From here:
The election of Donald Trump has caused pain and uncertainty in The Episcopal Church (TEC), says Canon (lay) Noreen Duncan, TEC’s representative to Council of General Synod (CoGS).
Addressing CoGS on November 19, Duncan spoke of the sense of “betrayal” she feels as someone who immigrated to the United States and now sees the values she had always associated with her new home “slipping out from under us.”
In nearly a year of campaigning, Trump was frequently criticized for stirring up animosity toward immigrants, Muslims, and religious and ethnic minorities, as well as for his derogatory comments toward women.
Duncan said Trump’s victory was made more difficult for her by the fact that so many of his supporters identified as Christians. According to the Pew Research Centre, 58% of Protestants, 60% of white Catholics and 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump.
“As part of the Jesus Movement, we are not just people of faith: we are Christians; and the people who apparently seem to have chosen [to vote for Trump], also identify as Christians,” said Duncan. “[But] the values of Christianity are not the values that have been espoused in this election, and that is part of the reason I feel so betrayed.”
Other than the visceral pleasure afforded by watching liberals squirm over Trump’s election, there are several interesting things to be gleaned from this article.
Firstly, we can see that it is possible, after what I can only assume are hours of practice in front of a mirror and a rigorous regimen of Raja Yoga, for a spokeswoman for the ecclesiastical organisation that has gained a worldwide reputation for betraying Christian values to maintain a straight face while denouncing a secular organisation for betraying Christian values.
Secondly, Duncan cannot bring herself to countenance the thought that the 81% of evangelicals who voted for Trump are bona fide Christians. Hence, she refers to them as people who “identified as Christians” in much the same way as a man, self-identifying as a woman while inconveniently sporting Y chromosomes, isn’t quite what he claims to be.
Thirdly, Duncan appears to be very much a part of the elite liberal establishment – the counterfeit church division – whose hypocrisy, condescension, self-deception and arrogance has been their undoing.
Fourthly, anything that causes “pain and uncertainty in The Episcopal Church” can’t be all bad, can it?
The voters are always right. Americans deserve their President-Elect. Many of my relatives and friends have voted for Trump. But, my wife and I will not visit the States in the near future.
That everyone on the planet has a right to move to whatever country they wish and that the people of any given country should be willing to accept with open arms whatever immigrants, of whatever kind, and in however many numbers, chose to come, is not a “Christian value.”
In fact, there are no such things as “Christian values”. The very concept of “values” is antithetical to Christianity. Christians believe that universe contains a moral order, established by the God Who created it, that reflects His own immutable nature, and that in that order goodness, truth, and beauty are what they are, not what we decide them to be, and that it is our responsibility to, by the grace of God, reflect goodness, truth, and beauty in our hearts, minds, and actions by cultivating virtues. Values, however, are the constructs of our own wills, things that we pursue, treasure, and cherish because we have decided that they are worth our efforts. The entire idea of a value-based morality is a modern one, originating in the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche who, whatever his failings and merits might be, was certainly no Christian.
Amen.
Great, thanks!
What on earth makes an Episcopalian think they have the remotest understanding of
Christian Values?
exactly-
Max Lucado said: “The primary job of the church is not politics. It is prayer”. A good leader will lead the nation or the church righteously, honourably, and wisely. At the Return of Christ, all would be called to account by God. It is our conformity to God’s standards that we are to be judged. We are under God’s watchful eyes all the time.
Yet fundamentalist Christians attempt to exert pressure and influence political institutions and government to advance their political agenda…just look at all the pastors, preachers and holy rolllers expressing support Trumpo
Isn’t that funny ?
Those who voted for Trump will be judged by God.
They had only two choices, neither one of them particularly possessing upstanding moral character. Why, in your opinion, was one somehow more righteous than the other? And why is it your opinion that counts?
Or are you saying that Christians should never vote at all? One way or another, isn’t voting itself an attempt to exert pressure and influence political institutions and governments?
