51% of Millennials Do Not Consider Themselves Christian

For roughly two decades I have argued that right wing evangelical Christians - particularly the hate mongers and scamvangelists they continue to support such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, et. al. - and the Catholic Church hierarchy would be the death of the Christian brand. Under the helm of these factions, a religion that is supposed to be focused on love, good works, and caring for and about others has become synonymous with hatred of others and staggering hypocrisy not to mention indifference about the sexual abuse of children and youths.  A new Pew Research report suggests that my prediction is perhaps close to coming true as a only 49% of Millennials identify as Christian, with survey respondents finding themselves repulsed by all the hatred, the embrace of ignorance, and the lock step with the Republican Party and Donald Trump who pursue an agenda that is the antithesis of the Christian social gospel. While the right wingers blame the plummeting data on "war on Christianity," for the real cause it would seem they need only look in the mirror.   A  column in the New York Times looks at these new report findings:

Perhaps for the first time since the United States was established, a majority of young adults here do not identify as Christian.

Only 49 percent of millennials consider themselves Christian, compared with 84 percent of Americans in their mid-70s or older, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

[S]something significant seems to be happening. The share of American adults who regard themselves as Christian has fallen by 12 percentage points in just the last decade.
“The U.S. is steadily becoming less Christian and less religiously observant,” the Pew study concluded.

Some on the religious right will thunder that this as a result of a secular “war on Christianity.” . . . . But a far bigger threat to the “brand” of Christianity comes, I think, from religious blowhards who have entangled faith with bigotry, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. For some young people, Christianity is associated less with love than with hate.

“Pompous right-wing political chest-thumping, and an unwillingness to listen on matters like climate change or racism, has contributed to a perception by millions that Christianity is irrelevant, or worse yet, a threat to progress,” the Rev. Richard Cizik, the leader of a group of self-described “new evangelicals” with moderate views, told me.

Christianity’s reputation suffers from backward views on women’s issues and from the unwavering support among evangelical hard-liners for President Trump.

It would be difficult to imagine a president more at odds with Jesus’ message than Trump, a serial philanderer and liar who has persecuted refugees, divided families, exploited the poor and allegedly committed sexual assaults.

That is the opposite of the Christianity whose heroic side I’ve often praised: A Catholic doctor in Sudan’s Nuba mountains … a missionary doctor in Angola … nuns everywhere. If they were the face of Christianity, its reputation would be golden.

Pew’s latest report found that nonbelievers are gaining ground fast. “Nones” — those with no particular religion — now account for more than one-quarter of the American population. There are substantially more nones than Catholics.

The decline in religion is particularly evident among young people. Those born between 1928 and 1945 are only two percentage points less likely to identify as Christian than they were a decade ago, while millennials are 16 percentage points less likely to call themselves Christians.

[T]he data seem consistent with the argument made by leading scholars that young adults have turned away from organized religion because they are repulsed by its entanglements with conservative politics. “Nones,” for example, are solidly Democratic.

The central issue is that faith is supposed to provide moral guidance — and many moralizing figures on the evangelical right don’t impress young people as moral at all. Senator Jesse Helms said in 1995 that AIDS funding should be cut because gay men get the disease. The Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson initially suggested that God organized the 9/11 terror attacks to punish feminists, gays and lesbians.

God should have sued Falwell and Robertson for defamation. But, in some sign of karma, a survey found that gays and lesbians have higher public approval than evangelicals do.

 I love the last part: gays and lesbians have higher public approval than evangelicals do.

Franklin Graham Denies That Trump Lies

Trump, Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr. - all morally bankrupt.

Donald Trump is likely the most morally bankrupt individual to every occupy the White House.  Besides being a serial adulterer who has illicit affairs and then pays hush money to his mistresses, he lies incessantly.  Indeed, the Washington Post has tallied 8,158 lies during Trump's first two years in office. It's to a point where I - and likely a majority of Americans - believe that if Trump's lips are moving, it's a near guarantee that he is lying (the same goes for press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of a habitual liar).  Yet, despite Trump's easily proven thousands of lies, evangelical Christian charlatans like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr., continue to stand by an individual who is the antithesis of true Christian values and behavior.  Why? A thirst for political power and perhaps a last desperate hope of inflicting their Bronze Age myth based beliefs on the nation.  Meanwhile, 40% of the under 30 generations have left religion and more and more of older Americans are joining the so-called "Nones" and for good reason given the moral bankruptcy of, in my view, the vast majority of evangelicals.  A piece in Mediate looks at Franklin Graham's unbelievable batshitery as he continues to give Trump political fellatio.  Here are excerpts:

MSNBC’s Craig Melvin spoke with Evangelical leader Franklin Graham this morning and asked him about the number of false statements from President Donald Trump.

Melvin brought up a recent op-ed Graham wrote about the truth before noting that the most recent Washington Post tally of Trump’s false or misleading statements now stands at 8158. “How do you reconcile that?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know how to reconcile that, because I don’t know,” Graham said. “You have a fact checker for the president, but I don’t know if you have a fact checker for the media at the same time.”

Melvin jumped in to say, “Pastor Graham, you and I both know that this president has said things over and over that aren’t true.”

