{"id":342,"date":"2017-05-01T18:05:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T18:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kimberlystover\/2017\/05\/01\/jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus\/"},"modified":"2017-07-18T10:51:34","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T14:51:34","slug":"jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kimberlystover\/2017\/05\/01\/jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Falwell Jr. Says &#8216;Evangelicals Have Found Their Dream President.&#8217; It is Time for Us to Denounce these Pharisees and Speak Out."},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-425\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/781\/2017\/05\/falwell.png\" alt=\"falwell\" width=\"727\" height=\"381\"><\/p>\n<p>Saturday, April 29, 2017, Jerry Falwell Jr., an influential evangelical leader and president of Liberty University, spoke with Fox News celebrating Donald Trump\u2019s first 100 days of being president of the United States of America. In the interview Falwell said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think evangelicals have found their dream president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/m.huffpost.com\/us\/entry\/us_5906950fe4b05c3976807a08\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Watch the interview here.<\/a><br>\nThis almost leaves me speechless. Who are these so-called evangelicals? Donald Trump is the embodiment of total immorality. His words, actions, policies, and lifestyle are completely unlike Jesus Christ, whom they adamantly claim to follow and worship.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m tired. I am so exhausted from trying to make sense of this rabbit hole we have been in now for over a year watching the religious right continue day after day support and praise this president. I am tired of their silence. It is time they open their eyes and see how they are being manipulated. It is time they rise up and speak out. I have to believe that there are people all over this nation that are sitting in their churches afraid to stand up and say \u201cenough is enough.\u201d I have to believe that they aren\u2019t all blindly drinking the Kool-aid of these so-called Christian leaders and so -called Christian politicians. I have to believe that they\u2019re out there, but too scared to \u201ccome out of the Trump closet\u201d in fear that they\u2019ll be estranged from their church, family, and friends.<\/p>\n<p>I know that fear. I have lived it. Luckily, through life experience I lost all ability to care about what other people think. However, that religion can lock you in a cage of silence and throw away the key. They do it by manipulation. They do it by reinforcing week after week the rhetoric of guilt and shame.<\/p>\n<p>I have to believe that they are having a crisis with this election, even if they aren\u2019t courageous enough to admit it. I have to believe that there are those in regret, and those in confusion, wondering what has become of their faith. Those of us on the outside are watching the church fall apart. We are watching the message of Jesus become so unrecognizable that I am struggling to understand why anyone in their right mind would ever be enticed to become a Christian. It is completely unfortunate because I know how badly Jesus\u2019 message of unconditional love is needed.<\/p>\n<p>I would like to tell these scared evangelicals:<\/p>\n<p>It is time for you to rise. Make a statement. Walk out if you have to. Your religion is falling away and the whole world is watching. Most importantly, you aren\u2019t alone. There are so many of us out there who have been through this process. It is scary. It is lonely. But luckily, the numbers of people that aren\u2019t standing for this are growing, and we will be there for you. Your friends, family, and congregation need you. They need to be pulled out of this fog and perhaps you are the one to lead them out.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus tells us to love others. Does Donald Trump love others? Do his policies show love? Does his budget show love? Do his daily egotistical tweets show love? Do his daily lies show love?<\/p>\n<p>If you aren\u2019t going to speak out and stand up for the things Jesus was about, then please I beg you stop equating Jesus to the GOP. Stop equating Jesus to Trump. There is a hurting, dying world out there that needs the message of unconditional love, grace, acceptance, forgiveness, and freedom to begin again at any time.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe even you need that message.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, April 29, 2017, Jerry Falwell Jr., an influential evangelical leader and president of Liberty University, spoke with Fox News celebrating Donald Trump\u2019s first 100 days of being president of the United States of America. In the interview Falwell said: \u201cI think evangelicals have found their dream president.\u201d Watch the interview here. This almost leaves [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3008,"featured_media":425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[16,22,47,56,67,70,71,81,87,90,101,137],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-spirituality","tag-black-sheep","tag-christianity","tag-evangelical-christianity","tag-gop","tag-hypocrisy","tag-jerry-falwell-jr","tag-jesus","tag-liberals","tag-love","tag-message-of-jesus","tag-pharisees","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jerry Falwell Jr. Says &#039;Evangelicals Have Found Their Dream President.&#039; It is Time for Us to Denounce these Pharisees and Speak Out.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Saturday, April 29, 2017, Jerry Falwell Jr., an influential evangelical leader and president of Liberty University, spoke with Fox News celebrating Donald\" \/>\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\/kimberlystover\/2017\/05\/01\/jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jerry Falwell Jr. Says &#039;Evangelicals Have Found Their Dream President.&#039; It is Time for Us to Denounce these Pharisees and Speak Out.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Saturday, April 29, 2017, Jerry Falwell Jr., an influential evangelical leader and president of Liberty University, spoke with Fox News celebrating Donald\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kimberlystover\/2017\/05\/01\/jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kimberly Stover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-01T18:05:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-07-18T14:51:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/781\/2017\/05\/falwell.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"978\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"513\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kimberly Stover\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kimberly Stover\" \/>\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\/kimberlystover\/2017\/05\/01\/jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kimberlystover\/2017\/05\/01\/jerry-falwell-jr-says-evangelicals-have-found-their-dream-president-it-is-time-for-evangelicals-to-denounce-these-pharisees-and-speak-out-for-jesus\/\",\"name\":\"Jerry Falwell Jr. Says 'Evangelicals Have Found Their Dream President.' 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