Peter,
Your not serious are you? The support for Trump and Moore are just one of a million examples of Republican/ Evangelical hypocrisy. Wake up my friend. Did your hero Regan do anything to help people with AIDs?
You Evangelicals call yourselves Christians but where is the acceptance? Liberals are accepting of other people. Evangelicals are not. Is the right wing conservative movement accepting of gay Americans?
The trickle down theory of economics is the biggest farce ever and a great way to fleece those in need and your conservative economic policies show no sign of Christian compassion for the needy.
You have been in denial for thirty years. Glad you woke up now but the rest of party and movement would vote for Charles Manson if he was alive and on the Republican ticket before they would have voted for Hillary. You basically did. You voted in a man who said he could commit a murder on Fifth Avenue and still get elected.
Imagine if a democrat said that. Imagine if a Democrat said what Trump had said on the Access Hollywood tape.
Take a truly good look at yourself and what you have been supporting. In your heart, you might think you are a Christian but your movement has been anything but.
You want to be a true Christian who is accepting of his fellow man and who is charitable to those in need, switch parties forever.
636
Do you really think anyone cares if you're still a Republican or evangelical Christian...I certainly don't.
110
The writer appears to be one of the few Christian conservatives who actually believe in Christianity and conservatism. Many others simply use those labels to dignify their grotesque selfishness , bigotry and self righteous hypocrisy. They are a sad joke.
149
"Yet I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures."
I almost thought you were getting woke but nah, you had to go down to the conservative gutter with your utter disdain for anyone...who is...well...not you (and your ilk).
Pity. Bottomline is this Moore/Trump thing isn't working out for your collective conservative/evangelical image more than having anything to do with a disconnect with your beliefs and goals.
105
First of all, for the most part the anti-slavery GOP and Southern Democrats switched roles years ago, so you can drop that arguement now.
214
Mr. Wehner, it is not us to which you need to plead your case, but to your God.
122
What is confounding and incredibly disturbing is how religious zealots fight to protect the lives of unborn “babies” from abortion yet seem to condone the abuse of young children by the likes of Roy Moore.
282
I guess you didn't have a problem with GW Bush's invasion of Iraq for what reason? 4 to 6 trillion wasted and hundreds of thousand killed??? The greatest danger was apparently a woman from the mid west who was the most qualified person to ever run for President!
193
The devil is neither a Republican or a Democrat. He is the devil. If you believe in Jesus Christ then you had better think hard about what path in life you choose. Mr. Moore can't hide from sin when it comes to the devil. None of us can. I will pray for him and for those who want to ignore his failure to repent from sin. I will pray for him and all those who vote for him.
47
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity."
Wow! Leave us out of this mess.
199
I guess the best we can say about this dunce is “Never curse wisdom because it comes late.”
70
Points well made, but between the lines you seem to imply that one cannot be both liberal and Christian. I assure you, Mr. Werner, that is another evangelical Republican lie.
345
Lies perpetuate themselves. Tell a new one to replace the former, and be on your way, just change the adjectives and folks will line up, join the crowd and follow the Piper. That certainly has been the way toward a guaranteed salvation ever since the USA slavery debacle: freed slaves... on paper. Folks, nowadays, have a liar-in-chief to follow (and in whom to believe!) and we find the country's sway to be right back to where it was in 1864. Evangelical Republican -- real contradiction in terms.
37
"Was blind, but now I see"...uhm...I see.
33
Good for you. Please continue to inform your fellow evangelists that they're ruining the very term, exposing themselves as ill informed, prejudiced and cowardly. Frankly--and you know this to be true--Jesus would be ashamed of them
95
I guess the man Wehner had no problems with the crimes Reagan committed in Central America or with those of Bush in Iraq among many others.
102
While Mr. Wehner seems to want to to live a good Christian life, it's disgustingly unfortunate that he sees controling women's bodies and their personal lives to be a "moral achievement". Forcing a woman to birth an unwanted child by denying abortion is a cruel and backward example of evangelicalism's perverted desire for male domination, no different than other forms of male sexual assault.
159
Peter, your Christianity needs a little work. “Assume a person from the left and an atheist....” plays right into the stereotype you and your fellow Christians on the right have of us. What, a person from “the left” is automatically assumed to be a non- believer? How judgemental , how un-Christian a comment like that is. It comes from the same place that presumes that the only true patriots among us vote republican and proclaim themselves conservative. Look, we lefties have a lot to own up for, but when it comes to hypocrisy, I’m afraid we’re we don’t even come close.
203
Sorry. Not accepting your de-involvement of the Evangelical movement. You can't cut bait if you don't like it now. You have made it political. For decades now. And now being Evangelical means you're pro child molestation and sexual assault. Congrats on your new label. Wear it proudly because you own it now. You and everyone else like you just need to figure out what to say to your kids and daughters when things start happening to them. I'm guessing it's going to be something like "It's all part of being Evangelical, sweetie." Nice.
96
Well said sir, well said.
17
Forgive me Mr Wehner but your words ring hollow and self-serving. While I do not doubt that you feel great anxiety about the dolt you and your fellow evangelicals helped elect, you don’t get a pass. Your words ring hollow as you use your essay to aggrandize old Republicans rather than simply sticking to the reality of how you and the evangelicals were at the forefront of what could well be the destruction of our nation.
You seek refuge now so that when the inevitable implosion of this administration and the Republican Party comes, you can claim you distanced yourself and are not to blame. Then, you will once again peddle the very poison that has led us to this dire state.
Sir, I’m not fooled by you. I’ve never been fooled by your kind and I’m not fooled this time. Please, go on supporting the ‘dotard’ in the White House so that when the day of political reckoning comes, we will find and rid ourselves of you and the scourge of other snake oil salesmen that drove us to such lows.
No sir, this national nightmare rests squarely on your shoulders and you’re not getting a pass.
180
I see so little of Christ's teachings in the behaviour of so many so-called American Christians. They seem to relish Pharisaical legalism and judgment, while ignoring the more gentle message of Christ's love for all...even the loathed Samaritan. For example, Moore's obsession with the 10 Commandments and his apparent indifference to the Beaitudes.
Christ, according to Matthew Christ spoke to this: "And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
More love, less judgement. It can't hurt. And it might mute the voices of bigotry and divisiveness.
126
Mr. Werner, no atheist, and certainly no liberal, created Trump or Moore. The Republican Party and Christian evangelicalism most assuredly did. You may certainly be praised for finally making the break with two rotting institutions but the big question is, what took you this long? If you watched a single Republican primary debate, if you listened to even five minutes of a Trump campaign rally, if you listened to just thirty seconds of Steve Bannon or Kelly Ann Conway, or if you had read any of the proposed Republican pieces of legislation concerning health care or taxes you would know you belonged to a sick institution. If you attendeda single "service" of one of the great mega evangelical churches where the "prosperity" gospel is the only thing on offer you would know how rotten that institution has become. If you had bothered to open your eyes in the last 10 years you would have seen that the Republican Party has become a virtual white's only institution, with a "men only"sign on the seats of power. If you had bothered to listen to a single "sermon" by Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts or Billy Graham Jr. you would know what a sick tragedy Christian evangelicalism has become. Homophobes, misogynists and racists all. So again Mr. Werner, what took you this long?
223
who could possibly care what Mr Wehner "calls" himself? Only another bloviator!
19
"Evangelical Republican" Trying to serve two masters at the same time?
45
Mr. Wehner, what say you about all the Republicans now lining up behind Trump? Will you at long last admit that the whole stinking party is rancid and unworthy and yes, ungodly.
39
You were with them right up until they rallied behind an actual, literal child molester. You need to examine every moral and ethical choice you've made and/or promoted for the last 40 years. Hopefully you will realize the GOP has always been the party that defends child molesters and calls it God's will.
60
If you no longer want to be an evangelical, you could convert to Christianity.
94
I am saddens to see how many evangelicals has set aside the teaching of Christ for politics
32
great article!!
5
While the author may want to distance himself from the current Republican Party & Evangelicalism, he is trying to run away from these disgusting institutions a little too late! You waited until the quicksand was around your upper lip to bail. You held onto the last bit of those hate groups until it was about to personally destroy you and now you want to distance yourself but still remain true to those "values?"
After the behavior of "Evangelicals" towards Pres Obama, I knew without question, that "Right Wing, Evangelical Christianity" is nothing more than a shill organization and cover for White Supremacist ideology. Own it.
It was never about policy. It was always about the man, and particularly a man of color being in power. The hypocrisy and hatred pouring from those who are supposedly strong believers in a religion of love, placed them on par with the Muslims that they despise. Evangelical Christianity is the exact same as Radical Islam but with huge mega-churches, suits, fancy dresses, luxury cars, jets and mansions. The ideology is the same. Evangelicals would massacre gay people by the millions if they could legally get away with it here in this country.
I have no sympathy or care for Christians. Your "brand" has forever been tarnished by your Dear Leader. There isn't a Christian on this planet, that if they voted for Donald Trump (or intend to vote for Roy Moore) can ever speak to me again about religion. Ever. You're tainted.
91
Two-thirds of the way down into the pit he dug and he realizes there's gators down there. If you can read the US Constitution and imagine that it authorizes forced procreation there is no limit to your fantastical imaginings. Good luck, Mr. Wehner, but your hands aren't clean just because you say you washed them.
66
Evangelicals place abortion above any political issue that takes place OUTSIDE the womb. You're wasting your time trying to convince conservatives Christians of anything else - they aren't equipped to handle it.
52
IMHO. "Conservative" "Christians" and in particular evangelicals Make mockery of Jesus' message of love and forgiveness. these people bomb abortion providers, advocate total war against Moslems, Hate gays and minorites and beleive that a woman's place is as a slave to their husbands. they elect Moore because in their hearts, they beleive that he is a victim of aggressive woman who do not know their place. They vote money for war but not one cent for help for people in need. As, I belive Mark Twain said,"On Sunday they pray on their knees and the rest of the week they prey on their neighbors. "
75
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
You lost me here! Why would you think it would be a liberal that would create such heinous people as Trump and Moore and the Republican Party and today's evangelicals? It was surely the devil that spawned them! Liberals have more Christianity in their little finger than all Republicans and evangelicals combined!
Liberal Democratic policies advocate providing health care for all especially the poor. Democrats advocate quality education for all (teaching a man to fish, remember?). Democrats favor stewardship of the environment and of all of God's creatures. And Democrats advocate for fair and equal treatment of all men and women.
Republicans need to actually read the Bible that they keep thumping while they advocate policies of greed that rape and pillage the earth for the benefit of a few obscenely rich old white men.
108
I just love these mea culpas that emerge years after the writer smelled the rot, but just hoped he could hang on without his beloved party being tarnished (even though it was already a sewer). Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.
59
Wow, two confessions in two days, first David Brooks and now Mr. Wehner. Perhaps it never occured to you that what your parents told you, you are the freinds you keep, is in fact true. You chose to climb into bed with these people in search of votes to drive the feeble Christian/conservative agenda and now you are reaping your just reward. Saying you can no longer call yourself an evangelical does not sovle the problem you have created. If you want to reclaim your brand identity, you will have to do far more that confess in the NY Times. You will have to call out many others beyond Mr. Trump and Mr. Moore for they are but the leading edge of things far more dangerous and ominous. Pehaps you can start as a guest commentator on Fox or Rush Limbaugh.
53
A good portion of the self identified right wing evangelical population would have been the first people that JC would driven out of the temple.
65
Can Republicans stop it with the lie that "the Republican Party... was created to end slavery and preserve the Union"? We all know the parties switched, since after all, a name is just a name. The current GOP is not the "party of Lincoln" and never has been since their current priorities do NOT include preserving the Union. Lincoln would be ashamed of all the current Republicans and their shameless mendacity. And we all know it was Nixon's Southern Strategy which got the racists from the South on the GOP's side (they used to vote Democrat until Johnson "betrayed" their cause). So please, no more of these stupid games.
74
Mr. Wehner, it took Donald Trump and Roy Moore for you to conclude that Republicans and Evangelicals have been poisoning their own beliefs in religion and politics? And you still worship Ronald Reagan?
Have you been absent from the planet for the last 40 years?
You'll need a real long time in therapy to return to your senses.
Best of luck to you.
45
The article is one more reason why the Times should focus less on the right wing GOP and give equal time to the democrats.
16
A commendable beginning, now will you actively promote the impeachment of this self confessed sexual abuser. As more and more "Men in high places" fall
the time has come for Trump to resign...and if not ...then impeached.
27
I am a Christian and must respond. I am only a bit younger than you and have been involved in politics as well. I have been outraged at the Republican Party ever since Reagan ignored the plight of the mentally ill and those with HIV, while stirring up conflict all over the world. You celebrate the party that ended slavery? That has not been the Republican Party for decades. The Christ calls us forward, not to live in the whitewashed tombs of the past. Heal the sick, sir, feed the hungry, and stop your focus on “pelvic” issues!
85
Mr. Wehlener,
You write, "Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity." This is a truly ironic statement. Why? Because the laboratory you posit actually existed. However, it was created by the very Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity that found your hero, Bonzo's costar, so appealing. Actually it started with Nixon's "Southern Strategy," but it was Saint Ronny putting "a smiling face" on this party before country attitude that has brought you this very belated awakening. I guess better late than never, but tim will tell, eh?
44
If it’s hard being an evangelical now because of Christian vileness, imagine what it’s like for us progressive Christians who are lumped in with the same by an anti religious populace.
28
Mr. Wehner, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, and three other Republicans are against Roy Moore. Yawn.
19
Ee liberals didn’t create Trump and Moore in a test tube. You Republican Evangelicals created them, and many more like them, all on your own. And, as a result, you’ve ruined our democratic system. Thanks for that...
50
What exactly does "enough already" mean? What action will it lead to, besides changing a name from evangelical to christian so it's less uncomfortable?
The real question here is - If the choice in 2020 is between Trump and a Democrat, who will you vote for? Will you be true to your Christian principals, as you state here as your concern, or will you become just another Christian hypocrite like the fake evangelicals you've described?
40
C'mon, many people used Christianity and the Bible to argue in favor of slavery. They argued that slavery removed people from cultures that practiced witchcraft. They pointed to examples in the Bible. The apostle Paul specifically commanded slaves to obey their masters (Eph. 6:5–8).
While Bush may have taken action against AIDS, Reagan let the AIDS crisis take its course saying little about it till the end of his second term. His administration spoke for him. Pat Buchanan, his communications director, argued that AIDS was "nature's revenge on gay men". Everett Koop was told by Reagan's advisors, "They are only getting what they justly deserve". Why did his administration have such a hatred for gay men? Reagan had a significant amount of support from Jerry Falwell and the religious right.
52
The lab created " people " ARE Trump and Moore. An unholy joining of the GOP and Evangelicals. The twins of hypocrisy, racism, sexism and despair, with a large sprinkling of homophobia and forced birth.
Thanks, GOP. See YOU in 2018.
33
Evangelicals are clearly power-hungry nihilists. I can appreciate wanting to shed the label.
16
Evangelical Christianity is the same as it’s always been: bring Jesus into your heart and you will float up to heaven when you die. Whatever you have done or will do in this life, your belief in Jesus will save you for eternity.
This kind of belief is nothing less than a license to commit any kind of criminal act and an encouragement for every kind of socially irresponsible behavior. It is rubbish and it is nonsense, and it remains the greatest evil that this country faces today.
33
This whole situation terrifies me and defies logic. There is no definition of “Christian” (which in broad terms must mean one who follows Christ and his teachings) that would conceivably encompass Roy Moore and his fellow racists, sexists and homophobes. He is many things but a Christian is not one of them.
31
Mr. Wehner: Reap what you sow!? You helped build what you are now lamenting. Surely you can help dismantle it, right?
28
You sow, you reap.
And *now* you weep?
27
And...? What are you going to do with this revelation?
20
Unfortunately, this honest, sincere article will not appear in any Southern or Midwestern newspaper.
16
Thank you. Now please go on Fox News and write a piece for Breitbart saying these very things. Sometimes I get tired of all the people who have come to their senses preaching to the converted.
42
The epitome of American evangelical Christianity was exposed in the malign white supremacist myths of the Confederate States of America, Southern Baptist, Ku Klux Klan and White Citizen's Councils belatedly adopted by the Republican Party.
Ronald Wilson Reagan began his rise to power opposing all of the 1960's civil rights era legislation against Jim Crow along with his ardent support of Republican Party 1964 Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Then in 1980 Reagan followed the "Southern Strategy" of Richard Nixon in 1968 by speaking about "states rights" in Philadelphia Mississippi where three civil rights workers were murdered. Reagan's callous cynical gift for rhetorical bigoted color aka racial euphemism fueled the Republican Party's replacing the segregationist Southern Democrats in the South. The party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party of Confederate Democrat acolytes Jefferson Davis and Woodrow Wilson.
When I traveled in the South several white evangelical Christians told me that Ronald Wilson Reagan was the "Anti-Christ" of the Book of Revelation. Based upon the six letters in his first, middle and last name he carried they claimed the "Mark of the Beast" aka 666.
See "Dog-Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class" Ian Haney Lopez
18
As Reagan said about the Democratic party, “I didn’t leave it; it left me,” you seek to make the same point about both the current Republican Party and Evangelism.
The problem is, the argument you make are a load of bunkum. President Reagan and Pope John Paul II brought down communism? Perhaps there was some influence of a massively corrupt system, systematic famine in the Soviet Union, and a disastrous invasion of an unconquerable Afghanistan?
Then this: “Yet I was proud to make the case for Reagan and consider myself fortunate to have worked in his administration in its second term.” You claim to define evangelism as representing Jesus’ works on earth, yet you went to work, proudly, in an administration that illegally sold weapons to the mullahs of Iran, then took the proceeds and used them to support nun raping and priest murdering death squads in Central America? In what way, precisely, Mr. wehner, was ANY of that representative of Christ’s work on earth?
In what way were Reagan’s casual lies about “welfare queens driving Cadillacs” and “strapping young bucks” using food stamps to buy steaks representative of Jesus’ teachings to feed the poor, to care for the least among us?