“No, I don’t know that,” Graham responded. “I don’t sit around and try to find every fault in the president every day, looking for everything that he might have misspoken or mis-said. I don’t do that.”

Melvin again pressed him to acknowledge that Trump says “things that aren’t true.” Graham said the President misspeaks but he’s not “sitting there behind the desk trying to make up lies.”

Clearly, Graham is as big of a liar as Trump. The only positive of it all is that Graham is hastening Christianity toward becoming a dead religion.  When Christianity dies, it will be Christofascists like Graham who ultimately killed it. 

Trump’s - and Evangelical Christians' - Foul Version of "Justice"

Water bottles left by aid workers prosecuted by the
Trump/Pence regime.

With every passing day, Donald Trump has provided further displays of his moral bankruptcy: A total lack of empathy for 800,000 federal workers whose lives he threw into chaos over what amounts basically to a temper tantrum.  Fanning racial animosity and anti-immigrant animus. The callous separation of children from their parents. Growing evidence that suggests a desire to conspire with a hostile foreign power.  And supporting him all the way are his most loyal base of supporters: evangelical Christians.  However, perhaps the most stunning display of a betrayal of everything the Gospel message supposedly stands for has been the criminal prosecution of four women who left water in the desert so that refugees and immigrants seeking safety in America would not die of lack of water in the desert.  Meanwhile, a border control guard who shot and killed a Mexican teenager - the guard fired 16 times - had his prosecution dropped.  An editorial in the Washington Post looks at the perverted sense of justice of the Trump/Pence regime.  Here are excerpts:

16-year-old José Antonio Elena
Rodríguez killed by a border guard.

A FEW weeks ago, federal prosecutors in Arizona secured a conviction against four humanitarian aid workers who left water in the desert for migrants who might otherwise die of heat exposure and thirst.

Separately, they dropped manslaughter charges against a U.S. Border Patrol agent who fired 16 times across the border, killing a teenage Mexican boy. The aid workers face a fine and up to six months in jail. The Border Patrol officer faces no further legal consequences.
That is a snapshot of twisted frontier justice in the age of Trump. Save a migrant’s life, and you risk becoming a political prisoner. Kill a Mexican teenager, and you walk free.

The four aid workers, all women, were volunteers in service to an organization, No More Deaths, whose religious views inform its mission to prevent undocumented migrants from dying during their perilous northward trek.

The women — Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick — made no effort to conceal their work. Confronted by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer, they said they believed everyone deserved access to basic survival needs. One of them, Ms. Orozco-McCormick, compared the wildlife refuge to a graveyard, such is the ubiquity of human remains there.

Since the turn of the century, more than 2,100 undocumented migrants have died in that sun-scorched region of southern Arizona, according to Humane Borders, a nonprofit group that keeps track of the numbers. Last year, according to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, the remains of 127 dead migrants were recovered there.

In the past, prosecutors declined to press charges against the volunteers who try to help by leaving water and canned food in the desert. But the four women, arrested in August 2017, were tried for the misdemeanor offenses of entering a refuge without a permit, abandoning personal property and, in the case of Ms. Hoffman, driving in a restricted area. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco, who presided over the bench trial, said their actions ran afoul of the “national decision to maintain the Reserve in its pristine nature.”

In fact, prosecutors have broad discretion in deciding whether to press such minor charges — just as they do in more consequential cases such as the manslaughter charge against Lonnie Swartz, the Border Patrol agent who killed 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez in October 2012. According to Mr. Swartz, he opened fire on the boy, shooting 16 times in what the agent said was self-defense, through the fence that divides the city of Nogales along the Arizona-Mexico border. He said the boy had been throwing stones at him across the frontier.

Mr. Swartz was acquitted on second-degree murder charges last spring, but the jury deadlocked on manslaughter charges. In a second trial, last fall, the jury also failed to reach a verdict on manslaughter. Last month, prosecutors declined to seek a third trial.

While the aid workers seek to avoid prison time, Americans may well wonder about a system in which justice is rendered so perversely.

Seemingly, there is nothing Trump can do that causes evangelicals to cease their loyalty to a man who embodies literally everything a true Christian should find abhorrent.  These false Christians have so damaged the Christian brand that I for one no longer want to refer to myself as a "Christian." Meanwhile, 40% of the under 30 generations have left religion.  I wonder how long until that percentage hits 50%. 

Evangelical Christians Have Tossed Away Christ's Teachings

For those who continue to try to convince themselves that Christianity is a positive force in the world - a belief I do not share - a new “The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel” released by a group of evangelical and right wing "Christians" will make this pretense/mental contortions even more difficult.  In it, these modern day Pharisees claim that social justice - feeding the hungry, caring for the homeless, tending the sick has no direct connection the Gospel message.  As is so often the case, inconvenient passages are utterly ignored while a selective fixation on a few Old Testament passages that allow condemnation of others are upheld.  The hypocrisy is off the charts and explains the accelerating exodus from Christianity.  Conservative columnist Michael Gerson bemoans this latest evidence of the reality that conservative Christianity is a blight on mankind (my words, not his).  Here are excepts:

“The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel” claims that social justice is not, in fact, a definitional component of the gospel, and that it is heresy to elevate “non-essentials to the status of essentials.” As you might expect, the document affirms traditional beliefs on same-sex relationships and “God-ordained” gender roles. But it seems particularly focused on rejecting collective blame in racial matters.

