What the research doesn't say is what other factors are also making Gen Z less likely to go to church. Christian support for Trump, plus systemic child abuse scandals, plus naked greed from pastors, plus the racism, plus the homophobia, plus the transphobia....
In other words, the kids are paying attention, and can figure out just how toxic religion is. The kids are alright. Let's hope they get to take over from the old bigots currently running things sooner rather than later.
And what do the churches do in response? Double down on their Trump support, their child abuse scandals, their naked greed, their racism, their homophobia, and their transphobia. Because that's the only thing toxic people can do.
Few things ever demonstrated the disconnect between religion and morality quite like the evangelical preachers pledging their unconditional love for the most corrupt, incompetent and grotesquely immoral President in our history. The preachers can talk about their loving Jesus and the glorious afterlife from now on, but there is nothing they crave more than power and control on this earthly plain. Power few groups would be more ill-equipped to exercise. They saw Trump as a means to that end, and were too stupid to realize he was playing them and couldn’t care less about them.
Don't forget Generation X, too. I'm one of the Generation Xers who no longer wants to go to church anymore due to anti-science-pro-creationism crud, greedy pedopastors, slanderous sermons, "It's either my way or the highway," US patriotic garbage, false history, excessive slander of the LGBTQ+, anti-abortion-antiwomen dogma, and especially the excessive worship of that Stupid Idiot Donald Trump!
Yep, I'm the last of the bunch, and couldn't be more different than my older brothers (who shamefully got sucked in to the cult of the orange orc). I figured it out as a kid.
Sounds like me. Youngest of my siblings and nothing like them (although my oldest brother became atheist after leaving the seminary. He realized he wasn't going to cut it as a priest).
Yeah, Gen X here, too. I got sick of going to church years ago when I realized the talk was exactly that - just talk. Too much stuff that sounded good, not enough effort toward making actual progress.
Yes, I am in fact saying that the Moral Majority drove me away from church. I just had to keep going until I could get away from living at home.
Thank you! His buying "guns from gangsters" bit was so phony. Mickey Cohen blew the whistle on that, and his rants against Jewish people with Nixon, on a hot mic put the lie to his goodness.
Graham swore up and down that he never made antisemitic comments when he talked with Nixon in the Oval Office. When the tapes of him doing it were played back to him, he lamely said he honestly didn't remember saying them.
I’d like to see the demographic breakdowns of these numbers. I’m willing to bet my left tit that even among the conservative leaning Gen Z, this is a split between men and women. And there is most certainly a smaller percentage of women than men in the conservative Gen Z demographic. And it has been noted that there are a large number of Gen Z boys being radicalized in the manosphere/red pill/incel culture and they’re getting even more frustrated because the Gen Z girls are turned off by that. But those are the same influences that are propping up the evangelical right and MAGA with young people. All I’m saying is that this will probably be a split between men and women in general.
“Christian Nationalists believed they could use their power to codify their beliefs into law. They never stopped to think about whether those policies were any good or whether Americans—including young people who might have been Christian leaders in the future—might be turned off by their willingness to cede moral authority to the least moral person to ever occupy the White House.”
They never stop to think at all. Ever. But, in this instance their thoughts (if you can call them that) are that if they have the power, they will be able to force their beliefs on the young. Like the Hitler Youth or Big Brother in 1984. Anyway, fundie religions are actually quite shortsighted by nature, as they are run by the greedy and power hungry cult leaders. They don’t want to grow a religion, they want a following that will serve them personally. Dobson didn’t care if the children of his followers became followers, only that his followers gave him money. Jim Jones was only setting up his followers to die. Glomming onto an established religion only helps them build credibility enough to collect their following and provide reasons for their sermons.
They’re just upset that it is ending before they’ve gotten all they wanted.
It is, if we make it end. Even then it will take some time. What I meant was that even if it doesn’t end soon for us, it will be too soon for them. They want it to last forever, but know that it won’t especially when the next generation is actively walking away. They see the attrition.
