Between the Lines

Sometimes I cruise the various Christian News sites.

It’s always politics, just a peculiar voting block. Some of the most vicious and spiteful commentary on the planet shows up on those sites. The majority of them oppose Donald Trump. I’m no fan of his but I am really seeing a major hypocrisy about it. The one theme that kept showing up on most of them that mentioned him at all is a professed puzzlement at how he garners so very much support from evangelical voters.

I’d give them a hint, but I sense they are actually lying about it and just looking for an excuse to bully and shame the average evangelical reader. They know why he’s popular: He’s honest. In reading through the Christian oriented news sites, I am struck by the huge number of big names that are wallowing in controversy over deception. There might be a lot of more serious problems, but it’s always involving some level of deception, often simply an attempt to hide the scandals. It’s as if you can’t trust any of them.

So it’s obvious that Trump has their support because he’s apparently honest. So far, there’s no dirt on him that he hasn’t openly admitted. Dirty or not, he seems to be transparent over the very things others try to hide. You know pretty much what you are getting. The one thing we haven’t had in politics so far is people who tend to do what they say or give an awfully good honest explanation of why they failed. I really doubt anyone’s fooled about the shadow government any more, and how the faceless bureaucracy will throttle most of his promises, but he won’t play the game of looking for excuses. He’s not a bureaucrat; he’s not one of Them.

Given the dirty tricks already in play with the GOP, I’m not sure he’s going to win under their banner. Most of them are fully committed to the bureaucratic consensus. They aren’t going to go away because there are so very many of them and the are the real government. Still, it’s just possible that some kind of backlash will arise this summer and the GOP leadership might be forced to stand back and let him win.

Evangelical leadership tends to favor the bureaucracy, too. I could name some bigshot pastors right now who are stupid enough to preach about the evils of supporting Trump in the election. Do you suppose this thing will be nasty enough to contribute to some kind of shaking loose of the churches’ membership?

Sometimes it is such a relief to be away from that crap.