Atilla you may want to step back and reconsider your approach to this conversation.
This is neither appropriate nor helpful, and the only hate-filled comment I've come across in this entire thread is your own. Give the original article a reread if you think that will help shift your perspective to one that's more conducive to debate if that's what you want to do.
Strong words. Please explain what “left think” is and then explain in concrete detail how it embodies “racism,” “hatred,” “depravity,” etc. I would like to see something resembling reasoned discourse in connection with these charges.
One of the reasons I switched parties long ago was the hate on the right. Which is nothing compared to today.
God loved everyone. Not just 1 type of person.
I was raised in a very strict So Baptist home taught to fear God. You don’t respect what you fear. Love and hate are two separate emotions too. God Is love. Not hate.
Ignorance comes from not understanding. How can you call people idiots when you prefer to stay in the bubble of ignorance and hate? I’m sorry you’re feeling so much hate.
I do not hate anything but evil. The term "useful idiot" is not coined by me. It is a term the communists use for those they have filled with propaganda. What makes you think I stay in a bubble of ignorance? I research what's happening in the world 3-4 hours/day. I look at the world from both sides. I utilize critical thinking skills. I know and love the Lord my God, Yeshua. Because I do, I feel inclined to expose the evil insanity being propagated in our country. The full term and after birth abortions are an abomination unto the Lord. The mutilation of young children for sex changes without parental consent. The introduction of sexual perversion and drag queens in elementary schools. The cities crumbling on themselves because of George Soros and other leftist billionaires infusing money into politics to get their far left agenda advanced. An advancement that does not enforce the law. Open borders allowing billions of dollars worth of drugs into the country. I weep for the young children being trafficked for sex. The believer’s fear is reverence of God. Hebrews 12:28-29 is a good description of this: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ’God is a consuming fire.’” This reverence and awe are exactly what the fear of God means for Christians. This is the motivating factor for us to surrender to the Creator of the Universe. I have not witnessed hate from the right, but I see it daily coming from the left. Democrat politicians have been endorsing violence as a political tactic for years. From Cory Booker to Maxine Waters and on and on the violent rhetoric continues. When Roe v. Wade was struck down, the left went crazy. Believe me, it's not conservatives destroying cities like Portland, Seattle and all the larger left wing controlled cities. I'm sorry you think I'm filled with hate, when the complete antithesis is the reality. I just speak out against hate and hateful things. I don't speak out in support of hate, but there sure seems to be plenty of it out there.
You are no better than them for anyone else spewing those remarks.
I was raised in a strict So Baptist home. I saw crap like that. It made me I’ll then just as it does now.
No matter what anyone says to you, you won’t hear it, you’ll find fault with it, and quite some radical far right research that you read for 4 hours a day.
My advice to you.
Stop reading that stuff. Instead, go outside. Visit with people that are different from you. Open your mind up. Learn tolerance.
There are plenty of people on every spectrum that speck hate. And that includes your so-called tribe too.
The mere fact you even said that, shows your out of touch. Which is sad.
My father was a lousy father growing up. But he loved everyone. There wasn’t a soul he was cruel to even if they didn’t share his beliefs. I’m very thankful I saw that in him.
You don’t need to speak out in support of hate. You just speak it. It’s there.
Hate takes energy and time wasted. We only live once and life is very short.
Now that you've taken up *plenty* of real estate to make your case for "why do much hate," I defer you to my original response this morning -- this is all incoherent gobbledygook. Touch grass. Please. Before these absurdities you believe cause you to do something atrocious.
Do you not realize that all this bile on the internet you consume is driven by those who have a deep psychological need for the "Marxist left" as you call them to be so horrendously evil, in order to justify their throwing all their eggs in with a wannabe autocrat indicted coup plotter rapist Donald Trump? What was life like for you before 2016 --- go back to that. You're a politco-infotainment addict and a mark.
Atilla, hello 😊. Having spent most of my adult life practicing medicine, please allow me to share medical terminology and practices with you
You state “The full term and after birth abortions are an abomination unto the Lord. The mutilation of young children for sex changes without parental consent.”
There’s no such thing as an after birth abortion. A child is born with a time of birth alive. Some babies survive with horrendous birth defects who pass away hours to a few days after; some arrive stillborn (dying in the uterus). Some women who have babies late term with defects that cannot be addressed after birth decide to induce early labor. These babies cannot survive. Conditions such as no kidneys, organs not formed inside the abdominal cavity with protruding heart (also called monster baby), and brain development disorders of catastrophic failure happen. Can you imagine you, yourself knowing that your doctor giving you zero percent chance of your baby’s survival 30-35 weeks gestation, still having to wait to deliver?
The dilemma politicians have caused for OB/GYNs to properly care for their pregnant patients is horrific. If a woman experiences a miscarriage, medical doctors refer to them as complete abortion (and truly no procedure was done — it’s always been called that) or incomplete abortion, meaning there are retained products of conception still in the woman’s uterus.
Miscarriages occur a lot. Most of the time they’re complete abortions and the patient is sent home to rest. If the abortion is incomplete, a drug can be prescribed to make the uterus contract better and expel the tissues, or a D&C is necessary to scrape out stuck on tissue to the uterine walls as the patient will continue to bleed heavily or get an infection and die from sepsis if she’s waited too long to seek medical attention.
After Roe was overturned, doctors in some states had their hands tied in doing D&Cs unless the patient was on the brink of death herself. Many would stay in the parking lot of hospitals. 1/290 women will experience an ectopic pregnancy where a fertilized egg gets stuck in the fallopian tube or embed in the intestinal wall. Surgery is required; however one politician I remember posed the solution that it could be “put back where it belongs”…..it unfortunately doesn’t work that way. Politicians are NOT doctors.
Yet they’ve made it their mission to know better than doctors in some states on how pregnancy should progress. Consequences be damned if you’re not so lucky to unforeseen complications.
Just look at the case of the happily expectant mother from Texas, cast into a horrific nightmare. If you haven’t read the specifics of her pregnancy, it’s a good example.
Now in states with bans, we’re seeing a mass exodus of OB/GYNs, leaving prenatal care in rural areas completely barren for expectant moms.
Speaking out on transgender, doctors aren’t chopping or adding anything to any child under age 18. They may be receiving hormonal therapy, but that’s it. And their parents must be aware. They don’t treat minors without parental consent. And how could the child afford to without insurance? (I think the parents would be shocked after receiving the bill or insurance EOB!) 🤣.
Sorry, Atlanta, it is the MAGA Cult members who are referred to as 'useful idiots.' This is because they don't seem to have any critical thinking skills to know when they are being lied to or are spreading lies.
Furthermore, hiding behind a blob does not indicate the courage of the convictions you state.
Useful idiot is a term currently used to reference a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause—particularly a bad cause originating from a devious, ruthless source—without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically being used by the cause's leaders. The term was often used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. In terms of critical thinking skills, the left is totally lacking; sucking up the words of mindless Marxist media minions who are so hell bent on turning America into a 3rd world country; and are really doing a terrific job of it .... with adequate help from the "useful idiots" they can so easily lie to and influence.
