Catholic and Enjoying It!
A reader writes:
Between this and the AHCA, as Ross Douthat tweeted it, “This has not been a particularly good day for the Catholic case for Trump.”
So far it looks like the Trump administration will in the end have given religious people an awfully costly SCOTUS appointment and possibly nothing more (other than stopping Hillary Clinton from terminating life on planet earth, which she clearly planned to do). Oy. If only someone could have predicted this would happen. Oh. Wait.
The notion that Clinton was going to “terminate life on planet earth” is silly. Sure, she was a hawk, but she’s not barking nuts, a believer in Alex Jones, and a sociopathic wahoo with no clue of what the Constitution says or of the way the government works. In other words, she’s no Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, yes: Trump has bought and paid for not merely the silence, but the enthusiastic and lying support of conservative Christians. Kellyanne Conway, though not an important figure in the Administration, stands as a permanent icon of the seduction and corruption Trump has achieved with the monomaniac “prolife” Christian right.
From the perspective of Christian evangelization, the principal achievement of the Trump Administration has been to transform his Christian defenders into liars and defenders of evil who are more passionate and brazen than he is. From “alternative facts” to her recent audacious virtuoso display of lies to defend Trump’s firing of Comey, Conway demonstrates what Liars for Jesus Trumpian Christianity is. And she has been consistently hailed by Good White Christians as the very model of Christian success in politics. The corruption of Christian witness and the creation of massive scandal by Christians prostituted to defending every lie and cruelty this man has committed is the main achievement of this Administration. And the enemies of the gospel will not forget it.
There has been a profound change in the Religious Right in the past 20 years, but two things have sped the transformation: the election of Pope Francis and the election of Donald Trump. What was once inchoate has hardened into a postmodern commitment to an Orwellian dictatorship of relativism that is not merely accepted, but *led* by Christians acting as court prophets and propagandists and liars.
And all for the false carrot that, this time for sure, they will magic abortion away and will finally have that place at the table where they will “influence policy” and turn the Dear Leader from a Baby Christian into their New Constantine.
He has played them like fiddles. All his “concessions” have been cosmetic and false. All theirs have been real and eviscerating of the gospel they profess. They are now willing to lie that a sex predator is no such thing, that driving poor people off health care is compatible with the gospel, and that any lie or cruelty their Dear Leader champions is worth if for the Greater Good.
Their children will curse them. In fact, they already are.
That’s why the complaint “Stop talking about this stuff and stick to talking about the Faith” is such an epic display of stone blindness to the Church evangelistic mission. I *am* talking about the Faith–and trying to fight the massive scandal Trumpian Christianity presents to the world.
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