand in the middle of the bed and Texax plates... with a guy driving it who looks like Larry the Cable Guy's older and fatter brother... and I excuse myself if I make some rash conclusions about the driver and his political and moral beliefs, even his intelligence and education level. But those are all simply based on a stereotype.
Thus so when someone says "evangelical" to me, I create ( wrongly as you point out ) a certain image and set of beliefs because I only know evangelicals from what I see on the news. People who are hypocrites of the highest order, people who do NOT follow the teachings of Christ or any other religious figure from history, people full of hate and bigotry for many of us on the left.
demmiblue
(36,920 posts)uppityperson
(115,681 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)You know the historical equivalents, the Inquisition, book burners, witch burners, Crusades, religious wars, dunce caps, heliocentrism, killing heretics, no science, only one religion, enslaving non-believers, property appropriations, continental genocides, dispossession of the unfaithful, ............
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)And most of them vote Democratic. Let's not smear all evangelicals with the same brush.
randr
(12,418 posts)get the red out
(13,468 posts)have made it clear what the vast majority of them are about and I am willing to believe them.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)thbobby
(1,474 posts)Saying all Evangelicals are bad makes as much sense as saying all tall people are smart (I am tall, and we are not all smart).
Haters have started using the name Evangelicals as a way of justifying their putrid beliefs.
But many Evangelicals are very good people. Just as many tall people are smart (I am just not one of them).
Dorian Gray
(13,535 posts)here who are in no way Ku Klux Klan material. Or Trump voters.
Just saying, the conflation is unfair.
(And after reading this thread, I get why people feel alienated. No, I am not evangelical.)
maxrandb
(15,401 posts)JI7
(89,289 posts)These people were exposed as being white supremacists with their support for trump.
LAS14
(13,792 posts)LAS14
(13,792 posts)Let's clean up our DU act and not drift into ignorance and bigotry. This site illustrates the really excellent attributes of a whole bunch of evangelicals.