Marxist this Marxist that Marxist up Marxist down. It's when you step out of the frothy waters you swim in that you come off as completely incoherent. You're nothing but a fair weather fan of politico-infotainment; touch grass.
I must say, when you, yourself defined "useful idiot", as I was reading that definition, all I could envision was you and all of the other Christian Nationalist (Anti-Christians, I might add) spewing all that rhetoric in the name of God. But I submit that the Jesus I know is the embodiment of love and tolerance and kindness. I do not the God or Jesus that you people seem to follow. You and I probably share a lot of the same ideals, but we think very differently about people and how to treat them. We think very differently about how to win souls to Christ. I have a very deeply rooted faith and relationship with my Creator and my Savior. It is because of my genuine Christian faith that I vote Democrat. No, I do not agree with all of the tenets of the Democratic party. But I agree with more of their ideals than Republicans, for sure. The Democratic party is about helping the everyday, average person. The Democratic party is about helping the poor and oppressed, it is about seeking justice for all humans (much like Christ Himself), and never have I once heard a Democratic politician spew racist remarks or say anything to make me feel that they do not see all people as equal under God. However, I am an open-minded individual, I only and always seek the truth. Therefore, if you can give me some credible, verifiable evidence of any public figure within the Democratic party who is actually guilty of the accusations you have made about them being violent, racist, and filled with hate, I am absolutely willing to review it in detail. I would also like to submit, that most of the Christians I know personally and have fellowship with, consider themselves Democrats and their reasons are the same as mine. We do not believe that a person who is genuinely a Christian (meaning that they actually let Jesus live in their hearts and they let Jesus guide them, through biblical teaching and through relationship with Him), and not just calling themselves that or fooling themselves into believing that they are Christian; we do not believe that the genuine Christian could ever in good conscience vote Republican, as it is as you say, the "antithesis" of Christian living.
So you lean toward fascism. I guess that is your privilege. Hope you like what you get, but doesn't say much for you as an American or even a human being.
How you suffer. Take it to Jesus. Maybe He can get your head right. You know He is in charge of all of this, right? Maybe you might relax and trust Him. He is bigger than Karl Marx. He doesn't need you to run the Universe.
After reading this part of the comment thread, it has become clear this is little more than a desperate attempt at gaining "troll" cred. That has clearly been achieved. Sometimes it's better to realize the only thing a troll is looking for is gasoline for their fire.
There are certainly a lot of people suffering under the heavy hand of this current administration. I do what I can to help. Where exactly is the self hate comment coming from? Are you projecting?
I pray that, if you genuinely believe in and have a relationship with Christ, you will open your heart to hear His voice and come to understand that the message you are spreading is not the message of love, kindness, and mercy that Christ taught and lived. We do agree on one thing, that this world and this nation are truly facing perilous times filled with racism, hatred, and moral depravity. However, you have been deeply deceived as to the source of these problems. I pray that your veil will be lifted, and your eyes will be opened to the truth. In Jesus name.
Thank you so very much for sharing your story! I haven't shared much of mine yet, but here goes:
It boils down to while I was in the ministry I became someone at odds with himself. I wanted to serve God. I wanted to minister. But the increasing social injustices that I was being witness to just in my little community of Gwinn, Michigan had begun to tear down my wall (to steal your term). Racial profiling, people in the LGBTQ+ communities having their houses egged and otherwise vandalized. Things that never made it to the news up here. I was being asked questions I couldn't answer.
Here I am, a Pastor with the charge of planting a church, and I can't answer questions like "Why would God let this happen?" So I began to research. I began to dig. I hadn't yet heard the term "deconstruction" but that's what was happening. My course over corrected though, unlike yours. I sought solace in Atheism, in Wicca. But something never felt right to me. I continued to be at odds with myself. I continued to have more questions than answers. My marriage collapsed (another story entirely though not completely unconnected to this) and I found myself homeless for a short period before a friend brought me into her house and the rebuilding of my life began.
The past five years have been a continual growing experience for me. I know the arguments against God very well now. I don't disagree with all of them. But I discovered a term that was the first peg in a new life at that point: non-overlapping majesterium. Stephen J Gould, an atheist, coined this term in regards to faith and science.
Could faith and science be this non-overlapping majesterium? Could faith have a place in a life? More pegs began to connect boards. The ground floor of my life post-deconstruction was coming into place.
I read up on Universalism and Pantheism, and found I really couldn't argue with that. And then the second story started to be built............I discovered Kevin and many others who were talking the same way I was believing! GOD WAS LOVE AFTER ALL and GOD WOULD TAKE ME BACK.
It's been an interesting journey and one that I love having been through, because as the house of faith that is within me has been rebuilt, room by room, floor by floor (and yes it has a full basement); I have now returned to at least a small bit of the ministry, and now I do have some answers. I won't ever have ALL the answers and I'm okay with saying "I don't know, let me talk with some peers and see if I can't find an answer for you," or saying plainly "I don't know."
Thank you Kevin, for all you've done in my life in the past short time period. God's been working on me throughout the wilderness of over 10 years, and I can see that now!
If a statement can be tested yielding a result of true or false, then that statement belongs to science. The practice of science is exactly the process of constructing and challenging repeatable tests for observations not dependent on who is doing the observing. They are objective.
If a statement is not falsifiable and cannot be tested this way yielding the same result regardless of who performs the test, then it belongs to faith. It may still be true or false, but we don't have a test for it.
Faith and Science are not overlapping. People who tell you that scientific knowledge is accepted without question on the basis of authority do not understand what science is.
(I am agreeing with and trying to amplify the poster above) (Stephen J Gould had a long-running science column in the NYT. His articles were collected into wonderful, fun to read books about evolution)
I believe I spoke of Non-Overlapping Majesterium. Which is exactly what you just said. Nowhere do I say that I accept, or believe, that science is accepted without question and on the basis of authority. I'm not sure you understood what I was saying my reply to Kevin.
I'm not in the clergy, but my story is similar. Lifelong Republican since voting for Reagan in 1980. I, too, voted for Trump in 2016. When he first became president I blew off most of his ridiculous comments and policies thinking that he couldn't be serious. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was how he acted when John McCain died. From that moment I vowed to take action. I had never been active in politics, nor really paid that much attention. In the time leading up to the 2020 election, I joined other Republicans against Donald Trump as we raised our voices against him.
Donald Trump is evil personified. Perhaps the Lord is using him as a tool to help Christians see the light. We can all agree that Donald Trump is a TOOL!
Totally agree. Trump is 100% evil, a moral cancer on our country, a monster. He appeals to the darkest depths: please resist him and the authoritarian Christian nationalism that some on this thread have embraced. We are not each others' enemies; we must lift up the weakest and have compassion and empathy for those whom we perceive to be different.
Observing the evangelical movement during the Trump era has caused a crisis in faith for me. I no longer recognize the religious movement I was born into. I look at it now with pity, disgust, and shame. Christianity and Trumpism are antithetical and yet they’ve blurred into one for most parishioners. I want no part of mega churches, religion tinted Trump rallies, and thinly veiled racism. I’m out. Christ doesn’t live there.
I pray that you will not be driven from Christ by all the false representations of Him out there. I agree completely with your thinking, but please don't lose your relationship with the real Jesus Christ. He does live, just not there. Trust me there are still some genuine Christians and genuine bible-based churches in this nation. Find us and fortify your faith.