By way of background, it seems this statement was created in outraged response to another group of evangelical Christians — the Gospel Coalition — that held a conference on the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. MacArthur clearly wants to paint the participants — including prominent pastors Tim Keller, Russell Moore, Thabiti Anyabwile and John Piper — as liberals at risk of heresy.

Where to start a response? First, there is the matter of judgment. MacArthur surveys the evangelical movement in 2018 — increasingly discredited by rank hypocrisy and close ties to an angry, ethnonationalist political movement — and concludes that its main problem is too much . . . social justice. It is a sad case of complete spiritual blindness.

Second, there is a matter of history. . . . This could be claimed only by someone who knows nothing of the evangelical story. During the 19th century, Northern evangelicalism was generally viewed as inseparable from social activism. Evangelist Charles Finney insisted that “the loss of interest in benevolent enterprises” was usually evidence of a “backslidden heart.” Among these enterprises, Finney listed good government, temperance reform, the abolition of slavery and relief for the poor.

But most damaging is the Mac­Arthur statement’s position on racial matters. What could a group of largely white evangelicals, many of them Southerners, possibly mean by criticizing “racial vainglory”? Is it vanity to praise the unbroken spirit of Africans in America during more than four centuries of vicious oppression, which was often blessed by elements of the Christian church? Is it vanity to recognize the redemptive role played by African American Christianity in calling our nation to the highest ideals of its founding?

The purpose of “The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel” is clear enough. It is, as one prominent evangelical leader put it to me, “to stop any kind of real repentance for past social injustice, to make space for those who are indeed ethnonationalists, and to give excuse for those who feel Christians need only ‘preach the gospel’ to save souls and not love their neighbors sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not.”

The MacArthur statement is designed to support not a gospel truth but a social myth. The United States, the myth goes, used to have systematic discrimination, but that ended with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Racism is now purely an individual issue, for which the good people should not be blamed. This narrative has nothing to do with true religion. It has everything to do with ignorant self-satisfaction.

It is neither realistic nor fair to ignore the continuing social effects of hundreds of years of state-sponsored oppression, cruelty and stolen wages. It is neither realistic nor fair to ignore the current damage of mass incarceration and failed educational institutions on minority groups. Prejudice and institutional evil are ongoing — deeply ingrained in social practice and ratified by indifference. Repentance is in order — along with a passion for social justice that is inseparable from the Christian gospel.

If it were up to me, churches - and all religious structures of every faith - would lose tax-exempt status and be taxed like any other business organization.  Churches that could not survive without forced subsidies from taxpayers would close and those that had a marketable message would survive. 

Sessions Announces New Anti-Gay Task Force Under Guise of "Religious Liberty"

The euphemism in today's Republican Party for rolling back LGBT rights is "protecting "religious liberty."  Of course, only one set of religious belief is protected under the Trump/Republican Party Agenda: extreme right wing Christian beliefs.  The religious beliefs and civil rights of all others falls before the Christofascists push to make their beliefs supreme and their ability to discriminate against others whether based on sexual orientation or, I suspect before their quest is over, race and skin color.  Pushing this Christofascist agenda is Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, and his ever foul Attorney General, Jeff Sessions - a man I have had the acquaintance of since the late 1970's. As CNN reports, Sessions - acting no doubt on Trump's orders so as to maintain the loyalty of his utterly immoral evangelic base - has announced a new task force to implement the Trump Justice Departments effort to grant special rights to Christofascists and exempt them from public accommodation and non-discrimination laws.  Here are article highlights (in reading the piece, be mindful that "religious groups" only encompass far right Christian groups):

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday announced the Department of Justice's creation of a "religious liberty task force" to "help the department fully implement our religious guidance."

Sessions said the goal of the task force will be protecting religious groups from persecution.

"The task force will help the department fully implement our religious liberty guidance by ensuring that all Justice Department components are upholding that guidance in the cases they bring and defend, the arguments they make in court, the policies and regulations they adopt and how we conduct our operations," Sessions said. "That includes making sure that our employees know their duties to accommodate people of faith."
 Sessions cited "a dangerous movement" aimed toward stripping away the First Amendment right to freedom of religion as a basis for forming the new task force.  "A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom," Sessions said in his speech. "There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated."

Slate provides more context and notes that references to non-right wing Christian traditions appear to be merely disingenuous window dressing to deceive the gullible or to toss a talking point to militant Christofascists.  Here are excerpts:

Sessions mentioned the Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu religions and proclaimed that the DOJ would protect all adherents from discrimination. But in arguing that it was an “unease” over a “changing cultural climate” that motivated Trump voters and the administration’s religious-liberty policies, Sessions seemed to refer more to the complaints of the Christian right. “[Trump] said he respected people of faith and he promised to protect them in the free exercise of their faith,” Sessions said. “He declared we would say ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”

In October 2017, Sessions released a vague memo that instructed federal agencies to observe 20 “principles of religious liberty.” Activists for LGBTQ and women’s rights worried at the time that the proclamation gave broad permission for religious groups to ignore federal civil rights laws.

