christianity

Trump Wants to Deny Entry to Immigrants Who Don’t Like ‘Our Religion’

“Speaking to Republican voters in Derry, New Hampshire, on Monday, former President Donald Trump promised ‘strong ideological screening’ of all immigrants if he’s elected president again—and said he’d turn away those who ‘don’t like our religion.’ ‘We don’t want you in our country,’ he said.”

Vice.Com

Donald Trump knows that his xenophobic anti-immigrant rhetoric will resonate with his MAGA base of white evangelicals, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and trailer park rednecks.

White evangelicals believe that America is a Christian nation, and they are on a crusade to corrupt our democracy into a White Christan nationalist theocracy, and they are persuaded that Trump is the messiah who will turn their racist dreams into reality.

Unlike England America doesn’t have a constitutionally established state religion, and it’s anathema to imply that Christianity is our religion. The Constitution explicitly prohibits the establishment of a state religion, and in our ethnically and religiously diverse democracy there’s people of many faiths and no faith.

To screen immigrants on the basis of whether or not they have an affinity for Christianity is so undemocratic that is just boggles the mind. Considering that historically religion is responsible for genocide, slavery, racism and wars, I can certainly understand why people wouldn’t like Christianity or any other major religion.

Trump has promised to resurrect his Muslim ban if he wins the presidential election. Trump’s racist rhetoric may succeed in firing up his base, but I’m convinced it will alienate the majority of freedom-loving Americans and result in his defeat.

The Church is Dying and That’s a Good Thing for Democracy and Humanity

“Fewer than half of Americans belong to a house of worship, a new study shows, but religion – and Christianity in particular – continues to have an outsize influence in US politics, especially because it is declining faster among Democrats than Republicans.

Just 47% of the US population are members of a church, mosque or synagogue, according to a survey by Gallup, down from 70% two decades ago – in part a result of millennials turning away from religion but also, experts say, a reaction to the swirling mix of rightwing politics and Christianity pursued by the Republican party.”

The Guardian

Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” was an immoral minority in the 1980’s and the toxic racist Gospel of white evangelicals is even less relevant today.

Americans are turning away from organized religion in general and the evangelical sect in particular; religion is irrelevant in an age when science, technology and globalism reign supreme.

The white evangelical brand of Christianity is synonymous with racism, false conspiracy theories and Trumpism and young people in particular want nothing to do with it.

Enlightened souls place empirical truth, common sense and reality before conspiracy theories and extreme and literal interpretations of ancient scriptures.

Banning abortion, disenfranchising minorities, and treating LGBTQ individuals as lepers may be foremost in the minds of white evangelicals, but everybody else is concerned with paying the rent, putting food on the table and defeating the coronavirus.  

Empty pews aren’t a sign of godlessness or the End Times, it’s a sign that Americans have evolved past the need for hierarchical and patriarchal religious organizations.

We don’t need a pedophile priest or a money-hungry televangelist to be a mediator between us and the Almighty.

The pandemic has taught us that we can survive and thrive without clerics and churches. The bonds that we have with our family, co-workers, friends and neighbors is tighter than any bond we used to have with our ministers. The church is dying and that’s good for democracy and humanity.