I've shared with you already that there are similarities in our journeys even though they happened a decade apart.
I regret every minute of being in the conservative movement. Every minute was a debasement of my soul and the debasement of the souls around me as my beliefs became behaviors that shamed and excluded and shouted down people who were the Beloved of Christ.
I can claim I was lied to—and I was, often—but I can say that I also felt uneasy the entire time that what I was belonging to was destructive. It was a belief system founded on lies by men of ill intention, and distilled and fed to people as a movement that was only about purity and holiness and righteousness.
I can remember the various times that something came across my view that disturbed me, but I generally shrugged it off. The very long paper about the foundations of my own church denomination as made by men who owned humans as property because saw that situation fit for the salvation of the enslaved? Well, perhaps they might have been a little off, but they were men of great faith. The denial of the cries for relief from the oppressed in America today, oppressed because of skin color or gender or sexual orientation? If they would just act like white straight males do, they'd be far better off—we're a land of opportunity for white straight males, so obviously everyone else can come along with us.
The in-your-face rejection of people who told me/asked me directly to listen to them was about maintaining a righteous understanding of America and its founding principles. It was white Republicans who fought to end enslavement; it was Republicans who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and Voting Rights Act of 1966; it was the Republicans who fought against Democrats in 1860 which proves that Republicans fighting against Democrats in the 2000s was exactly the same even though the parties had literally switched sides on civil governance and social & caste values.
It took a brave man to tell me to my face that I, as a white man, was refusing to see him as a Black man. And I was shocked to be confronted, shocked to consider that perhaps I was ignorant, shocked to consider that I had been avoiding what was plainly in front of me.
I went home and wept for my cruelty and indifference and rejection, and for all the decades I had wasted in being "conservative" when what I was was going along with the most selfish, cynical, and white supremacist people who lied from morning 'til night about the rightness of their beliefs.
Maybe in all those years of "not listening" I was listening. Maybe my younger self that was soft and tender had been waiting all along to come out to remind me of who I wanted to be.
I don't know.
I credit God with bringing me repentance. I have attempted to do right by what I have done wrong, making amends as I find opportunity, seeking forgiveness and relationship where I had denied love and acceptance, offering restoration and even reparations to those who have been harmed by the actions of me or of people like me.
Did it take 8 minutes? Maybe. Maybe it was 8 seconds. Maybe it took 45 years. But whatever the cause, I am pushed into change, and it is nothing but good that it happened.
Would that I could go back and undo all the cruel acts I committed, but the past is written in stone. All I can do is to write a better story starting now.
I'm reading all these comments and finding the space to breathe again. The Christianity I grew up with as a child never would have included a bigoted egotist like Donald Trump. I couldn't believe that so many Christians found him appealing. I'm so glad they don't. You should all check out Faithful America. I think you would find kindred spirits there. Good luck.
Thank you. Your story brought back emotions that I thought were long passed since my “switch flipped” almost 15 years ago.
I was a conservative Republican from before I could vote in 1976 working for the Ford campaign. My “switch flipped” about four months after I returned from Iraq in 2008. I was dealing with PTSD and what is now known as Moral Injury as a Navy Chaplain and saw all the lies about the war. Then one day I was going from my office at Ft Story to our headquarters at Little Creek while listening to Rush Limbaugh as I had done for years. He was in the middle of a very racist screed about Barack Obama when I began sobbing. I had to pull over to the side of the road crying uncontrollably. At that point it all came crashing down. Obama was the first Democratic I had ever voted for President.
In the years that followed I was ostracized and ghosted by most of my conservative clergy friends in my denomination and in the Chaplain Corps. I was also kicked out of my denomination in the summer of 2010 for being “too liberal.”
Your journey parallels mine in many ways. It was the riots in 1968 that stampeded me over to Nixon and then Ford; it was a long long time before I got myself righted and not until 2010 was I able to vote for a Democrat. By 2012 the repentance was complete. I abjure my former ways which were "conservative" only as a flag to cover up fear and anger, my own, of course, but whipped up by the media I consumed. I wasn't smart enough to recognize the manipulation. I'm still not smart, but perhaps I'm a little more aware.
It was the anti-war protests that demonized military personnel when my dad was in Vietnam that took me that direction, especially a Sunday school teacher who said that my dad was a “baby killer.”
I like to think that I'm a smart guy and wouldn't be taken in by propaganda or be manipulated into supporting things that in my heart of hearts I detest.
When I was a young kid and even into my early early teens I was seeking kindness and love, and seeking a community weal that was for those on the margins. It's what confounded me when Martin was shot, and it's what traumatized me when RFK was shot.
And I fell for the manipulation of conservatives who sought me not as a person with a soul but as a voter with a ballot.
By the time I was finished with high school, I was fully in the camp of conservatism. believing it would "save America" from riot and ruin. Would save me and protect me. Me, a white Christian man with all the inordinate privileges that came with it, scared for my life. My senior class art project was a portrait of Richard Nixon behind a waving American flag. I managed to make him look good. (I wish I could find the picture -- I saved it, and now see it as an ironic manifestation of what I had been turned into. My works could never be mistaken for those of McNaughton and his deification of #45, but I surely was motivated.)
Reading NIXONLAND was a revelation, but that was in combination with many other books I began reading in my mid-50s when God took me and shook me awake.
I had been lied to, and I'd accepted the lies *because I wanted to*. Sure, conservatives manipulated me, but I didn't resist.
The way of recovery for me has been slow and I am still in the process. So much of what I thought were the true articles of belief and practice have turned out to be inventive fictions designed to make me, a white guy, feel good about being a terrible person.
As I've said elsewhere, I can't undo my past and can't undo my participation in building and elevating white male supremacy in the U.S.
What I can do now is to acknowledge it, turn from it, and attempt to repair the wounds that I myself, along with others, have made to the bodies and lives of those in America who are deemed unworthy of bearing the Imago Dei.
I don't know that I'm doing all that much that is effective, and as God helps me to see better, I am committed to doing better.
But for now, I am doing the best that I can in my attempts to be yielded to grace, love, kindness, and hope.
Being Christian, I have heard some of the pro-Trump accolades from some of my church friends, fine Christian people, and yet they tend to criticize President Biden and Democrats across the board, as though they can do no right, and Trump can do no wrong. Yet our pastor has made this statement in several sermons over the years, that 'if there is no change, there is no Christ'.
I try to keep that in mind every time I read/ study the Bible, the Gospels particularly, and I try to imagine, and understand, how Jesus treated various people during His time on earth. Trump's treatment of people, and Jesus' way of treating people, could not be more different than night and day.
I grew up in a very similar conservative background, but never really identified as a Republican, sympathizing more with Libertarian political philosophies. When elections came around I researched as many candidates on my ballot as I could and would often vote third party, but whenever there were only two candidates to vote for I'd always break red.
I also voted for Trump in 2016. I was told over and over again that it was the right thing to do; that it was the only thing a Christian could do because we couldn't let Hillary become President. That as brash and antithetical Donald Trump was to everything I stood for and believed, choosing a devout Christian conservative like Mike Pence as his running mate would surely temper Trump's worst instincts and behavior and Pence would keep him in check.