“Under this administration, the federal government is not just reacting—we are actively seeking, carefully, thoughtfully and lawfully, to accommodate people of faith,” he said. “Religious Americans are no longer an afterthought.”

Sadly, the rights of everyone other than Christofascists will now be an after thought and the concept of a secular civil society will be further undermined. Having followed the far Christian right for over two decades, the move is no surprise to me.  Literally no one in American society is more self-centered, selfish and uncaring to others than the "godly Christian" evangelicals.  They make a mockery of the Gospel message and, if America is lucky, will accelerate the exodus from religion by Millennials and others as Christianity as imposed by the Christofascists becomes something to be reviled and avoided. 

More Identify as LGBT, Especially Among Millennials

click image to enlarge chart

While evangelical Christians and Mormons remain the most consumed by anti-LGBT animus - in my view, because the mere existence of gays threatens their Bronze Ade based world view - and Christofascists continue to peddle the fraudulent myth that gays can "change"  for both monetary and political purposes, a new Gallup survey indicates that the percentage of American adults self-identifying as LGBT is increasing, particularly among Millennials who at 8.2% are nearly twice as likely to identify as LGBT than older generations.  Personally, I still believe the true number is even higher in all age brackets given the number of LGBT individuals who continue to "live in the closet." While Gallup doesn't analyze the marked increase in Millennials identifying as LGBT, I suspect two factors are in play: (i) Millennials have grown up with exposure to increased LGBT rights, and (ii) close to 40% of Millennials have walked away from religion, the sole underlying cause from anti-LGBT animus and discrimination.  Here are some of the Gallup findings:

The percentage of American adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) increased to 4.5% in 2017, up from 4.1% in 2016 and 3.5% in 2012 when Gallup began tracking the measure. The latest estimate is based on over 340,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup's daily tracking in 2017.

Extrapolation to the latest census estimate of adults 18 and older in the U.S. suggests that more than 11 million adults identify as LGBT in the country today.

The expansion in the number of Americans who identify as LGBT is driven primarily by the cohort of millennials, defined as those born between 1980 and 1999. The percentage of millennials who identify as LGBT expanded from 7.3% to 8.1% from 2016 to 2017, and is up from 5.8% in 2012. By contrast, the LGBT percentage in Generation X (those born from 1965 to 1979) was up only .2% from 2016 to 2017. There was no change last year in LGBT percentage among baby boomers (born 1946 through 1964) and traditionalists (born prior to 1946).

Women continue to be more likely to identify as LGBT than men, and this gender gap expanded last year.

Overall, 5.1% of women in 2017 identified as LGBT, compared with 3.9% of men. The change among men over time has been minimal, with the LGBT percentage edging up from 3.4% in 2012 to 3.7% both last year and this year. On the other hand, the percentage of women identifying as LGBT has risen from 3.5% in 2012 to 5.1% today, with the largest jump occurring between 2016 and 2017.

The LGBT percentage has risen among all race and ethnic groups since 2012, although not on an equal basis. Hispanics and Asians have seen the greatest increase, thus contributing the most on a relative basis to the uptick in LGBT identification nationwide. Whites and blacks have seen the least change. . . . . At 6.1%, Hispanics continue to be the single race or ethnic group most likely to identify as LGBT, while the 4.0 % of whites who identify as LGBT remains the lowest. LGBT identification among blacks and Asians, 4.9% and 5.0%, respectively, is essentially midway between the estimates for Hispanics and whites.

This 2017 update on LGBT identification underscores two significant conclusions. First, the percentage of adults in the U.S. who identify as LGBT has been increasing and is now at its highest point across the six years of Gallup's tracking of this measure. Second, the increase has been driven almost totally by millennials, whose self-reports of being LGBT have risen from 5.2% six years ago to 8.1% today.

As the older generations die off, the overall percentage of the population identifying as LGBT will continue to increase. Compounding this trend will be the fact that Millennials are the most LGBT accepting of the generations.  Christofascists will be fighting an increasingly fighting a losing rear guard action and, with luck, may in time find themselves faced with a harsh backlash by those in society not motivated by hate, bigotry, and the embrace of ignorance. who have had enough of false Christian nastiness. 

The Rising Numbers of Those With No Religious Affiliation

The face of Christianity provided by today's GOP supporting evangelical Christians

If one listens to the bloviation of the professional Christian crowd, one hears much about keeping America a "Christian nation" even though such was never the case and the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to avoid any type of state religion.  What one will also hear is a great many lies and witness hypocrisy of epic proportions, especially in the era of Trump/Pence when evangelical Christians demonstrate their moral bankruptcy as they remain loyal supporters of a man devoid of morals and decency.  One of the results, in my view, is the accelerating rate at which Americans are leaving organized religion and Christianity in particular.  Why would anyone truly moral want to be associated with the likes of Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Tony Perkins or the Catholic Church hierarchy which puts protecting predators and Church wealth ahead of the welfare of children and youths.  A piece in Scientific American looks at the continued increase in the "Nones."  Here are excerpts:

In recent years much has been written about the rise of the “nones”— people who check the box for “none” on surveys of religious affiliation. A 2013 Harris Poll of 2,250 American adults, for example, found that 23 percent of all Americans have forsaken religion altogether. A 2015 Pew Research Center poll reported that 34 to 36 percent of millennials (those born after 1980) are nones and corroborated the 23 percent figure, adding that this was a dramatic increase from 2007, when only 16 percent of Americans said they were affiliated with no religion. In raw numbers, this translates to an increase from 36.6 million to 55.8 million nones.

