{"id":1356,"date":"2019-08-13T14:01:07","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T21:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/?p=1356"},"modified":"2019-08-13T14:01:07","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T21:01:07","slug":"the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unbearable Lightness of Evangelical Triggers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve written before<\/a> of how evangelicals get upset over the wrong things.\u00a0 And new examples seem to come unbidden all the time.\u00a0 I suppose this is what happens when evangelical pastors and leaders, out-source their discipleship and teaching duties to Fox News, Breitbart, and other right-wing propaganda outlets.<\/p>\n

The average evangelical pastor has no idea what he\u2019s up against.\u00a0 They get a couple hours on Sunday and maybe an hour or two during the week, but these \u201cnews\u201d outlets get to disciple and teach several hours a day, seven days a week, year-round.\u00a0 There\u2019s no competition.\u00a0 These poor pastors, leaders, and teachers think they are discipling and shaping their flocks, but they show up with that goal already accomplished and then \u201chear\u201d everything the pastor is saying through the grid already provided them by the likes of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.<\/p>\n

Sadly, we know there are many evangelical pastors, leaders, teachers, and professors, who have, themselves, been discipled by these right-wing channels of propaganda.\u00a0 At some point, they re-interpreted much of what they had learned so it would comport with the new understanding given them by people, who, upon cursory inspection, are nothing more than political ideologues taking advantage of peoples\u2019 prejudices and fears. And, it\u2019s worked.<\/p>\n

For decades, Christian ethics and morality in evangelical circles have been re-interpreted to fit a modern right-wing ideology, rather than the rich and deep tradition going back 2000 years and longer.\u00a0 And now, the chickens are coming home to roost.\u00a0 When we out-source our teaching of ethics to hucksters and pseudo-intellectuals, we get these sorts of responses and triggers.\u00a0 When we have been fed a steady diet of the ethical equivalent to hot dogs and Twinkies in their moral nutritional value, we get this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let me get this straight: We\u2019re not triggered over the abject dishonesty and lack of integrity, paying off porn stars, the serial adultery, the tacit support of those trying to disrupt our democracy, obstruction of justice, the sexism, the racism, putting children in cages and separating families, the bullying, the name-calling, and the crass narcissism of an insecure, small, angry, and petty man.<\/p>\n

No, none of that.\u00a0 We\u2019re not upset this man, who is a cross between Archie Bunker and Michael Scott, is a national and international embarrassment.\u00a0 We\u2019re not upset he\u2019s a propagator of insane conspiracy theories and goes out of his way to divide people and push them farther apart.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 We\u2019re not upset he defends dictators and murderers while calling into question leaders of democracies, his own intelligence agencies, the FBI, and our allies around the world.\u00a0 Nope, we\u2019re fine with all that.<\/p>\n

What will trigger us however, what will really upset us, what will make us call our congressperson or senator, is, yep, you got it: cussing.\u00a0 And God forbid anyone throw in the Lord\u2019s name\u2014then<\/em> we will get our boxers in a real wad.\u00a0 We will rush by the people truly offended and hurt by Trump\u2019s racism, sexism, and other weightier ethical failures, to wag our fingers in his face.\u00a0 Like he cares.\u00a0 Folks, if this other stuff doesn\u2019t bother him, do you really think he cares one whit that his normal way of speaking and thinking offends you somehow?\u00a0 Please.\u00a0 You\u2019ve been had.\u00a0 He knows what you are\u2014and as to what it may cost him, it\u2019s just a quibble over price at this point.<\/p>\n

We have a segment of evangelicals out there with an understanding of ethics and morality on par with that of a child and their understanding of physics.\u00a0 Their sense of scale, of what matters, of moral weight in the balance of things, is seriously off.\u00a0 It is unbearably light, flimsy, and air like.\u00a0 Since it cannot bear any weight, we get the ridiculous responses from these people triggered more by Trump\u2019s cussing than his racism\/sexism or his being just a generally terrible person.\u00a0 This is where we are and it\u2019s really a damn shame.<\/p>\n

I have a Patreon<\/a> Page\u2014please consider supporting my writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve written before of how evangelicals get upset over the wrong things.\u00a0 And new examples seem to come unbidden all the time.\u00a0 I suppose this is what happens when evangelical pastors and leaders, out-source their discipleship and teaching duties to Fox News, Breitbart, and other right-wing propaganda outlets. The average evangelical pastor has no idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3524,"featured_media":1362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[140,143,344,750,485],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ethics","tag-evangelicalism","tag-political","tag-spiritual-formation","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Unbearable Lightness of Evangelical Triggers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019ve written before of how evangelicals get upset over the wrong things.\u00a0 And new examples seem to come unbidden all the time.\u00a0 I suppose this is what\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Unbearable Lightness of Evangelical Triggers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve written before of how evangelicals get upset over the wrong things.\u00a0 And new examples seem to come unbidden all the time.\u00a0 I suppose this is what\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Divergence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-13T21:01:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1004\/2019\/08\/scale-2635397_640.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"355\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@darrelllackey1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/\",\"name\":\"The Unbearable Lightness of Evangelical Triggers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-13T21:01:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-08-13T21:01:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\"},\"description\":\"I\u2019ve written before of how evangelicals get upset over the wrong things.\u00a0 And new examples seem to come unbidden all the time.\u00a0 I suppose this is what\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2019\/08\/13\/the-unbearable-lightness-of-evangelical-triggers\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Unbearable Lightness of Evangelical Triggers\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\",\"name\":\"Divergence\",\"description\":\"Commentary Regarding Fundamentalism - 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