Throughout his presidency I thought Trump was just as ridiculous as the day he announced his candidacy and the day I walked into the voting booth and held my nose to vote for him. As scandals continued to pile up around him and stories about some of the stupid and often cruel things he'd say in private leaked, I didn't give much credence to them because I believed American politics were just about as stupid, but at least he was passing and standing up for good conservative, Christian policies.
My "scales" moment ironically happened in a moment of deep faith: I felt the call to mission work and was led to Sierra Leone, where I served from the time I graduated college until a few months into the COVID pandemic.
My arrival in Sierra Leone was deeply impactful for me. For the first time in my life, I was in the racial minority. I was in the religious minority. Walking down the streets, children would wave to me shouting "apoto" - "white man" - and run up to me with the biggest smiles on their faces wanting to walk with me and ask me questions about my life, about my family, and about America.
The hardest thing I wrestled with those first few weeks wasn't adjusting to a new time zone or a new culture or even being unable to walk down the street without being noticed. Many of the children I spoke with shared dreams of leaving their country someday to go to America and make some money that they wanted to use to help their family. Everytime they shared their dreams of going to America or asked me questions about my home I was left with this knot in my stomach, this uncomfortable feeling that I didn't know where it came from or why it was there.
One day one of my kids asked me "Who is the President of America?" and that feeling hit me harder than it ever had before. I was deeply embarrassed, ashamed, and I didn't want to tell him that Donald Trump is the leader of my country. But I did, and he moved on to his next question, and I was finally able to understand what exactly I was feeling and I was better able to reflect upon why I felt that way afterwards.
I realized what came to mind was reporting that went in and out of my ear, successfully deflected by my wall when it first came out: Donald Trump's comments about people being from s**thole countries. When that was first reported my initial reaction was "eh, sounds like him, but what does it matter." When it came up in my reflection, I was overwhelmed and started crying.
Here I was in one of the poorest countries on the planet, who's people were so kind, loving, and welcoming to a total stranger who looked and talked nothing like them, and I knew what my president thought of them and of their country. That if any of the kids I'd met made it to America one day, they would not be met with the welcome and care I received in their country. That looking and talking different in America wouldn't be met with the love and openness I received from them.
It was the Iraq invasion - "shock and awe," built on lies - that did it for me. And I have been more and more horrified over the years as the fruit of the deranged marriage between "conservative Christianity" and "conservative politics" has grown up into, of all things, lawless Trumpism. We have not yet swallowed all the poison, but the deadliest is coming. Predictably, we are reaching the point where "Christian" is considered a word for ignorance and hatred. How that must grieve our savior. I wish you would write more about how Trump's love of vengeance, hatred abd violence ever could have seemed "Christian" to you. People need to hear it.
Thank you for your honesty. I live in an area where not seeing open and virulent racism would be almost impossible. We need more people to wake up to this ugly, malignant part of society.
As a white woman with a black husband and black children, (let's be honest, they are both black and white, but society only sees them as black) I have seen the plight of black America more closely than a lot of white America has. The inequalities, even in this modern day are undeniable. However, the absolute blatant outright displays of racism that I am seeing and hearing these past few years, since Donald Trump gave a new license and platform to bigotry is heart breaking. I feel that we have been set back more than fifty years and I wonder how we will recover. Never before have I felt such deep fear for the future of my children, nor for the safety of them and my husband.
It's amazing how much of your story aligns with mine.
I also grew up very conservative. It was "christian's" responses to kolin kapernick and George Floyd that really started to wake me up. As well as a fantastic relationship with a very liberal christian (once he was a friend, the liberals weren't the boogey man any longer).
A very moving and (for me) illuminating statement. I would not describe what you used to be as conservative. I think the proper term for that is reactionary, which is what I think the modern GOP has become. Also, people seem to forget that, before the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s caused a lot of racist Democrats to become Republicans, the GOP used to have a contingent of political liberals and the Democratic Party used to have a fair contingent of conservatives and even reactionaries (especially the Dixiecrats). Also, people today seem to forget that Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive (even if at the same time he was also an imperialist and war monger).
We're not so different, really. I was a few years ahead of you in timing, mainly because my denomination isn't/wasn't really "fundamentalist". I hadn't had cable TV for years by 2016, and I already didn't like Trump at all - I thought he was the "novelty" candidate. Also I was beginning to hear, beginning to see by then, largely because Eric Garner and Ferguson hit me hard in 2014. I didn't vote straight ticket in 2016, but I didn't vote for Trump because I couldn't I've voted straight ticket ever since, though I check that impulse each time. I'm not really a Democrat; I call myself a "recovering Republican", and like you I'm really just a Christian who decided to follow Christ rather than the state religion that carries his name. And yes, my LGBTQ+ friends and loved ones forced me to think hard about some things and come to very similar conclusions as you have.
God bless you for the way you share His love and for your transparent confession here.
There are many who share your experience, albeit it in different ways, of turning away from engaging in politics of oppression to engaging in the apolitical cultivation of Christlike character. Since I am tribeless now, too, I like to think that someday we’ll find out as the ancient prophet did that there are many who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Perhaps as soon as 2024? May God have mercy on our nation.
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing this! I've been on a bit of a different journey...growing up in a more liberal household, I embraced conservativism and evangelism in my late teens/early 20's. Honestly, looking back, I think my type A personality liked the "certainty" that both movements offered. Things started coming undone for me during the 2016 election cycle. I had abstained from voting for certain Republicans in the past, so I did not have any qualms about not pulling the lever for Trump. In the end I voted third party. By 2020 many of the issues that you mentioned (covid, the racial reckoning, etc.) also led me to vote for a Democrat for the first time. I have since taken a lot more time and care when deciding who to vote for, at every level of government. I have voted for some Republicans, some Democrats and even abstained from voting in a few cases since then. I now consider myself to be a right-leaning moderate. I often feel politically homeless, but it helps to know I'm not the only one!
I’m pleased to see that cracks are finally appearing in the wall of bigotry and hate erected by decidedly NON-Christian evangelicals who twist and ignore what the NT actually says. But it sure is going to be a long road for a lot of those hypocritical Pharisees.
With a similar story, I often refer to myself as "a recovering Republican". Everyone finds it funny, except Republicans.
Me, too! It's in my Twitter bio now.
I frequently use the true moniker of being “a recovering Southern Baptist”.
Atilla you may want to step back and reconsider your approach to this conversation.
This is neither appropriate nor helpful, and the only hate-filled comment I've come across in this entire thread is your own. Give the original article a reread if you think that will help shift your perspective to one that's more conducive to debate if that's what you want to do.
Strong words. Please explain what “left think” is and then explain in concrete detail how it embodies “racism,” “hatred,” “depravity,” etc. I would like to see something resembling reasoned discourse in connection with these charges.
Nonsense. This is the comment of a right wing troll.
Why do much hate?
One of the reasons I switched parties long ago was the hate on the right. Which is nothing compared to today.
God loved everyone. Not just 1 type of person.
I was raised in a very strict So Baptist home taught to fear God. You don’t respect what you fear. Love and hate are two separate emotions too. God Is love. Not hate.
