loveinalocket-deactivated202501:
the lack of empathy americans have for one another disgusts me. because the horrible truth is that my grandparents, who voted for trump, WANT mass deportation. they WANT abortion to be illegal. they WANT high taxes for the poor. they WANT trans people to be excluded from society. and i keep asking myself how they could possibly WANT any of that, but it’s because none of those things affect them, not directly. they can’t put themselves in the shoes of all the people who are going to be horribly affected by trump’s administration, and it disgusts me. until people in this country can feel empathy for one another, we’re screwed.
Ironically, many Trump voters claim to be good “Christians.” And yet, Jesus was all about empathy and compassion for “the least among us.”
The lack of empathy and compassion by certain far-right “Christians” is evidenced by some evangelicals rejecting Jesus’s “liberal teachings,” such as the Sermon on the Mount.
Evangelicals are now rejecting ‘liberal’ teachings of Jesus
Published Aug 09, 2023 at 7:17 PM EDT | Updated Aug 12, 2023 at 2:25 PM EDT
By Aila Slisco
An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as “liberal talking points.”
Russell Moore, former top official for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who is now the editor-in-chief of "Christianity Today,“ said during an interview aired on NPR's "All Things Considered" this week that Christianity is in a "crisis” due to the current state of right-wing politics.
[…]
In his NPR interview, Moore suggested that Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too “weak” and “liberal” for their liking.“Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching—'turn the other cheek'—[and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?’” Moore said.
“When the pastor would say, 'I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ’ … The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,” he added. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
Moore went to to say that he did not think it would be possible to “fix” Christianity by “fighting a war for the soul of evangelicalism,” urging his concerned brethren to instead fight “small and local” battles like refusing to go along with the current “church culture.”
Which means they’re about 50% less hypocritical than most Christians, who also don’t obey those directives but pretend they do.