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doesn't the Bible specifically warn about people like Trump?
For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
— 2 Timothy 3:2–5, English Standard Version
Yes, but it doesn't matter, these people don't read the Bible. For them, it's just an excuse to do whatever it is they're doing.
Yes, but it doesn’t matter, these people don’t read the Bible.
They do read the Bible though, at least in my experience. I've gone to a number of different churches, Evangelical and otherwise, and the Evangelical or otherwise Calvinist folks were the ones that read the Bible the most and in the most detail — but perhaps also the ones who came to horrible conclusions the most often. Like that you should shine the light of Christ into the world by blocking women for promotion at your job, because 1 Tim 2:12 says that Paul does not permit them to have authority over men. (Real example, if possibly the worst one I've seen.) Maybe my experience is not representative, but I don't think the problem is primarily that Evangelicals don't read the Bible.
I have a long theory about some of the ways that Evangelicalism distorts Scripture, but one root of the issue is that (IMHO) Scripture was written by humans, reflects the biases of the authors and their societies, and has a lot of horrible things in it. If you take a sola scriptura view and then read it through a lens that's been cultivated over years to reinforce patriarchy and supremacy (see e.g. Manifest Destiny, the curse of Ham, etc) then you will end up absorbing the genocidal and supremacist bits and not the hospitable and altruistic bits.
For them, it’s just an excuse to do whatever it is they’re doing.
For sure. People don't want to repent. They want to find justifications for what they were already doing, or planning to do.
Grew up Reformed Christian and you hit the nail on the head… Or hand, or whatever.
Get out of here with your pinko agenda. What are you, some kind of long haired, bleeding-heart, sharey fairy, hippie, Jew?
Behold: The supply-side Jesus.
"There's a portion of the evangelical community that's very attracted to the idea that God knows everything and God appoints leaders," he said. "They believe that Donald Trump is the appointed leader at this moment in time."
"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."
-- Romans 13:1 NIV
Except, of course, if the current leader is a Democrat.