Ignorance comes from not understanding. How can you call people idiots when you prefer to stay in the bubble of ignorance and hate? I’m sorry you’re feeling so much hate.
I do not hate anything but evil. The term "useful idiot" is not coined by me. It is a term the communists use for those they have filled with propaganda. What makes you think I stay in a bubble of ignorance? I research what's happening in the world 3-4 hours/day. I look at the world from both sides. I utilize critical thinking skills. I know and love the Lord my God, Yeshua. Because I do, I feel inclined to expose the evil insanity being propagated in our country. The full term and after birth abortions are an abomination unto the Lord. The mutilation of young children for sex changes without parental consent. The introduction of sexual perversion and drag queens in elementary schools. The cities crumbling on themselves because of George Soros and other leftist billionaires infusing money into politics to get their far left agenda advanced. An advancement that does not enforce the law. Open borders allowing billions of dollars worth of drugs into the country. I weep for the young children being trafficked for sex. The believer’s fear is reverence of God. Hebrews 12:28-29 is a good description of this: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ’God is a consuming fire.’” This reverence and awe are exactly what the fear of God means for Christians. This is the motivating factor for us to surrender to the Creator of the Universe. I have not witnessed hate from the right, but I see it daily coming from the left. Democrat politicians have been endorsing violence as a political tactic for years. From Cory Booker to Maxine Waters and on and on the violent rhetoric continues. When Roe v. Wade was struck down, the left went crazy. Believe me, it's not conservatives destroying cities like Portland, Seattle and all the larger left wing controlled cities. I'm sorry you think I'm filled with hate, when the complete antithesis is the reality. I just speak out against hate and hateful things. I don't speak out in support of hate, but there sure seems to be plenty of it out there.
You blurbed so much hate for zero reasons.
It’s not your place to judge anyone.
You are no better than them for anyone else spewing those remarks.
I was raised in a strict So Baptist home. I saw crap like that. It made me I’ll then just as it does now.
No matter what anyone says to you, you won’t hear it, you’ll find fault with it, and quite some radical far right research that you read for 4 hours a day.
My advice to you.
Stop reading that stuff. Instead, go outside. Visit with people that are different from you. Open your mind up. Learn tolerance.
There are plenty of people on every spectrum that speck hate. And that includes your so-called tribe too.
The mere fact you even said that, shows your out of touch. Which is sad.
My father was a lousy father growing up. But he loved everyone. There wasn’t a soul he was cruel to even if they didn’t share his beliefs. I’m very thankful I saw that in him.
You don’t need to speak out in support of hate. You just speak it. It’s there.
Hate takes energy and time wasted. We only live once and life is very short.
✌️
Now that you've taken up *plenty* of real estate to make your case for "why do much hate," I defer you to my original response this morning -- this is all incoherent gobbledygook. Touch grass. Please. Before these absurdities you believe cause you to do something atrocious.
Do you not realize that all this bile on the internet you consume is driven by those who have a deep psychological need for the "Marxist left" as you call them to be so horrendously evil, in order to justify their throwing all their eggs in with a wannabe autocrat indicted coup plotter rapist Donald Trump? What was life like for you before 2016 --- go back to that. You're a politco-infotainment addict and a mark.
How in the world do you have time to weep for children given all the effort you put into “research”?
You do not belong here.
Atilla, hello 😊. Having spent most of my adult life practicing medicine, please allow me to share medical terminology and practices with you
You state “The full term and after birth abortions are an abomination unto the Lord. The mutilation of young children for sex changes without parental consent.”
There’s no such thing as an after birth abortion. A child is born with a time of birth alive. Some babies survive with horrendous birth defects who pass away hours to a few days after; some arrive stillborn (dying in the uterus). Some women who have babies late term with defects that cannot be addressed after birth decide to induce early labor. These babies cannot survive. Conditions such as no kidneys, organs not formed inside the abdominal cavity with protruding heart (also called monster baby), and brain development disorders of catastrophic failure happen. Can you imagine you, yourself knowing that your doctor giving you zero percent chance of your baby’s survival 30-35 weeks gestation, still having to wait to deliver?
The dilemma politicians have caused for OB/GYNs to properly care for their pregnant patients is horrific. If a woman experiences a miscarriage, medical doctors refer to them as complete abortion (and truly no procedure was done — it’s always been called that) or incomplete abortion, meaning there are retained products of conception still in the woman’s uterus.
Miscarriages occur a lot. Most of the time they’re complete abortions and the patient is sent home to rest. If the abortion is incomplete, a drug can be prescribed to make the uterus contract better and expel the tissues, or a D&C is necessary to scrape out stuck on tissue to the uterine walls as the patient will continue to bleed heavily or get an infection and die from sepsis if she’s waited too long to seek medical attention.
After Roe was overturned, doctors in some states had their hands tied in doing D&Cs unless the patient was on the brink of death herself. Many would stay in the parking lot of hospitals. 1/290 women will experience an ectopic pregnancy where a fertilized egg gets stuck in the fallopian tube or embed in the intestinal wall. Surgery is required; however one politician I remember posed the solution that it could be “put back where it belongs”…..it unfortunately doesn’t work that way. Politicians are NOT doctors.
Yet they’ve made it their mission to know better than doctors in some states on how pregnancy should progress. Consequences be damned if you’re not so lucky to unforeseen complications.
Just look at the case of the happily expectant mother from Texas, cast into a horrific nightmare. If you haven’t read the specifics of her pregnancy, it’s a good example.
Now in states with bans, we’re seeing a mass exodus of OB/GYNs, leaving prenatal care in rural areas completely barren for expectant moms.
Speaking out on transgender, doctors aren’t chopping or adding anything to any child under age 18. They may be receiving hormonal therapy, but that’s it. And their parents must be aware. They don’t treat minors without parental consent. And how could the child afford to without insurance? (I think the parents would be shocked after receiving the bill or insurance EOB!) 🤣.
Sorry, Atlanta, it is the MAGA Cult members who are referred to as 'useful idiots.' This is because they don't seem to have any critical thinking skills to know when they are being lied to or are spreading lies.
Furthermore, hiding behind a blob does not indicate the courage of the convictions you state.
Useful idiot is a term currently used to reference a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause—particularly a bad cause originating from a devious, ruthless source—without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically being used by the cause's leaders. The term was often used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. In terms of critical thinking skills, the left is totally lacking; sucking up the words of mindless Marxist media minions who are so hell bent on turning America into a 3rd world country; and are really doing a terrific job of it .... with adequate help from the "useful idiots" they can so easily lie to and influence.
Marxist this Marxist that Marxist up Marxist down. It's when you step out of the frothy waters you swim in that you come off as completely incoherent. You're nothing but a fair weather fan of politico-infotainment; touch grass.
