We are living in a time frame where there are about 80% of White Evangelicals who have endeavored with deliberation to catapult the republican President Donald Trump as their savior, someone who would represent their hopes, beliefs. Not at any point do these believers who represent 35% of the president’s base ever ask themselves or even God, if they are following his will.

It is my opinion that they are following a “false God” as in the “Golden Calf.” They are using the Lord’s Name in vain.

They have more faith in the US president, a very flawed character than they have in the God they profess to honor.

The president has been currying their favor by enacting policies like barring transgender soldiers from being able to serve in the military, and moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

See: Israel and Evangelicals: New US Embassy Signals a Growing Alliance/ NYT

As per a May 2017 Atlantic edition by Molly Worthen, “American evangelicals have sometimes shown a strong preference for leaders who demand unquestioning obedience—and who, like Trump, consider disagreement a form of disloyalty.”

“Nowhere is this tendency more obvious than in the evangelical subculture that nurtured Donald Trump himself: the prosperity gospel. When Trump was a child, his family attended Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, pastored by Norman Vincent Peale, a celebrity minister whose influence radiated throughout evangelical circles and beyond. He was one of the most famous proponents of a spiritual style sometimes called the “Health and Wealth” gospel or “Name It and Claim It” faith.”

“Praying for a new car or a promotion may sound “shockingly materialistic,” FitzGerald writes. But for believers, prosperity theology means that the material world has “a miraculous, God-filled quality.” Its basic tenets appear throughout the Bible—the notion that God answers prayers, rewards believers with worldly blessings, and punishes those who don’t keep the faith. And then, like most heresies, it pushes such orthodox teaching to an extreme. Imagine that your desired reality is true, Peale urged believers. His handy slogan: “Prayerize, picturize, actualize.” Peale, the dean of “the power of positive thinking,” would have understood Trump’s penchant for inventing his preferred reality.”

“God never goes back on his word. According to many prosperity-gospel preachers, if you don’t get that new job you prayed for, then you didn’t pray sincerely enough, live righteously enough—or give generously enough to your church. The Florida mega-church pastor Paula White, who is frequently called the president’s “spiritual adviser” (and, like him, is on her third marriage), encourages her followers to donate generously to her ministry, and to expect financial returns. “When you give the ‘firstfruits of your increase,’ as the Word says, your ‘barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will OVERFLOW,’ ” her website promises.”

Here is the rest of the story…

On February 18, 2018, Randall Balmer who is the John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College and the author of Evangelicalism in America, penned the following commentary for the Guardian, “Under Trump, America’s religious right is rewriting its code of ethics”

The religious right’s wholesale embrace of the Republican party and of Donald J Trump, both as candidate and as president, has necessitated a rewriting of evangelical ethics. Here’s a summary, with annotations.”

Lying is all right as long as it serves a higher purpose

“Yes, we know all about that business about not bearing false witness in the Ten Commandments, but that was a very long time ago. Can’t we get beyond that? Truth and truthiness are overrated. After all, did it really matter that the “birther” nonsense was hokum? Not at all. It enraged those godless liberals and launched our brother in Christ   Donald Trump toward the presidency.”

“And all those websites fact-checking our president, claiming that he told more than 2,000 (3,000) lies his first year in office? Big deal. He’s also pro-life, and he’s trying to root out transgender folks in the military, so cut the guy some slack. Besides, that same website that tracks lying concluded that Barack Obama told 28 lies during his two terms in office. So there. (Democrats are such hypocrites!)”

See: President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims so far/ Washington Post 

It’s no problem to be married more than, well, twice

Let’s be clear here. We’re not talking about polygamy (sorry, Mitt), only serial marriages. This revision has been a long time in the making. Yes, Jesus said: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” Through the 1970s, we evangelicals ostracized anyone who was divorced, let alone divorced and remarried. But then we decided to ditch a family man (and fellow evangelical) in favor of a divorced and remarried Hollywood actor in 1980. Once that barrier was breached, we concluded that, hey, if two marriages are okay, why not three?

Immigrants are scum

“We grant that Jesus said something about welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry. And Leviticus says: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself.” But our careful study of scriptural texts has led us to conclude that the almighty had Norwegians in mind, not Mexicans or Salvadorans.”

Vulgarity is a sign of strength and resolve

“The president’s scatological comments about Haiti and African nations provided a welcome relief to the rhetoric of those coddling the so-called Dreamers. As Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, noted, Brother Trump was “right on target”.

White lives matter (much more than others)

“Perkins also addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens, the “uptown Klan”, when he was a state representative in Louisiana. Therefore, we had no problem whatsoever with Steve Bannon or with the president’s statement blaming the violence in Charlottesville on “many sides,” both the white supremacists and those demonstrating against them. We took the Brother Trump at his word when he declared that the ranks of white supremacists and neo-Nazis included “some very fine people”. That’s why none of us criticized him. Besides, he wants to jettison the Johnson amendment to allow us to campaign from the pulpit while retaining our tax exemptions.”

There’s no harm in spending time with porn stars

“Once again, we have a precedent: David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana and outspoken champion of “family values” whose phone number appeared in the date book of a Washington madam – and who continued to enjoy our support. Regarding that messy situation with Stormy Daniels, think of the opportunities for the president to share what Franklin Graham calls his “concern for Christian values”. We’re confident that as details emerge, we’ll learn that the Brother Trump was discussing his theological perspectives on human depravity and the second coming.”

See: More Evidence That Broidy Was Covering for Trump in Affair – NYMag

It’s all right for adults to date children

“We’re not yet prepared to embrace pedophilia, but we see nothing wrong with a 30-something attorney trolling the local shopping mall for teenage dates. After all, didn’t Jesus say, “suffer the little children to come unto me”? Roy Moore was simply being Christ-like. Besides, he opposes abortion, and he asked their mothers for permission.”

The ends justify the means

“Too many Americans think of evangelicals as dogmatic and uncompromising, so we’re eager to demonstrate that when it comes to ethical standards we can indeed be flexible. Very flexible.”

Guardian Articles:

Evangelical Trump adviser tells people to skip flu shots in favor of prayer

Evangelical Christians ‘uncritical’ in support for Trump