Spare us the idea that an absence of morals is a new phenomenon in the Republican Party.
47
Peter, may I ask that you do something concrete? You served in 3 Republican administrations. Send your article to these Republican senators (I assume you have their email addresses) and tell them to vote against the current Republican tax bill: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Rob Portman, John McCain, and especially Ron Johnson of Wisconsin with a note containing these two sentences about another Wisconsin senator who functioned at the same level as Moore and Trump:
Mr. Welch: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.”
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
The quote Paul Krugman (NYT 12/8/17)
"But such results, while interesting and important, aren’t the main reason we should be providing children with health care and enough to eat. Simple decency should be reason enough. And despite everything we’ve seen in U.S. politics, it’s still hard to believe that a whole political party would balk at doing the decent thing for millions of kids while rushing to further enrich a few thousand wealthy heirs"
DO SOMETHING CONCRETE TO SAVE THIS COUNTRY, PLEASE. I BEG YOU.
47
This essay is a ray of light at a dark time. When Republicans and their president are openly supporting a child molester for the United States Senate and are attacking the elite law enforcement agency of the country, there is a shadow over American democracy. Trump's careful and unemotional reading of his Civil Rights Museum speech in Mississippi lacked the fire of his support for Moore and insults to everyone.
A revered friend of mine in Savannah was the late, great W. W. Law. He founded the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum there. Once when I was visiting him there, I asked him about the Langston Hughes poem, "Mother to Son". He stopped in his tracks and declaimed the poem in his beautiful, resonant voice. Real Christians should pay attention.
"Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
..I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps..
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."
16
There are a number of people in this country who refuse to participate in organized religion because of people like Mr. Wehner. You, sir, have abused your Christ until many of us cannot stomach it.
I believe in leaving people alone. Yes, leave me alone to work as a woman without patriarchal interference. Leave me alone to have an abortion if I choose. Leave me alone to participate in the running of this country in a way I can be proud. And while you're at it, leave my LGBT brothers and sisters alone.
I have left the evangelicals alone just as I have wanted to be left alone. I have always felt it was up to each to decide how their gods participated in their lives. However, your god is interfering with my health and my body. I am well and truly sick of seeing your people wrap themselves in whatever they see their god to be and imposing those values on me.
You live in fear of Muslims imposing Sharia law. I live in fear of so-called christians imposing their laws on me. You, sir, and your ilk are more dangerous than any Muslim I have ever met.
It is my hope and prayer that more evangelicals go home and leave the rest of us alone. Do you think they can do it?
59
"There are of course a great many honorable people in the Republican Party and the evangelical movement." Oh really? Show me. I don't see any. The Republican Party has become a cesspool of bigotry and unreason. The evangelical movement has morphed into a grotesque nativist political movement. How could any honorable person remain associated with either of them?
32
As a non-believer, I wish more "Christians" would actually follow Christ's teachings.
23
“Unborn life”
That’s a contradiction
~p&p
13
Shocked, shocked!
The Republican Party has long catered to that part of the population mobilized first of all by the segregationist Jerry Falwell, whose Orwellian-named Liberty University is whistle stop number one for Republican presidential nominees to this day.
And also still, appeals to race and religion are how Republicans in many parts of the country get votes. My entire adult life I've seen that political theater play out.
And just to be blunt, the neo-Nazis have a term for this political coupling: "racial holy war," or as it is often tattooed in capitals, "RAHOWA."
And you are stunned at Trump's rise? *This* is when the line got crossed?
At this point, Mr. Wehner, you have two choices about this matter. You either for decades turned a blind eye to the racist and sectarian appeals of your party (and your faith), or for decades you had no idea. The first option does not speak well about your character, the second option your perspicacity.
Either way, I would counsel, retire.
25
After decades as a follower of Christ, including attending an Evangelical Bible College, I have left the Church, all of them. if Evangelicals care about their primary mission to be witnesses to the saving grace of God, they will abandon this political goal. They have grown prideful with their power to create a nation like Israel. But Jesus never asked any of us gentiles to become Jews, or to create a political state to accomplish His will. Acts 15. Let God be God, and stop trusting in chariots as the people of Israel did when in Egypt. When will people of faith show true faith in God and stop trying to control the rest of us and the choices we make? Trust God! We leave the Church because you no longer look like Jesus. No spiritual gifts, no love in your hearts, no repentance for sin. And now you appear to idolize the piece of cloth called our flag because Trump tells you to worship it. And you appear to blindly worship him, a fallible human. If it's turning my stomach, how do you think Jesus sees it? "I spit you out of my mouth!". Revelation. Read the rest of it. You may see the same Beast I see in the White House. You are the Deceived faithful. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
35
Oh thank you, thank you Republicans of good character for battling the scourge of Aids after it already killed thousands upon thousands under Reagan's watch. Not to mention thank you so much for the war in Iraq, for the slaughter of innocents at Newtown, for McConnell's vicious coda to Obama's inaugural address: ' all that matters is that we make this a one term president!', for Ted Cruz, fellow evangelical (married to a Goldman Sachs' associate) blithely shutting down the government over access to affordable health care for every American. Thank you also for the humiliation of Merrick Garland, for the ultra cynical demonization of Hillary Clinton, for the rise of the odious alt right; for hate speech and for blaming the victim for his or her vulnerability. It would take a new messiah to forgive Republicans for their villainy on the very eve of their electing a credibly alleged pedophile to the Senate in the second decade of the suddenly oh so precarious twenty first century.
54
"A rose by any other name..."
8
Evangelical support for Roy Moore is proof the Christian Right is neither.
29
Mr. Wehner, I've been appreciating your commentaries in the Times over the past months, and trust you will keep them coming.
5
Conservatism and Evangelicalism ARE two separate and distinct things. Always! Forever! Amen! You sir, should have known better. Public prayer means nothing. Government is designed to kill and my understanding of Christianity is it is designed to let live and God shall be the judge. Your old way was of the Devil. So Alabama hates "liberals". Why? It was not liberals that freed their slaves. It was their own greed and hatred of a the "Conservative" Lincoln whom they forced to end their racist Government. Their unrighteousness caused God to work on Lincoln's soul until HE liberally freed 8 million souls from bondage. GOD is neither conservative or liberal, HE knows right from wrong and I am bound to follow his clear commandments given to me but only me...the rest of you are free (liberal) to figure it out for yourselves but not free to impose your Religion on me. Our founding fathers (liberals seeking freedom) let me have that freedom that Alabama wants to destroy. Only the poor in spirit led by the Devil confuse GOD AND GOVERNMENT. Roy Moore is NOT the poor in spirit he knows First Amendment Law and yet he leads Alabama to confusion and deceit. He does it on purpose. Nothing should sway a vote against Roy any stronger than his desire to impose his corrupt infusion of HIS Religion into OUR Government and thus ON ME. However, his immorality speaks too. Run from him Alabama. Run to the liberal. In quite solitude I shall pray for Alabama and Roy Moore.
15
I’m...stunned. Sir, while I deeply appreciate your reaching out to publish a piece in the Gray Lady, and I appreciate the NYT for publishing it, I find it unfortunate that your introspection seems to go no deeper than the indigestion you feel over what you apparently see as a pinko plot by the lefties to undermine America. I need you to understand something, sir. As Dems or Indies, there has probably never been, in the history of America the Beautiful, a time when those of us on the left have fought harder to make certain that our Constitution will still be standing when the morally deficient person you undoubtedly voted for, and the Party over Country you are part of, is out of office. We tried to warn you, sir. We played the tape. We pointed out the love he has for Putin. We told you that America isn’t and should NEVER be a business enterprise, especially one run by a man who was handed his money and avoided fighting for our country when so many of our brothers and sisters were dying for it. You didn’t listen then, and now you’ve been made sick by your own complicity. I’m 66 years old, sir. Are you happy that your boy Paul Ryan plans to cut into both our Social Security and Medicare, something we’ve paid into all our working lives? Are you proud that your GOP is decimating our gorgeous country to gain a few more dollars out of an outdated energy source? Where is your God, sir?
47
Mr Wehner,
I think you should of bailed out when your sainted Ronald Reagan gave his opening campaign speech in Philadelphia Mississippi talking about states rights. Talk about intentionally dividing America along racial lines.
26
I understood everything up to the "gay" part. What's your "evangelical" take on that? You elide over it nicely.
Get it over with and join the Orthodox Church and quit forever running around in circles.
4
Praise the Lord!
As a Lefits and a Christian, your column is the equivalent to: “Have you no decency?” - when it comes to the sycophants and hypocrites!
Thank Mr. Werner! There is hope for America!
5
Wehner so conveniently praises Christianity as the bastion of progress that "abolished slavery" and led to groundbreaking AIDS research while conveniently ignoring the fact that Christianity was the original justification for the subjugation and enslavement of Africans and that it was both the Christian's stance on gay relationships that caused the evasion of the aids crisis in the Reagan administration and the Catholic stance on contraception that caused the rapid spread of AIDS in the Global South. Conservative Christianity has never been on the right side of any progressive social issue since the inception of America. And to so boldly purport morality in the newspaper of record only days after passing that joke of a tax bill and then claim that pedophilia is the straw that broke the camel's back after years of sex scandals is laughable.
43
Your lack of courage is appalling. Thanks for waiting until the fox is in the henhouse to cultivate a conscience.
46
"The faith of Mr. Bush..." There were THIRTY-SEVEN THOUSAND casualties in the Iraq war, all of them meaningless and squarely on the head of George Bush. Your op-ed is laughable.
44
I take hope in people like yourself Mr. Wehner. You have not left the Republican party, the party has left you and other like-minded conservatives who act and think with integrity.
It should be most disheartening to you and other sincere Christians, but Evangelicals have done more damage to the Christian cause than anything Satan could do. No one with a conscience wants to join with people who make a mockery of Christ's teachings by supporting a man devoid of conscience like Trump and a pedophile racist like Moore who pines for the good ole days of slavery.
20
One hand helping or sharing trumps two hands praying.
9
What a brilliant article of self-awareness. It's always confused me how Trump in any way resembles a personality that Jesus would consider moral or just or representative of His message. Trump, Moore, Falwell Jr and these other hypocrites will suffer eternally when the Savior says to them "As you read in Matthew 7:21-23, "Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
13
"Reagan and Pope John Paul II, together helped to bring down one of the most malevolent political movements in history: Soviet-led Communism."
the USSR was rotting from within and was going to go one way or another. but let's just say that your statement is true..... where was the plan for what happened after the great reagan fomented the demise of the evil empire? right. there was't one. just like there was no plan for winning in iraq beyond the dropping of bombs and the killing of masses of civilians. your time to leave the republican party should have come a lot sooner. this party has been what it is since nixon. they just wrapped the stinking mess hoping you wouldn't notice. if you think they have ever represented anything like the values of jesus you need a new bible.
27
To little too late.
Where was this “courage” when it would have made a difference?
You own this mess even if you don’t like it.
Until you do something to fix what you broke it is your cross to bear.
40
Trump and Moore are beyond the most outlandish caricature that any liberal I know could have conceived of. I can't wait til this nightmare is over (hopefully with a happy ending of some sort). I have to wonder how so many "Christians" have been led to this point. As an evangelical do you think that Satan is responsible? Or were they only the most superficial people of faith to begin with? How could so many so willingly abandon, corrupt and twist what they imagined was the bedrock of their existence? It really is disgusting to watch.
27
"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." Matthew 6:24. Which master does Trump and the GOP serve?
29
For a liberal, we hit bottom the night Trump was elected...I now have three dates I remember where I was---when Kennedy was assassinated, 9/11, and Trump's election.
18
I’m concerned that you choose now to discredit the evangelical movement. I’m glad you brought up the Pope, because it reminded me of the Catholic Church so eloquently! I guess it was okay to be a devout Christian and political evangelical when all of the boys were molested by the priests charged with protecting them (because they had been born already?) Apparently now though it’s not okay, and you seem to be seeking out a Medal of Honor. Except that when you only value the unborn, you sacrifice the lives of those already in society with limited power, because there’s only so much power to go around. Sigh.
21
Mr. Wehner, why print this article in the New York Times? Go to Alabama and confront your fellow church men and women.
38
I really think mixing God and politics is a very bad idea. Republicans can't seem to figure our what values they stand for these days - Human values or Party values! Al Franken made a very good point when he resigned by calling out Assaulter-in-Chief, Trump, who is still in office and Assaulter-in-denial, Moore, being endorsed by same POTUS and the Alabama white evangelicals. Shame on Alabama and Trump & Moore!
23
Your rethinking should have started a long time ago!
23
This is a thoughtful article, but my kind of Christianity is best summed up by Pope Francis and not John Paul II.
11
Reverend Wehner, please list the "many honorable" Republicans in the party's leadership. In fact, name one.
33
'Evangelicals' have traded eternal moral and spiritual power for temporary political power. They worship the 2nd amendment while despising the 1st amendment and the 1st commandment - "Have no other Gods before me".
26
The unholy alliance between far-right politicians and the American Taliban has led inexorably to today’s crisis, and has been clear for decades to anyone with open eyes. I welcome the author’s epiphany, and I urge him to look back and examine his own role in the nation’s march toward fascism.
12
Well I am an atheist and even worse a progressive.
Peter Wehner gives my little theory about religions.
That in spite of organized religion, there are good and kind and
honorable people who belong to all of them
I am very sure that all organized religions are created to control
the masses. Sure they talk all pretty and such but the people at
the top of the religious chains manly are for getting money
and power. My favorite target is the Catholic Church. How hideous
to continue letting alter boys get abused and keep moving
the pervert priests around like musical chairs. Am working on a scene
from the play Doubt in acting class, hence research. As early as
1965 a priest who ran a halfway house for wayward priests,
mainly drunks, wrote a book and begged the church authorities
never to let sexual abusing priests back into the church for he feared
after years of trying to rehabilitate them that they would always
go back to sexual abuse when back in a parish. I digress.
What I meant to say is what I find so moving is that even with all the propaganda in religions, by accident not design, sweet dear humans
actually do take the propaganda to heart and are good and kind. How annoyed the originators must have been.
And I think these current awful Evangelicals are actually behaving as
the corrupted ones who started and still run religions. Poor Christ, how
many horrifying and inhuman things must be done in his name.
14
Mr. Werner, too bad evangelicals can't trade their obsession with unborn life for a concern for children already born into this world.
30
The inherent hypocrisy within the Republican party and by so called Evangelicals is a testament as to how far removed from the teachings of Christ that they really are. The entire philosophical meaning behind Christianity is to be understanding of others, to love thy neighbor and to do good unto the world. As someone who voted for Reagan and worked in his administration, as someone who so obviously up until this point put party ahead of country, how can you as a republican still continue to call yourself a Christian? Show me where in the Bible it says "And then Jesus turned and said and now I shall strip thee of thy healthcare..." What disciple claimed that it was ok to strip the unions of all their power, to stagnate wages in this country and to funnel all the wealth to the 1%? The author claims that up until now evangelism and conservatism went hand in hand. If that's the case, then you sir have admitted that what you practice is not a form of Christianity, rather you are the personification of everything that Christianity goes against. You are the greed that Jesus taught against, you are the hate that the current GOP base displays on a weekly basis. Everything that the GOP has slandered up until now has built up into the current state of the GOP, and quite frankly you have noone to blame but yourself.
20
Peter, welcome back to the land of the decent and the humane. Many live here of all political and religious persuasions.
"... evangelicalism, a transdenominational effort to faithfully represent Christ in word and deed ..."
Yep, that pretty much sums up Mr. Trump and his clan. Every day Trump asks himself, "What would Jesus do?"
"... the global AIDS and malaria initiative is one of President George W. Bush’s greatest legacies ..."
Mr. Trump and his Republicans are planning to stop this nonsense. The strong do whatever they want, and the weak merely survive.
"... the Republican Party, which was created to end slavery and preserve the Union, ..."
The Republicans are the party of white racism. They continue to divide the country with hatred, anger, and resentment.
"... the efforts to abolish slavery and to end segregation ... have been informed by Christianity ..." Now evangelical Christians are leading the way back to Jim Crow.
"There are of course a great many honorable individuals in the Republican Party and the evangelical movement ..."
How many of them spoke out against Charlotte? How many of them are speaking out as this White House tramples the poor, the elderly, and the children?
22
This creed of hatred is not new; the anti-American "president" and the accused pedophile evangelical are natural excrescence of the biblical perversions and politicization of Christianity by Francis Schaeffer, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafley and the rest of the "Moral Majority" (who have always been an unjustifiably angry, entitled, immoral minority). Wehner seems to want to skip over this movement--even though he was a happy recruit--and lay claim to Rev. King and the Civil Rights movement. But the spawn of the Reagan era and its "moral majority" were Salvadorean and Guatemalan death squads, the Nicaraguan Contras, Ed Meese, Bob Jones University and its miscegeny policy. Born again Reagan was against the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s, and he continued to be in the 1980s; he was notoriously anti-union, a "namer" of the McCarthy era, and while president he purposely ignored the AIDS crisis, and fostered an environment that bred the obscenties of "homosexuals are to blame for (fill in the blank)." Reagan exploited not only racial divisions, but his "evangelical" credentials as well, for political gain. He may not be the original "christian" demagogue, but he was clearly an effective one.
21
“Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity” — as a person of the left and an atheist, it would not occur to me to artificially misrepresent Republicans (or anyone) as worse than they actually are. To suggest this, even as a thought experiment, is offensive.
18
That evangelical leaders had to twist themselves into pretzels during the presidential campaign to find an acceptable term to allow them to support the greedy, philandering, raunchy Donald Trump, finally coming up with “a baby Christian” should have been enough hypocrisy to cause Mr. Wehner to write this column a year and a half ago. Now those same evangelicals are dealing with a “full blown(?)” Christian in the person of child predator Roy Moore and seem set on once again making the indefensible religiously defensible. Appalling!
19
How kind of this fraud to present his mea culpa where his peers will never read it. What a waste. When Fox News airs this, I will start to believe that Wehner and all his fellow apologists are starting to see the light.
