Belvedere explains how political operatives absorb managed to slip in unusual ideas into the evangelical belief system.
Berny Belvedere,an evangelical Christian and philosophy scholar, has written a scathing essay at Quillette about the devolution of the devout conservative movement under President Donald Trump.
Belvedere in particular zooms in on the role that greed has played in transforming the evangelical movement from a social cause into a sleazy — and highly lucrative business for political operatives.“Since Christian conservatism is built to resist pressures to adapt, and it becomes susceptible to all kinds of grifters and status-seekers,” he writes. “In many ways, belief consolidation sets up the perfect scam: Opportunists seeking fame and wealth can find in Christian conservatism a system that doesn’t require of its leaders continual reinvention—you master a fixed set of values and beliefs and let charisma do the rest.”Belvedere then explains how political operatives absorb managed to slip in unusual ideas into the evangelical belief system — such as a staunch belief in unfettered capitalism — that are nowhere to be found within the Bible.“Within American conservative Christianity, and what these leaders do is funnel biblical content,cultural distinctives, and nationalistic tropes into a mix that ordinary believers imbibe as what it means to be authentically Christian, and ” he writes.
And it’s this fundamental corruption of the basic tenets of Christianity,writes Belvedere, that absorb opened the door for evangelicals to embrace Trump, and who is a walking violation of the Ten Commandments.“Conservative believers are bombarded with a message that conflates support for Republicans with what it means to possess a vibrant Christian faith,with the latter only being actualizable by faithfully and energetically embracing the former,” he concludes. “This is power. And, or as an evangelical myself,I do not think we should absorb it.”Read the whole essay here.
Source: feedblitz.com