[T]hey are . . . . a significant voting block, far larger than Jews (4.7 million), Muslims (2.2 million) and Buddhists (1.7 million) combined (8.6 million) and comparable to politically powerful Christian sects such as Evangelical (25.4 percent) and Catholic (20.8 percent).

This shift away from the dominance of any one religion is good for a secular society whose government is structured to discourage catch basins of power from building up and spilling over into people's private lives.

[T]hese nones are not necessarily atheists. Many have moved from mainstream religions into New Age spiritual movements . . .  What's going on here? . . . . In a paper in the January 2018 issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science entitled “How Many Atheists Are There?”, Will M. Gervais and Maxine B. Najle, both psychologists at the University of Kentucky, contend that there may be far more atheists than pollsters report because “social pressures favoring religiosity, coupled with stigma against religious disbelief..., might cause people who privately disbelieve in God to nonetheless self-present as believers, even in anonymous questionnaires.

From this analysis, they estimated, with 93 percent certainty, that somewhere between 17 and 35 percent of Americans are atheists, with a “most credible indirect estimate” of 26 percent.

If true, this means that there are more than 64 million American atheists, a staggering number that no politician can afford to ignore. Moreover, if these trends continue, we should be thinking about the deeper implications for how people will find meaning as the traditional source of it wanes in influence. And we should continue working on grounding our morals and values on viable secular sources such as reason and science.

As I have noted before, I believe that it will be the evangelical Christians and the Christofascists, not liberals, who will kill Christianity in America.

The Trump Evangelicals Voters Have Lost Their Gag Reflex

Pence and Franklin Graham - two modern day Pharisees.

I try to avoid referencing the same news source more than once in a given day, but I cannot help myself given that a great column by Michael Gerson, a conservative and a former member of the George W. Bush White House appeared this afternoon in the Washington Post.  Like a previous post from yesterday, the column lays the blame for Donald Trump and the damage being done to America squarely at the feet of evangelical Christians who, Gerson says have "lost their gag reflex."  The column focuses on a point I made in the prior post: for the Christofascists the end justifies the means and that, therefore, lying, spreading hate, and embracing the reprehensible is justifiable if it will further the goal of Christian dominionism.  The irony is that, in my view and seemingly that of Gerson, is that in the end, evangelicals will be the losers as they forfeit what little moral authority they have left and once their usefulness to Trump and the Republican Party is finished, they will be cast aside like disposable trash.  In the end, whatever positive influence that Christianity may offer - and I believe it's debatable that there is any positive - will have been diminished and more will walk away in disgust.  Here are column highlights:

The Rev. Billy Graham has been one of the most visible, respected and influential Christians in the world since the 1950s. But he often had a blind spot when it came to politics. Graham was President Richard Nixon’s golfing buddy and spiritual adviser. He was there to pray with Nixon after every victory or loss. . . . . In Graham’s view, Nixon was “a modest and moral man with spiritual sensitivity.” He “held such noble standards of ethicsand morality for the nation.”
 Graham was in denial about Watergate until the last. When he finally read through the Watergate tape transcripts — including profanity, political corruption, lying, racism and sexism — Graham remembers becoming physically ill. He said later of Nixon: “I wonder whether I might have exaggerated his spirituality in my own mind.” Graham’s biographer William Martin quoted a close Graham associate who was more blunt: “For the life of me, I honestly believe that after all these years, Billy still has no idea of how badly Nixon snookered him.” Graham had the alibi of self-deception. But his son Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress and President Trump’s other evangelical Christian advocates have no such excuse. They have made their political bargain with open eyes. Trump has made profanity an unavoidable part of our political culture. He is in the midst of a gathering corruption scandal that has left close aides under indictment. He tells repeated and obvious lies. He incites ethnic and racial resentment as a political strategy and was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault. Add to this something that could never be said of Nixon: the credible accusation that Trump paid hush money to a porn star to cover up an affair.

And what is Franklin Graham’s reaction? “We certainly don’t hold him up as the pastor of this nation and he is not. But I appreciate the fact that the president does have a concern for Christian values, he does have a concern to protect Christians whether it’s here at home or around the world, and I appreciate the fact that he protects religious liberty and freedom.”

“A concern for Christian values.” I imagine there is considerable presidential stroking behind such a pronouncement — the current equivalent of remembering birthdays and pineapple tea. But Graham’s argument is as crudely political as it gets. Because Trump has delivered the goods on protecting Christians, evangelicals should give him the benefit of every doubt on moral matters, even when such doubts are absurdly transparent ploys.