If there is anything at all surprising about the number of Gen Z people who are dissuaded from going to church because of Donald Trump's behavior, it is that MORE OF THEM aren't disgusted by his faux-Christianity than are recorded in that survey. Trump's pretense at being a Christian is transparent to anyone with sufficient brainpower to see it, and this has been the case for the entirety of his time in politics, from the whole "Two Corinthians" thing onward. Anyone who wishes to insist that he is born-again or a follower of Christ inevitably makes excuses for his actions, in order to maintain the illusion. Indeed, a whole new field of apologetics has emerged to deal with the embarrassment that is Donald John Trump.
My only additional comment here is this: expect those GenZ numbers to go UP ... along with Millennials, Gen X, and even some Boomers. Trump is fouling his own nest. People WILL notice.
It's no surprise that adults who believe in magic apples, talking snakes and donkeys, transgender rib women and thousands of species jammed into a tiny boat, built by a 500 year old man, would believe a 34 count convicted felon and pedophile is an honest servant of their lard and god's chosen.
Kids however are not that gullible and with each generation, more of them break free from Cult of death.
Side Note: that "boat" would have been the largest wood built craft of its kind ever, and would not have been able to survive rough seas, certainly not for 40 days and 40 nights.
The white Evangelical church specifically has betrayed every value, every moral teaching, every precept they taught me as a child.
They revealed themselves to be hypocrites who do not take their own scriptures and teaching seriously.
They obsess over sex and abortion and LGBTQ and they patently work against feeding the hungry, lifting up the poor, caring for the sick, and being kind to prisoners. Their leaders are not servants, but lord their power over others. They deny that everyone has a right to pursue happiness and demand the State use the engine of coercion and violence to force people to pursue one of two ways based entirely on their genitals. They do not respect the law or Constitution and defend violent insurrectionists. They spit on their own moral teachings and celebrate a serial adulterer, a thrice married thief, constant liar, braggard, arrogant, murderous and violent thug.
They are the heirs to the churches that coddled slavers and lynch mobs and praised their violence and cruelty as being in the service of God.
If they had the capacity for shame, they would slink and slither back into the dark recesses they came from in self-loathing.
But they continue to parade their depravity and demand more from the rest of us. They continue to shamble grotesquely in the guise of a "holy man" demanding power and obedience.
"11 Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
12 These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
I think it's more than a need to hold onto power, I think it's a need to avoid having someone else in power. When you oppress people, you worry what might happen if they get power over you. I think they are scared that the non-religious will gain control of the government and go on a revenge tour the way Trump has. While my biggest fantasy is for Trump and his co-conspirators to get thrown in the super max prison in El Salvador, I don't think that will happen. What I really want to is to get back on the track to the secular government our founding fathers envisioned with the last 250 years of enlightenment, iow - let's go back to striving to be 'woke' instead of using that word as a pejorative.
They believe that everyone thinks like they do. They think it's appropriate to try to punish their perceived enemies, so they think that we (their perceived enemies) also think it's appropriate to punish enemies. They think we would do to them what they so desperately want to do to us. In reality, we would treat them with compassion, and leave them with freedom. They fear us for no reason, we fear them for good reason.
Not sure I agree. Considering that it's possible that Nixon's pardon was the door that opened and allowed Trump to walk through, I think some kind of reckoning needs to happen. We've allowed too many people to wield too much power without oversight or control ... or consequences, and that has put us where we are in this moment.
I've said it many times and will repeat: an example must be set.
I agree with you there and I think there will be some people paying the price for their devotion to their furor/god. But, Trump is NOT going to ever face any consequences because he'll be dead by the time any can possibly roll around. He was given immunity by the sycophants he appointed, after all. As for the rest of his sycophants, They are going to get off by dumping all the crap on their lackeys and only low-levels idiots who were to stupid to know they were wrong with face any consequences.
