Citing Ted Cruz’s complete failure to capture Evangelical votes, Bee continued with a look at Trump’s ridiculous pandering to Christians — using the Donald as a jumping off point to give the audience a history lesson on the religious right…. “To understand how we got there, we have to go back to origins of the new religious right… It wasn’t abortion that birthed the religious right. It was good old white Nativism and anti-government anger when the IRS challenged evangelicals’ god given right to go to school without black people.”…. Bee also added a caution, before continuing, “Please understand when I say the religious right, I’m not talking about people of faith — hashtag #NotAllChristians — but a political movement to harness voting evangelicals to the conservative Republican cause.”
The American Taliban gets a lot of attention these days, credited as they have been for injecting Christianity back into American politics. That might not be such a bad thing if it was actually about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately for those followers of Jesus who actually endeavor to take their faith seriously and lead Christ-like lives, the Evangelical lust for political power has never been about trying to “put God back into government.” Since the American Taliban first began to develop a collective political awareness in the late ’70s, it’s become about their self-interested agenda. It’s about hypocrisy, racism, nativism, anti-government anger, and the desire to force Americans to live by their narrow moral/ideological/theological framework. They want to be in control. Period.
The arrogant assumption that God is without question a Republican allows Conservatives to claim the imprimatur of the Almighty. That arrogance belies the fact that the Gospel is actually a set of pretty Liberal teachings. Jesus Christ preached love, tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion- the very opposite of what most of the American Taliban actually stands for. Neither side of the political spectrum gets to lay claim to the Father, the Son, OR the Holy Ghost. While those on the Religious Right have no problem with claiming that God’s on their side, the truth is somewhat different.
The truth is that the politics of the American Taliban has NOTHING to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