I must say, when you, yourself defined "useful idiot", as I was reading that definition, all I could envision was you and all of the other Christian Nationalist (Anti-Christians, I might add) spewing all that rhetoric in the name of God. But I submit that the Jesus I know is the embodiment of love and tolerance and kindness. I do not the God or Jesus that you people seem to follow. You and I probably share a lot of the same ideals, but we think very differently about people and how to treat them. We think very differently about how to win souls to Christ. I have a very deeply rooted faith and relationship with my Creator and my Savior. It is because of my genuine Christian faith that I vote Democrat. No, I do not agree with all of the tenets of the Democratic party. But I agree with more of their ideals than Republicans, for sure. The Democratic party is about helping the everyday, average person. The Democratic party is about helping the poor and oppressed, it is about seeking justice for all humans (much like Christ Himself), and never have I once heard a Democratic politician spew racist remarks or say anything to make me feel that they do not see all people as equal under God. However, I am an open-minded individual, I only and always seek the truth. Therefore, if you can give me some credible, verifiable evidence of any public figure within the Democratic party who is actually guilty of the accusations you have made about them being violent, racist, and filled with hate, I am absolutely willing to review it in detail. I would also like to submit, that most of the Christians I know personally and have fellowship with, consider themselves Democrats and their reasons are the same as mine. We do not believe that a person who is genuinely a Christian (meaning that they actually let Jesus live in their hearts and they let Jesus guide them, through biblical teaching and through relationship with Him), and not just calling themselves that or fooling themselves into believing that they are Christian; we do not believe that the genuine Christian could ever in good conscience vote Republican, as it is as you say, the "antithesis" of Christian living.
So you lean toward fascism. I guess that is your privilege. Hope you like what you get, but doesn't say much for you as an American or even a human being.
How you suffer. Take it to Jesus. Maybe He can get your head right. You know He is in charge of all of this, right? Maybe you might relax and trust Him. He is bigger than Karl Marx. He doesn't need you to run the Universe.
Note the name: a scourging troll perhaps? I hope so, because Atilla is some Hun-y if serious...
After reading this part of the comment thread, it has become clear this is little more than a desperate attempt at gaining "troll" cred. That has clearly been achieved. Sometimes it's better to realize the only thing a troll is looking for is gasoline for their fire.
Reach out to those who are suffering and help them, and your self-hate and suffering will abate.💫
There are certainly a lot of people suffering under the heavy hand of this current administration. I do what I can to help. Where exactly is the self hate comment coming from? Are you projecting?
I pray that, if you genuinely believe in and have a relationship with Christ, you will open your heart to hear His voice and come to understand that the message you are spreading is not the message of love, kindness, and mercy that Christ taught and lived. We do agree on one thing, that this world and this nation are truly facing perilous times filled with racism, hatred, and moral depravity. However, you have been deeply deceived as to the source of these problems. I pray that your veil will be lifted, and your eyes will be opened to the truth. In Jesus name.
Thank you so very much for sharing your story! I haven't shared much of mine yet, but here goes:
It boils down to while I was in the ministry I became someone at odds with himself. I wanted to serve God. I wanted to minister. But the increasing social injustices that I was being witness to just in my little community of Gwinn, Michigan had begun to tear down my wall (to steal your term). Racial profiling, people in the LGBTQ+ communities having their houses egged and otherwise vandalized. Things that never made it to the news up here. I was being asked questions I couldn't answer.
Here I am, a Pastor with the charge of planting a church, and I can't answer questions like "Why would God let this happen?" So I began to research. I began to dig. I hadn't yet heard the term "deconstruction" but that's what was happening. My course over corrected though, unlike yours. I sought solace in Atheism, in Wicca. But something never felt right to me. I continued to be at odds with myself. I continued to have more questions than answers. My marriage collapsed (another story entirely though not completely unconnected to this) and I found myself homeless for a short period before a friend brought me into her house and the rebuilding of my life began.
The past five years have been a continual growing experience for me. I know the arguments against God very well now. I don't disagree with all of them. But I discovered a term that was the first peg in a new life at that point: non-overlapping majesterium. Stephen J Gould, an atheist, coined this term in regards to faith and science.
Could faith and science be this non-overlapping majesterium? Could faith have a place in a life? More pegs began to connect boards. The ground floor of my life post-deconstruction was coming into place.
I read up on Universalism and Pantheism, and found I really couldn't argue with that. And then the second story started to be built............I discovered Kevin and many others who were talking the same way I was believing! GOD WAS LOVE AFTER ALL and GOD WOULD TAKE ME BACK.
It's been an interesting journey and one that I love having been through, because as the house of faith that is within me has been rebuilt, room by room, floor by floor (and yes it has a full basement); I have now returned to at least a small bit of the ministry, and now I do have some answers. I won't ever have ALL the answers and I'm okay with saying "I don't know, let me talk with some peers and see if I can't find an answer for you," or saying plainly "I don't know."
Thank you Kevin, for all you've done in my life in the past short time period. God's been working on me throughout the wilderness of over 10 years, and I can see that now!
Peace in Jesus!
--Rev M. R. Oakley
"Reverend Ruin"
If a statement can be tested yielding a result of true or false, then that statement belongs to science. The practice of science is exactly the process of constructing and challenging repeatable tests for observations not dependent on who is doing the observing. They are objective.
If a statement is not falsifiable and cannot be tested this way yielding the same result regardless of who performs the test, then it belongs to faith. It may still be true or false, but we don't have a test for it.
Faith and Science are not overlapping. People who tell you that scientific knowledge is accepted without question on the basis of authority do not understand what science is.
(I am agreeing with and trying to amplify the poster above) (Stephen J Gould had a long-running science column in the NYT. His articles were collected into wonderful, fun to read books about evolution)
I believe I spoke of Non-Overlapping Majesterium. Which is exactly what you just said. Nowhere do I say that I accept, or believe, that science is accepted without question and on the basis of authority. I'm not sure you understood what I was saying my reply to Kevin.
Thank you for sharing! I lived in Gwinn back in the early 2000's also, out on the old airbase.
I'm not in the clergy, but my story is similar. Lifelong Republican since voting for Reagan in 1980. I, too, voted for Trump in 2016. When he first became president I blew off most of his ridiculous comments and policies thinking that he couldn't be serious. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was how he acted when John McCain died. From that moment I vowed to take action. I had never been active in politics, nor really paid that much attention. In the time leading up to the 2020 election, I joined other Republicans against Donald Trump as we raised our voices against him.
Donald Trump is evil personified. Perhaps the Lord is using him as a tool to help Christians see the light. We can all agree that Donald Trump is a TOOL!
Totally agree. Trump is 100% evil, a moral cancer on our country, a monster. He appeals to the darkest depths: please resist him and the authoritarian Christian nationalism that some on this thread have embraced. We are not each others' enemies; we must lift up the weakest and have compassion and empathy for those whom we perceive to be different.
Observing the evangelical movement during the Trump era has caused a crisis in faith for me. I no longer recognize the religious movement I was born into. I look at it now with pity, disgust, and shame. Christianity and Trumpism are antithetical and yet they’ve blurred into one for most parishioners. I want no part of mega churches, religion tinted Trump rallies, and thinly veiled racism. I’m out. Christ doesn’t live there.
I pray that you will not be driven from Christ by all the false representations of Him out there. I agree completely with your thinking, but please don't lose your relationship with the real Jesus Christ. He does live, just not there. Trust me there are still some genuine Christians and genuine bible-based churches in this nation. Find us and fortify your faith.
I've shared with you already that there are similarities in our journeys even though they happened a decade apart.
