October 26, 2016 Editor

Why would Christians vote for Trump?: Coren

It is difficult to understand how millions of evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics can still be committed to Trump and ignore or justify his repugnant actions

By

Amen!

Tues., Oct. 25, 2016

an excerpt:

Donald Trump is a winner. Not that he’s likely to win the election but his style, approach and entire persona are about winning. Glamour, strength, ostentatious wealth and raw, callow gratification, be it in terms of power, sex or material.

Jesus Christ, on the other hand, was a loser. Turning the other cheek, charity, sacrifice, leaps of empathy, solidarity with the poor, barking with the underdog and the final clawing humiliation of a criminal’s agonizing death on a cross.

So at first glance it’s a little difficult to understand how millions of evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics can still be committed to Trump and ignore or justify his repugnant actions. Right-wing Christians even form much of his inner circle, and there are Christian Republicans who argue a victory for Hillary Clinton will be a triumph for the Antichrist.

But back briefly to Jesus the Loser. That claim will shock and offend some people but the divine paradox of the despised rural Jewish preacher in occupied Palestine is that the world can only be properly understood if it is first turned upside down. There is absolutely nothing conservative but everything revolutionary about what Jesus the Loser said and did.

How, then, do so many people who genuinely see their Christianity as the central meaning of their lives embrace a man who acts so contrary in so many ways to the basic tenets of the faith? Loathe as I am to sound judgmental, I can’t help thinking of the remark of the great renaissance scholar Thomas Linacre after first reading the New Testament in the original Greek, “Either this is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians.”

Please click on: Donald Trump and Jesus The Loser

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Editor

Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.

Always appreciate constructive feedback! Thanks.