very true. That does not answer my question as to why evangelicals would embrace someone who clearly is posing as a Christian and not very convincingly at that. He’s POSING as a Christian. Perhaps posing as a conservative. I’m a devout Christian, I’m agnostic re Trump. And I have no candidate lest that be the next question.
"HE's not a Christian but I AM a devout Christian...." That's a logical impossibility. Devout Christians don't try to take God's place in another person's walk with faith. They don't make hard and fast judgments and accusations based on one or two brief televised "gotcha" questions to a man who has never campaigned before, was asked an intrusively personal question, and is not used to polishing every statement in front of a mirror like Debate Boy. As has been noted on this Forum often, we're not electing a pastor or a Pope. And some of our most Bible-thumping presidents were awful presidents, like Jimmy Carter.
Imagine you were a billionaire, building on a trade your father taught you and achieving success even you had not imagined. Imagine you had been taught a version of Christianity in childhood that emphasized the "power of positive thinking" instead of surrender to the cross, and you incorporated that into your 16-hour days and made a great fortune, turned your optimistic and generous nature to such projects as donating $1 million to the city's Vietnam Veteran's group and serving as marshal of its parade, paying half the medical costs of the jogger who was gang-raped in Central Park (Frank Sinatra paid the other half), rescuing a stalled NYC renovation of its Central Park ice rink, rebuilding the city's golf course under budget that had laid waste in red tape for years prior like the ice rink, paying off the mortgage of a man on the roadway who helped fix your tire, flying a sick child for treatment on your airplane, and hundreds of other acts of charity that are quietly done and not written about in the press.
Now imagine being that prominent person and trying to attend church or Bible study, and having every Tom Dick and Harry schmoozing up to you trying to be your friend and ask you for money, coming to you with their screenplays and sick relatives and even their scams, breaking your heart because it's your church but if you say no, they resent you and hate you and gossip that you can afford it; even the pastor starts angling the sermons because he wants you to donate a new wing; and you don't know who you can trust. You are not Catholic, so your pastor is not under a sacramental oath of privacy like priests are; who do you talk to about faith? How do you learn more about faith, or the meanings of the scripture that are different from success in the world? Who can you trust not to worm his way in just to exploit you?
Apparently the Falwell family has had some success with appearing trustworthy to Donald Trump. His wife Melania is Christian and they do attend church when they can, mostly when they are in Palm Beach at Mar-a-Lago, because there everyone is rich, so there is less schmoozing. But still, imagine what it's like to be that famous and then to trying to be in a congregation; and, just by being there, you bring out the worst of the congregation's sins of covetousness.
The Bible is replete with stories of leaders who are anointed by God, and many were terrible sinners and others of them are pagans, but they were in His plan where He wanted them to be to help the Jews or the Christians. None of us knows what He will ordain in this race. But all of us on FR should be able to predict the collapse of our freedoms if Bernie or Hillary takes over. So if Trump is the nominee, that is your moment to decide whether you are in charge of everyone's walk with God, or only your own, as a citizen trying to make the best out of an imperfect situation. There is no perfection in this world. We do the best we can.