I regret every minute of being in the conservative movement. Every minute was a debasement of my soul and the debasement of the souls around me as my beliefs became behaviors that shamed and excluded and shouted down people who were the Beloved of Christ.
I can claim I was lied to—and I was, often—but I can say that I also felt uneasy the entire time that what I was belonging to was destructive. It was a belief system founded on lies by men of ill intention, and distilled and fed to people as a movement that was only about purity and holiness and righteousness.
I can remember the various times that something came across my view that disturbed me, but I generally shrugged it off. The very long paper about the foundations of my own church denomination as made by men who owned humans as property because saw that situation fit for the salvation of the enslaved? Well, perhaps they might have been a little off, but they were men of great faith. The denial of the cries for relief from the oppressed in America today, oppressed because of skin color or gender or sexual orientation? If they would just act like white straight males do, they'd be far better off—we're a land of opportunity for white straight males, so obviously everyone else can come along with us.
The in-your-face rejection of people who told me/asked me directly to listen to them was about maintaining a righteous understanding of America and its founding principles. It was white Republicans who fought to end enslavement; it was Republicans who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and Voting Rights Act of 1966; it was the Republicans who fought against Democrats in 1860 which proves that Republicans fighting against Democrats in the 2000s was exactly the same even though the parties had literally switched sides on civil governance and social & caste values.
It took a brave man to tell me to my face that I, as a white man, was refusing to see him as a Black man. And I was shocked to be confronted, shocked to consider that perhaps I was ignorant, shocked to consider that I had been avoiding what was plainly in front of me.
I went home and wept for my cruelty and indifference and rejection, and for all the decades I had wasted in being "conservative" when what I was was going along with the most selfish, cynical, and white supremacist people who lied from morning 'til night about the rightness of their beliefs.
Maybe in all those years of "not listening" I was listening. Maybe my younger self that was soft and tender had been waiting all along to come out to remind me of who I wanted to be.
I don't know.
I credit God with bringing me repentance. I have attempted to do right by what I have done wrong, making amends as I find opportunity, seeking forgiveness and relationship where I had denied love and acceptance, offering restoration and even reparations to those who have been harmed by the actions of me or of people like me.
Did it take 8 minutes? Maybe. Maybe it was 8 seconds. Maybe it took 45 years. But whatever the cause, I am pushed into change, and it is nothing but good that it happened.
Would that I could go back and undo all the cruel acts I committed, but the past is written in stone. All I can do is to write a better story starting now.
I'm reading all these comments and finding the space to breathe again. The Christianity I grew up with as a child never would have included a bigoted egotist like Donald Trump. I couldn't believe that so many Christians found him appealing. I'm so glad they don't. You should all check out Faithful America. I think you would find kindred spirits there. Good luck.
Amen and amen!
Kevin,
Thank you. Your story brought back emotions that I thought were long passed since my “switch flipped” almost 15 years ago.
I was a conservative Republican from before I could vote in 1976 working for the Ford campaign. My “switch flipped” about four months after I returned from Iraq in 2008. I was dealing with PTSD and what is now known as Moral Injury as a Navy Chaplain and saw all the lies about the war. Then one day I was going from my office at Ft Story to our headquarters at Little Creek while listening to Rush Limbaugh as I had done for years. He was in the middle of a very racist screed about Barack Obama when I began sobbing. I had to pull over to the side of the road crying uncontrollably. At that point it all came crashing down. Obama was the first Democratic I had ever voted for President.
In the years that followed I was ostracized and ghosted by most of my conservative clergy friends in my denomination and in the Chaplain Corps. I was also kicked out of my denomination in the summer of 2010 for being “too liberal.”
Again, thank you for your honesty, and openness.
All the best.
Steve Dundas
Your journey parallels mine in many ways. It was the riots in 1968 that stampeded me over to Nixon and then Ford; it was a long long time before I got myself righted and not until 2010 was I able to vote for a Democrat. By 2012 the repentance was complete. I abjure my former ways which were "conservative" only as a flag to cover up fear and anger, my own, of course, but whipped up by the media I consumed. I wasn't smart enough to recognize the manipulation. I'm still not smart, but perhaps I'm a little more aware.
Blessings to you on the journey.
It was the anti-war protests that demonized military personnel when my dad was in Vietnam that took me that direction, especially a Sunday school teacher who said that my dad was a “baby killer.”
Thank you for that comment.
I like to think that I'm a smart guy and wouldn't be taken in by propaganda or be manipulated into supporting things that in my heart of hearts I detest.
When I was a young kid and even into my early early teens I was seeking kindness and love, and seeking a community weal that was for those on the margins. It's what confounded me when Martin was shot, and it's what traumatized me when RFK was shot.
And I fell for the manipulation of conservatives who sought me not as a person with a soul but as a voter with a ballot.
By the time I was finished with high school, I was fully in the camp of conservatism. believing it would "save America" from riot and ruin. Would save me and protect me. Me, a white Christian man with all the inordinate privileges that came with it, scared for my life. My senior class art project was a portrait of Richard Nixon behind a waving American flag. I managed to make him look good. (I wish I could find the picture -- I saved it, and now see it as an ironic manifestation of what I had been turned into. My works could never be mistaken for those of McNaughton and his deification of #45, but I surely was motivated.)
Reading NIXONLAND was a revelation, but that was in combination with many other books I began reading in my mid-50s when God took me and shook me awake.
I had been lied to, and I'd accepted the lies *because I wanted to*. Sure, conservatives manipulated me, but I didn't resist.
The way of recovery for me has been slow and I am still in the process. So much of what I thought were the true articles of belief and practice have turned out to be inventive fictions designed to make me, a white guy, feel good about being a terrible person.
As I've said elsewhere, I can't undo my past and can't undo my participation in building and elevating white male supremacy in the U.S.
What I can do now is to acknowledge it, turn from it, and attempt to repair the wounds that I myself, along with others, have made to the bodies and lives of those in America who are deemed unworthy of bearing the Imago Dei.
I don't know that I'm doing all that much that is effective, and as God helps me to see better, I am committed to doing better.
But for now, I am doing the best that I can in my attempts to be yielded to grace, love, kindness, and hope.
Being Christian, I have heard some of the pro-Trump accolades from some of my church friends, fine Christian people, and yet they tend to criticize President Biden and Democrats across the board, as though they can do no right, and Trump can do no wrong. Yet our pastor has made this statement in several sermons over the years, that 'if there is no change, there is no Christ'.
I try to keep that in mind every time I read/ study the Bible, the Gospels particularly, and I try to imagine, and understand, how Jesus treated various people during His time on earth. Trump's treatment of people, and Jesus' way of treating people, could not be more different than night and day.
This comment really moved me. Thank you.
I hope your journey has gotten much easier since then!
I grew up in a very similar conservative background, but never really identified as a Republican, sympathizing more with Libertarian political philosophies. When elections came around I researched as many candidates on my ballot as I could and would often vote third party, but whenever there were only two candidates to vote for I'd always break red.
I also voted for Trump in 2016. I was told over and over again that it was the right thing to do; that it was the only thing a Christian could do because we couldn't let Hillary become President. That as brash and antithetical Donald Trump was to everything I stood for and believed, choosing a devout Christian conservative like Mike Pence as his running mate would surely temper Trump's worst instincts and behavior and Pence would keep him in check.