Of course, those who voted for Clinton will be judged by God also. Many think they should vote for the lesser of two evils. Choosing evil is still evil. If I were an American citizen, I would have voted for neither Clinton nor Trump. I had to vote according to my own conscience. Regardless, God is the Judge of all. I believe that the American evangelicals were divided: some voted for Trump, some voted for Clinton, and others voted for neither. They were all evangelicals. We live in a complicated world. There is no easy solution.
Exit polling suggests 80 per cent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, compared to just 15 per cent of African-American/Hispanic/Asian evangelicals.
I was at a meeting with some US Anglicans for Life members last May; they said they would be voting for Trump because of his pro-life statements.
This exit polling possibly suggests that white evangelicals are racist???
Why? Both candidates were white.
It is an interesting world today. Both my white and non-white relatives tend to be racist too.
Well, to be fair, one was rather orange.
“Duncan spoke of the sense of “betrayal” she feels…”
Now she knows how conservative, orthodox Christians feel.
Yes-exactly-
Such a good blog and such good comments.
A worthless individual.
Tragically the citizens of the United States were faced with two totally unreliable and dishonest individuals and I believe the results show the nation is divided. Both the Democrats and the Republicans should hand their heads in shame for not putting forward more reliable candidates. What is needed in both the U.S. and Canada is true Christian leadership but we have leaders that worship that common and deceptive denominator “political correctness”. The judgement of God will definitely follow.
Trump will be the next American president soon. His supporters hope he will keep most of his campaign promises.
If I were an American, I think I would have sat this election out. Hillary Clinton is IMO a very dishonest person whose past actions have arguably bordered on criminal. Donald Trump is a pompous creep and by his own admission, a sexual predator. Even the idea of “holding one’s nose” and marking the ballot would have been impossible for me.
The American evangelical political right has left me shaking my head on more than one occasion. I know that David here has mentioned that he thinks Jimmy Carter is crazy because of his liberal beliefs and his openness to homosexuality, but he was perhaps one of most obviously committed Christians to ever sit in the Oval Office. Evangelicals did everything they could to make sure than Ronald Reagan became the next president, a man by his own admission never worshipped on Sunday and never paid much attention to how God was working in his life until the failed assassination attempt by John Hinckley. Evangelical apologists for Reagan have described his faith prior to that as a “silent witness.” Yeah okay, if that works for them.
Perhaps I am being overly naive on this, but I still cannot understand how the Evangelicals could so overwhelming back someone like Donald Trump who arguable has as much thought about his relationship with Jesus as does my pet labrador retriever. My only conclusion is that for me, God and their faith has nothing to do with who they support as a politician. For me, an extreme right-wing agenda is the overriding factor and nothing else. The devotion of the candidate or their lack thereof to the Christian faith also has little do with it.
But others are correct. The TEC spokeswoman should keep her mouth shut. The only betrayal that happened was to allow the Democrats to nominate a candidate that was so disliked by so many in America, including people within her own party, that caused just enough people that normally would have voted Democrat to stay home and allow a buffoon like Trump to win the electoral college (but not popular vote) and become the next president.
Well I hear that there are grief counsellors and therapy puppies available. Not to mention that many of those poor ‘betrayed’ souls believe that this is an opportunity for invective and viciousness. (I feel left out because we Canadians weren’t offered therapy puppies and grief counsellors.)
All that said, we Canucks should just keep quiet as we didn’t – and don’t – get to vote in US elections. We should be more concerned about the quality of leadership in our own country.
Perhaps, but I have met more than just a fair share of Americans who are quick to offer their opinions of things happening in Canada such as our health care system, our gun control laws, we not paying what they think is our fair share of military expenditures for “the defence of the free world ” (ie American foreign interests) our border control agents using drunk driving convictions in the USA as a possible reason for denying entry into Canada, the confiscation of restricted weapons in the possession of Americans at Canadian border crossings, American pasta plants importing Canadian grown durum wheat, we celebrating Thanksgiving in October rather than in November, our metric system, our spelling of some words differently and how cold it is when they come here to fish just to name just a few.