OK, Lord Curmudgeon, King of the Sociologists, has a problem with this. Not the least of which is that I’m on my 1st cup of coffee. Why do you do this to me, Hemant? I just woke up.
Lord Curmudgeon asees four problems with this “study”. The first one is that it comes from the Three Billygoats Graham Institute. (Yes, I’m old. And if you don’t know what I’m referring to, you’re not). How do you know that right-wing Christians are unlikely to be telling the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? They have lips.
Second, this Institute is at Wheaton College. These are the very same people that have been covering up sexual abuse for years. Evangelicals are finally noticing that they’ve been covering it up for years and they’ve been all kinds of scandals associated with this. Go to the Roys Report. The whole sordid mess is outlined in a series of articles over the last few months. How do you know that right-wing Christians are unlikely to be telling the truth? They have lips.
Third, the creators of the study are creating a book out of their research. I’m pretty sure that the proper spelling for “book” is SPIN, with a heavy dose of opportunism hiding behind a gossamer web of propaganda. This is a survey of 2400 not so young adults. And yet they are trying to make a book out of it. Richard Richardson—wassamatta, buddy? Your parents were so poor they couldn’t afford two names?— is a professor of evangelism. Think about the implications of that.
And finally, the conclusion: “ According to the research, 48% of respondents said they agree with the statement “Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church.” how do I put this delicately? Weasel Words! That’s a loophole you could drive a fundamentalist Megachurch through, with room left over for another child abuse scandal.
Less likely to go to church. How nice. But not changing their basic beliefs. Nothing about their votes. Nothing about the people they give money to. Nothing about anything of importance except that they’re less likely to go to church. As a means of comparison, Ryan Gosling is less likely to be my secret boyfriend. Less like likely than whom? Less likely then Ryan Reynolds, of course.
Maybe I’m just being cynical here, but I smell another agenda somewhere in this. And I suspect it has a good deal to do with deflecting attention from Wheaton College, and perhaps goosing enough attention from People Wit Money to fund more evangelism.
If I were a professor of evangelism, that’s what I would do.
I would appreciate the attention of people who are more awake than I am to this matter.
I wonder how well tolerated (and honestly responded to!) a survey into a believer's stances on their actual beliefs might be. Strikes me as a ticklish subject which would require considerable forethought and careful wording.
Which some surveys and polls are notoriously poor at.
I keep saying it- if conservative Christians want King Chump, he's theirs. I don't care if he's a true believer or a faker; it all looks the same from the underside of the boot. He may not be a kind of Christian that makes fence-sitting and left-leaning Christians comfortable about sharing their religion with him, but he's 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 the same kind of Christian as all of the whackjob conservative preachers who've hitched their fortunes to him. Whether or not 𝘢𝘯𝘺 of them actually have faith in the god they profess to believe in is immaterial- Christianity is both their cudgel against everyone they hate, and their shield against criticism and condemnation; Christians they are, and Christians they will be, until they no longer believe that Christianity can bring them more power and wealth (or until they establish The One Bigliest Church and Casino of The Donald, anyway).
In fairness, Trump's cos-playing christianity is only different in polish and delivery from the 'christian pastors' who've boosted the avatar of the seven deadlies for over a decade now.
If their embrace of Trump is waking up Gen Zers to the phoniness of American christianity, then I say the kids are alright. [H/T to The Who]
I used to think that. I still thought that when Obama got elected (twice). Since those small steps forward, we've taken 100s/1000s of steps back. I don't think kids (through no fault of their own) will have anything to be alright about.
The kids will certainly face a boatload of problems because of the actions of their elders. But that's been true of every generation as they came of age. This generation, though, seems particularly suited to the job ahead of them, if you ask me.
And those are just the ones I can think of, off the top of my (balding) head. We've left them with a collection of ugly messes, and the sooner they get addressed, the better off all of us will be. And Step One is GETTING TRUMP OUT OF POWER!