The level of cynicism here is startling. Some Christian leaders are surrendering the idea that character matters in public life in direct exchange for political benefits to Christians themselves. It is a political maneuver indistinguishable from those performed by business or union lobbyists every day. Only seedier. You scratch my back, I’ll wink at dehumanization and Stormy Daniels. The gag reflex is entirely gone. [T]he Trump evangelicals are out of their depth. When presented with the binary choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, I can understand a certain amount of anguish. But that is not a reason to become sycophants, cheerleaders and enablers. Politics sometimes presents difficult choices. But that is no excuse to be the most easily manipulated group in American politics.

The problem, however, runs deeper. Trump’s court evangelicals have become active participants in the moral deregulation of our political life. Never mind whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is of good repute. Some evangelicals are busy erasing bright lines and destroying moral landmarks. In the process, they are associating evangelicalism with bigotry, selfishness and deception. They are playing a grubby political game for the highest of stakes: the reputation of their faith.

Not long after Watergate broke, a chastened Billy Graham addressed a conference in Switzerland, warning that an evangelist should be careful not “to identify the Gospel with any one particular political program or culture,” and adding, “this has been my own danger.”  The danger endures.

Evangelicals will be the death of Christianity.  Given what Christianity has become under the evangelicals, that death cannot come soon enough.

"Respectable" Evangelicals Distance Themselves from Trump Supporters

Like it or not, Trump supporting evangelical Christians are becoming the public face of Christianity in America.  The result of this phenomenon is not positive for those who want the faith to survive: one third of Millenials have walked away from religion (for those under 30, the figure is 36%), the number of so-called "Nones" now is the larges religious group, if you will, in the nation.  Meanwhile, all Christian denominations are losing membership overall.  And "liberal" denominations all too often fail and refuse to challenge the ugliness of the message of the Trump supporting evangelical Christians or, if they do, do it in an ineffectual manner. In sum, hatred of others, hypocrisy and dishonesty (think James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee) are increasing what many Americans associate with Christianity.  As a piece in Religion Dispatches notes, some "respectable" evangelicals are trying to distance themselves from their Trump supporting brethren.  Will the damage control effort work?  Probably not.  Here are article highlights:

The defenders of “respectable” evangelicalism were out in force in 2017. In newspapers, magazines, and National Public Radio programs, they delivered a consistent message. That group of Trump-loving, Roy-Moore-supporting evangelicals? “It’s not us.”

Respectable evangelicals have been defining away their embarrassing spiritual kin for a century, at least.

When working-class evangelicals began speaking in tongues in the 1900s, respectable evangelicals declared the movement a delusion of Satan. It’s not us, they insisted.

When the Scopes Monkey Trial made William Jennings Bryan a laughingstock, respectable evangelicals disclaimed leadership in the fundamentalist movement they helped create. It’s not us.

In the 1940s and 50s, respectable evangelicals perfected the “not us” technique. Abandoning the fundamentalist label (though holding nearly identical beliefs), they created a “neo-evangelical” identity to distance themselves from the red-baiters and conspiratorialists. Ever since, the toxic byproducts of their movement have been shunted outside the evangelical camp. Whether tele-evangelist scandals, or hurricanes-are-God’s-judgment-jeremiads, or homophobic protests at military funerals: it’s not us.

In a recent Vox editorial, historian Thomas Kidd, a never-Trump evangelical, continues the refrain. The statistic that 80% of white evangelicals supported Trump is wrong, he argues, because it’s based on self-identification. They are evangelicals in name only; it’s not us.

Consider the definition at work. To be evangelical, we are told, is to believe in “conversion.” But is conversion a uniquely evangelical idea? It’s not even uniquely Christian; Muslims convert too. Rather, they are appealing to a particular experience of conversion. And how is an evangelical conversion measured? That’s the rub. It’s been the cause of evangelical consternation for two centuries.

But conversion’s unmeasurable quality is what makes it useful for insiders. It allows them to state (or strongly infer) that only unconverted, ‘nominal,’ evangelicals supported Trump. Apparently, a vote for Trump is evidence enough? Meanwhile, evangelical Trump voters declare that by withholding support, never-Trump evangelicals have demonstrated their faithlessness.

“Biblicism” functions similarly. Imagine a political scientist defining Republicans as “those who take the Constitution seriously.” Who would accept this transparently partisan statement? And yet many people today accept that evangelicals are “biblical,” while everyone else…isn’t? This is how former megachurch pastor Rob Bell and popular author Rachel Held Evans ceased to be evangelical: not because they quit the Bible, but because they came up with “wrong,” (thus “unbiblical”) answers about hell and being gay. “Biblicism” is evangelical gerrymandering.

[A] definition must function independent of public relations. If an abusive priest is still Catholic, then J. Dennis Hastert must remain an evangelical despite his sordid past.

Few conservative white evangelicals will question their overheated rhetoric about healthcare and wedding cakes and “religious liberty.” Few liberal white evangelicals will question how their cherished theological categories might contribute to the systemic racism and patriarchy they claim to oppose. Moore supporters will not consider whether there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

Because being evangelical means never having to say you’re sorry.  Being evangelical means “it’s not us.”

