Doonesbury Evangelicals - by Garry Trudeau for April 22, 2018

Just say “I repent” on your deathbed and all will be forgiven.

@CESSNA172: Situational ethics…

It is possible to endorse Satan as long as He furthers your agenda.

He must have graduated from the Trump Seminary School.

This has always bothered me about church-goers. Many of them read the Bible and follow the Ten Commandments, only to blindly support whichever Republican is running.

“Obama says he’s Christian? Lies, God knows his heart!” “Trump said ‘God bless’? Hallelujah, it’s a miracle! A Godly man in office!”

I should point out, however, that many Christians are more discerning than that, and don’t actually follow authority blindly. I know many of these Christians personally, you just don’t see them represented in the media.

No group of people all feel the same way, even within the constraints of religion.

The danger of tying your beliefs to a political party.

Before you know it, you’ll be a Democrat like me.

Some pretend to have religious beliefs. Some pretend not to.

Some religions endorse hatred and violence and all manner of evil.

Some have religious beliefs. Some do not.

Some have well worn RESET buttons.

It’s a mixed up world, very diverse.

And it took an immoral president show them just how low the bar really is.

Oh, I can’t WAIT to hear the howls of (fake) rage from Evangelicals across the country over THIS one! They will fume and sputter, denouncing Trudeau as some sort of “Demon out to destroy America”, but MOSTLY they will be upset that he has TOTALLY NAILED THEIR BELIEFS and depicted them 100% ACCURATELY!!!

America is an outlier, the only wealthy nation with a high % of the population being religious believers, especially in rural areas, that reason very differently.

" … J. C. Watts, a Baptist minister raised in the small town of Eufaula, Okla., who was a Republican congressman from 1995 to 2003, to begin to understand my neighbors — and most likely other rural Americans as well.

“The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good,” said Mr. Watts, who was in the area to campaign for Senator Rand Paul. “We are born bad,” he said and added that children did not need to be taught to behave badly — they are born knowing how to do that.

“We teach them how to be good,” he said. “We become good by being reborn — born again.”

He continued: “Democrats believe that we are born good, that we create God, not that he created us. If we are our own God, as the Democrats say, then we need to look at something else to blame when things go wrong — not us.”

Mr. Watts talked about the 2015 movie theater shooting in Lafayette, La., in which two people were killed. Mr. Watts said that Republicans knew that the gunman was a bad man, doing a bad thing. Democrats, he added, “would look for other causes — that the man was basically good, but that it was the guns, society or some other place where the blame lies and then they will want to control the guns, or something else — not the man.” Republicans, he said, don’t need to look anywhere else for the blame.

…"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/opinion/why-rural-america-voted-for-trump.html

Wow, the pastor said “Trump” over a dozen times without using the nasty “T” word!

The pastor forgot to add, “only if you’re a Republican.”

The whole idea of believing only “Republicans” or “Conservatives” are Christians has always irked me. As a Christian, I find so much hate in taking stands against others so wrong.

Most religion seems to have been founded on control. As long as the current “president” exhibits a controlling nature, he’ll be the choice of most religious people.

sounds like evangelicals helped elect the ant-christ

Why did God arrange it so there are a billion Muslims?

So no-one could say “a billion Christians can’t be wrong.”

The following of religion is a waste of time at the best, and justification for abhorrent behavior at the worst. Among poorest examples of humans, evangelicals rank along side the Isis, taliban and boko haram.

In the voice of Chubby Checker singing Limbo Rock “How low can you go?”

Article quote – “As the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it, it is complete bullshit. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand meant to throw attention away from the real problem. The real problem isn’t east coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America. The real problem is rural America doesn’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of choices they’ve made and horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.” http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/

Nailed it!

Religion teaches (and is necessary for) morality ONLY if you think it’s moral to fly airplanes into occupied skyscrapers!

Dang, he’s going to have to ask the building fund for money to expand the church.

Lord, deliver me from your followers.

That’s the kind of church you want to hide in if you’re worried about a witch hunt.

It is amazing what some folks who call themselves Christians seem to go along with in terms of Republican politicians and how they interpret the teachings of Christ. “Jesus was a radical nonviolent revolutionary who hung around with lepers and crooks; wasn’t American and never spoke English; was anti-wealth, anti-death penalty, anti-public prayer (M6:5); but was never anti-gay, never mentioned abortion or birth control, never called the poor lazy, never justified torture, never fought for tax cuts for the wealthiest Nazarenes, never asked a leper for a co-pay; and was a long-haired, brown-skinned homeless community-organizing, anti-slut shaming Middle Eastern Jew.”— John Fugelsang

There are some evangelicals who are even claiming that they are still supporting trump because he is against abortion. This seems quite naive, given trump’s having admitted being involved sexually with many, many women. We have also heard stated publicly by the women involved, that in terms of the porn star and the playmate affairs that no condoms were used. So, unless the women took care of it, there was no birth control and no protection against venereal disease used in his extramarital affairs.

At this point, evangelicals and Dominionists are only superficially Christian. They’re CINOs: Christians In Name Only. Jesus is merely their seemingly friendly and good-looking front man. He supplies them with a veneer of respectability AND their much-needed “forgiveness.” Since the CINOs are “forgiven,” they can then safely ignore the rest. They have, in fact, otherwise pretty much taken the “Christ” out Christianity. Theirs is a religion which celebrates the kind of first-century, and earlier, barbarism, ignorance, slavery and patriarchal authoritarianism that appeals to the evilgelical way of “thinking.” With Christ removed, the writings of Paul and the Old Testament — Leviticus and Genesis are particular favorites — which are for the most part hateful and vengeful and not the least bit generous, accepting or forgiving, are at the core of their nasty religion. Good Samaritans they ain’t!