Kind of a stupid question, but what else would you expect from anything associated with Billy Graham.
For starters, churches aren't a monolith. If you are a liberal christian then the President siding with folks that you disagree with shouldn't be a factor in your church going. If you are a conservative christian then you got what you voted for. Buck up and keep tithing.
Trump mocked his evangelical supporters in his first term, yet the fanatigelicals still treat him like he's the Second Coming instead of the Antichrist.
𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ, 48% 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 “𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠’ 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑜 𝑡𝑜 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ.”
What the research doesn't say is what other factors are also making Gen Z less likely to go to church. Christian support for Trump, plus systemic child abuse scandals, plus naked greed from pastors, plus the racism, plus the homophobia, plus the transphobia....
In other words, the kids are paying attention, and can figure out just how toxic religion is. The kids are alright. Let's hope they get to take over from the old bigots currently running things sooner rather than later.
And what do the churches do in response? Double down on their Trump support, their child abuse scandals, their naked greed, their racism, their homophobia, and their transphobia. Because that's the only thing toxic people can do.
Few things ever demonstrated the disconnect between religion and morality quite like the evangelical preachers pledging their unconditional love for the most corrupt, incompetent and grotesquely immoral President in our history. The preachers can talk about their loving Jesus and the glorious afterlife from now on, but there is nothing they crave more than power and control on this earthly plain. Power few groups would be more ill-equipped to exercise. They saw Trump as a means to that end, and were too stupid to realize he was playing them and couldn’t care less about them.
He was always a spoiled con man. Non of his parents ever told him to choose the right path. By now I will celebrate his fall if or when it happens.
Don't forget Generation X, too. I'm one of the Generation Xers who no longer wants to go to church anymore due to anti-science-pro-creationism crud, greedy pedopastors, slanderous sermons, "It's either my way or the highway," US patriotic garbage, false history, excessive slander of the LGBTQ+, anti-abortion-antiwomen dogma, and especially the excessive worship of that Stupid Idiot Donald Trump!
Some of us Boomers caught wise when we were still young'uns.
Vietnam killed every last trace of religious faith in me. We lost about 14,000 men during my tour, and I sure didn't see Jesus stepping in to help.
He was too busy keeping his eyes on sparrows.
Yep, I'm the last of the bunch, and couldn't be more different than my older brothers (who shamefully got sucked in to the cult of the orange orc). I figured it out as a kid.
Sounds like me. Youngest of my siblings and nothing like them (although my oldest brother became atheist after leaving the seminary. He realized he wasn't going to cut it as a priest).
Yeah, Gen X here, too. I got sick of going to church years ago when I realized the talk was exactly that - just talk. Too much stuff that sounded good, not enough effort toward making actual progress.
Yes, I am in fact saying that the Moral Majority drove me away from church. I just had to keep going until I could get away from living at home.
Not sure I would believe anything from Billy Graham Center Research Institute, based out of (evangelical) Wheaton College.
Billy Graham was a charlatan as are his spawn.
If anything, that 48% of Gen Z is liable to be a CONSERVATIVE figure, with the true number considerably HIGHER.
Watch this space.
See my comment right above yours. Great minds think.
Thank you! His buying "guns from gangsters" bit was so phony. Mickey Cohen blew the whistle on that, and his rants against Jewish people with Nixon, on a hot mic put the lie to his goodness.
Graham swore up and down that he never made antisemitic comments when he talked with Nixon in the Oval Office. When the tapes of him doing it were played back to him, he lamely said he honestly didn't remember saying them.
Uh, sure Jan.
A family of carnival barkers.
Yeah, he obviously said it so much, he didn’t remember which time they were referring to.
I hope people will stop seeing Graham Sr. as somehow being better than his loony offspring
Only “nearly half”? That’s disappointing. But I guess you have to consider who ran the poll.
