Too bad more people don't understand this.
This guy certainly doesn't.
Usually, the lying is Trump ad-libbing — it’s him deviating from his text. In that [campaign] case, immigration lies in particular were being written into his rally speeches.
In many cases, I think it is unstrategic. I think it’s just Trump being Trump. I don’t know if it’s his natural state, or if it’s a learned behavior, after lying successfully as a real estate guy and lying successfully as a playboy celebrity to get his name in the tabloids. ...
I do use the word lie, but for my database, I call it a database of false claims, because I think while a significant percentage are lies, I'm not sure about all of them.
As we know with this president, he’s often confused or ignorant of policy specifics. And so I don’t know that he intentionally attempted to deceive with all 4,900-plus. So many of those are lies, but I can’t say that for all of them.
This guy, on the other hand, does.
In terms of religion, this inauguration exhibits the confluence of two major currents of indigenous American spirituality.
One stream is represented by Norman Vincent Peale's longtime bestseller "The Power of Positive Thinking" (1952). The famous Manhattan pastor is Trump's tenuous connection to Christianity, having heard the preacher frequently in his youth. For Peale and his protege, the late Robert Schuller of Crystal Cathedral fame, the gospel of Christ's death for human sin and resurrection for justification and everlasting life was transformed into a "feel-good" therapy. Self-esteem was the true salvation.
Another stream is represented by the most famous TV preachers, especially those associated with the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen and Paula White are the stars of this movement, known as Word of Faith. ...
Besides throwing out doctrines like the Trinity and confusing ourselves with God, the movement teaches that Jesus went to the cross not to bring forgiveness of our sins but to get us out of financial debt, not to reconcile us to God but to give us the power to claim our prosperity, not to remove the curse of death, injustice and bondage to ourselves but to give us our best life now. White says emphatically that Jesus is "not the only begotten Son of God," just the first. We're all divine and have the power to speak worlds into existence. ...
Some representatives, like Osteen, offer an easy-listening version that seems as harmless as a fortune cookie. It's when he tries to interpret the Bible that he gets into trouble, as in his latest book, "The Power of I Am." "Romans 4 says to 'call the things that are not as though they were,' " he says, but the biblical passage is actually referring to God.
But it's not really about God. In fact, one gets the impression that God isn't necessary at all in the system. God set up these spiritual laws and if you know the secrets, you're in charge of your destiny. You "release wealth," as they often put it, by commanding it to come to you.
"Anyone who tells you to deny yourself is from Satan," White told a TBN audience in 2007. Oops. It was Jesus who said "anyone who would come after me" must "deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).
Most evangelical pastors I know would shake their heads at all of this.
