Post by ck4829 on Feb 16, 2022 18:48:55 GMT
Why Trump Still Looms Large In Many Evangelical Congregations
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Pastor David Roach leads the Shiloh Baptist Church, just outside of Mobile, Ala. He's never asked his congregants straight up what their political views are, but he has a pretty good idea.
DAVID ROACH: I'm certain that the church I pastor leans toward being Trump supporters and definitely leans toward being Republican.
CHANG: But Roach told NPR he doesn't want his congregation's religious identity and political identity to be synonymous with each other.
ROACH: We have addressed in an intentional way that the church shouldn't be identified with a political belief, and certainly not more so than our belief in the gospel.
CHANG: This means, for example, that he doesn't want outsiders to see his largely conservative congregation and assume they're careless about pandemic restrictions.
ROACH: And that we even need to make welcome people that wear masks more frequently, have a different stance toward vaccination and who voted Democratic in the last election.
CHANG: Roach says that kind of welcome attitude goes over well with the churchgoers at Shiloh Baptist.
ROACH: When you get people that have a deep commitment to Christ in a room and you start talking about the need to place Christ above those political divisions and even intentionally cross them, that resonates.
CHANG: Or to put it more succinctly...
ROACH: The church is not a Trump church. The church is a Jesus church.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CHANG: But elsewhere, it can be a very different story.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Is this a Donald Trump church?
MURRAY CLEMETSON: I think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we stand for as a nation.
CHANG: Murray Clemetson is a member of the Patriot Church in Tennessee. And for evangelicals like him, Trump is as relevant as ever, as is the kind of Christian nationalism he embraced - this idea that the U.S. is a Christian nation and should enforce those beliefs.
CLEMETSON: You go to flyover country and people have good moral values. They love the Lord, and they want the best for the country. And that's what Donald Trump tapped into. That's what he represented.
CHANG: CONSIDER THIS - a year after the end of the Trump administration, the Christian nationalism that Trump endorsed continues to spread, and some faith leaders are trying to push back.
From NPR, I'm Ailsa Chang. It's Tuesday, January 18.
It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. The Sunday service at the Patriot Church in Lenore City, Tenn., starts out like a lot of evangelical worship does.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS #1: (Singing) And I heard about his healing.
CHANG: There are Bibles in laps, hands raised high in the air and full-throated singing.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS #1: (Singing) Dear Jesus, come and heal a broken...
CHANG: And when Reverend Ken Peters picks up the mic, the service takes a sharp turn towards politics.
KEN PETERS: Don't let the mainstream media or the left tell you that we were not a Christian nation. You know why there's churches everywhere and not mosques? Because we're a Christian nation.
CHANG: NPR correspondent John Burnett recently paid a visit to the Patriot Church.
BURNETT: The sermon, titled How Satan Destroys The World, zigzags between familiar grievances of conservative Christians, like abortion and trans rights. But what makes this church different is its embrace of the contemporary agenda of the far right - masks and vaccinations violate religious freedom, the participants in the January 6 riot were proud patriots, the Biden administration is evil and illegitimate.
PETERS: You know he's not the most popular president in America. How many Biden parades did you see? Yeah, he beat Trump with 70 million? Give me a break. We know something's up.
BURNETT: Christian nationalism is on the march, providing a godly underpinning for right-wing activism in venues like school board elections and anti-vaccine protests. The movement holds that America is Christian, that the government should keep it that way, and Donald Trump was and is their best hope to accomplish that.
After the service, I sit down with Jim Willis, a 72-year-old retired army colonel and software salesman who wears on his lapel an American flag inside of a Christian cross.
JIM WILLIS: This is a spiritual battle. It's good versus evil.
BURNETT: Willis says he and his wife fled California for Tennessee because of heavy-handed COVID restrictions, and the Holy Spirit led them to the Patriot Church, which is not afraid to jump into the fight.
WILLIS: And unfortunately, evil has taken charge. And we know what their agenda is. Their agenda is to close down churches, to get rid of religion permanently in this country.
BURNETT: When I point out that President Biden is a lifelong Catholic who attends weekly Mass, he responds...
WILLIS: No, he isn't. No, he isn't.
BURNETT: In this partisan fissure that we're living in, imperviousness to facts is a sign of the times. I head outside to talk to Murray Clemetson, an law school student and father of three kids, all home-schooled. He was among the 80% of white evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2020.
Is this a Donald Trump church?
CLEMETSON: I think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we stand for as a nation. You go to flyover country, and people have good moral values. They love the Lord, and they want the best for the country. And that's what Donald Trump tapped into. That's what he represented.
BURNETT: The next morning, I returned to Lenoir City to the barn-like building with the American flag painted on the roof that's home to the Patriot Church. It came into being while Trump was president, and it's done well. There are currently four campuses in Tennessee, Virginia and Washington state with about 350 members. Two more locations are on the way.
Reverend Peters greets me with a warm handshake. He's a rising star on the Christian Right and one of the few MAGA church leaders who welcomes journalists. Peters believes so fervently that his candidate won, he went to the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C., and addressed protesters the day before the Capitol riot. I told him that one of his parishioners said his church is a Donald Trump church.
www.npr.org/transcripts/1073799584
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Pastor David Roach leads the Shiloh Baptist Church, just outside of Mobile, Ala. He's never asked his congregants straight up what their political views are, but he has a pretty good idea.