Where were you 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago -- when a few dozen billionaires were leading you and millions of Christians down your path of hate and tax cuts?
16
Mr. Wehner please go spread this gospel amongst the misguided Christians and Republicans you call out. Preaching this to the typical NYTimes reader is like preaching to the choir. We already know the moral corruption of Trump and Moore and we did not and will not support their elections.
15
Mr. Wehner: Even at the moment when you are inching closer to admitting that your twin cherished beliefs of Evangelicalism and Republicanism may have brought our society a great ill, you still have the time to display the smug, oblivious, and small-minded twaddle which perfectly encapsulates both:
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
You, sir, have not changed. You just didn't get what you wanted for the first time in a very long while and don't know what to do. That's called a tantrum. Had the almost-as-horrid Ted Cruz won the Presidency then I suspect you'd be going merrily on your way, despite the fact that the policy pursuits of both Cruz and Trump would have been eerily similar. Your cruel Republican policies would simply be spearheaded by a more palatable abomination.
So spare us your public come to jesus moment until you actually have a come to jesus moment.
22
Pathetic. Y'all ruined the word 'evangelical' before you yourself ever heard of it. The word comes from the name of the protestant revolt against Rome's habit of of claimng that compliance with its own manmade 'faith commitments' was necessary for salvation from the wrath of God. Following the Gospels, the original 'evangelicals' grasped that faith in Christ meant trusting in his unmerited love for people who could not possibly deserve his redeeming help. It meant owning your own neediness and eschewing the kind of pompous self-congratulatory judgmental attitude that was and remains the sole content of the American word 'conservative.' No one as poorly informed as you should have been hired by any administration...except of course that for Republicans that's a norm of sorts.
9
The right has devolved into angry primitives because they've been turning to sociopathic demagogues for moral leadership for the last 40 years. If you want the Republican party and the Christian faith to regain a place of decency, then stop feeding yourselves and your children propaganda on a daily basis. After Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and an endless stream of perverted televangelist crooks, Donald Trump was barely a step up.
The worst people always mask themselves as the best. In America, that means coming cloaked in the flag and carrying a cross. It should be obvious that hyper-aggressive people who yell all day and single out the least well-off in society are evil demagogues, but this is a lesson humanity just cannot learn for more than a generation. I hope the right gets a new TV channel, because nothing will change as long as the brain poison keeps flowing.
12
Perhaps Mr Wehner could look up in his handy "Christian" dictionary the definition of "apologist"? How about the more modern term "bypass" to describe this pathetic attempt to evade his complicities? He writes,
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore." It seems to me that you did this all by yourselves, Mr Wehner. Yet another enabler refusing responsibility for his part in this catastrophe that is the sick cult known as the Republican Party. He is proud of serving Reagan but fails to see how Reagan took the Nixonian Southern Strategy to its logical ends by embracing the "Evangelicals" that have always been the dog-whistling bigots that we atheists liberals have plainly understood them to be. Your "evangelism" has worked brilliantly. Watching you deny your part in it is a sin I have no reason to forgive. Reason. It could inform your "faith." You should try it sometime.
10
If evangelicals truly adhered to the teaching of Christ, they would have all changed their names by now. Christ's views on money, women, the poor, the disenfranchised and His being used as a political lever to gain power (and we all know the list goes far longer than this) TRANSCEND the pairing of faith identification and political affiliation.
As a Christian I cringe watching other Christians brazenly cleave to hatred, classicism and racial indifference. I refuse to believe that what "conservative Christians" practice is an accurate representation of Christ. Sadly, Christianity today to those who do not know Him (and sorely NEED to) almost resembles a perversion of Noah's ark right before the flood: we'll be nice and cozy on our boat while the rest of you drown. Christians, open your hearts to those who need Christ. Try as Paul to "be all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some".
Have you unknowingly radicalized your Christianity? WWJD?
5
If Mark Twain were alive right now, he’d be writing a book about all these wolves in sheep’s clothing conniving overtime to fulfill their end times, but only after having mixing up messiah and antichrist. A comedy for the ages, a tragedy for America.
13
It is good to see that there are at least a few conflicted christians that are not willing to forsake their religious principals in the name of politics. I am not a person who particularly admires religion simply because of the large degree of hypocrisy required to belong to there cult. One is either a good caring decent human being of compassion or not. There is no in between. One does not need a huge leap of faith in anyone but themselves to live a respectable life.
It was clear from the very beginning that Trump was in no way up to any acceptable standard, religious or not, to represent decent human beings in a country of supposed higher morality than many. No one can support his ilk and rightfully or honestly claim any superior place in terms of humanity. Those who were selfish gullible or maybe just stupid enough to give us this decadent abomination are to blame. Evangelicals without a doubt share a huge degree of fault for placing politics before principle. And yes a huge blemish now lessens any credibility your religion may have had.
9
Pfffft. Too little too late. Where was the dismay during the campaign?
11
For all his good intentions I must confess find Mr. Wehner’s soul searching nauseating. I am happy that now finally, after several brave accusers have come forward against Roy Moore, he has discovered how the Republican Party and its Evangelical links may not be a force of good after all. Good for him, but why now I wonder? Why has it taken this long? Could he not see that the Evangelical Right is intrinsically divisive? Where was he when Jerry Falwell was telling everyone on his TV show the 9-11 was God’s punishments for legalized abortion? Where was he when Ann Markarian was again on TV implying gays should be stoned to death, as the Good Book demands? Does he believe Katrina was God’s punishment to sinful New Orleans, as Pat Robertson assures us? These are his compatriots in turning the Republican Party into a Christian Theological Party. And now, after decades of the most vile anti-pluralism, anti-secularism, anti-division between church and state that he has enough? Forgive me for not being one bit impressed. If he is looking for some redemption with this piece he is getting none from me. Excuse me while I go throw up.
152
One question and one comment:
1. Why would evangelicalism be connected to “conservatism” (whatever that means)?
2. The opposite of evangelicalism ISN’T atheism. It is NONevangelicalism. That includes many Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, other “believers” in a supernatural entity/force, agnostics and atheists.
I wonder how you decided to follow the religious path you have taken, with all the other available alternatives.
64
If you want illustrate that Moore and Trump discredit the Republican Party, why do you have to couch that in terms of being left and an atheist? I read your piece with open interest and then find that you harbor resentment that is a blemish to the values you wish to protect.
65
"Stop the Trump train! I want to get off!" Well, it's too little, too late. The author wants to distance himself from Trump and Moore now, but as recently as 2012, Mr. Wehner wrote an article decrying *Barack Obama* as "The Great Divider." So while I agree with most of what he's written here today, Mr. Wehner would do well to spend some time and ink considering his own role in the downward spiral of our political discourse.
103
I have never understood how someone who embraced the gospel of Jesus could vote for Reagan.
85
I agree. But you ignore one important issue – the problem did not begin with Trump and Moore – they are merely the culmination of a decades long slide into hypocrisy by the so-called Christian Right. The fact of the matter is you cannot be a Christian and
- despise abortion but favor the death penalty;
- despise abortion but be comfortable with those same children dying from lack of adequate health care, or food, or shelter;
- a bigot or a racist;
- be intolerant of other people’s religions;
- be unsympathetic to the sufferings of others in the world;
- chant “let them die” when asked what people will do without adequate health care;
- believe that corporations have the same rights as human beings;
- believe that despots around the world hold the answer to anything;
- believe that extremists are any more representative of their religion than extremists are representative of your religion;
- excuse the bad behavior of others saying they will repent in the afterlife;
- support leaders of fatally flawed moral character – there is a limit;
- simply quote from the bible and attend a church service;
- believe that jail is the solution for all transgressions;
- follow a political movement or leaders that are antithetical to Christianity;
- fail to search for the truth;
- believe that all men are not created equal;
- fail to help people who are in trouble;
- hate others simply for who they are;
- not recognize these failings in yourself.
140
Earth to Peter, it was never, ever about anything more than pure power politics - that is the ability of Republicans to manipulate a large, largely white voting block such that the most unequal, economically speaking, public policies that raise economic inequality could be expanded and executed for the benefit a privileged few. Evangelicals never actually cared about the newborn children born to unwed mothers once they were born and their demonstrated mean spiritedness is proof enough of that. They just always wanted to persecute the woman who had sex outside of marriage. This is why they don't mind cutting social services that support that child because it persecutes and punishes the mother indirectly. This explains why they support the death penalty because it was never about "Life", but only punishment for those they judged to be a "sinner". They care not for the sick or the poor unless they are White. The "others" are simply undeserving loafers. They refuse to accept the fact that they, as a class, take more from the government than what they pay into it. They support Trump because he personifies the racist undertone and tribal prejudices they have always wanted to demonstrate but were afraid to, and they love him for it. Trump has only brought out the glaring truth about their deplorable hypocrisy. They follow not scripture, nor commandment, nor the values that Christianity is supposed to support. They have chosen ignorance over truth, and hate over love. They are lost.
87
Better never than late.
You built this ship, Mr. Wehner, You go down with it. Hope you made enough to afford a seat in a lifeboat!
43
Moving the republican party to the South was the beginning of all that the party is today.
22
See the rats run. Evangelical pastors don't want to use the word. Support for pedophile Moore and pervert Trump among them at all time highs. Worried about money.
I quit believing Christians values when my pastor got up with his gun / knife and willing to take ppl who defy him out the door for a fight.
I should have just stayed agnostic though some good ppl can be found and can influence discussion. However, Fellowship quickly DIED when the hatred came out, esp during President Obama's years and the total fanatical love for the hate sown by Trump and GOP.
I just hope more like writer sees the pure evil, hatred and despicable behavior towards the earth and its ppl and start voting for truth, Justice and Our Global community, all included!
38
I disagree with the writer who claims Evangelicals and the Republican Party “represent Christ in word and deed.” To represent Christ you must follow the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew 5:3-12. Republicans lost their Christianity years ago when they signed the pledge to never raise taxes to the rich and have the middle class and the poor foot the bill.
Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, a man that loves to destroy rather than rebuilt; a man of no faith; an impostor who used religion to give them “a voice in politics” and he succeeded.
46
When religion and politics become intertwined both are corrupted.
25
Thank you for this much needed denunciation of what Trump and Moore- and the Republican and evangelical cowards who enable them- are doing to America, democracy, and Christianity. Trump is the greatest con artist in American history.
13
Mr. Werner, yours is the latest of several heartfelt conservative NYT op-ed pieces disavowing the Evangelical-GOP symbiosis currently running this country and grieving over the current perversion of the party and the religion which have been your guideposts throughout much of your life. I could point out blatant evidence that this debacle was a long time in the making and, were it not for power lust, could have been addressed and righted years ago.
I ask that you take a look at yourself and how you express yourself. You describe the top current offenders in both the GOP and Evangelical leadership as "liberal caricatures." I get it that by using the word 'caricature' you feel absolved from the charge of describing the immoral and illegal behavior that disgusts you as 'liberal' when the reality is that this is conservatives' behavior.
And later on you ask the reader to assume they are liberal and an atheist. There's that dog whistle thing again: liberals = atheists. I live in NYC. My large crowd of relatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues are liberal. The overwhelming majority of us believe in God and grew up attending church, synagogue or mosque. I personally only know one single atheist.
You must own the failings of your party and religion, rectify them or start anew. If you continue to falsely describe these failings as somehow surrendering to liberalism or being liberal-like you are perpetuating the problem and adding to the divisiveness that is strangling us all.
50
Why do Republicans act as though the hypocrisy, bigotry and stupidity exhibited by the current leadership in the GOP is something new and different? The GOP, and it’s evangelical supporters have been espousing this type of bad behavior for years. There is nothing new here. It is only now, that they are exposed in leadership positions in the government, that these traits, beliefs and actions are on full public display. It isn’t a trade off that evangelicals have put in place, anti-abortion policy for their souls. It has always been a trade off they were willing to make. Now they see how awful the deal was and is, and are trying desperately to act as if they still have souls to sell. This is your party, your religion. It’s what you wanted. It’s what you have. Own it, and save us the false apologies.
38
It has now become clear that the true god of the "good news right" is the one that begins with a P:
P-O-W-E-R.
13
Mr. Wehner, here is a revelation for you.
On our little blue planet of some 7.3 billion (and rising) only one third claim to be Christian. Nearly 5 billion of us completely reject the idea that Jesus is our "savior."
And of the one third who claim to be Christian, half of that one third (Catholics) regard the other half third as "lost", while Protestants think the same about Catholics.
May I remind you that you are a Christian because there is a 99% chance you were born into a Christian family and you were indoctrinated at an early age before your brain had developed enough to embrace reason, logic and critical thinking. If you had been accidentally switched at birth and sent home with a Hindu family, you would have a plethora of gods to embrace.
A quick glance at what is going on in the Mideast and Alabama right now sends a powerful message about religion. The sooner we rid ourselves of it, the better off we will be.
45
Congratulations, Mr. Wehner, you’re now both a Christian and a Republican in name only. You no longer represent the core values of either faith. Welcome to the glimmerings of enlightenment.
23
Politics and religion have always been bedfellows. The Founding Fathers sought to stop that rot with the separation of church and state. The Founders had seen those two work their horrors upon European countries. Having been tortured and terrified by "religious men" as a child, I hold no love for religion and its adherents. I'd prefer you keep your beliefs to yourself and stop messing with truth.
18
No one in their right mind would want to be an evangelical.
22
Mr. Werner, you are truly the product of your generation. In your full throated acceptance of the GOP's artfully crafted marketing machine you provide an example of why so many of your generation fell prey to the fantasies this media/marketing machine created. Your views and beliefs, whether you realize it or not, were shaped by the likes of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson - on purpose for one reason - that of political power. Their whole schtick was to make some people feel they were better than others. To get you to do this, they relied on your blind faith, uncritical mind and poor grasp of world and American history. But, congratulations, it seems the baby chick is no longer in its shell.
25
I respect that Roy Moore and Donald Trump were the tipping point for you to drop the Republican Party and Your Evangelical identity but you have been operating with real blinders on if you failed/refused to see the precursors to the anti-Christian beliefs of Trump and Moore in the Republican Party including racial undercurrents, a favoring of the rich over the poor, and bigotry against groups of people such as homosexuals. Any principles that led to the Republican Party for the ending of slavery 150 years ago and the ending of segregation 50 years ago left the party with Reagan's "welfare Queen" dog whistles.
27
For the good of our great nation, I hope Mr. Wehner and decent, moral Republicans like him can reclaim the G.O.P. from the Trumpublicans.
7
Some important statements by Jesus Christ on this important issue of the separation of church and state which is politics by another name.
Matthew 22:21 "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and toGod the things that are God's" and even more importantly John 18:36 "My kingdom is not of this world."
11
I’m sorry you’re going through a difficult time with your religious and political identifications. You are obviously an intelligent, sympathetic, and ethical man, and your personal ethos is in conflict with parts of society you have embraced for a long time. Ouch.
I’m not religious, but I can quote to you what a brilliant dance teacher once told me: “Listen to your inner self before anything else. Everyone is their own Buddha.”
Your inner self is worth a listen.
8
From the outside, it has appeared to me that the Republican party has been co-opting, manipulating, and using the Evangelical movement since at least the 1970s. It is past time for the good people in your party and of your faith to call the GOP out for what it is - a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-science party that seeks to benefit only the wealthy. Good for you for taking the first steps on a higher path, and best wishes to you!
16
Religion and politics should not be involved together in the first place. America is a country of freedom, yet here we are just as the fathers feared, being bullied by Christians desperately shoving their idea of faith down everyone's throats regardless of who gets hurt by it.
Conservatives at this point can't just "write off" the damage they've created. They created a monster like Trump. They voted for him. They are voting for Moore. You picked them. None of you stopped them. None of you are stopping them. You're just wiping your hands clean and hoping to walk away until it either dies down or burns down.
Politicians who did try standing up to the GOP, including Republicans, are seen as enemies by their own voters. Fox news has damaged so many people's perspectives with lies and deception, and convinced people that everyone else are lying to them. Republicans took us out of the climate change agreement and pretend none of it's real. They are making rules that let the banks rob the people and corporations abuse employees and customers as they see fit. Republicans support taking away health care for children and the sick to benefit the richest. They'd knowingly let people die so the wealthy get a few bucks. Yet you finally throw in the towel because Alabama unsurprisingly supports a sexual predator just because he has an R beside his name?
You politicians have let this fire to grow out of control for long enough. This is your fault. Don't you walk away. Fix it.
24
Child molestation and extreme religion are correlated, unfortunately. It isn't that religion causes it, but rather it often provides a psychological cover and the safe haven of forgiveness.
This is the most disgusting thing I've seen in politics. I'm glad to hear some minds are changing.
I believe there's also a correlation between easily ignoring evidence of it and knowing someone that has committed it. It happens a lot. Far too often, and it cannot be excused anymore.
9
This is all fine and good, but I never could understand why evangelicals supported Reagan. Carter was an actual Christian who lived and governed on moral principle. Reagan was not. Reagan used racial dog whistles, launched immoral wars (like Grenada) and committed impeachable offenses like Iran-contra. George W. Bush waged an illegal war based on false pretenses and tortured other human beings. The rot of the Republican Party is an old one and did not begin with Trump and Moore. But the author is only now waking up and seeing the hypocrisy of evangelical Republicans?
20
" Where exactly is the bottom?"
I think the bottom was reached in 2008 when conservative "christian" pastors
preached that Obama was the anti Christ and that their congregation should vote against him.
17
And yet he'll still win
1
I’m sorry, Mr. Wehner. I’m sure you have a personal experience of your Christianity that feeds your spirit but it’s careers like yours that made me never want to be associated with the evangelical movement. Conservative Christianity has privileged belief and purity over love and compassion for the entirety of my life. Belief is subject to hypocrisy whereas love is not. Purity can be compelled through shame whereas compassion cannot. As someone with no investment in being conservative or Christian, I see scant difference in the content of Regan’s message versus the content of Trump’s. The only real difference is one of tone.