Evangelicals Have Only Themselves to Blame for Their "Perception Problem"

Having followed evangelical "Christian" family values groups for over two decades - not to mention some of the batshitery I was exposed to having been raised Catholic - I had a very negative view of conservative Christianity long before the rise of Roy Moore or Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer.  And this negative view had nothing to do with evangelicals' support of a particular candidate.  Rather, it arose from their hypocrisy, desire to impose their beliefs on all of society, their judgmentalism, a total lack of love and compassion for others, and their rejection of science and modernity to name just a few of the undesirable characteristics of this segment of Christianity.  These malignant characteristics seem to have only intensified as evangelicals have been the main supporters of morally foul individuals like Trump and Moore. As a piece in the Washington Post examines, some evangelicals are belatedly waking to the fact that outside their own circles, they are viewed as toxic, especially among Millennials and with good reason.  If they seek to change this "perception problem," a long look in the mirror at themselves is a much needed first step.  Here are article highlights:

After Roy Moore lost Alabama's special Senate election, despite running a campaign on what he called Christian values, some evangelical voters seem to be considering that their label has been co-opted.

There's a growing concern that aligning with people such as Moore and President Trump has hurt evangelicalism in the public eye. But others connected to the movement say evangelicals, particularly white evangelicals, had a perception problem long before Trump and Moore became the faces of the community’s politics.

Moore’s promise to bring Christian values to the nation’s capital helped him win 80 percent of the white evangelical vote, similar to Trump in the 2016 election. But Moore was highly unpopular with people outside of evangelicalism, in part because of his incendiary comments about Muslims, gay people, people of color and people he perceived did not share his Christian faith.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, told The Fix: “This did not start with our recent national scene. . . . . evangelicalism has been defined by the market, not by the gospel. Any label that can include both Bible-believing gospel Christians and prosperity gospel heretics is a label that has lost its meaning.”

For years, believers have debated whether Republican politics and culture-war battles have diluted the essence of their label “evangelical” — which means spreading the Gospel.

The term “evangelical” became popular decades ago as a way to tamp down differences, emphasizing that all people under its umbrella, regardless of denomination, agree to embrace the Bible and spread its word. But politicians such as Trump and Moore have shown how elusive shared faith and values are today.

Moore and Trump supporters are the norm within evangelicalism, so attempting to distance them from the movement fails to address the real issues.

“White evangelicals who are now discarding the evangelical label are a day late and a dollar short,” Uwan said. “From its inception, there was an unholy triumvirate of Republicanism, patriotism and nationalism at the core of white evangelicalism. Trump is the very embodiment of white evangelicalism, and they must own him and their complicity. . . . . To reject the label for a new one is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.”

From the religious right’s earliest days, stances such as opposing abortion and same-sex marriage have been at the core of the movement. At this point, it's nearly impossible to dissociate the religious values from the politics. . . . . As Jerry Falwell Jr., president of the evangelical Liberty University, previously said, “I think evangelicals have found their dream president.”

White evangelicals are one of the groups that propelled Republicans in national and local elections. And all signs point to evangelicals having to carry the negative implications of the label long after some of these controversial politicians have left the political stage.

Evangelicals want to be above the nation's nondiscrimination laws by citing their "religious beliefs."  If they succeed, then others should be allowed to discriminate against them because, to me, they represent modern day Pharisees, and we all know how Christ treated the Pharisees in the New Testament. There is a reason the ranks of the "Nones" is growing and much of it traces to the toxic hate and nastiness of evangelicals. 

Alabama Vote Will Define Republicans - and Christians

The Millennial generation which includes those born between 1982 and 2000 - now the largest generation numerically in America - is becoming increasingly anti-Republican and anti-Christianity. Indeed, if Millennials voted in numbers comparable to reactionary elderly voters, many Republicans at state and federal office levels would be swept from office (their increased voter turnout in Virginia last month made a large difference in the outcome).  While their voting turnout needs to improve, they are actively showing their disdain for Christianity and organized religion in general by simply walking away.  A piece in Living Lutheran, the official magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, looks at the exodus of Millennials from religious denominations and their attitudes towards Christianity.  The piece looks at data compiled by Pew Research Center, Barna Groupand others.  Here are the findings:

87% see Christians as judgmental

85% see Christians as hypocrites

91% see Christians as anti-LGBT

36% of those 27 and younger have completely walked away from religious denominations 

34% of those 35 and under have completely walked away from religious denominations 

20% align with evangelical Protestants versus 30% of the so-called silent generation

16% align with Catholicism versus 24% of the so-called silent generation

In this context, we have the Alabama special senatorial election on December 12, 2017, which in the minds of many will strongly impact how many see the Republican Party and self-professed "Christians."  A column in the Washington Post looks at how this election will have long lasting effects beyond those that fixate Mitch McConnell, Der Trumpenführer, and other equally foul and morally bankrupt Republicans.  Here are column excerpts:

Just how disordered have our politics become? And how off-the-rails is the Republican Party?

The good people of Alabama will help answer these questions in next Tuesday’s special election for the U.S. Senate. The whole world will be watching them decide whether party and ideology top decency and moderation; whether there is simply no end to the extremism Republican voters are willing to tolerate in their ranks; and whether a majority in their state believe that being a credibly accused sexual predator is better than being a Democrat.  They will also be telling us what they think the word “Christian” means. 