They only asked about Trump's effect specifically. It likely only goes up when other factors are included.
I’d like to see the demographic breakdowns of these numbers. I’m willing to bet my left tit that even among the conservative leaning Gen Z, this is a split between men and women. And there is most certainly a smaller percentage of women than men in the conservative Gen Z demographic. And it has been noted that there are a large number of Gen Z boys being radicalized in the manosphere/red pill/incel culture and they’re getting even more frustrated because the Gen Z girls are turned off by that. But those are the same influences that are propping up the evangelical right and MAGA with young people. All I’m saying is that this will probably be a split between men and women in general.
“Christian Nationalists believed they could use their power to codify their beliefs into law. They never stopped to think about whether those policies were any good or whether Americans—including young people who might have been Christian leaders in the future—might be turned off by their willingness to cede moral authority to the least moral person to ever occupy the White House.”
They never stop to think at all. Ever. But, in this instance their thoughts (if you can call them that) are that if they have the power, they will be able to force their beliefs on the young. Like the Hitler Youth or Big Brother in 1984. Anyway, fundie religions are actually quite shortsighted by nature, as they are run by the greedy and power hungry cult leaders. They don’t want to grow a religion, they want a following that will serve them personally. Dobson didn’t care if the children of his followers became followers, only that his followers gave him money. Jim Jones was only setting up his followers to die. Glomming onto an established religion only helps them build credibility enough to collect their following and provide reasons for their sermons.
They’re just upset that it is ending before they’ve gotten all they wanted.
Is it ending?
It is, if we make it end. Even then it will take some time. What I meant was that even if it doesn’t end soon for us, it will be too soon for them. They want it to last forever, but know that it won’t especially when the next generation is actively walking away. They see the attrition.
“Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church.”
I would have to check the disagree box.
Yup. I wasn’t going anyway.
How do you have less than zero?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Less_than_Zero_(film)
Yeah, I actually thought of that, though I've never seen the actual movie. [shrug]
It’s not that I less than zero. It’s is literally true that Christian support for Trump does not make me less likely to attend church. 😉
Christians denouncing the orange cretin wouldn’t make me more likely either.
If there is anything at all surprising about the number of Gen Z people who are dissuaded from going to church because of Donald Trump's behavior, it is that MORE OF THEM aren't disgusted by his faux-Christianity than are recorded in that survey. Trump's pretense at being a Christian is transparent to anyone with sufficient brainpower to see it, and this has been the case for the entirety of his time in politics, from the whole "Two Corinthians" thing onward. Anyone who wishes to insist that he is born-again or a follower of Christ inevitably makes excuses for his actions, in order to maintain the illusion. Indeed, a whole new field of apologetics has emerged to deal with the embarrassment that is Donald John Trump.
My only additional comment here is this: expect those GenZ numbers to go UP ... along with Millennials, Gen X, and even some Boomers. Trump is fouling his own nest. People WILL notice.
Hopefully, enough people notice to offset the portion of the Republican electorate that 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘴 wallowing in Dear Leader's shít.
It's no surprise that adults who believe in magic apples, talking snakes and donkeys, transgender rib women and thousands of species jammed into a tiny boat, built by a 500 year old man, would believe a 34 count convicted felon and pedophile is an honest servant of their lard and god's chosen.
Kids however are not that gullible and with each generation, more of them break free from Cult of death.
Side Note: that "boat" would have been the largest wood built craft of its kind ever, and would not have been able to survive rough seas, certainly not for 40 days and 40 nights.
And that was just until the rain stopped. All that water still had to drain off somewhere. But where, exactly? The Omniscient One did not say.
The white Evangelical church specifically has betrayed every value, every moral teaching, every precept they taught me as a child.
They revealed themselves to be hypocrites who do not take their own scriptures and teaching seriously.