Let me show you what Reganite Evangelical Christianity looked like to someone who was not invested in being labeled Christian or conservative:
I was hungry and you labeled me a welfare queen.
I was thirsty and you told me “Just say no.”
I was a stranger and you used The Southern Strategy to marginalize me.
I was sick and you refused to utter the name of my illness.
I was in prison and you called for more law and order.
Mr. Wehner, you have always been a Trump supporter, you just don’t know it.
32
Are we supposed to feel bad that a person can no longer call himself an evangelical republican?
8
While the author suggests he will not support the Republican Party, he casts dispersions at Democrats, buying into a Fox narrative of 50% of the country. It is a shame that while he finally sees through the propaganda that has shaped his life for 38 years, he has yet to shake the propaganda about his opponents. Slurs such as “atheist Democrats” show that this journey is incomplete. Is his revulsion with Republicans great enough to cast a vote against his party, or will he simply sit out the next election? Will he find a new church home among the mainline denominations, or is his religious objection amount to a desire to rename his church, avoiding the term evangelical? Does he care that the Evangelical Church is opposed to any sort of government aid for the poor, and yet the churches themselves are too poorly funded to make up the gap? Does he care about the hungry, the homeless and the sick? It is one thing to be disgusted with your affiliations, and another for doing something about it. I recently heard that “you don’t get a medal for pointing out the hand grenade on the floor. You get a medal for diving on it.” This article was not medal-worthy.
21
Every time I see a photo of Roy Moore, I am nauseated and afraid. He is a true nightmare and so are his supporters. They are the definition of anti-American and anti-Christian. I thought I saw the worst in the Nixon era. How wrong I was.
5
I have to say I have no sympathy for Mr. Werner and his disillusionment. The moral rot in the Republican Party and the Evangelical movement has been obvious for a long time. It took the rise of Roy Moore to get your attention? If so, you've had your head buried in the sand.
17
Politics may indeed be the "last refuge of a scoundrel", but religion is certainly the first.
13
Liberals have never had to caricature he likes of Trump and Moore. Their kind has been common among evangelicals for my entire, six-decade life. What’s changed is that social parasites like Breitbart, Fox News and Limbaugh have succeeded in turning low-information, credulous evangelicals into a mindless voting bloc that has put men like these in positions of power.
Now evangelicalism is paying a price for what was true all along: evangelicalism is just another self-righteous religious sect composed of people who are morally no different than humanity in general, but by virtue of their faith-based epistemology, are easily manipulated.
12
This is good news, of course. . . .but where have you been, Mr. Wehner?
When your hero, Ronald Reagan, launched his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi with a speech about states rights, did you not understand what he was doing? When he spoke of “welfare queens” did you not understand what he was doing? When his Administration suggested that AIDS was a plague inflicted on gays by a righteous God, did that not offend your religious beliefs? Did you think Anita Hill was lying?
Donald Trump and Roy Moore represent a difference in degree, but hardly in kind.
It’s great you’re experiencing a change of heart, but when you’ve managed to spend the whole of your adult life ignoring the obvious, while insulting the millions of American who recognized the obvious long ago, yours is not the most obvious case for empathy. That prize goes to the poor, to women, to gay people, to immigrants, to black people, to Hispanics - that is, to the groups your Republican Party and evangelicals have been stigmatizing for the last 30 years.
18
When reading the well-intentioned Peter Wehner claim 'evangelicals' worked to end slavery, I mentally grinned and thought 'fellow white man PLEASE'. I was raised in that largest of fundamentalist churches, the Southern Baptists, which as some folks know was founded in large part to provide biblical justification for the owning of humans. And back in the 1950s & 60s, my Sunday School classes would see that mindset perpetuated and inculcated in young minds, long after the Civil War. Otherwise, I too would ask Mr. Wehner 'So---who did you vote for in November of 2016??'
17
Matthew 16:26
What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
8
“Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist”
Why would you assume that? Jesus condemned the love of money,espoused healing the sick, feeding the poor and protecting the weak. When bills supporting those values are brought up we hear “that smacks of socialism”. What Republican values have ever supported Jesus views? Don’t pull out the Abortion excuse. Your party only loves a baby before it’s born. Afterward it doesn’t worry if it “murders” them for lack of food, healthcare or some man made environmental disaster. Republicans have no shame and saying they have been “godly” not only proves that point but adds insult to the devastation this party has caused for years.
16
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
You describe me, but you would be wrong.
Donald Trump and Roy Moore "define" the GOP, they don't "discredit" it.
How could Trump have won the election and had the overwhelming support of evangelicals if the above were not true? How can you discredit something that has no shame or discernable morality in the pursuit of power?
Many people believe that Trump represents the absolute nadir of the GOP.
I don't share that optimism. There is a world of daylight between where they are now and fascism, and their current trajectory suggests that they are inexorably headed in that direction.
The GOP is no longer a plausible political party, it is a parasitic cult that is going to put the final nail in the coffin of this grand democratic "experiment".
That is, unless enough brave souls have enough courage to abandon it and come over to the democrats so we can attempt to restore some sanity to the current madness.
I won't hold my breath.
12
What would Jesus do?
Well, according to the book that right wing so called Christians quote like it was Scripture, we know what Jesus did:
He healed the sick.
He fed the hungry.
He visited the prisoner.
He clothed the naked.
He tended the poor.
He threw the bankers and merchants out of the temple.
He forgave those who tortured and murdered him.
He did all that with love and compassion, not with self-righteous judgement.
He did exactly the opposite of what these so called Christians in the republican party are doing.
Mr. Wehner, the day you take the blinders off about Reagan and find another caricature for Democrats than atheist we might be able to find common ground.
I wish to hear a cogent definition of what it means to be an evangelical. I look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of Christian faith and principles. A man who spent his life in public and private service following the example of Christ instead of trying to make himself and his friends rich.
I see a man like Franklin Graham and see exactly the opposite.
I am glad that you have seen the light on t rump and moore, look now for the light on those folks you and your party have been demonizing for the last 40 years. Liberal democrats.
21
As I keep commenting to these public NYTimes reckonings of Christians horrified by association with Trump and the GOP, this is the wrong forum to make your confession. The fact they keep showing up in the NYTimes and not Fox News, Christianity Today, or more importantly, in the streets of Bible belt states in the form of loud public protest where other Christians and Republicans can see and contemplate the message, makes me suspicious and doubtful of any true underlying repentance or desire to change course. They're mind boggling these little whisperings of Christians that don't manifest a true and righteous uprising of the faithful in resistance to what they claim to hate. I don't buy it one bit. Are you just waiting until you get everything on your conservative Christian wishlist before making a true stand?
Say these words loudly where they need to be heard. Begin a movement, a RESISTANCE, of like-minded Christian conservatives to protest and bring down this president that's damaging your faith. Get in the streets and faces of GOP power with these words. That's where this message belongs, not here in the safety of a liberal audience. Back up your words with visible action, as the Bible commands. Walk your talk. Then we humanistic Times readers might believe you. Otherwise, these are simply empty words.
"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26)
150
Thank you for standing up for what is right, a rare exception to the blind extremism that is causing so much damage and humiliation to this country. I hope that you voice is heard more broadly, especially among the Trump supporters, who need to hear it most.
23
I am a political independent with no love for either party. Duplicity is not a virtue. I do feel however that for a human being to embrace both morality, be it deist based or not, and the Republican party one must engage in the most energetic cognitive dissonance. For decades the Republican party has more and more embraced positions so blatantly in opposition to the words of Christ and other religions. It took all this, the natural result that you refused to see, for you to be forced to see. Your coming to truth at this late date is nonetheless commendable. Truly. No sarcasm intended. But now you have two tasks. The first to take up against all this, to which your op ed is a fine first step. The second is to look within and find how your attempts at thoughtfulness of the last decades allowed you, led you to be an agent for this inevitable result. Personal responsibility.
26
Christian Evangelism and Republican politics have always been a hypocritical mix of self-righteous morality without compassion. These ideas seem to be beyond comprehension to both groups: "turn the other cheek," "the meek shall inherit the earth" and "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
24
Mr Wehrner,
You may want to review Christian Orthodoxy, as it holds humility, and the golden rule of doing to others as you're have done to you, in highest regards...something that is missing in our civil society certainly.
Your article is a breath of fresh air. It is intelligent, reflective and in search of truth, some thing many readers can align to. It is in stark contrast to other contributors in this section, who use their platform for nothing more than inane hissy fits.
Looking forward to more of your articles, as they certainly inspire better reflection and action of your readers.
6
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist", sums up the blind-side of people like you. Politics has superseded religion and become your faith. You seem unable to accept that persons can hold both a political mindset and a separate mystical or rational world view at the same time. I personally know persons of the right who happen to be atheists. Roy Moore is, in their view, a detestable , yet apt example of mixing religion with politics.
22
I respect someone who can realize the organization, tribe or fellow believers have abandoned the core of their stated beliefs. The suggestion was that if atheist liberals wished to engineer a couple of people to discredit evangelicals and republicans they could have done no better than Moore and Trump. The point is that it was the Republicans who created the conditions under which this despicable pair became powerful, not liberal atheists. In fact liberal atheists are probably more concerned about the damage these people do than conservatives.
The Republican party certainly did not create racism, immorality, dishonesty and ignorance but they did pander to it and encouraged it for votes. They were quite happy for decades to give a wink and a nod to the worse in society as long as they voted Republican. They thought they could ride the tiger but instead they are being consumed by it. It is not coincidence that 75% of declared republicans support Trump.
26
Mr. Wehner, Why were you a politicized so-called "Christian" Evangelical in the first place? If you believe in our Constitution, remember that it separates church and state.
22
i am a christian democrat. i'm glad, mr. wehner, you have seen the light. i hope you can shine it on your friends so they too can see how dark their lives have become by supporting such malignant folks as trump and moore.
11
All theism and deism aside, let's remember that the faithful citizens of Salem drifted into witch trials, and that those were a product of their belief system, and probably a response to feelings of fear and anxiety. We certainly have fear and anxiety in 2017, and I think we also have the modern equivalent of witch trials. The surprise for me is that I lived most of my life thinking (believing?) that ours was a secular society in which individuals were free to follow their personal beliefs -- without imposing them on others. I don't care if Mr. Wehner calls himself an Evangelist, or a Christian, or anything at all. And I don't care if the President goes to church, or which church he goes to. What I want the President to do is to follow and uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the rule of law in general, so that my personal freedoms are preserved. I do not want a President who pays lip service to so-called Christian values in any way, shape or form while he denies the founding principles of our country. So, Go away Evangelists! Go away Conservative Christians! and Anyone Else who cares to argue that their personal belief systems "trump" the articles, laws, and regulations that govern us all. Dash away, dash away, dash away ALL!
25
Yet another conservative in denial about his creation. The party has been on the racist wagon under Nixon's southern strategy. trump and moore just say what's on conservatives' minds.
19
I'm sorry but Reagan and his emphasis on money long betrayed your so-called Christianity. The tax deal taking money from the poor to give money to the rich is the very essence of today's republicans. It would have happened without Trump, is happening without Moore and is certainly anything but Christian. You should grapple with your legacy of support for that rather than worrying that you are somehow stained by MOORE.
22
Mr. Wehner, do you not recognize that you're about 40 years too late to be raising these concerns? It really took a pair of louts like Trump and Moore for you to recognize that the GOP is a godless hypocritical farce? That doesn't speak very well of your reasoning abilities. I'm not impressed with your last-possible-moment conversion.
Your hypothetical "person of the left and an atheist" is an insult to all progressives. You assume that because I think the universe is older than 6,000 years that I must be an atheist? I'm not a Christian (the First Amendment gives me that right), but I consider myself deeply spiritual. And I consider the GOP, in their policies and in their messaging, to be anything but.
Evangelicalism is the Trojan horse by which some of the meanest ideas and legislative proposals are ushered into and eventually become synonymous with the GOP.
40
but... Donald and Roy were unqualified for public office even without reference to their salacious, predatory past. What was okay about ignorance, iconoclasm, unconstitutional bigotry, and dismantling judicial review?
Their prurient interests in younger women is only adding fuel to the fire.
17
The damage being done to the Republican and Evangelical brand is happening very quickly
And it’s happening entirely from within
Leave the left out of this
20
Although it is nice to hear that you are now more awake, for more than half the people who voted in 2016, it was more than enough months and months ago. Years ago. Much of the Republican agenda for most of my lifetime (6 decades) has consistently tipped the scales to those who are white and wealthy; and has assumed a level playing field for people of color and other marginalized groups which is demonstrably false, and then blamed people for not pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. Grossly and Hatch both just reiterated that specific and vile and unChristian point of view. And just as a reminder: one does not have to be Christian, or identified with any religion, to be moral and compassionate. I appreciate that you are calling out your Republican and evangelical communities, but it is long, long, long overdue. The hypocrisy of those who assert Christianity while they demonize and disenfranchise others, especially the poor, evidence the worst kind of hypocrisy. And that is often what fuels the fiery outrage of liberals who actually believe in Christ’s message of social justice.
18
The idea that even an ATHEIST! could find solace or glee in using Moore and Trump to discredit the religious right, leaves me feeling very uneasy. Mr. Wehner, you don't have to go all the way to Godless heathens to make your point when a simple fence sitting agnostic would suffice. Geeze!
10
Well I'm not all that convinced that this awakening by Mr. Wehner is all that of an awakening. The very fact that he could call himself a republican or an evangelical for so many years raises significant questions about his intellectual honesty. Easy to gloss over all the misery those two labels have been responsible for, while feeling high and mighty as a servant of some imaginary Christ figure and picking a coupe of righteous causes. Think about it Peter - could you have made the world a much better place if you fought for gun control, free contraceptives, or even health care? Stop kidding yourself that you're somehow righteous.
16
Separation of Church and State is the issue here. Religious pride, a serious and dangerous side effect of the zealots, is afflicting self-serving religious folks everywhere. In America, no religious group should have influence over our political life, yet in 1957 Eisenhower's "In God We trust" brand was printed on the almighty dollar bill to shore up our reserve against the evil Communists. Perfect. The grifters of faith joined the grifters of Capitalism and now Americans have to drag around god whenever we talk about politics. Perhaps we should adopt another brand, like "“Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person.”
10
And how do you feel about Vice President Pence, who masquerades as an ethical man but who supports Trump without question or integrity? When will people who identify with a tribe (Republicans, Democrats, Christians, Evangelicals, Jews, etc.) think for themselves? When will people put principal before party, country before party, people before party?
16
I was never comfortable w/ the spirit of Republican evangelicalism & the more I know of it, the more it seems to contradict the Gospel of Jesus.
7
My God, Mr. Wehner, what took you so long?
It had to get pretty bad before you threw in the towel, eh?
And in the mean time, say, the past thirty years, you've been as much responsible for getting us where we are now as anyone.
You can say you're leaving it, but the Republican party will remain the abomination it is that you helped to create.
15
It's refreshing to see an Evangelical with a moral compass. I take issue with his claim that Christians brought an end to slavery. Christians, particularly throughout the south, used their backward beliefs to try to enshrine slavery as gods plan. So please, be honest.
10
This reminds me of a decade ago when Baptist churches in the South started dropping “Baptist” in their names because focus groups found that people didn’t like Baptists and what they stood for.
Now, although these churches still adhere to the same misogynistic, exclusionary, homophonic, mean-spirited, Republican doctrine, they sport bland names like Journey, Canvas and Life.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
14
Why can't Evangelicals find candidates whose lived experiences comport evenly remotely with their foundational beliefs?
Isn't supporting the Trumps, the Moores, the Franks, etc. the height of moral hypocrisy?
13
I grew up in an evangelical church in the 60's. Voting for a vulgar con man or a pedophile would have been unthinkable, shameful. The whole thing started to turn with Vietnam. The older Christians turned toward the Nixon law and order message, ignoring the slaughter of innocents in Southeast Asia. Carter was grudgingly accepted. Then Reagan made cruelty palatable, and the easily understood Save-the-Unborn-Babies chant cemented the switch to the Republican party. Junior Bush, praised here, started a slaughter of innocents of his own in Iraq, and the church cheered. Evangelicals are used to authority, to the pastor telling them what to think, to the Bible guiding their lives (today, carefully selected passages only.) They will continue to march as a unit; Mr. Wehner is an exception.
13
I think the Republican Party and the Evangelicals started going off the "deep end" when so many of you supported Anita Bryant (1977). I'm sure there are many Evangelicals who are "true" Christians, but the minute I hear or read Evangelical I think "nothing but a bunch of right wing, bible thumping, homophobic bigots." I'm a Democrat who tries to adhere to the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, who considers myself a Christian. One of the good ones. Or, at least I try. It appears as if you are trying and kudos to you. I think all Evangelicals should watch the movie "Elmer Gantry", the one with Burt Lancaster.
10
Oh, Mr Wehner. What a breath of fresh air! Your piety and honor is such a badge of honor. What I enjoy most is the humble nature of your holiness...and how you modestly avert your gaze as you trumpet the virtue of your outrage. Perhaps you could find work for Jimmy Swygart. Jeez, I hope I don't end up next to you at some political luncheon. That would be just my luck!
4
Are millions of Evangelicals unable to find candidates whose lived experiences come even remotely close to comportment with Evangelicals' moral beliefs?
Are there not better candidates than Trump, Moore, etc. to be found?
Is it not the absolute height of moral hypocrisy to turn the ship of state over to such people?
5
I take serious issue with the following statement: "Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity."
It would be much less divisive and antagonistic to merely say "assume you were a person of malevolence and wished to to discredit..."
The author further claims that the abolition of slavery and segregation were "informed by Christianity." It's much more accurate to say that these abominable practices were ended by people who had moral integrity and a belief that all people deserve equal, fair, and just treatment, and that a society thrives only when every one in it thrives.
It's time to put an end to our categorization and groupings - can't we be caring citizens together attempting to create a more utopian society for us all? Atheists and Christians together, Muslims and Jews together, immigrants and longstanding natives...we're all in this together.
