Making the American Church Great Again
If you haven't heard, Donald J. Trump is a Republican candidate for president. And in the run-up to today's Iowa Caucuses (which may give his candidacy a big boost) he secured the official and unofficial endorsements of two well-known Evangelical Christians, Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Robert Jeffress, respectively.
A thrice-married casino, real-estate mogul, and reality Tv set star who flouts private property rights, whose 3rd bride posed nude, and who once joked about dating his own daughter, Trump claims to be the person best suited to "make America great once more." He fifty-fifty wears a baseball cap with those words on it to prove it.
Falwell, Jr. is the President of Freedom University, founded in 1971 by his belatedly father, the evangelist Jerry Falwell, Sr. After years of struggling financially, the university striking the jackpot when it began offer online courses and degrees. According to a July xv, 2015 Washington Mail service story, "Fifteen years agone, Freedom had 5,939 undergraduate students and 735 graduate students. Last fall, the university enrolled 49,744 undergraduates and 31,715 graduate students."
Nearly all of these students ("three-quarters of undergraduates and 97 percentage of graduate students," the Postal service notes) are taking courses through distance instruction. Although an Evangelical school known for its theological and political conservatism, "the exponential growth of Liberty University has been fueled by billions in federal student aid made possible by President Obama and congressional Democrats."
[Author's Note: I asked the editor to remove a paragraph at this point from the original version of this essay. I made an error in my depiction of the relationship of Liberty University to the federal pupil loan program. It was not my intent to disparage the many fine faculty, including several friends of mine, who teach at LU.]
In the 1980s, the elderberry Falwell filed a lawsuit against Hustler Mag and its founder and owner, the pornographer Larry Flynt, "to recover damages for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress." What precipitated the adjust was a parody interview of Falwell, Sr. published in Hustler, in which the faux-Falwell tells the story of his "first time": in an outhouse with his ain mother while both were inebriated. Although Falwell eventually lost the suit in an appeal heard earlier the U.Southward. Supreme Court, he and Flynt soon became friends, which is a testimony to the belatedly Falwell's spirit of generosity and his willingness to show love to those whose ways of life are contrary to Christian practice.
I suspect that Falwell, Sr. would accept still filed the accommodate if Hustler had published a mock interview in which the late Freedom president was depicted wearing a "Make America Bully Over again" baseball cap while insinuating that he is a thrice-married casino, existent-manor mogul, and reality Idiot box star who flouts private holding rights, whose third bride posed nude, and who once joked about dating his own daughter.
Robert Jeffress is the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, a megachurch with a membership of 12,000. Although he endorsed Mitt Romney for president later the onetime Massachusetts governor had secured the 2012 Republican nomination, in 2011 he supported the candidacy of Texas governor Rick Perry, offering these memorable words in citation: "Do we desire a candidate who is a good, moral person – or ane who is a built-in-again follower of the lord Jesus Christ?" For those keeping score, Romney was the "skillful, moral person" while Perry was the "born-again follower." One wonders what was going through Perry'southward mind when he heard Pastor Jeffress describe him in dissimilarity to "a practiced, moral person."
Having settled for endorsing the "good, moral person" in the 2012 general election and coming upwardly short, Pastor Jeffress has apparently concluded that his political fortune may now lie in a candidate who non but makes no pretense of beingness a "expert, moral person," but exceeds Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in the sheer book of personal slurs issued against his critics – or even against those who simply question him. This should exit us with no incertitude that Pastor Jeffress must exist a human of tremendous faith, since he believes that this candidate volition "make America cracking again."
Trump has tapped into an anger that is very real in America. Information technology arises from a frustration that our elected officials take largely abandoned the working course for the adulation of corporate America and elite culture. Thus, information technology is unsurprising that Trump on his website offers positions on just five bug: U.S. Prc Trade Reform, Veterans Assistants Reforms, Revenue enhancement Reform, Second Amendment Rights, and Immigration Reform. If yous wanted to bandage as wide a net as possible to capture the hearts and minds of the working form, Trump's listing is a stroke of marketing genius.
This explains the support of Falwell and Jeffress, both of whom take seemed to ready aside their disquisitional faculties in their assessment of Trump. For these are men who – reared on the cadency emanating from those old sawdust revivals – are suckers for skillful preaching that tin can move the pilgrim from his mercy seat.
And Trump is a damn good preacher. And so much so that many evangelicals don't seem to notice the un-Christian personal insults, slurs, arrogance, mendacity, and incoherence. Which simply goes to testify you that non only is a sucker born every minute; sometimes he'southward born again.
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Source: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/02/01/making-america-great-again/
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