And so when I say liberal democracy, I mean a democracy where there's a free press and an independent judiciary and a Congress, you know, a legislative branch that can conduct oversight of the executive branch. Start by marking “Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump” as Want to Read:
May 26th 2020 Posner goes down a few different trails: the segregationist origins of the Christian right and the open racism still there in the movement, how Christian nationalism intertwines with the white supremacist nationalism of the alt-right, and white evangelical admiration of nationalist homophobic strongmen like Viktor Orban anSarah Posner makes the case that white evangelicals were looking for a strongman, and Trump gave them exactly what they were looking for: unfettered access to political power. Posner has put a ton of work into this account, and it's incredibly dense. So the Christian right, for the evangelicals and fundamentalists who came into the national politics in the era of the Moral Majority, the founding story that they like to tell is that they were propelled into national politics because they were upset and outraged about Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Instead, author Sarah Posner says he connects with Evangelicals by voicing the legal, social, religious and cultural grievances of the Christian right. He seems to know very little about the Bible. It is also interesting that Donald Trump, being what and who he is, has embraced them so wholeheartedly, and even more interesting that they have embraced him so wholeheartedly. Her previous book, "God's Profits" - that's profits as in P-R-O-F-I-T-S - is about prosperity preachers. And when he launched his campaign finally in 2015, there were a lot of leaders in the Christian right who were extremely skeptical of him for all of the reasons that you state. Feels like I've just read a book on contemporary Poland.I had to take a DNF on this one because this book ventured into territory that went off topic too much.I had to take a DNF on this one because this book ventured into territory that went off topic too much.I did not read the Kindle Edition.
5 hearty stars.The group of grifters, hypocrites, sycophants, liars, snake-oil-salesmen, under-educated noobs, greedy right wing racists, and bible thumpers collectively known as evangelical Christians (and some, I assume, are fine people) are unfortunately a major political force in the US. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT BOOK!
In reponse to white evangelical support, Trump has promoted "religious rights" over "civil rights," allowing religious exemptions to persons and corporations to discriminate against abortion and LGBTQ rights if it goes against their "traditional religious views." Unfortunately, I doubt the people who need to see it most will read it, but I'm grateful someone put the effort in to catalogue our descent into madness.In the interest of full disclosure, I will establish that as a person who aligns with the worldviews espoused by secular humanism, the topics at hand in this particular book are distasteful at best and repugnant at worse. These two books are “ Baron Trump’s Marvlous Underground Journey,” and “ The Last President.” In “Last President (1896)”, there is an underdog that ran for President who no-one believed he would win. This book looks and the players and their ideology and their plans for us. I mean, there have been a lot of lawsuits against governors and municipalities against the stay-at-home orders or the restrictions on large gatherings on the grounds that it violates the religious freedom of churches to not be able to gather. The president isn't known for his faith. The author has spent year delving into Evangelicalism, and the years of interest and research shows in the book. Though the subtitle of Sarah Posner’s “Unholy” (White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Fonakd Trump) is not likely to draw many Trump supporters in to take a chance, the book is a masterpiece delivered with surprisingly little judgement or snideness. And in federal agencies, he has appointed political appointees who have carried out policy relating to LGBT rights, reproductive rights, religious freedom that are - these policies are favored by the Christian right. (SOUNDBITE OF KENNY BARRON AND DAVE HOLLAND'S "DR DO RIGHT")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. He was the chaos candidate and that this kind of disruption - or wrecking ball is another term that I've heard used - that this is his virtue, that he is going to dismantle, you know, all this political correctness that has been bad for religious freedom. Another example is, well, in the Bible, God chose unlikely leaders or God chose someone who was maybe not of the same religion.