16
The state of Alabama has clarified, for all to see, the degradation of the term "evangelical." The fact that Roy Moore is even competitive among this largely evangelic state says it all. It's a tribe, not a set of meaningful Christian beliefs. Christ has no sway with this crowd. The pictures of them wildly cheering for Trump remind one of Goya's etchings of the mad!
11
For nearly 40 years, the Republican Party, with its strong base in Christian communities, has been veering away from the teachings of Jesus — the need for empathy and compassion for those in need of it, the poor, the old, and the sick — in favor of the looney rantings of minimally talented writer and ex-pat from the old Soviet Union, Ayn Rand. As the firebrand "founder" of libertarian theories on politics, sociology, and economics, she offered up low-hanging fruit for those people preferring bite-sized, easy reads, as her persuasive arguments for society's survival-of-the-fittest model.
As the Party of Lincoln slipped below the surface of the primordial ooze of supply-and-demand, get-rich-quick schemes, it has become the party of money and power while casting aside those teachings of Jesus, teachings that, by their fundamental roots in kindness and service to others, runs through societies of many faiths.
Can this Republican Party, drunk on power, save itself? Following the 2012 presidential loss by Mitt Romney, then-chairman of the RNC, Reince Priebus, took the party into what was to be a retreat of introspection of their role in society. Instead, they came back unchanged, and with their backing of Donald Trump, unhinged.
As for any description of the Republican philosophy-of-change, an old saying holds: same pizza — new box.
12
I am a Democrat. I believe I and many like me live out the spirit of the teachings Jesus Christ more fully than the Evangelicals or most Republicans. We care about the poor, the middle class, the children, those that will be hurt by the new Republican agenda. When I read comments about it being better to have a pedophile in the Senate than a Democrat, I cringe. Left and liberal does not always mean inhuman. Secular humanism is treating others as one would like to be treated. I don’t think Republicans or Evangelicals learned that.
10
The problem with Mr. Wehners defense of Christianity is that it boils down to the fact that are some good christians (ones who think like he does) and bad ones who don't. This has been the case in this country since the beginning, when those crazy Puritans got off the boat and decided that massacring the native population was what the Lord wanted. There is a tremendous sense of entitlement that comes with being 'a good christian'...I'm sure Roy Moore thinks of himself as a splendid fellow...and this gets to the heart of the matter with the whole of Protestantism...once people got to decide for themselves how they were going to worship (instead of how the Catholic church wanted them to) it opened the door to all sorts of aberrant and abhorrent behaviors in the name of personal salvation....not to mention the highs and lows of capiltalism, the secular form of protestant worship. As a born-again atheist I have less chance of getting elected to high office in this country than, well Roy Moore...which is not only a sobering thought but should make all men and women of good conscience give pause. Republicans like to refer to themselves as the party of Lincoln which is more wishful branding than an adherence to historical precedence. Republicanism hardly had a defined platform in the 1860s. Today it does. It stands for selfishness, greed and bigotry and Mr. Wehner is best rid of it...and if truly wants to save his soul he ought to take up Zen Buddhism.
11
This article should be sent to every 'Evangelical" church in the US; thank you Mr Werner.
I too have stopped calling myself 'Evangelical". I am politically Independent, but my new designation as a Christian is: I am a follower of "Yeshua Ben Yosef, Ha Mishakh'. For those evangelicals who do not understand the term, I quote C.S Lewis: I am a classical Christian.
On the Judgment Day it is going to be especially hard for Dobson, Franklin , Fallwell...
2
I see, you are appalled by Trump yet trumpet you support of Reagan, who embraced the racist Southern strategy and the drive to shrink government beyond recognition. Yet you call him a "great man". This was the man who used the mythology of "welfare queens" to push for shrinking our safety net. Was that Christian behavior? Regan and Trump are two sides of the same coin.
10
Precisely. I’m what I call a “congenital Republican”, born and developed in the big tent Party of Rockefeller. I’ve not abandoned those ideals, but the Republican Party clearly has. I now wander, Partyless, as an Independent, searching for a political home, a Party I can call my own.
1
I often feel about my many years as a registered Republican as Reagan apparently did about his years as a Democrat:
"I didn't leave the party. The party left me."
"Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor."
"A righteous man knows the rights of the poor; a wicked man does not understand such knowledge."
"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
"Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause."
"Jesus answered them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor -sick people do."
Just a few quotes from my Bible.
5
How about a Peter Wehner/Max Boot (or Max Boot/Peter Wehner - doesn't matter to me) primary in 2020. I could support that and I'm an ultra-liberal atheist.
Where us the bottom? As a recovered alcoholic I can tell you that no matter where you think the bottom might be, you can still sink a little deeper, until you've drowned in the muck. the current R. party needs to be isolated and treated because it's become diseases and dangerous.
5
It is galling that the author would cite George Bush's response to the AIDS epidemic as an example of the good that Christianity can inspire when the crisis grew to epidemic proportions precisely because of the bigotry and ignorance spread by Christian conservatives in it's first decade. His hero Ronald Reagan stood by and did nothing while the religious right spread panic and hatred. Meanwhile, gay men suffered and died by the thousands. The author should have stopped calling himself Evangelical then, but i guess that didn't offend his moral sensibilities.
17
It is tempting to rejoice in Mr. Wehner's opinion that enough is enough. But it is equally tempting to ask: what took you so long?
Intellectual dishonesty is a very slippery slope. In the modern GOP, it started with "voodoo economics", which has consistently been proven by history to be just that, and indeed was first so-called by a prominent Republican.
Mr. Wehner and Mr. Brooks are both pointing out now, that with Trump, "there is no bottom". What I want to know is, why would anyone voluntarily be party to the top, or middle, of a downward spiral in the first place?
4
There does not seem to be anything "Christian" about the GOP unless you equate GOP/Evangelical Christianity with hypocritical moralizing, intrusion into the personal lives of Americans, and denying aid to the least among us. It did not take accusations about sexual misconduct to turn me against Trump or Roy Moore. They were morally reprehensible people long before they ran for current offices. Even in Alabama, Roy Moore had to be removed from the Supreme Court of Alabama twice for refusing to uphold the Constitution in violation of rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. The evidence has been there for all to see for many years, so why are you just finally waking up Mr. Wehner?
8
I am an agnostic liberal - perhaps closer to an atheist. As an outsider looking in at evangelical Christians, I have long wondered why so many act so Un-Christian. I know many Christians — we all do. Most I know are disgusted with Trump.
It must be very very discouraging to be an American Christian and have to be socially grouped and identified with the republican right,
4
I am glad the NYT printed this op-ed piece. I am warmed by the writer’s sentiments, but ask him if he honestly believes when he was voting for Reagan, does he truly believe he was voting for the ‘party of Lincoln?’ Johnson’s historic signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the death knell to Southern Dixiecrats. Politicians left the Democratic Party and became Republicans. Quite honestly, the Republican Party, in my 45 years of voting, have always looked, sounded and felt like a non-inclusive party of white men, having varying degrees of issues with people of color, and people who struggle ( health care, education, nutrition). Roy Moore feels to me like what you get when you take a reality and then reduce that reality to the absurd: Moore, Trump and their ilk are who the Republicans are left with. My recommendation to the Republican Party is to start supporting public education initiatives poste haste, as the examples of ineptitude and ignorance within your party are astounding. I never thought I would say this, but perhaps the South should have been able to secede from the Union. The moral issues of slavery seem to now permeate your present issues with health care and education as a human right. You use abortion as a rallying cry to retain your political power, but you are all oh so quick to desert that fetus (and mother) when it is born. If Mr. Wehner is a Christian in the truest sense of the word, then it only stands to reason he must desert the Republican Party. IMHO
441
While we look to applaud Bush's efforts, let's not forget that 20 years earlier, the sainted Reagan ignored the growing AIDS crisis and cost many their lives.
13
The history of the Republican Party deliberately embracing racism in order to win southern votes away from the Democrats should have been obvious to any informed college student in 1980. Not all Republicans were part of that, of course, but Mr. Wehner's awakening now 37 years later, in 2017, after the hypocrisy of Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, the so-called "tea party" (not to mention the 2016 presidential election campaign) sounds like a classic example of too little, too late.
17
There is cause and effect in the rational world. And you have that formula backwards in your statements about Trump and Moore.
They are not the cause of your problems. They are the effect of decades of bad behavior by evangelicals and Republicans. They are what you have become. And calling yourself something else isn't going to change that.
14
it is time to Turkey take the word evangelical out of politics and return it to mean spreading the word of God. That means more than representing fundamentalist protestants. First you have to include all Christians, then you have to go back to the Gospels and accurately represent what Jesus said and preached, no matter how painful, and not turn your back on the miracles of the world being discovered every day by science, one of God's tools to display and explain his majesty. We have created a small narrow world. it is time for evangelizing the great story, not the story we are comfortable with that suits our politics.
4
@Christine McM:
Square on.
Like you, I'm a septuagenarian who parted ways with the Republicans when the Tea Party came to town. It hit me with the full force of a tsunami that as a supposed "fiscal conservative/social liberal" I had to make a choice. And that choice wasn't hard: the fiscal issues were about my money; the social issues were about my LIFE, about who I am.
I've never looked back on that decision. But when I do look back at the GOP I see a party that bears no resemblance to the one on my younger days. Where is the "small government" party of Alan Simpson, the party that wanted the government out of our lives, out of what we think and who we are?
The GOP today pushes policies that would impose their particular brand of supposed Christianity on a country founded on freedom from that very imposition. It is a party that seeks to use the First Amendment to institutionalize discrimination against anyone who is not a white, Christian heterosexual male. And it is led by a thrice-married, mean-spirited liar who has thrown his wholehearted support to a man who trolled shopping malls for teenaged dates and who believes that women and Muslims should be denied public office, that because my daughter married another woman, she should be jailed, if not executed.
Yes, Mr. Wehner, why do you continue to call yourself a Republican?
16
While it is true that most self-described evangelicals are Republicans, there are many who are not. One example is Jimmy Carter, a devout Baptist who doesn't just talk the talk, but who walks the walk. Curious that Mr. Wehner fails to mention Carter, the first born again Christian to become President, who has demonstrated perhaps better than any national figure the positive role that evangelical Christians can serve in this country.
13
Thank you for beautifully stating your position which I support wholeheartedly.
Once again - the maddening implication that religious faith is required for moral action. True, many people are driven by their religious faith to do good in the world. But that doesn't mean that people who are not religious don't do works of tremendous moral good. If I were in Bush's position, I would have done the same for AIDS and more. And it would have had zero to do with God.
9
I applaud your distancing yourself from a movement that has lost all credibility.
But I fear the evangelical movement has morphed into its logical conclusion of a flawed ideological mix of politics and religion. Possessing blind faith in religion and then applying that basis to politics, without the ability to openly discuss social science, creates an environment of policy creation based on bias judgments that should have no role in public life in 2017. For example, the second amendment is not the same as the second commandment, but among conservatives, belief in a political view outweighs objective evidence. The combination a faith based approach to politics has divided the country to where we are today. Govern your lives as you see fit, but leave it out of the halls of governance. Otherwise the evangelical political reformation you espose will collapse again under the weight of the toxic mix of faith and politics.
3
Wehner’s essay begins with a historical fallacy. The Republican Party today is not the Party of Lincoln, rather they represent the vestiges of the Southern Democratic Party, the party of slaveholders. The swapping of political party identites occurred during FDR’s administration. Allowing today’s Republicans to claim the moral flag of Lincoln’s Republicans is a travesty. And that bit of history puts Republican dedication to undoing the social programs that emerged during the Great Depression under FDR in a clear light.
10
in the midst of this very, very dark time, this steep decline in civility and moral conscience, Mr. Wehner's words give me some hopefulness that we may recover the voices of "our higher angels."
As a liberal Democrat, as inexact as most any such label is, I would welcome him and his soul mates to my home.
2
Interesting point about how Trump and Moore now appear as grotesque caricatures of conservatism.
In the early days of the 2016-2016 campaign, I encountered MANY Republicans — online and at family and social gatherings — who angrily complained about how “The Dems and Hillary” got Trump (“a corrupt NYC liberal”) to run in the GOP primary, in order to discredit conservatism.
It seems that a number of Republicans did indeed suspect that Trump’s obvious vileness might destroy the GOP and conservative brands. But then they found a way to accept and then cheer him.
Seduced by evil and the temptation of power -- a tale almost Biblical.
6
As a person on the left and an atheist, I resent the championing of GW Bush's (laudable) work on eradicating AIDS while simultaneously championing the leadership that enabled AIDS to spread rampantly in the early days--the "leadership" of Ronald Reagan, who remained silent on the issues for YEARS.
6
I am one of the staunch liberal/atheist archetypes that the right loves to mock, and I cannot for the life of me fathom the appeal of the callousness of Reaganism (there are many things I am sure the writer and I would not agree upon), but I find myself applauding Mr. Wehner for having the courage to speak out. Given the fact that Roy Moore has a decided lead among evangelicals despite being an immoral creep (as just one of a great many examples of religious hypocrisy we've come to witness over the years), for a self-identified conservative evangelical to actually come forward and disavow all this is pretty brave indeed. Sure, there were have been a great many earlier examples of hideous abuses disguised as evangelical morality that he seemed to have been okay with before (or at least not spoken out against), but better late than never.
6
Mr. Wehner, certainly we agree on Trump and Moore being abominations for good governance in the US's Great Democratic Experiment, but the notion that somehow, all of a sudden, the Evangelical movement has lost its way is patently ridiculous: There's nothing special about today except for the degree to which a political--not religious--minority has established itself at the top of government.
Let me use an example to prove my point. The Cathars were a 11th-12th c. religious movement that spread across southern France into Catalonia, northern Italy, and northern France from Orleans east at least as far as Cologne. The Cathars could fairly be described by your idealistic term, "Evangelical." The Roman Catholic Abbess of Bingen, Hildegard, described them thusly: "These men of calm and placid morals did not like greed, have no money and in private practiced such abstinence that it would be difficult to reproach them in any way. The Devil has sent them to denounce the unworthy morals of some members of the clergy..." The Church's solution was to systematically wipe them out all over Europe through seizure of property, imprisonment, and regular public displays involving burning them at the stake. The movement was completely annihilated by AD 1325.
It was about authority and money then, and it's about authority and money now--all in the name of "God." Don't let your ego get in the way of understanding this perennial human failure.
9
Separation of church and state is what evangelicals do not understand. The want the state to be pro Christian and push it on everyone. Now the find they are being used be politicians.
2
Instead of " suppose a person from the left and an atheist wanted to discredit the Republicans and Christians.." you looked at what is really behind this bizarre behavior.
It is the decades long divide and agitate and conquer plans of the corporatist, oligarch owners of the GOP.
We are drawn to the headlines of social and moral upheaval while quietly we are being removed from the equation of governing.
Consumers.
That is what we will be relegated to.
2
Uh, an atheist liberal would never in a million years push Donald Trump and Roy Moore onto the political stage just to get revenge on our political counterparts...because we are far too aware of how much pain, division, and devastation religious extremists have caused throughout history. We know that giving people with evangelical credentials the reigns undermines the separation of church and state, and would hurt everyone in the country, not just conservative evangelicals.
That’s part of the reason we are atheists and liberals: We know that everyone, regardless of race, creed, sexuality, gender, and economic status has inherent worth and dignity just by way of being on this earth. Don’t even put our names in the same paragraph as Donald Trump and Roy Moore.
And let’s not forget that Jesus himself fit the modern day description of a liberal, if not a socialist. But maybe that is exactly your point.
8
I appreciate and respect Mr. Wehner's position. I think there can be a conservatism, and an evangelism, which don't ultimately produce Moores and Trumps. Or Helmses and McCarthys. (Maybe I'm naive.)
So I'd have liked Mr. Wehner's assessment of what is going on within Republican and evangelical ranks that has created an appetite for men who are sexual predators, conspiracists, shady businessmen, dividers of races and religions, and creators of bitterness and acrimony. I believe we create the leaders who meet our deepest needs. Why does the right need these men?
4
So, in your his paragraph, Mr. Wehner says it all.: "So for all of us who still think of ourselves as conservative and Christian, it's enough already." It's enough? What does that mean? Is he just expressing his displeasure with the current crop of evangelical right wingers or is he ready to 'walk the talk' and do something about the horrific, compassionless policies these so-called Christian leaders are implementing?
I grew up evangelical and left the sect for a church that is part of what is called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. There I can worship every Sunday, knowing that our pastor will not preach politics from the pulpit, and that our outreach in the community has no proselytizing, only helping people in need through volunteering, food bank donations, etc. I want to reclaim Christianity in the name of all of us who are attempting to live Christ's values every day. And no, I do not consider myself an 'evil person of the left.' If you got to know the Christian left, you would be less likely to see us as the bogeyman.
3
Political conservatism in this country has always been anti-democratic and committed to ensuring the haves not only maintain their privileged position but extend it. For the past forty years, the GOP has been the vehicle that made this possible. That anyone who subscribes to this, assuming they knew anything about the life of the historical Jesus, could ever identify as a Christian is baffling.
5
A case could be made that a seesaw financial graph and its ups and downs can "represent" the trials and tribulations of the emotional humans living on this planet. Intolerance and hoarding of money is an all time high now that everyone is worried about their own skin.
To argue back and forth about the 2017 inequities of one of the crevices we find ourselves on said graph is short sighted given that our still developing frontal lobes are not clever enough to detect long-term trends.
Powerful and not always "religious per se" precepts such as "know thyself", "first do no harm", nothing in excess", "everybody is equal", "respect others", "respect our planet", "respect all living things", etc. are indicative of these long-trends that we easily forget while conducting internecine and tribal feuds.
Our general psyche seems to have lost trust in our now limited institutions especially when many are in the "me first" and "I want it now" mode.
I feel that there is a need for more global institutions which harbours the best in ourselves. They need to be defined and nurtured and the problem is to find the "statesmen" who could codify the needed supranational intents.
All of this is wishful thinking at this stage but, especially in view of the many instances of mass extinctions of certain species that have taken place at regular intervals, we should keep our arrogance and parochial views in check and attempt to be kinder rather that doubling down on rage toward others.
