(Trump’s) been acting like Jesus, without all the nice-guy talk about loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek — which is exactly what makes him more attractive to many evangelicals than their putative founder. They feel like victims, and they want to lash out. To fight back. And Trump’s “vengeance is mine” attitude gives them permission to do so, whatever Jesus himself might have said.
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Why should people refuse to wear a mask? How is it more of a hardship to put a piece of cloth over your face than to spend several days on a respirator in the ICU (at a cost of thousands of dollars)? Of course, that won’t happen to them, because they’re special, chosen people. They’re “immune.” They don’t have to wear seat belts or condoms, either. It’s all such a terrible inconvenience. But this isn’t really about personal freedom. It’s a repudiation of personal responsibility.
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Yes, the majority of people in this country still identify as Christians, but that figure is dropping, and what does being a Christian even mean? It’s hard to say. Are we to accept the contemplative, inwardly focused view, as represented in the Beatitudes and Jesus’ “peaceful” sayings, or the outwardly focused template that puts “wheat-and-chaff” divisions and “compelling them to come in” front and center?
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