Here’s a short but excellent article, originally in Forbes Magazine, which outlines the history, rooted in slave-holding, of how the white southern evilgelical “Christians” in particular came to be so very nasty. In essence, they’ve very deliberately taken the Christ out of Christianity in order to justify slavery & white supremacy. https://www.politicalorphans.com/the-article-removed-from-forbes-why-white-evangelicalism-is-so-cruel/

If trump was Joe Shmoe and not potus, no one would care what he does or did in terms of his sexuality. Unfortunately, he is the occupant in the White House at this moment. Yes, he claims to be against abortion, but it appears he is against abortion when it comes to other people. We have also heard publicly that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, arranged a pay off for Elliot Broidy, a big shot for the RNC, who had an affair with a playmate and an unwanted pregnancy arose, which involved a payoff of 1.6 million dollars to keep the unwanted pregnancy quiet since an abortion was obtained.

Next Jesus sues to have this gang stop using his name in their “club”.

benthere7 sez, “…a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”” It’s true. But Trump understood them perfectly. And scammed them effortlessly.

Christianity is not about being good. It is about realizing you are bad and in need of a Savior. By accepting this free gift from God, where Jesus pays for your sins, your sins are forgiven. It’s that simple.

Jesus; feed the poor, heal the sick.

Republicans; take away the poor’s food stamps, welfare and health care and give the tax dollars to the rich who already have food and health care.

They knew who and what he is when they chose to support him. The evangelicals are playing the long game, the strategic game.

He promised conservative judges and he is delivering. If he can replace Ginsburg and/or Kennedy and/or Breyer with a conservative, he will have shifted the court equation for the next 20-30 years.

Pure pragmatism. Not what you would normally expect from the religious right.

Thank dog we are atheist in my home.

Many right-wing Christians seem unaware of what Christ had to say about hypocrisy. Matthew 6:5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.”

“Evangelical” has become an insult. Justifiably so. It’s practically synonymous with “racist, misogynist hypocrite”.

A bunch of evangelical leaders got together recently to try to figure out a way to revivify their brand. The meeting was covered by a religious news service this way: “If evangelicalism ever wants to play a more positive role in social and political life, perhaps it’s time its leaders acknowledge that its public image isn’t a ‘grotesque caricature’ but the thing itself.” —Hollis Phelps, Religion Dispatches, 2018 April 19

“I forgot. Why do we have this building anyway? And why do we come here on Sunday?”

“For the bingo, my child. For the bingo.”

The First Church of Trump.

I am not persuaded that the people here, who mock evangelicals, are better people than evangelicals. How must a person live their life to be a ‘good person’?

Don’t know what church or even if Trudeau does attend church, I think he is an atheist. So he definitely loves to attack Christians, to bad he couldn’t balance his Christian hatred with a little condemnation of the attackers of French magazine Charlie Hebdo back in January of 2015.

Haven’t they been doing that all this time? Now it’s truly official.

This strip would have been great for April 1st.

Best….Doonesbury….Ever.

Evangelical logic: Only those who believe are good people. “I am a devout Christian, therefor I am moral and good. The Rump claims to be devout; therefor he is a moral and good person.”.

The real reason they support the Rump is because he allows Pence to enforce their moral agenda.

…and the Lord said that only the mistress of a rich, white Republican “leader” shall have enough control over her own body to terminate an unwanted pregnancy…and the abortion was paid for by Michael the Fixer…and so it was, and so shall it be…

I just read today’s strip, and it made such an impression that I had to sign up and comment. I have always been a fan of Doonesbury, and today’s strip hit the nail on the head! Kudos to Garry Trudeau—keep them coming!

Anyone notice that in panel 6 that six of the Seven Deadly Sins are mentioned? Lust isn’t outright mentioned, but in panel 5, adultery and sexual assault are mentioned, so I guess they’re all covered now.

Come Sunday is a movie about the true story of a Pentecostal preacher who began seeing the contradictions and tried to explain them to his congregation and ended up banned as a heretic by his church. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/04/come-sunday-review-chiwetel-ejiofor-joshua-marston/557804/

simple…it’s all about abortion & stacking the supreme court to repeal it.

Many hard line Reich Wingers want to set the laws back to 1900 eliminating any laws made since.

Lewdness, vulgarity, profanity, adultery and sexual assault will all be sins again when Democrats are back in office. The Christians will be upset about greed, bullying, conspiring, boasting, lying, cheating, sloth, envy, wrath, gluttony and pride when there is a black president who doesn’t display any of these traits. Biblical illiteracy is desired by the right-wing so they can pretend Jesus said your savings account is a reward from god. Church non-attendance isn’t a problem as long as you make your tithes and gifts. no credible sign of faith is fine with Christians as long as you are against foreigners. You too can feel like a saint, if you consider the Republican president is the head of the evangelical party.

2 Timothy 4

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

this strip is one of the truest strips he has ever done and he has done many

Ouch! Hits too close to home. Christians need to be Christians in more than name. I’m sad for the church.