The outcome is likely to be determined by the consciences of conservatives, and of a specific kind: those who see Mitt Romney and Republicans like him as far more reflective of their moral sense than is Judge Roy Moore, the GOP’s ethically defective nominee whose indifference to the law led him to be removed from Alabama’s Supreme Court twice.  . . .  The former Massachusetts governor tweeted this week that having Moore in the Senate “would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation.”

For good measure, Bannon not only accused Romney of avoiding service in Vietnam. He also trafficked in the anti-Mormon sentiments common among some evangelical Christians.

Thanks to Bannon, we now know that this is no longer just a race between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney who, depending on the poll, is either slightly behind or slightly ahead. It is, in very large part, a decision by Republicans about who they are.

It is also an important choice for devoted Christians. Do they really want their faith defined by those who tried to justify Moore’s alleged relationships with young teenagers by invoking the Holy Family and saying that Joseph was older than Mary . . . . ? Or by arguing that an interest in young girls might be explained by a desire for “a large family,” as a professor at Ouachita Baptist University wrote?

Do those saying such things not realize that they are helping to discredit the very tradition they claim to be defending? No atheist could inflict this much damage to the faith.

Moore’s promoters, including Bannon, want to convince Alabama Republicans that since a Jones triumph will be taken as a rebuke to Trump, they have an obligation to fall into line. But the long-term harm to the GOP from a Moore victory will be far greater than from one lost Senate seat. Bannon is right to cast the election as being about “honor and integrity.” When it comes to these virtues, it is not a close call.

White Christians Are Now a Minority in America

With all the bad news of late and weather related destruction, it is nice to see a little bit of what I regard as good news: self-identifying white Christians are now no longer make up a majority of citizens.  Better yet, white evangelicals have declined to only 17% of the overall population, not that we are not suffering daily from the toxicity of their poisonous version of Christianity.  These and other findings come from a new report by the Public Religion Research Institute based on a survey of a sample of more than 101,000 Americans from all 50 states.  The membership of virtually every Christian denomination has declined with the largest declines being among Millennials who have walked away from religion in no small part due to the hate and bigotry that are the hallmarks of fundamentalist and evangelical denominations and so-called "Christian" "family values" organizations.   Like previous surveys, white evangelicals are the least educated denomination.  Also, the survey confirms that the GOP is in the stranglehold of white Christians.  Here are some of the survey findings:

     Today, fewer than half of all states are majority white Christian. As recently as 2007, 39 states had majority white Christian populations. These are two of the major findings from this report, which is based on findings from PRRI’s 2016 American Values Atlas, the single largest survey of American religious and denominational identity ever conducted. Among the major findings:

1. White Christians now account for fewer than half of the public. Today, only 43% of Americans identify as white and Christian, and only 30% as white and Protestant. In 1976, roughly eight in ten (81%) Americans identified as white and identified with a Christian denomination, and a majority (55%) were white Protestants.

1. White evangelical Protestants are in decline—along with white mainline Protestants and white Catholics. White evangelical Protestants were once thought to be bucking a longer trend, but over the past decade their numbers have dropped substantially. Fewer than one in five (17%) Americans are white evangelical Protestant, but they accounted for nearly one-quarter (23%) in 2006. Over the same period, white Catholics dropped five percentage points from 16% to 11%, as have white mainline Protestants, from 18% to 13%.

1. Non-Christian religious groups are growing, but they still represent less than one in ten Americans combined. Jewish Americans constitute 2% of the public while Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus each constitute only 1% of the public. All other non-Christian religions constitute an additional 1%.

1. America’s youngest religious groups are all non-Christian. Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists are all far younger than white Christian groups. At least one-third of Muslims (42%), Hindus (36%), and Buddhists (35%) are under the age of 30. Roughly one-third (34%) of religiously unaffiliated Americans are also under 30. In contrast, white Christian groups are aging.

1. There are 20 states in which no religious group comprises a greater share of residents than the religiously unaffiliated. These states tend to be more concentrated in the Western U.S., although they include a couple of New England states, as well. More than four in ten (41%) residents of Vermont and approximately one-third of Americans in Oregon (36%), Washington (35%), Hawaii (34%), Colorado (33%), and New Hampshire (33%) are religiously unaffiliated.

1. No state is less religiously diverse than Mississippi. The state is heavily Protestant and dominated by a single denomination: Baptist. Six in ten (60%) Protestants in Mississippi are Baptist. No state has a greater degree of religious diversity than New York. 

1. Jews, Hindus, and Unitarian-Universalists stand out as the most educated groups in the American religious landscape. More than one-third of Jews (34%), Hindus (38%), and Unitarian-Universalists (43%) hold post-graduate degrees. Notably, Muslims are significantly more likely than white evangelical Protestants to have at least a four-year college degree (33% vs. 25%, respectively).

1. Nearly half of LGBT Americans are religiously unaffiliated. Nearly half (46%) of Americans who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are religiously unaffiliated. This is roughly twice the number of Americans overall (24%) who are religiously unaffiliated.

1. White evangelical Protestants remain the dominant religious force in the GOP. More than one-third (35%) of all Republicans identify as white evangelical Protestant, a proportion that has remained roughly stable over the past decade. Roughly three-quarters (73%) of Republicans belong to a white Christian religious group.

If the country is lucky, the decline of white Christians will not only continue but accelerate.