2
As per Victor Laslo in Casablanca, "Welcome to the fight". And to the world of sentient beings, able to distinguish fact from Fox, compassion for people from passion for companies, who actually do want to make America Great Again, as it so surely requires now, during what is hopefully an aberrant interlude with the coarsest, least well prepared President in history, who has already become the most destructive of America's greatness. Sad. So very sad indeed.
3
For the first 45 years of my life I was a member of a Fundamentalist church and a voting Republican. My beliefs changed drastically and for the last 39 years I have been agnostic and a liberal Democrat. Democrats are not perfect but any means, but a much better fit for me than Republican. While I congratulate Mr. Wehner for his ability to change his thinking to a degree, there are many points of disagreement with him regarding religion and politics.
More to the point: Regarding Roy Moore - As disgraceful as his 'Bama-style dating practices were decades ago, what is infinitely more disqualifying for him is his disregard and flaunting of the law (twice) while Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and his instructions to 68 Probate Judges to ignore the law about issuing same-sex marriage licenses. That alone should disqualify him for public office. How could it be possible that a U.S. Senator would have the history of officially flaunting the law?
4
"Some of the most impressive moral movements in American politics — the efforts to abolish slavery and to end segregation and the struggle to protect unborn life — have been informed by Christianity."
Christianity has always been on the anti-abortion side of the argument, granted, but slavery and segregation? Christianity argued both sides of those issues. Christianity has a long history of discrimination against races, women, LGBTQ and, certainly, other religions and atheism.
5
Peter, there was a wonderful documentary some 10 years or so that documented the pro-life movement in Wichita Kansas, which specifically focused on the interplay between religion and politics. At the end of the documentary it showed a number of very despondent individuals including pastors that had joined forces with the Republican Party to fight for issues like pro-life, school prayer, etc.
The upshot was this as one despondent pastor said was "when you mix politics with religion, you end up eventually just getting politics". Political parties do not care about your religion, they only care about gaining and maintaining power for the sake of power. To that end, all parties seek to co-opt. This means that the Alabama voters who vote for Roy Moore who profess to be godly followers of Jesus Christ are really just members of the Church of the GOP, where their real faith and beliefs reside.
2
As in most things, there’s some truth and some distortion here. To say “the global AIDS and malaria initiative is one of President George W. Bush’s greatest legacies; more than 13 million people are on lifesaving antiretroviral treatment as a consequence,” and fail to acknowledge the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation along with the NIH researchers and doctors is an example.
Organized religion isn’t helping us as a nation. Worldwide, it continues to divide us as human beings. We must learn to help ourselves. Some great teachers, Christ among them, have offered guidance. Why do we fail to follow it? We could start with Do unto Others. I’m not very optimistic.
1
Dropping the term “evangelical” because it has become too political will never obscure the fact that churches are now mostly political and not spiritual operations.
We need to start taxing churches as the political and corporate entities that they are.
5
The Evangelicals - including you Mr. Wehner - showed their true colors when they supported Reagan over Carter - perhaps the only honest Evangelical ever to be involved in politics.
7
Once again I must point to my home state of Maine where the LePage administration has for seven years modeled so much of what we see in Trump - hate, racism, misogyny, war on the poor, Labor and immigrants, dismantling of basic state government functions and an education agenda that weakens our public school system. With the notable exception of Sen. Collins and a small number of old timers, Maine Republicans have thrown themselves at LePage’s feet, now competing for who best mimics him in the Republican gubernatorial primary. In response to LePage’s many public displays of moral rot, R’s have either applauded or looked the other way. The Trump/Republican moment was a long time coming, but we’ve already been living it for seven years. I hope 2018 will bring relief from this nightmare.
6
A common trait of evangelicals is the belief in a single TRUTH. How "sad" that the one truth they didn't notice, or didn't believe, is that anyone who hitches themselves to Donald Trump is going to be worse off in the end. How "sad" for our country.
2
As a respectful non-Christian, I used to believe that the sine qua non of the teachings of Jesus Christ was articulated in the Sermon on the Mount.
Since the advent of political evangelism, it seems to me that Social Darwinism is the thrust of today's Christian Right. That is the policies they now advocate reflect the cultural meme that the poor, minorities, immigrants, "the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse, the homeless, the tempest-tost", all deserve their lot in life, while the monied wealthy, the gilded bankers and hedge-funders, the meritlessly adored CEOs, and the Sunday Christian politicians are the envied recipients of God's grace.
3
Why would Wehner have ever conflated his religious and political beliefs in the first place? There is no place for religion in public policy decisions to begin with. Freedom of religion is a private act so long as it’s exercise does not infringe on the civil rights of others. It should never drive public policy.
4
Civil rights was a Kennedy, Johnson policy and Gorbachev was the true leader with the demise of the Soviet Union Yes, Lincoln saved the union The Republican party is supported by dark money and the reduction of most social programs and not any religious thoughts
1
Glad to hear another person come to his senses. The Religious Right is the worst thing to happen to Christianity in modern times, and it's unravelling fast.
It's fine to keep REAL Christian ethics, and temperamental conservativism that favors caution and deliberation. But right-wing radicalism has nothing positive to offer.
1
I don't know how anyone can identify themselves as a bona fide Republican at this time in history. A more honest political identity marker would be to refer to themselves as members of the Putin-Trump-Moore Party. One thing for certain is that the GOP, once referred to as the Party of Lincoln, certainly has no connection with Lincoln.
3
Mr. Webner, you are too young to remember the true Republican Party. The Republican Party bought the election of 1876 for Rutherford B. Hayes. With fewer popular votes, he was given 20 disputed electoral college votes in return for an agreement to remove federal troops from the south and end reconstruction.
The mantle of moral high ground that the Republican party tries to wrap itself in is as fake as the Emperor's New Clothes.
The Evangelical movement is a concerted effort to impose a moral judgement that celebrates the superiority of white heterosexual males at the detriment of all others.
Jesus's teachings of love, forgiveness and inclusion have no place there.
This is a harsh judgment, but the damage that the selfish, vain, and self-righteous Republican/Evangelical coalition has imposed on American life for decades is shameful and dangerous.
2
Sadly the word "Christian" is also badly tarnished thanks to this right-wing ilk.
Came across an article recently that said the notion of salvation by faith alone did a lot to bring evangelicals behind Trump, because it is falsely interpreted to mean paying lip service to "Jesus my personal savior" makes one a Christian despite a continued heinous life and lack of care for those less fortunate. But as Bonhoeffer said, there is no cheap grace.
Hope this writer will continue to speak out as his brothers and sisters cast their votes in Alabama.
2
Evidently, walking by faith is a frangible endeavor and the connection between religious and righteous tenuous.
What did the prophets say? In the days of Isaiah, we are reminded that only a remnant would remain walking with God. In the days of Jeremiah, we were reminded that power corrupts and the voice of God was heard by only a few. In the days of Amos, many thought that being part of the team was a ticket to the kingdom. Is there anything new under the sun?
I must say, I am deeply bemused at the audaciously unthinkable turncoat behavior of evangelicals to their Christian teaching. Still, somehow by the grace of God, I had always suspected something about the movement's connection with politics. It seems that a walk in faith is easily blinded by worldly ambitions and trusting in worldly power. Only God is righteous, and our worldly works but filthy rags. That is the shocking lesson I have learned from what I have witnessed of some people who call themselves Christians.
1
Separation of church and state needs to be upheld. Founding fathers had this one correct. Current evangelicals are far from Christian or any religion. Their religion is being made up as they go in order to fit into their personal immoral politics.
1
Reagan gets FAR too much credit for bringing down the Soviet Union. Those movements were well underway in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland years earlier. All Reagan did was the grandstanding speech after it was all but over.
Read your history.
3
Good for you Mr Wehner. If only other Christians would wake up. It's extremely disturbing to me as a Christian (I will no longer use the term evangelical) how other Christians are acting regarding Trump and Moore. I know how strongly they feel about abortion so they hope a changed Supreme Court will be an answer and they look to a Republican president to be the means to that end. But all other normative considerations, American ideals, and the words of Christ can't be trampled on. It makes me want to weep.
2
I find it curious that Mr. Wehner, like his fellow Republicans and Evangelicals, speaks so highly of President Reagan and of all the good things that happened during his presidency.
I remember Mr. Reagan announcing his candidacy in Philadelphia Mississippi, a home of the KKK. I also remember him disparaging poor women of color as "welfare queens" and holding up newspaper want ads during the recession of the early 1980s to show that there were plenty of jobs available if "those people" weren't so lazy. I also remember that homelessness exploded during his presidency and that he was slow to respond to the AIDS crisis.
I think that Reaganism might have planted some of the seeds of today's Trumpism and that Conservative Evangelicals like Mr. Wehner were complicit. I believe Mr Wehner is genuinely horrified by the Trump presidency, but he does not acknowledge the role that he and his fellow Evangelicals played in creating this monster.
5
"I don't mean to imply that politics and religion are a perfect"...(we) "haven't gotten the balance right".
No kidding.
It's pretty simple really. The founders looked at the separation of church and state as vital.
You took your life to figure out what the founders knew AND grounded into the Constitution.
We need to add robustness to the Constitution with:
Term limits.
No money in lobbying and a hard/low cap on campaign financing. With no money influence each issue is rendered to "majority rule" where each persons vote is equal to and no less/more than the others.
A credible third party with real candidates.
The 2 party system is corroded, corrupted by money and self dealing and failing us miserably. What more proof is needed?
Trump is no different. To appease high dollar donors, he declares the Israel capital with no apparent value to us, Israel or Palestine.
Clinton personified self serving greed.
And that was our choice.
We need to change the game.
1
“because the term is now so stained as to ruin my ability to be what evangelicalism was supposed to be.”
So the same for my older sons, but it is the use of the word God, that they refuse to believe in, due to living near evangelicals when young and they told me there was no way they could believe their God, so these two men are athiests.
1
Nice try, but I just can't take seriously any adult who still believes in invisible, magical friends in the sky.
Many of us do not kowtow to the imaginary, the supernatural, and still manage to be decent, kind,compassionate, productive citizens, friends and family members. Without the threat of some ancient ignorant notion of fire and damnation to motivate our positive traits and good characters.
1
The reason why the Evangelical movement has been corrupted is because evangelicals have been conditioned, from the pulpit and from the GOP, to judge "people of the left" as godless atheists (among other labels like "communists", "socialists", "anarchists" etc.). Your own example in your column "assumes" that a person of the left is an atheist. Has it ever occurred to you that "people of the left" are Christians? Maybe advocating for the poor, feeding hungry kids, providing healthcare to the sick and disabled, taking care of the elderly, providing opportunity through education, protecting the rights of employees ("servants" in biblical terms), and looking out for the well being of our neighbors and communities sound like godless prerogatives to you; but it sure sounds like Christian values to millions and millions of left leaning people who embrace the teachings of Jesus.
I have been among evangelical Christian pastors. I have read their books, I have listened to their sermons. They never miss an opportunity to associate all the world's problems with "liberals". They never miss an opportunity to specifically say that "liberals" challenge the idea that the bible is the word of God. They never miss an opportunity to imply that being a faithful servant of God and being a "liberal" are simply incompatible. The GOP is responsible for what has happened. The GOP has done a great job of seeding Evangelicalism with the idea that "liberals" pose a threat to America.
4
People sure get confused when defining terms.
Politics is simply the mechanism for carrying out the social contract.
Faith is believing things you do not know to be true.
Combining the two is usually a disaster, for obvious reasons.
3
The whole basis of the Republican Party - that people should keep rather than share their money - is anathema to Christianity. It makes no sense that they were ever aligned.
5
I see religious faith the same way i have my personal faith my hair will grow back...hopeful but most likely not going to happen,.
1
Reading this article, I can't help but hear the refrain, "..and no one was left to speak for me." Lately, we hear more and more evangelicals, long-time Republicans, conservatives, et al, bemoaning what their party and movement has become. At this point in history, the sheer lust for power of those currently in power surely and clearly trumps (no pun intended) any stolid moral, political or social character this movement once had. It should also stand in stark contrast to the Democratic refrain of Justice -- which itself has been somewhat muted since the neoliberal days of Clinton (no wonder so many people rejected Hillary and the Democratic machine..). The anti-intellectualism alone should disqualify it as something to be respected by reasonable people. That said, where were all of the discontents when the Republicans and evangelicals were making their faustian bargains with Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney, with the incompetent pretenders in the Bush administration? How about more recently when Trump was looking good in the national election -- and bragging about his sexual assaults? When Paul Ryan touted for the upteenth time that taking away the health-care and safety net of poor people will make them better people? When Nixon was forming his 'Southern strategy"? Where was the outrage when it could have counted? Honestly, spare me your Monday morning quarterbacking. But nice writing, nonetheless.
3
A very tidy homily with carefully chosen words, particularly in the threadbare admission that Christianity has “sometimes not gotten the balance right.” I’ll say. One of the lauded achievements in this piece is the AIDS relief program implemented by George W. Bush’s administration. Caving to pressure from, you guessed it, religious Christians, a qualifier for PEPFAR grants was that the program focus on abstinence and marital fidelity, because that’s what religious Christians really care about. The result? According to a Health Affairs study last year the PEPFAR achieved nothing after spending $1.4 billion.
This is just one of a sea of examples that religious fundamentalism has no place in government. While I appreciate Wehner’s assertion that Trump & Moore (and Cruz, and Buckabee, and, and ...) are not true to evangelical ideals, this is largely a semantic argument. Labels come and go, and ones formerly popular, like “liberal,” become tainted and distorted. The only difference between the fates of “liberal” and “evangelical” is that the fall of the later, if occurring, is wholly self-inflicted.
Meanwhile, in trying to find a new home Wehner would do well to remember that Jimmy Carter is an evangelical, a Nobel Laureate, and a Democrat.
4
Upon reading both the article and many of the comments, there is one point left to be made. Humans would rather believe than think.
1
This point the Republican Party has reached has been in the process for a long time. This, Mr. Wehner, is where you helped drive it. You own it. You and your like minded Republicans allowed the discussion to gravitate around women’s rights. I didn’t hear the Evangelical’s out stumping for equal access in education, protection of minorities or any other issues that haunt the most needy in America which would have been the Christian thing to do. Health care coverage discussions get bogged down in access to abortion and birth control coverage. You allowed the indulgence of your ideas by the party to harm the many for so very little in return. Congratulations.
4
The combination of church and state diminishes both. There is a much more eloquent quote to that effect somewhere, but I cannot find it this morning.
That is the essence of this article, and what this article demonstrates clearly.
I find interesting the comments about the rejection of use of the term "evangelical". Right wing hate radio/media villified the term "liberal" over the years, and now it seems the same is happening with the term "evangelical". The difference being that the term "liberal" was villified by it's opposition, and the villification of the term "evangelical" was more self inflicted. Equating religion with extremist politics has diminished both!
The truth: Evangelicals believe in pro-life UNTIL BIRTH.
Once the child is born Evangelicals oppose using tax dollars for the child's nourishment, education, clothes.
Yet many abortions occur because the women do not have the money to pay for a child's food, clothing and most of all education.
Until pro-life means a willingness to support life after birth the movement is certainly NOT CHRISTIAN.
1
"Faith leaders" have been courting the GOP for decades not to influence them to make their polices more compassionate but rather to transform our country into a bloated theocracy where the monied elected and the well connected religious leaders decide how the rest of us are going to live while our betters enjoy tax breaks, private planes, major tax giveaways and the power to opposes those with whom they disagree with eh force and power of the government.
While it is good to see that Mr. Wehender has a line over which he will not cross, he needs to recognize that Trump and Moore are just symptoms of a disease that has been raged in the so-called faith community for a long time and it has nothing to do with Christ, morals or ethics, it is all about
power and money.
One of the biggest issues we face is the myth of who we are and that somehow we are different than everyone else, better, to be more precise. The stories we've told ourselves for generations are crumbling in a hundred different ways. The truth hurts. We are finding out, much to our chagrin, that we are, in fact, just like everyone else.
To quote Stevie Wonder: "When you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way."
While I applaud most of this article, I think it should be noted that Reagan's disinterest in and ignoring of the burgeoning AIDS crisis probably cost millions of lives. W's efforts should not overshadow this disastrous neglect.
Today it seems that everyone and everything has a label. Democrat, Republican, Christian, Evangelical, Atheist and the list goes on. Too often it defines us, blinds us and divides us even more. You are proud that you cast your first vote for president for Ronald Reagan. And his son, Ron Reagan Jr. is a self described "unabashed atheist." Is his son not a good, decent and principled person because he believes differently than you or other people of faith? And if he is, (which I would argue he is), doesn't that transcend everything else?
Mr. Werner writes with such courage and candor that one can feel his true feelings and Yes, inner torment, giving this op-ed strength and honest evaluation to the current state of the issue. Watching and listening to the sad spectacle of evangelical conservatives in Congress and the Country, this mainline Protestant heartily agrees with him wondering why political acquiescence overshadows religious values and teachings by people of strong religious ideals. Christians are supposed to be better than that not only by word but by living their faith. I continue to trust that those who violate their evangelical faith by supporting Mr. Trump and Mr. Moore will someday realize the inconsistency of their actions and return to the true values of The Bible.
I applaud Me. Werner, but it seems to me one key aspect of all of this is left unaddressed. Trump and Moore weren’t hatched in lab somewhere and sprung on the GOP and the evangelical movement like some Biblical pox. Both grew out of those institutions. The question for Mr Werner is why? What about the beliefs and organizing principles of these two institutions got you and the rest of us here? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on that.
2
Mr Wehner has 'broke the code' to Republican Party renewal; he got off the 'complicit bus' running along side the Trump train.
Mr Wehner is correct that 'evangelical' is a political descriptor in addition to its original meaning. Office holders and candidates have completely politicized the word (with others' help).
My lone gripe to this insightful article is the headline. It causes a 'gut check' and the Trump / Moore herders will use it to again request INTRACTABLE allegiance AGAINST this "elite" opposition to 'Evangelical Republican.'