They obsess over sex and abortion and LGBTQ and they patently work against feeding the hungry, lifting up the poor, caring for the sick, and being kind to prisoners. Their leaders are not servants, but lord their power over others. They deny that everyone has a right to pursue happiness and demand the State use the engine of coercion and violence to force people to pursue one of two ways based entirely on their genitals. They do not respect the law or Constitution and defend violent insurrectionists. They spit on their own moral teachings and celebrate a serial adulterer, a thrice married thief, constant liar, braggard, arrogant, murderous and violent thug.
They are the heirs to the churches that coddled slavers and lynch mobs and praised their violence and cruelty as being in the service of God.
If they had the capacity for shame, they would slink and slither back into the dark recesses they came from in self-loathing.
But they continue to parade their depravity and demand more from the rest of us. They continue to shamble grotesquely in the guise of a "holy man" demanding power and obedience.
"11 Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
12 These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
I think it's more than a need to hold onto power, I think it's a need to avoid having someone else in power. When you oppress people, you worry what might happen if they get power over you. I think they are scared that the non-religious will gain control of the government and go on a revenge tour the way Trump has. While my biggest fantasy is for Trump and his co-conspirators to get thrown in the super max prison in El Salvador, I don't think that will happen. What I really want to is to get back on the track to the secular government our founding fathers envisioned with the last 250 years of enlightenment, iow - let's go back to striving to be 'woke' instead of using that word as a pejorative.
They believe that everyone thinks like they do. They think it's appropriate to try to punish their perceived enemies, so they think that we (their perceived enemies) also think it's appropriate to punish enemies. They think we would do to them what they so desperately want to do to us. In reality, we would treat them with compassion, and leave them with freedom. They fear us for no reason, we fear them for good reason.
Not sure I agree. Considering that it's possible that Nixon's pardon was the door that opened and allowed Trump to walk through, I think some kind of reckoning needs to happen. We've allowed too many people to wield too much power without oversight or control ... or consequences, and that has put us where we are in this moment.
I've said it many times and will repeat: an example must be set.
I agree with you there and I think there will be some people paying the price for their devotion to their furor/god. But, Trump is NOT going to ever face any consequences because he'll be dead by the time any can possibly roll around. He was given immunity by the sycophants he appointed, after all. As for the rest of his sycophants, They are going to get off by dumping all the crap on their lackeys and only low-levels idiots who were to stupid to know they were wrong with face any consequences.
The immunity he was granted can be rescinded. The wheel turns, and in turning, may very well run over him.
One can always hope.
👆🎯
OK, Lord Curmudgeon, King of the Sociologists, has a problem with this. Not the least of which is that I’m on my 1st cup of coffee. Why do you do this to me, Hemant? I just woke up.
Lord Curmudgeon asees four problems with this “study”. The first one is that it comes from the Three Billygoats Graham Institute. (Yes, I’m old. And if you don’t know what I’m referring to, you’re not). How do you know that right-wing Christians are unlikely to be telling the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? They have lips.
Second, this Institute is at Wheaton College. These are the very same people that have been covering up sexual abuse for years. Evangelicals are finally noticing that they’ve been covering it up for years and they’ve been all kinds of scandals associated with this. Go to the Roys Report. The whole sordid mess is outlined in a series of articles over the last few months. How do you know that right-wing Christians are unlikely to be telling the truth? They have lips.
Third, the creators of the study are creating a book out of their research. I’m pretty sure that the proper spelling for “book” is SPIN, with a heavy dose of opportunism hiding behind a gossamer web of propaganda. This is a survey of 2400 not so young adults. And yet they are trying to make a book out of it. Richard Richardson—wassamatta, buddy? Your parents were so poor they couldn’t afford two names?— is a professor of evangelism. Think about the implications of that.
And finally, the conclusion: “ According to the research, 48% of respondents said they agree with the statement “Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church.” how do I put this delicately? Weasel Words! That’s a loophole you could drive a fundamentalist Megachurch through, with room left over for another child abuse scandal.