Throughout his presidency I thought Trump was just as ridiculous as the day he announced his candidacy and the day I walked into the voting booth and held my nose to vote for him. As scandals continued to pile up around him and stories about some of the stupid and often cruel things he'd say in private leaked, I didn't give much credence to them because I believed American politics were just about as stupid, but at least he was passing and standing up for good conservative, Christian policies.
My "scales" moment ironically happened in a moment of deep faith: I felt the call to mission work and was led to Sierra Leone, where I served from the time I graduated college until a few months into the COVID pandemic.
My arrival in Sierra Leone was deeply impactful for me. For the first time in my life, I was in the racial minority. I was in the religious minority. Walking down the streets, children would wave to me shouting "apoto" - "white man" - and run up to me with the biggest smiles on their faces wanting to walk with me and ask me questions about my life, about my family, and about America.
The hardest thing I wrestled with those first few weeks wasn't adjusting to a new time zone or a new culture or even being unable to walk down the street without being noticed. Many of the children I spoke with shared dreams of leaving their country someday to go to America and make some money that they wanted to use to help their family. Everytime they shared their dreams of going to America or asked me questions about my home I was left with this knot in my stomach, this uncomfortable feeling that I didn't know where it came from or why it was there.
One day one of my kids asked me "Who is the President of America?" and that feeling hit me harder than it ever had before. I was deeply embarrassed, ashamed, and I didn't want to tell him that Donald Trump is the leader of my country. But I did, and he moved on to his next question, and I was finally able to understand what exactly I was feeling and I was better able to reflect upon why I felt that way afterwards.
I realized what came to mind was reporting that went in and out of my ear, successfully deflected by my wall when it first came out: Donald Trump's comments about people being from s**thole countries. When that was first reported my initial reaction was "eh, sounds like him, but what does it matter." When it came up in my reflection, I was overwhelmed and started crying.
Here I was in one of the poorest countries on the planet, who's people were so kind, loving, and welcoming to a total stranger who looked and talked nothing like them, and I knew what my president thought of them and of their country. That if any of the kids I'd met made it to America one day, they would not be met with the welcome and care I received in their country. That looking and talking different in America wouldn't be met with the love and openness I received from them.
I sat there with my wall and I cried.
Thank you for sharing this. It provides a perspective that many of us have never considered. Be well, my friend.
Profound! Thank you for sharing!!!
Thank you for sharing your powerful experiences and realizations.
It was the Iraq invasion - "shock and awe," built on lies - that did it for me. And I have been more and more horrified over the years as the fruit of the deranged marriage between "conservative Christianity" and "conservative politics" has grown up into, of all things, lawless Trumpism. We have not yet swallowed all the poison, but the deadliest is coming. Predictably, we are reaching the point where "Christian" is considered a word for ignorance and hatred. How that must grieve our savior. I wish you would write more about how Trump's love of vengeance, hatred abd violence ever could have seemed "Christian" to you. People need to hear it.
Indeed! Good grief. Sadly, i have to admit i really had no idea such open and virulent racism existed.
Thank you for your honesty. I live in an area where not seeing open and virulent racism would be almost impossible. We need more people to wake up to this ugly, malignant part of society.
Say that again!!!
As a white woman with a black husband and black children, (let's be honest, they are both black and white, but society only sees them as black) I have seen the plight of black America more closely than a lot of white America has. The inequalities, even in this modern day are undeniable. However, the absolute blatant outright displays of racism that I am seeing and hearing these past few years, since Donald Trump gave a new license and platform to bigotry is heart breaking. I feel that we have been set back more than fifty years and I wonder how we will recover. Never before have I felt such deep fear for the future of my children, nor for the safety of them and my husband.
I'm so sorry, and I can see it, too. I don't understand this Pandora's box, how we got it, and who opened it - much less how to stuff it all back in.
Thanks for sharing Kevin as I share the same journey. Its therapeutic for me to read your story and know that I am not crazy.
It's amazing how much of your story aligns with mine.
I also grew up very conservative. It was "christian's" responses to kolin kapernick and George Floyd that really started to wake me up. As well as a fantastic relationship with a very liberal christian (once he was a friend, the liberals weren't the boogey man any longer).
Thanks for sharing.
A very moving and (for me) illuminating statement. I would not describe what you used to be as conservative. I think the proper term for that is reactionary, which is what I think the modern GOP has become. Also, people seem to forget that, before the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s caused a lot of racist Democrats to become Republicans, the GOP used to have a contingent of political liberals and the Democratic Party used to have a fair contingent of conservatives and even reactionaries (especially the Dixiecrats). Also, people today seem to forget that Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive (even if at the same time he was also an imperialist and war monger).
We're not so different, really. I was a few years ahead of you in timing, mainly because my denomination isn't/wasn't really "fundamentalist". I hadn't had cable TV for years by 2016, and I already didn't like Trump at all - I thought he was the "novelty" candidate. Also I was beginning to hear, beginning to see by then, largely because Eric Garner and Ferguson hit me hard in 2014. I didn't vote straight ticket in 2016, but I didn't vote for Trump because I couldn't I've voted straight ticket ever since, though I check that impulse each time. I'm not really a Democrat; I call myself a "recovering Republican", and like you I'm really just a Christian who decided to follow Christ rather than the state religion that carries his name. And yes, my LGBTQ+ friends and loved ones forced me to think hard about some things and come to very similar conclusions as you have.
God bless you for the way you share His love and for your transparent confession here.
I am from Newtown, CT. My brother was a very strict conservative up until Dec 15th, 2012, 24 hours after the shooting.
Since then I have quoted Bob Dylan...
How many deaths does it take till he knows that too many people have died?
For my brother it was 26
For you it was 1
Welcome to the dark side. We have awesome cookies. 😉
From Bethel sending love.
There are many who share your experience, albeit it in different ways, of turning away from engaging in politics of oppression to engaging in the apolitical cultivation of Christlike character. Since I am tribeless now, too, I like to think that someday we’ll find out as the ancient prophet did that there are many who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Perhaps as soon as 2024? May God have mercy on our nation.
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing this! I've been on a bit of a different journey...growing up in a more liberal household, I embraced conservativism and evangelism in my late teens/early 20's. Honestly, looking back, I think my type A personality liked the "certainty" that both movements offered. Things started coming undone for me during the 2016 election cycle. I had abstained from voting for certain Republicans in the past, so I did not have any qualms about not pulling the lever for Trump. In the end I voted third party. By 2020 many of the issues that you mentioned (covid, the racial reckoning, etc.) also led me to vote for a Democrat for the first time. I have since taken a lot more time and care when deciding who to vote for, at every level of government. I have voted for some Republicans, some Democrats and even abstained from voting in a few cases since then. I now consider myself to be a right-leaning moderate. I often feel politically homeless, but it helps to know I'm not the only one!
I’m pleased to see that cracks are finally appearing in the wall of bigotry and hate erected by decidedly NON-Christian evangelicals who twist and ignore what the NT actually says. But it sure is going to be a long road for a lot of those hypocritical Pharisees.