I seperate the party. I call-out those protagonists who court the evangelical-led voter, the NRA-led voter, the Contract-with-America-led voter, the Taxpayer-Protection-Pledge-led voter, and also the single-issue-liberal-led voter. I'm not registered with either party and I vote for the best all around candidate. In my red state, that led me to more Republican selections.
The most freeing part of Mr Wehner's article was the stark reality: "for now a solid majority of Republicans and self-described evangelicals are firmly aboard the Trump train."
Mr Wehner's seperation from those going along with the Trump "revolution" is the needed 'line in the sand' to make headway on Mr Wehner's August call for a "comprehensive, consistent case by Republican leaders at state and national levels."
"Some of the most impressive moral movements in American politics — the efforts to abolish slavery and to end segregation and the struggle to protect unborn life — have been informed by Christianity."
Lest we forget, Christianity was often used as a core justification for racial slavery, (the children of Ham argument was preached from many southern pulpits). Usually when we obscure the lines between reason and faith we do a disservice to both, & whenever politics & religion are conflated, as with the modern evangelical movement, politics always becomes the master. The outcome is really bad political outcomes drawn from an inflexible (except where it is convenient) moral righteousness. This is the opposite of what Jesus tried to teach us about how to live our lives.
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Peter, reading your sincere column recording your frustrations with the Republican Party and Evangelical Church today, to my mind in this Advent season indicates how God is working in your life. Consider one of the most frequently sited scriptures for Advent, Isaiah 40. It begins with a pastoral instruction, "Comfort my people; bring comfort to them, ...". Certainly in our stressful times - mass shootings, floods, hurricane and tornado damage, raging giant fires, multiple and pervasive cases of sexual harassment, and leaders whose word is not their honor, but unconditional loyalty is- comfort, not chaos is what we need. I believe your faith is experiencing the Advent promise given in Isaiah 40.4, "Let every valley be raised, every mountain and hill brought low, uneven ground made smooth, and the steep places made smooth." The next verse talks about how this is advent to God's revelation to all humankind. Radical change in our world perspective for believers often allows us to come to new visions of ourselves and our faith, our service and mission.
I, too, have long wondered how anyone who calls himself a Christian could support a man like Donald Trump. The thirst for political power has overcome the demand to live one's faith. Perhaps Evangelicals should spend less time on the campaign trail and more time heeding the words in the Bible. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"' Matthew 16:26.
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I commend Mr Wehner for taking a hard look at his identity. That’s not easy, and requires integrity and tough mindedness.
That being, equating the self-righteousness and duplicity of the forced birthers with the essential nobility of abolitionism is a bit much. It’s the certitude of these people that has led to the dilemma that Mr Wehner faces. He could help himself by recognizing that.
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The author should have spent some more time in UW’s US history classes. While the Republican party was the party of Lincoln, it switched its political ethos during Nixon’s dog-whistle Southern Strategy election from center right to far right, then more recently falling off the cliff right.
Didn’t he notice that his party was taking money from social services and shifting the money to corporations? Is taking money from education and health care for children really Crist-like? I haven’t been in Sunday School for decades but I remember the story of Jesus driving the money lenders out of the temple.
But guess it’s better late than never to come to your senses. It’s also probably wrenching to lose religion and political faith in one fell swoop.
All of the "soul-searching" and expressions of regret by disgruntled evangelicals and conservatives rings a little hollow. Donald Trump and Roy Moore didn't all of a sudden appear out of nowhere in 2017. Decades of problematic behaviour and rhetoric led to this point with people like Mr. Wehner either actively engaging in it, or by maintaining a complicit silence.
Now that the monster they helped birth, nurture and raise has escaped their control, we are subjected to these regret-laden think pieces on a seemingly daily basis. The time for reflection and action is not now. It was 1980, or 1992, or 2008 when McCain first
elevated Sarah Palin to a national figure. Mr. Wehner, and those like him, got what they wanted and now hey doesn't like their prize. Well it's not only too bad, but far too little, far too late.
2
As we have demonstrated, politics and religion pollute each other. It makes me ill as a devout Christian to see evangelicals flock to Trump. He has been a public figure for many years and I have seen no sign of him making an effort to transform his life as Christ has asked us to do. The other side of this coin is how many of the evangelicals were so harsh on BHO, who was a devoted husband, father, church member, and used his political capital to give healthcare to those who had none. But I rarely saw any acknowledgement of his goodness beyond John McCain's statement that Obama was a good man whom he has some disagreements with. This is what happens when people dwell of particular verses in the Bible and lose the context.
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Thank you for writing this! Though I was raised as an evangelical Christian, I now define my spiritual path, among other things, as historically Christian. Even to attend a Christian Church again was a long struggle because I absolutely refused to be associated with a movement I found ugly, thoughtless and completely devoid of many Christian values.
It took me many, many years to understand there are Christians and Christian churches that fully embrace science, intellectual pursuit, inclusivity, global sustainability, and human rights. The Bible does not have to be a fantastical collection of stories and explanations and dictums that you somehow have to force yourself to believe or follow. It can be a tool that invites deeper thought as individuals wrestle with questions of how to live in this world and what creates a meaningful life.
It's encouraging to see an article like this one. Though I doubt I agree with many of the politics, I applaud the willingness to examine and struggle.
There is an old saying that mixing politics and religion is bad for both. Today's GOP-evangelical alliance is the ultimate proof of that statement. Politics is the art of bringing together multiple viewpoints and agendas and finding ways to reach a consensus that will work for everyone. Religion's demand that everyone believe in and adhere to their particular dogma, as handed down by the religious authorities, makes that compromise and consensus building impossible. Whereas the need for the religion to support politicians like Trump and Moore in order to advance their political goals undermines and discredits the religion.
And everyone loses.
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The disaster that calls itself the republican party can be traced back to everything that happened after Eisenhower. He warned us about the Military Industrial complex and in effect was warning us also about their strongest supporter, the republican party. They have been a crown of thorns to justice, prosperity and Democracy in America.
The problem is in mixing religion and political representation. The US is a representative democracy that prohibits any legislation that privileges any religion over any other or non-religious beliefs. We must abide by the separation of religion and government in order to achieve a more perfect union envisioned by our founders. Religious beliefs are too often attended by particular moral judgments. Laws and public policy must rest on facts not beliefs. The US DOJ has joined the fight of a cake baker to enlist the First Amendment as a sword, and not a shield. This is anathema to our American principles of justice and the First Amendment. We must speak up against the GOP’s unconstitutional privileging of Christian beliefs over all others. We are entitled to representation that privileges no religion. For all those republicans who think they are originalists: get with the program! The notion of separation of religion & government is as original as it gets.
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This man needs to take a long hard look at Christianity's treatment of women before he declares himself free of the problems he has with both that and the Republican party. Neither have welcomed women and our "different" ideas which no man can begin to understand. We are so totally different in our basic thinking and that is partly because we have been shut out of a place at any table of influence in the church and certainly in conservative Republicanism. He still has work to do.
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Pundits ask each other if it's better for GOP for Roy Moore to win or lose. WIN. No question. He'll win, and there will be no uproar, no ethics investigation, end of story. Trump winning has shown us that. We're deluding ourselves if we think morals and ethics matter anymore.
I consider myself a moderate Republican, have been most of my adult life. That period stretches back a ways. I am now 73.
I am also an atheist. That moniker and belief I have hung onto for many years and have had well meaning people try to "save" me for all of those years.
I write this post to note that Republicanism and evangelicalism have become synonymous in only the past few election cycles. In my estimation that movement started with the Tea Party Republicans being elected to Congress. It, unfortunately, has grown from there and radical, right leaning, Republicanism and evangelical Christianity make wonderful bedfellows. Each believes their way is the only way to salvation--of one sort or another.
I can only hope that this trajectory will dissipate when it is discovered that the hard liners are leading us nowhere. The politicians need to stop this "us vs. them" mentality and reach across the isle. The evangelical Christians should realize that, maybe just maybe, one does not have to share their view and still be capable of being a good citizen and a human who does not need saving.
Amen to Mr. Wehner. I’m glad someone from the other side is speaking up. I hope this will encourage others to step forward. Like all extreme ideologies, this is something that can only be fought from within. We need more people like Mr Wehner to be outspoken. Please don’t stop.
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Thank you for your comments, which seems to be a painful realization of what our nation has become. There are honest disagreements among men of good will that includes liberal, atheists. If I were to tell you that "Liberal" means to me the embrace of the world in the future and "conservative" means to reject it, it may fit with a religious belief in doctrine, which should not change. Yet liberal does not mean anti-religion nor does it mean atheism which you inadvertently seemed to imply. Politics and religion are a dangerous mix, consider the Inquisition or the Crusades or Israel/Palestine or Northern Ireland. Humans seem to want stable, rule based societies with taboos and all. We are leaving that part of human existence and we cannot stop it. The Pope seems to understand that by championing the downtrodden and he is religious.
I find Mr Wehner’s argument a bit dubious. First, his argument that Christianity was used to end slavery and segregation ignores the fact that Christianity also was used to support their existence. Secondly, it appears he is more interested in a name change than an abandonment of his personally held, conservative, Christian beliefs at the gates of public policy making. As a gay man in a 15 year monogamous relationship who has embraced the institution of marriage, personally and civically, I doubt that evangelicals, by any other religious moniker, suddenly repulsed by Trump and Moore’s sexual predation, would support my civic right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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As a leftist and an atheist, I applaud the author’s sincerity, humility and belated awakening. It gives one hope for a more civil, just, and enlightened conservative ethos.
Where I believe evangelicals can begin to reclaim their Christian mantle is by severing all links to a political party in order that they can recognize the goodness in decent people who do not share their political beliefs. This op-ed praises the good works of Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, but fails to cite the humanity of Barack Obama. Obama not only exemplified the family values evangelicals have until now claimed to admire, but was a strong proponent of efforts to address climate change to protect our planet and of stronger gun safety measures to save lives after they are conceived, a wholly pro-life position. He also established a consumer protection bureau to keep people from being preyed upon and defrauded by the powerful. A move to cite good no matter from where it emanates would be a major step in the right direction.
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In the context of Christianity I would recommend everyone read Stephen Hawking's, The Grand Design. At least read the first two chapters. It has made clearer to me the idea of our free will and the beginnings of understanding the natural path of existence which religion is the very rudimentary beginning of directing the path. Maybe not in our lifetime but some day quantum computing will be able to help us all choose the "better" path for existence rather than relying on faith in religion.
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Thankful for your speaking out against things that are troubling to many of us. I only hope that more people will come forward to say Trump and Moore are not the Republican Party of my Father and Grandfathers.
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Once upon a time, major figures from mainstream churches participated in national dialogues. The churches communicated with the media and played a more visible role in national discussions. On occasion, prominent figures from the churches were outspoken liberal activists (for example, William Sloane Coffin). More often, they spoke in more general terms about issues, and the views expressed tended to be centrist. Over time, these voices either went silent or were drowned out by the vocal Christian right wing (the Falwells, the Robertsons, and so on). Nowadays, the press seems to report mainly on "evangelicals" -- a term which I think most Christians would not use to describe themselves -- or statements by the Pope. I don't know what happened. I do know that a lot of mainstream churches have quiet initiatives and positions that many people would call "liberal" -- meaning, they emphasize tolerance. Why this is never discussed in the press, I don't know.
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I can't help noticing that the "last straw" for evangelicals like Wehner had to do with sex. Where were your voices when the US was torturing Iraqis? Were you claiming this was the greatest nation on earth BEFORE Obamacare tried to extend healthcare to most Americans, most especially children?
The evangelicals I know do exactly what Wehner does -- remember fondly the days of the abolitionist movement, and proclaim the civil rights movement as some part of their own legacy. They forget how hard evangelicals in the South fought against it, and how many others were a part of it. This should not be a moment of pointing fingers at "they" who betrayed evangelical purity, this should be a moment of soul-searching. Evangelicals are the Republican party. Pretending that in the past evangelicals were the conscience of the nation is pure hubris.
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Have hope, Mr. Wehner. Christianity and politics are often at polar opposites, but the interplay between the two, the push-back and then the embrace by each of small, seemingly inocuous differences, sets both on a path leading to greater empathy and courage. We live in time and time is---relative. I try to remember this. While I'm on a train standing still, the train on the track outside my window seems to be moving backwards. Fast. And I'm afraid and momentarily disoriented. In the end, both those trains move back and forth between the same stations, and we passengers have many of the same goals for our destinations: safety; life; betterment for all.
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Dream on, gentle spirit.
There are zero signs of Republicans or Evangelicals showing any such signs of "empathy and courage".
I'm very proud this morning to live in a country where thoughtful and courageous woman and men, like you, seek to move all of us closer to the goal of respecting the inherent humanity in every individual. I applaud you and I thank you.
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I would be prouder in fair elections, when three million more votes guarantee victory. The current White House. occupant refers to "fake news". The principal fake is the claim that America is a model democracy.
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I read the piece three times and missed the "courage." Just the usual tut-tutting and pearl-clutching I've come to expect from rueful onetime enablers.
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While I appreciate Mr. Wehner's obvious sincerity, and see value in traditional conservatism's championing of personal responsibility, I also am confounded whenever I consider today's GOP agenda in the context of Christ's magnificent Sermon on the Mount, which centers on benevolence and non-judgmental love and concern for our fellow man. The GOP has long seemed to place emphasis on the Old Testament, while largely ignoring the New. As Yuval Harari eloquently details in his book "Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind", religion evolved in a way that it became useful in controlling societies, too often exclusively for attaining the selfish ends of those shaping the various myths. And the Old Testament, viewed in that manner, has been enormously useful. Perhaps Mr. Wehner could write a column reconciling the GOP policy array with the teachings of Christ as found in that sermon. Because I seem to have entirely missed it. Come to think of it, perhaps that's what he's said in this column - he's missing it as well. In that case, he's bound to find a lot of company among progressives. Come on over, and bring your colleague David Brooks, who expressed similar angst in his Friday column. Unlike the GOP, the Dems will gladly make room.
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In addition to your comments here regarding the GOP attachment to religion as a means of control, it's important to add that the GOP as the party of Lincoln is an aberration also. The people who vote Republican now are in fact more related to the Democratic party as it was prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Johnson knew what the signing of this law would do to his party's identity, but he took the high road. Rather than change with the times, the identity of the party shifted in the next election. White became black and black became white. This is why it is so easy under Trump to witness the emergence of White nationalism within the Party of Lincoln and the rise of the likes of Roy Moore who think we were more like a family when we had slavery. It's been there all along. Trump allowed it to come from the closet into the light. The GOP is no more the party of Lincoln than it is true Christian.
Whether it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Casey Hayden, Jimmy Carter, or Dr. William Barber, there are many example of liberals (remember it was The March for Jobs and Freedom) are living out their lives as committed Christians - striving to live the example of Christ.
Conservatives do not have a monopoly on Christianity. With what appears to be much more fealty to mammon than to God on the part of Republicans, is it any wonder that Mark 8:36 is being quoted so often by both left and those with any honor left on the right.
1
Or perhaps Mr. Wehner could become an Independent and not have to play along with either the Republican or Democratic Party line!
1
Evangelicals have done more to discredit and destroy christianity than any other religious or non-religious group. This editorial is much too little too late.
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Agree. Changing your "brand" doesn't change the spots, Mr. Wehner.
In comparison to you comment about Evangelicals, it would be fair to indicate that women who willing encage in pornography equally are discrediting to their peers..
Dear Mr Wehner
I am an atheist and a lefty, literally and figuratively. I have received a boatload of criticism, to put it mildly, my entire adult life from those who can't understand why I don't believe in a God. Most of them are "Christians". I have also struggled deeply to be accepted by "Christians" who feel that my being a transsexual is somehow an act against God. So when you create the fantasy that involves a laboratory creature that will rise up to harm Christianity, I am reminded of the trash that Bill O'Reilly, Trump, and other "victims" spout about being under attack, when in fact the opposite is so obviously true.
By the way, were you OK with Roy Moore before he was accused by these women ? Was it acceptable to call homosexuality a sin and an abomination his entire career and still be elected? The implicit suggestion is that only now did Moore cross the line.
I am glad that you are pausing, and you are right about Bush and his efforts to stop the Aids virus , but I have felt alienated by many Christians, especially "Evangelicals" for decades, and I feel that I am the one, or the type, who has been under attack .
What say you ?
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I think the author should have told us, in this column, who he voted for last November.
Also, what's with lazily positing some "atheist and person of the left" instead of looking deeper at the way Wehner and cohorts paved the way for Trump? Look in the mirror.
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It's telling that the author did not mention Obama, who tried more than most to exhibit "grace and a healing touch," but was rebuked and mocked by the G.O.P and the Evangelicals. What did Christ say about hypocrisy?
2
Please don't give credit to evangelicals for helping to end slavery. That was done by Friends (Quakers) and they are the most liberal of religions, as far from evangelical as one could get. And, unlike evangelicals, Friends were also in the forefront of the fight for women's rights.
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Kate, I probably have emotions much nearer to yours than you might imagine, but it is important to understand the past as it was, not as we wish or believe it to be.
Some current Quakers are, in fact, evangelicals and call their branch of Quakerism the Evangelical Friends Church, International. This branch began developing in the early 19th Century. I won't go into the theological particulars here, but am I told that a meeting at many member churches are not that dissimilar from other evangelical services.
On the historical issue of opposition to slavery, the truth is more complex than you suggest. Prior to the mid-18th Century, Quaker attitudes about slavery were diverse. Many Quakers involved in commerce were directly or indirectly involved in the slave trade and themselves owned slaves. One prominent Rhode Island Quaker and slave trader said that the "inner light" told him that the slave trade was not against the will of God. Only from the mid-18th Century on did opposition to slavery become a core tenet of Quakerism.
Additionally, opposition to slavery was from the beginning a core tenet of Methodism and some other evangelicals. Starting in the late 1830s and well before the Civil War, the major evangelical and other protestant churches had split into North and South organizations over the issue of slavery, yet there remained Evangelicals in the North who supported or did not actively oppose slavery as there were some Southern Evangelicals who did oppose slavery.