Less likely to go to church. How nice. But not changing their basic beliefs. Nothing about their votes. Nothing about the people they give money to. Nothing about anything of importance except that they’re less likely to go to church. As a means of comparison, Ryan Gosling is less likely to be my secret boyfriend. Less like likely than whom? Less likely then Ryan Reynolds, of course.
Maybe I’m just being cynical here, but I smell another agenda somewhere in this. And I suspect it has a good deal to do with deflecting attention from Wheaton College, and perhaps goosing enough attention from People Wit Money to fund more evangelism.
If I were a professor of evangelism, that’s what I would do.
I would appreciate the attention of people who are more awake than I am to this matter.
I wonder how well tolerated (and honestly responded to!) a survey into a believer's stances on their actual beliefs might be. Strikes me as a ticklish subject which would require considerable forethought and careful wording.
Which some surveys and polls are notoriously poor at.
And that is precisely my point.
I got called a curmudgeon the other day by our resident troll. You've got competition.
That does it.
Tomorrow at dawn. Sneers at 30 paces. May the crankiest triumph!
Dawn is a little early for me. How about 10:30. No, that's morning nap time. Noon, no, I have some clouds to yell at. I'll have to get back to you.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/EthLuGdKie8AAAAC/simpsons-shake-harder-boy.gif
I figured this was what was going to happen.
I keep saying it- if conservative Christians want King Chump, he's theirs. I don't care if he's a true believer or a faker; it all looks the same from the underside of the boot. He may not be a kind of Christian that makes fence-sitting and left-leaning Christians comfortable about sharing their religion with him, but he's 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 the same kind of Christian as all of the whackjob conservative preachers who've hitched their fortunes to him. Whether or not 𝘢𝘯𝘺 of them actually have faith in the god they profess to believe in is immaterial- Christianity is both their cudgel against everyone they hate, and their shield against criticism and condemnation; Christians they are, and Christians they will be, until they no longer believe that Christianity can bring them more power and wealth (or until they establish The One Bigliest Church and Casino of The Donald, anyway).
In fairness, Trump's cos-playing christianity is only different in polish and delivery from the 'christian pastors' who've boosted the avatar of the seven deadlies for over a decade now.
If their embrace of Trump is waking up Gen Zers to the phoniness of American christianity, then I say the kids are alright. [H/T to The Who]
"the kids are alright."
I used to think that. I still thought that when Obama got elected (twice). Since those small steps forward, we've taken 100s/1000s of steps back. I don't think kids (through no fault of their own) will have anything to be alright about.
The kids will certainly face a boatload of problems because of the actions of their elders. But that's been true of every generation as they came of age. This generation, though, seems particularly suited to the job ahead of them, if you ask me.
They're facing a real shit-show, for sure:
• The dismantling of our government
• Climate Change
• Our relationship with the rest of the world
• Environmental issues on land, sea, and air
And those are just the ones I can think of, off the top of my (balding) head. We've left them with a collection of ugly messes, and the sooner they get addressed, the better off all of us will be. And Step One is GETTING TRUMP OUT OF POWER!
Kind of a stupid question, but what else would you expect from anything associated with Billy Graham.
For starters, churches aren't a monolith. If you are a liberal christian then the President siding with folks that you disagree with shouldn't be a factor in your church going. If you are a conservative christian then you got what you voted for. Buck up and keep tithing.
I don't have a finisher.
Trump mocked his evangelical supporters in his first term, yet the fanatigelicals still treat him like he's the Second Coming instead of the Antichrist.
Second coming of the Antichrist?
I saw them in '74 at the Meadowlands. They opened for Sabbath.
Excellent horror flick (Antichrist) by Lars von Trier
https://www.criterionchannel.com/videos/antichrist-trailer
Willem Dafoe's good in anything.
How's Iceland, by the way? :)
Yes he is. I’m not there yet, just too excited to leave this place (USA) even for a short while 😂