Thirty paragraphs into a story touting Joe Biden's popularity with Catholics, Politico admits he lost the white Catholic vote nationally by 15 points

 

 

Kamala Harris’ Pennsylvania Problem: Joe Biden’s local ties and cultural roots kept him competitive in culturally conservative northeastern Pennsylvania. Harris’ prospects in the heavily Catholic, working-class region there are dicier:

A Brookings analysis earlier this year by University of Pennsylvania professor John DiLulio noted that Hillary Clinton lost the overall white Catholic vote by 33 points in 2016, but four years later, Biden cut that deficit in half, losing by only 15 points.     

 

The story never once mentions that J. D. Vance, Trump's running mate, is a 2019 convert to the Catholic faith and might represent as big a challenge for Harris as her abortion advocacy and her grilling of "a Catholic judicial nominee about whether he could remain impartial due to his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a respected Catholic fraternal organization".

Potty mouth: What President Trump and Rod Dreher have in common

The president's profanity is the subject of a recent article:

‘Using the Lord’s name in vain’: Evangelicals chafe at Trump’s blasphemy.

Rod Dreher has been on a tear with his own profanity this summer in his Twitter feed:

6/20: Somehow, the damn things fit!

6/22: Watch Tucker Carlson give John Bolton and others hell.

6/25: This guy is a first-class bullshitter.

6/25: Not a damn thing playing that an actual adult would want to see.

6/25: Stop tasing him! Goddamn!

6/27: Retweet: "the most batshit idea the Dems have come up with".

7/05: hell of a writer

7/08: hell of a writer

7/09: I had these for a starter. Savory walnut paste is pretty damn great.

7/09: Retweet: Perfect response: "I am so sick of this shit".

7/11: There's just too damn much weather in Louisiana.

7/23: You damn right that Gina Schock was the sexiest Go-Go!

7/24: And these Jesuit dipshits have the gall to publish this.

8/04: This is true: none of us has a damn clue how we're supposed to respond.

8/07: What the hell?

8/10: Every damn US Senator should co-sign.

I think the evangelicals would call this habit speech a sign of being unredeemed.

Others might chalk it up to being unintelligent, or intellectually lazy. Trump is the former, Dreher the latter.

There are the sin forgivers, and then there are the sin retainers, like evangelical Pete Wehner

You've got to wonder if Pete Wehner ever seriously considered that evangelicals who give Trump a pass are instead practicing forgiveness.

What would forgiveness look like, Pete? Did Jesus ever once turn a blind eye to moral transgression?

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

 

-- Matthew 6:15

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. 

 

-- Luke 23:34

Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. 

 

-- John 8:11

Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. 

 

-- John 20:23

Pete's clearly still a sin retainer, after all these years, just as many evangelicals have been in the past, for example in regard to Bill Clinton.

Kind of runs in the human family, but for a brief, shining moment.

The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity:

The enthusiastic, uncritical embrace of President Trump by white evangelicals is among the most mind-blowing developments of the Trump era. How can a group that for decades—and especially during the Bill Clinton presidency—insisted that character counts and that personal integrity is an essential component of presidential leadership not only turn a blind eye to the ethical and moral transgressions of Donald Trump, but also constantly defend him? Why are those who have been on the vanguard of “family values” so eager to give a man with a sordid personal and sexual history a mulligan? ...

[T]here is ... the undeniable hypocrisy of people who once made moral character, and especially sexual fidelity, central to their political calculus and who are now embracing a man of boundless corruptions. Don’t forget: Trump was essentially named an unindicted co-conspirator (“Individual 1”) in a scheme to make hush-money payments to a porn star who alleged she’d had an affair with him while he was married to his third wife, who had just given birth to their son.

By their fruitcakes ye shall know them: Hotty pastorette close to Donald Trump is a prosperity gospel heretic says Russell Moore

Here:

“Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe,” read a recent tweet from Russell Moore, a prominent Southern Baptist leader and vocal Trump critic, who wasn’t available for an interview.

Moore stated his objection to what White represents clearly already last October, here:

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, is disputing conventional wisdom that Trump is hugely popular with born again Christians, insisting those actually in his camp follow the “dangerous false teaching of the prosperity gospel.” 

John Kasich's religion is inspired by Dallas Willard's ideas of discipleship and realized eschatology

Noted here:

Kasich cites the late University of Southern California philosophy professor Dallas Willard as one of his theological inspirations—an unusual choice because Willard was not always accepted by the Christian establishment. His teaching that the Kingdom of God is available here and now—“eternity is already in session,” he was known to say—follows a school of thought known as spiritual formation, or the idea that with discipline and spiritual development, ordinary Christians can grow to become more like Jesus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much of Dallas Willard's writing assumes that personal transformation of the disciple was the object of discipleship as taught by Jesus because the expectation of the kingdom's imminent coming is not granted. Jesus' expectation of the in-breaking of the kingdom, of course, means that any concern with spiritual formation is a distraction. The call to discipleship instead is in reality a call to escape the judgment that is coming perilously soon. Discipleship is actually a form of radical repentance, a turning away from a world about to be cleansed by fire, analogous to embarking Noah's Ark.

Accordingly Willard actually trivializes the teaching of Jesus, an example being the teaching on personal poverty, which in Willard's description and understanding of discipleship is ridiculed even though it is the very first thing embraced by the disciples of the historical Jesus. Instead Willard offers a list of spiritual practices, which are not meant to be exhaustive, which includes the practice of  "frugality" as one example of what it means to follow Jesus.

You know, as in "Be frugal with what ye have and give alms" (Luke 12:33).

Ted Cruz' constituency: In 2011 American Christians who said they were Christian first were 46%

Pew reported here:

Asked to choose, nearly half of Muslims in the U.S. (49%) say they think of themselves first as a Muslim, 26% say they think of themselves first as an American, and 18% say they are both. Among U.S. Christians, 46% say they identify as Christian first, while the same number identify as American first.

Ted Cruz, quoted here in January 2016:

In the interview, [former Senate Majority Leader Bob] Dole also said he questioned Cruz’s “allegiance” to the Republican Party.

“I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth,” said Cruz, who is currently a distant second place, behind Trump, for the GOP nomination in several national polls. “I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”