DAVID ROACH: I'm certain that the church I pastor leans toward being Trump supporters and definitely leans toward being Republican.
CHANG: But Roach told NPR he doesn't want his congregation's religious identity and political identity to be synonymous with each other.
ROACH: We have addressed in an intentional way that the church shouldn't be identified with a political belief, and certainly not more so than our belief in the gospel.
CHANG: This means, for example, that he doesn't want outsiders to see his largely conservative congregation and assume they're careless about pandemic restrictions.
ROACH: And that we even need to make welcome people that wear masks more frequently, have a different stance toward vaccination and who voted Democratic in the last election.
CHANG: Roach says that kind of welcome attitude goes over well with the churchgoers at Shiloh Baptist.
ROACH: When you get people that have a deep commitment to Christ in a room and you start talking about the need to place Christ above those political divisions and even intentionally cross them, that resonates.
CHANG: Or to put it more succinctly...
ROACH: The church is not a Trump church. The church is a Jesus church.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CHANG: But elsewhere, it can be a very different story.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Is this a Donald Trump church?
MURRAY CLEMETSON: I think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we stand for as a nation.
CHANG: Murray Clemetson is a member of the Patriot Church in Tennessee. And for evangelicals like him, Trump is as relevant as ever, as is the kind of Christian nationalism he embraced - this idea that the U.S. is a Christian nation and should enforce those beliefs.
CLEMETSON: You go to flyover country and people have good moral values. They love the Lord, and they want the best for the country. And that's what Donald Trump tapped into. That's what he represented.
CHANG: CONSIDER THIS - a year after the end of the Trump administration, the Christian nationalism that Trump endorsed continues to spread, and some faith leaders are trying to push back.
From NPR, I'm Ailsa Chang. It's Tuesday, January 18.
It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. The Sunday service at the Patriot Church in Lenore City, Tenn., starts out like a lot of evangelical worship does.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS #1: (Singing) And I heard about his healing.
CHANG: There are Bibles in laps, hands raised high in the air and full-throated singing.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS #1: (Singing) Dear Jesus, come and heal a broken...
CHANG: And when Reverend Ken Peters picks up the mic, the service takes a sharp turn towards politics.
KEN PETERS: Don't let the mainstream media or the left tell you that we were not a Christian nation. You know why there's churches everywhere and not mosques? Because we're a Christian nation.
CHANG: NPR correspondent John Burnett recently paid a visit to the Patriot Church.
BURNETT: The sermon, titled How Satan Destroys The World, zigzags between familiar grievances of conservative Christians, like abortion and trans rights. But what makes this church different is its embrace of the contemporary agenda of the far right - masks and vaccinations violate religious freedom, the participants in the January 6 riot were proud patriots, the Biden administration is evil and illegitimate.
PETERS: You know he's not the most popular president in America. How many Biden parades did you see? Yeah, he beat Trump with 70 million? Give me a break. We know something's up.
BURNETT: Christian nationalism is on the march, providing a godly underpinning for right-wing activism in venues like school board elections and anti-vaccine protests. The movement holds that America is Christian, that the government should keep it that way, and Donald Trump was and is their best hope to accomplish that.
After the service, I sit down with Jim Willis, a 72-year-old retired army colonel and software salesman who wears on his lapel an American flag inside of a Christian cross.
JIM WILLIS: This is a spiritual battle. It's good versus evil.
BURNETT: Willis says he and his wife fled California for Tennessee because of heavy-handed COVID restrictions, and the Holy Spirit led them to the Patriot Church, which is not afraid to jump into the fight.
WILLIS: And unfortunately, evil has taken charge. And we know what their agenda is. Their agenda is to close down churches, to get rid of religion permanently in this country.
BURNETT: When I point out that President Biden is a lifelong Catholic who attends weekly Mass, he responds...
WILLIS: No, he isn't. No, he isn't.
BURNETT: In this partisan fissure that we're living in, imperviousness to facts is a sign of the times. I head outside to talk to Murray Clemetson, an law school student and father of three kids, all home-schooled. He was among the 80% of white evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2020.
Is this a Donald Trump church?
CLEMETSON: I think it is a Donald Trump church. Donald Trump represented what we stand for as a nation. You go to flyover country, and people have good moral values. They love the Lord, and they want the best for the country. And that's what Donald Trump tapped into. That's what he represented.
BURNETT: The next morning, I returned to Lenoir City to the barn-like building with the American flag painted on the roof that's home to the Patriot Church. It came into being while Trump was president, and it's done well. There are currently four campuses in Tennessee, Virginia and Washington state with about 350 members. Two more locations are on the way.
Reverend Peters greets me with a warm handshake. He's a rising star on the Christian Right and one of the few MAGA church leaders who welcomes journalists. Peters believes so fervently that his candidate won, he went to the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C., and addressed protesters the day before the Capitol riot. I told him that one of his parishioners said his church is a Donald Trump church.
www.npr.org/transcripts/1073799584