Evangelicals who oppose Trump worship try to build a new movement WaPo gift article

[irisblue]

subtitle-" Fifty years after the rise of the religious right, some evangelicals want to rebrand and create a public presence that adheres to faith, not a party or person."

https://wapo.st/3SBHjnD

snip-"So Leavitt, preparing for a bruising 2024 election season, joined a new national group of theologically conservative pastors who talk weekly about how to reject polarization and religious nationalism and to defend democracy./i]Last month, his congregation began a slick new six-part interactive video series aimed at reshaping evangelicals’ relationship to politics. Called “The After Party,” the curriculum, which has been used by some 75,000 people since it was released in April, says Christians should focus less on partisanship and more on how to relate to others so that they “better reflect Jesus … in 2024 and beyond.”

(Bolding mine)

snip-"The Midtown church’s “After Party” sessions have been made more intense recently by the attempted assassination of Trump and the response to it by many of his Christian supporters: that God intervened to protect the former president. But the politically diverse group was able to agree that, in their view, the God of the Bible doesn’t work that way — and to keep their focus."


snip-"Leavitt is part of an increasingly organized national movement of mostly White evangelicals who, 50 years after the rise of the religious right, want a rebranding. They hope to overhaul a mix of religion and politics that many feel has been toxic and polarizing, and has led to a time when political scientists say the word “evangelical” often has meant “Republican.”

snip-"Because [Trump] opened this can of worms, our mission will still be necessary no matter who wins in November,” said Napp Nazworth, an evangelical political scientist who leads one of the new groups working to combat religious extremism among fellow conservative Christians. He believes focusing on Trump right now would be counterproductive."


More there

[biophile]

1. It's about time!

Certainly within the evangelical community there some actual Christians who will stand up to the man who managed to break nearly all of their Ten Commandments

[keithbvadu2]

2. Donald's Christians/Evangelicals are the public face of Christianity in America today.

So many political Christians.
So few Christians of faith.

[Skittles]

3. it will still be nutty

[lees1975]

4. The problem they're going to have in talking about Jesus, the Christianity found in the Bible, it's values and practice

is that it is eventually going to dawn on them that they are more compatible with one political party over the other, and that would be the Democratic party.

It's good to see this, but please note, there are some of us out here who have been fighting against this intrusion of licentiousness via right wing Republican politics into the church since the days of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition. We have spoken up and taken the criticism and ostracism that has come with it. We've tried to hold pastors and church leaders accountable and discovered how hard it is to fight an inner oligarchy in a church where the mindset has already thrown Jesus under the bus and set itself up to benefit from its politics rather than its faith. Walking out, and taking our money and our volunteer service with us, has been the only language they've understood, though even that doesn't change a lot of minds.

Maybe this new group can have some kind of impact. I've discovered that the best way to deal with it is to find a place to worship where the leadership is willing to acknowledge that the true values of Christian faith are antithetical and diametrically opposed to Trumpism, prioritizes the lifestyle exemplified by the values and virtues Jesus taught, and embrace the fellowship that results from sharing a common faith.

One of the side benefits of this has been the discovery that half of those in this country whose theology, doctrine and practice identify them as "Evangelical," in the religious sense of that term are not Republicans or Trumpers and don't bring that crap into their churches. They are mostly people of different racial, ethnic or cultural background for whom the lifestyle and practice of Christianity has been their key to understanding that Trumpism is an intrusion of evil into the church that has subverted its mission and purpose. And unlike their white, Republican evangelical counterparts, they have not had to alter the gospel message or completely change the interpretation of scripture to arrive at those conclusions.