“We thank you for the upcoming election, Lord — or caucus, as we call it in Iowa,” said Hundley, speaking from the sanctuary of his evangelical Christian church in his slight Texas drawl as his parishioners bowed their heads.
“It doesn’t matter what our opinion is,” he went on. “It’s really what’s your opinion that matters. But you’ve given us the privilege of being able to exercise a beautiful gift. The gift of vote. We thank you for that.”
While Hundley stops short of suggesting to his parishioners which candidate divine guidance should lead them to support, he is among more than 300 pastors and other faith leaders who’ve been described as supporters by former President Donald Trump’s campaign. It’s a message that some members of Hundley’s First Church of God have taken to heart, saying their faith informs their intention to caucus for Trump.
Ron Betts, a 72-year-old Republican who said he plans to caucus for “Trump all the way,” said he felt the former president “exemplified what Jesus would do.”
I actually want all kinds of different people, as diverse perspectives lead to improved outcomes for everyone.
I just want those people to also accept one another.
Plenty of religious people I know actually are kind and generous and accepting. Their religion isn’t a cudgel to be wielded to silence and command those who think differently, but rather a guide and solace for their own lives.
It’s when religion becomes a worship of the religion itself, a veneration of the rules and structure rather than of the beliefs, that it becomes a problem. And unfortunately that’s what we often see in a large portion of religious folks around the world throughout history. Where the religion becomes a tool to control populations, a path to power, a virtue to signal, rather than a living faith.
But I caution you against hatred of religion for its own sake. We must be intolerant of intolerance, but not intolerant of religion itself.
I stand by my comment.
Religious people can get fucked.
Plain and simple. I don’t care about your delusions or perspective because it’s based on false information.