2
Quakers from the beginning of the country opposed slavery, but other religious groups were major abolitionists in the 19th century also. Same thing for women's rights. These movements became more broad before the Civil War.
And don't forget that while more liberal Christians may have opposed slavery, an even larger number of Christians who supported slavery reacted to the growing ant-slavery sentiment by forming the Southern Baptist Convention specifically to perpetuate slavery. Imagine. People who called themselves Christians came together to create an institution to maintain slavery, all in the name of Jesus. Just like previous generations of such people carried out the torture and brutalities of the Inquisition, conducted murderous pogroms against Jews, and burned witches at the stake--as God had commanded them to do.
These putative Christians went on to maintain segregation for 100 years after the Civil War. Those policemen in Alabama using police dogs in Montgomery and billy clubs on that bridge in Selma to beat peaceful demonstrators--all good Christians. As were, it's safe to say, 99 percent of those who ever lynched a black person. Roy Moore is deja vu all over again, when it comes to Christians, especially the Alabama variety.
mr wehner, i deeply respect your faith and i agree that there are "a great many honorable individuals" who are republican and evangelical. so why must you demonize me, and assume that because i am on the left, i'm an atheist? just because i don't subscribe to your brand of orthodoxy?
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First of all, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist or unbeliever in this fantastic all seeing God scenario. The 2010 census shows that fully 30% of the USA are unaffiliated with any church, the unbelievers. Discerning persons may balk at the religious rhetoric, especially women, whom are expected to blithely go along with their appointed role as man's helpmate in God's grand plan.
2
He identifies himself as a Christian and a person on the right. He's just negating his views along two dimensions, rather than one. I don't think he's claiming everyone on the left is an atheist.
I don't think that's what he was saying at all. Read the entire paragraph. He's saying that Trump and Moore are discrediting the party and evangelical Christianity exactly as the antithesis of those two entities would only dream of doing. No way he's saying that everyone on the left is an atheist.
Perhaps we all need to read and listen more openly, without taking everything personally.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
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Mr. Wehner, I am a Democrat and a Christian. I reject the term Evangelical, because Christian already defines us as a follower of Christ and because we are, we are already born again. The term Evangelical was formed, I believe, as a way to further label those who think they are better than others. Democrats by definition already follow the teachings of Christ, we want to take care of the sick and hungry, the downtrodden, the prisoner. We are not to judge others, that's God's job. It seems that Evangelicals have taken it upon themselves to do God's job. We are to treat all with kindness and love, something your party and your religious affiliation has failed to do. We are to lead by example. I am offended when someone like you defines Democrats as atheists. Democrats have a long been a party of inclusion, so yes there probably are atheists and agnostics in our midst, but there are millions of Christian Democrats who live their Christianity every day. Choice is what God gave us and choice in women's health is what Democrats give us. I'll take my chances with God and work with Democrats to make a better planet. There is not one policy defined as Republican I can agree with, taxes, healthcare, environment, race relations or gender relations. Republicans fail at all of them. The worst is what is being offered today in Republicanism, Trump, Moore, Ryan, McConnell and the far right of the Freedom Caucus.
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There "probably are?" Well, I can confirm that there are agnostics and atheists among Democrats without a shadow of a doubt. Being offended by being grouped with atheists stands in stark contrast to your claim of inclusivity. In fact, political party affiliation has been far less of a predictor of atheist - shaming in my life than the adherence to a Christian belief system. Even Christian Democrats have a long way to go.
8
Thank you. Well said. You are speaking for me in an eloquent manner.
4
Thank you Sandra Andrews. That was superbly put.
6
One (and the only) positive accomplishment Trump has achieved is to produce more Independents. That, in my opinion, is a good thing.
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Now if we could only create a third party of independents to act as "king makers" perhaps the country could move forward.
One other thing: he has exposed (and encouraged) the bigotry which far too many white Americans had assured themselves was a thing of the past. With a bigotry-championing president, no one can claim we're living in a post-racial America.
1
Peter Wehner, you are piously humble. I am an atheist. God bless you.
We can only hope that those who subscribe to religious teachings as well as those who do not will ascribe to the introspection of reason you have shown here.
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The GOP has become a quasi-religious cult, there’s just no other way to explain how it’s members can contort the teachings of Jesus to rationalize voting for people like Moore and Trump.
1
I remember Arianna Huffington saying something like where the left and the right meet, is the middle of nowhere. I do not want to burst anyone's bubble but I think that is where we are now. When opposing forces cannot agree on a common and good course, say even with good Christian values, we, America is falling into the abyss of the unknown and assurances count for little.
29
There has been 50 years or so of propaganda that liberals and progressives had taken THEIR country from them. They now see any and every progressive action taken by government as evil. They've been at a kind of war for all that time. In their minds Trump is a means to an end. To them the means justify the ends too.
1
How do progressives meet conservatives "in the middle?" Only kill HALF the number of innocent Iraqis? Only support HALF the number of dictators in the world? Only punish HALF of the gay people? There is a terrible, sometimes dishonest debaters' trick of finding (or imagining) positions that appear to be "more left" and "more right" than oneself, in order to attempt to automatically win the debate by claiming to be the non-biased "middle." The "middle" has also caused countless deaths and misery.
Facts and evidence have to be the basis for what positions we take -- not posturing.
1
Actually, if I were a liberal atheist (I'm a liberal deist.), and wanted to make up a person to discredit the Republican Party, I'd manufacture Mitch McConnell. A career politician who daily betrays the conservative principals he runs on, who creates and supports policies that will hurt the majority of his constituents, and who will follow Godforsaken creatures like Trump and Moore.
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The moment that McConnell said that "his" party would work to block every single initiative of a duly and popularly elected President, he made it clear that he put his idea of party over the good of the country as a whole.
2
Don't forget that pseudo-Christian, Paul Ryan. It thrills him to be taking things away from those who need it. Watch his happy face in the Rose Garden when the house passed that awful Trumpcare bill (that wasn't passed by the senate, thankfully)
A man that derives that much pleasure from taking away from the needy doesn't fit any kind of definition of 'Christianity'.
I have to take a strong dissent to your opinion.
You left out Paul Ryan.
Yes, but what are you going to do about it?. Somehow the "old style" Republicans need to take control of the party or if possible create a new Republican party with the Trumpism. Better still come over the Democratic party but please lose the "help the rich, tax the poor" mentality.
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I’d love to come over to the Democratic Party, but it’s been made clear time and time again that, as someone who is pro-life, I’m not welcome. I truly despise what the Republican Party has become and can’t support it: maybe I should just register as an independent.
And this is a revelation? The GOP sold out long ago and this pretend Christianity is completely bogus. No surprise there.
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“There are of course a great many honorable individuals in the Republican Party and the evangelical movement. Those who hold different views than I do lead exemplary lives. Yet I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures.
Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore.“
I am a liberal - pro-choice, feminist, atheist - who leads an honorable life that might surprise you. I am happily married for many years to an incredible man, we have two children, we are both highly educated and have been gainfully employed our whole lives.
Although it is not the point of your article, I am offended by your obvious disdain and malice towards people like me. We do not spend our time crafting caricatures to mock or lies to discredit Republican evangelicals, even ex ones.
Rather - that is what you are doing, in this article and many others, to people like me and my family. That is why you couldn’t hear us when we told you what Trump was - two years ago.
We knew. We witnessed. We spoke. You ignored, belittled, mocked. Where is your ownership of that, sir?
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“Those who hold different views than I do lead exemplary lives.”
That was part of the quote you posted, yet the rest of your comment ignores it. Your sense of offense and outrage is misplaced.
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Sorry, while there is no excuse for lionizing Reagan, Wehner did oppose rTump from the beginning.
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Jenz -- I am liberal, pro-choice, agnostic (not atheist). Why is it that you and others have a knee-jerk response to drive away well-meaning people like Mr. Wehner? What obvious disdain and malice? If you were paying attention, Wehner has been anti-Trump for two years. We have to be better than this. It is your attitude and response that is a perfect example of why so many in the flyover regions are driven into the arms of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
I’ve had trouble understanding long before this new round of charges about child molestation how evangelicals have supported politicians like Trump who treat refugeees with such total contempt. To me the most important part of the Judeo-Christian ethic is the message that we care for others as ourselves.
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After reading this article, I still cannot for the life of me see why people hold St. Ronald Regan in such high esteem. Do some objective reading about another fraud for a president pumped up by the Republican Party to possibly see that Reagan helped create the mindless mess we're in with goons like Trump and Moore.
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With the paragraph that begins "Assume you are a person on the left..." I hope you realize that you have cooked up the perfect scenario for a wonderful Kafkaesque novel for our times... A mad Liberal scientist, bent on discrediting Conservatism, finds a way to transform someone (a TV personality, maybe) into a caricature of a Republican evangelical, replete with all of the negative stereotypes we attribute to that movement. This caricature is so extreme and ugly the scientist feels sure that if he sets him loose on the world, his invention will discredit the movement. Only to find his creation becomes popular, goes viral, wins elections, and takes over the government. That's choice!
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And ends the world as we know it....
Frankenstein meets Kafka!
It keeps reminding me of James O'Keefe who took down Acorn (an organization that helped the poor to get register to vote) with lies and fake video and then what did he do recently with lies and distortions.
Without wishing to be uncharitable, I must say I found evangelicals offensive long before the word came to be associated with idolatry, bigotry, and moral relativism.
From their point of view, working on me was a ministry not to be denied. From mine, it was a display of overbearing self-satisfaction. There were the complacent smiles and near-winks which two of them would exchange while discussing -- across the barracks lounge from me, in suitably raised voices -- how good it felt to have found Jesus. And there was the implicit dismissal of my mainstream Christianity as a sorry substitute for the real thing.
The oppressive tribalistic tendency in evangelicalism has been there all along. Before I was born, visits to my mother's family from evangelical kin would always begin with my ordinary church-going grandfather being determinedly civil to them and would always end with his telling them to go home. They couldn't refrain from treating him and my grandmother as infidels, and he couldn't put up with it.
In evangelical Christianity, humility and hubris have always run neck-and-neck. It was just a matter of time till hubris won.
72
It's been interesting to see what the breaking point is for Republicans. For me, it was anti-environmentalism in the 80s. For my father, it was the abandonment of basic arithmetic by the party during Obama's terms (tax cuts as the answer to deficits didn't impress his accountant's soul). Now it seems the time to separate people who view religion as a moral framework from those who view it is an avenue to power and wealth.
I could join everyone else and ask what took you so long, but I might as well welcome you to the club. Now help us get money out of politics in America.
90
Interesting. For me the break from the GOP was the realization as a new college graduate that the GOP consistently pitted the have-nots against reasoned thought and our nation's most marginalized to distract from their pursuit of a power and greed based agenda. For my mom, it came with the Republican contempt for environmentalist and the scientific community. For me dad, it came with the GWB campaign's treatment of presidential candidate McCain. For my sister, it came with Sarah Palin potential proximity to our nation's highest office. For the life of me, I cannot imagine how low the GOP as to go.
3
May be all good and well, but why even merge religion into the state even in the name where there is a fundamental separation between the two, to begin with?
25
When mature men voice shifting opinions, suspicions arise. Does this man not see himself as a future employee of Republican administrations? That Republican Party which opposed racism; where were they at the times of Scott-Dread and the fight to outlaw lynching? I am in my seventies. Evangelical without its political implications has never been a synonym for Republican or Democrat.
I think that I can understand Mr. Wehner's embarrassment at the antics associated with his brand. The lying, misogynistic, racist patina wrapped policies of ages now have no covering. Trump and Moore are now their mouthpieces; one elected and the other soon to be similarly approved.
It is my hope that people like Mr. Wehner can extricate themselves from their self manufactured mess. I hope that it will be done without Black people rushing to the polls to help Moore's opponent. We need to stay hope and allow the Wehners of this Party to shovel their own stuff. Reagan was a gift? Wow! Not for Black people.
28
Thanks to Trump, Moore and the GOP, the Evangelicals have been exposed for who they are.
38
"Both [Trump and Moore] relish appealing to people’s worst instincts. Both create bitterness and acrimony in a nation desperately in need of grace and a healing touch."
But is this really so new? In November 1981 Secretary of Interior James Watt said "I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It's liberals and Americans." (Quoted in New York Times, 10 October 1983.)
22
The conservative Christian political movement seems to have forgotten the lessons that the Bible teaches over and over...you can't legislate morality. Morals come deep from within and as a Christian one hopes it comes from following a God whose primary attribute is love. Instead conservative Christians have become the Sadducees, Pharisees and money changers that Jesus warned about. It is not about taking back the country for God. If you believe the Bible I am sure you know that God doesn't really need that kind of help. Instead, our job is to love people the way God loves us and in that regard the Church is failing miserably.
29
It totally agree that evangelical Christianity in America has become more a tribal and political identity than a recognizable expression of Christianity. But Wehner needs to acknowledge the symbiotic relationship between the Republican Party and evangelicals that brought this about. Republicans have told evangelicals for years that only Republicanism and conservatism represent Christian values; Democrats/liberals are amoral baby-killers. Republicans exploited racial fears and prejudices among white Southern evangelicals -- identifying Democrats with black welfare recipients and illegal immigrants (the Hispanic illegal immigrants being the greatest concern). When Alabama evangelicals prefer Roy Moore to any Democrat or evangelicals nationally ignore the void at Trump's moral core, it is because they have been conditioned to believe nothing matters other than saving unborn babies and protecting white Christian culture.
40
"Where exactly is the bottom?". I think you will find that there is no bottom, Mr Wehner. And that is a very, very scary idea.
15
True American evangelicalism embodies much that is noble and ideal. In a sense the core belief is only that one connect to the Redeemer with heart as well as head. Note that this credo is not a sect or denomination, but simply a belief. But you're right. The ideal has become tainted -and badly tainted - by hostile political operators The ideal goes on. Mr. W. and his .creedal brethren can and should continue to be committed evangelicals. At the same timehe is sadly right the label is now to besmirched to be used by sincere Christians. -
1
I have been a Christian for many years, and served as an Elder in a mainline denomination. My church family is one of the greats strengths of my life, and like any family, their views and opinions can be varied and run the gamut from liberal to ultra conservative. The one thing that binds us all together is our realization that we are sinful creatures in need of redemption, and that are spiritual journey is shared and complemented by the love that we also share for one another. Another word for that is TOLERANCE. It's a word borne of compassion.
I don't see much compassion in the folks who like to call themselves Evangelicals, which seems to be shorthand for "conveniently political" Christians. They are all about what they want, and want they think the rest of us need -- or don't need -- since they are right and everyone else is wrong. I often wonder whether any of them has taken to time to read the Bible, and study it, because what they espouse is so diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ. They are no different from the early Christians who envisioned Christ's coming as a time when he would lead them forth on a great white horse into battle, only to be disappointed by the servant who taught forgiveness. We can't whip up on the Romans with this guy! They portray themselves as a moral entity, yet embrace any kind of hooligan who might vote for their agenda.
Shameless hypocrites, who lust for POWER and INFLUENCE.
27
Why do apparently intelligent and educated people continue an allegiance to an irrational belief system that has been associated with numerous episodes of violent and destructive episodes over the centuries as well as obstructing scientific progress. Evangelicals are a particularly perverse sect of Christianity in that they actively repudiate rational analysis in favor of emotionally based delusions. Far better to aspire to simply improving the human condition on earth rather than propagating nonesensical fantasy about saviors and angels.
25
Sooner or later, labels make lemmings of those who adhere to labels -- and in areas other than politics and faith.
5
"Yet I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures.
Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
It is telling that Mr. Wehner sees no irony in berating modern evangelicals for tribalism, yet is capable of producing the above passage. Mr. Wehner, since you seem to be in a contemplative mood, perhaps you might also consider that some of your perceptions of "liberals" may be incorrect.
Unlike Wehner, I believe Trump and Moore do not represent a new direction for Evangelicals and Republicans. The truth is, they represent the essence, the stripped down core of both movements. Is there a single Republican politician who intends to seek reelection speaking out against Trump? How many Evangelical leaders are taking a public stand against Moore? These men are the soul of the movements you cherish, unadorned. Ponder that.
24
Pete should not exclusively focus on political affiliations, nor religious organizations, but on the laws of the government he seemingly claims, above everything else, to endear. Therein, are scribed numerous contrasts to the party he seems to have once recognized as Republican, and an assault on what he seems to define as evangelicalism. Simply, what has changed are his governments laws; though not every heart and mind are in accord. An opinion writer for NYT suggested not that long ago, that things are changing so fast nobody has any traditions, and fewer and fewer people remember any.
The idea that a person whose politics are to the left and not a believer would be so maniacal as to create the worms Trump and Moore is insulting. I am both and my core values are more inline with Jesus's then many evangelicals. I am not morally empty and corrupt. I believe and have hope in a world where we can live in harmony with each other and nature. If I wanted to destroy the Republican party, and I don't because we need at least two parties to govern, I would not create people who are destroying the entire country. A country that I do love just not in a nationalistic fashion.
15
This also takes honesty. "The global AIDS and malaria initiative is one of President George W. Bush’s greatest legacies," has always received more support from Democrats than Republicans. Trump and Moore would eliminate this life-saving program. George W. Bush's greatest failure, the invasion of Iraq, has always received more support from Republicans than Democrats. Trump and Moore were enthusiastic supporters of the Iraq invasion, despite Trump's lies to the contrary.
8
True or false? There is nothing more evil than a Democrat ...
I find this shocking, the idea that Jesus, who would be put in Gitmo or some such by these hypocrites, is no longer the authority on Christianity. The kleptocracy promote exclusion and wealth as signs of god's favor. Paul was an authoritarian who had some shining moments but seemed eager to keep servants and women down, and probably would be a racist today.
I spent a decade as a sincere evangelical, surrounded by like minded people who really wanted to embrace the teachings of Jesus, some very fine ideals. I balked at "give everything you have to the poor" and a few other idealistic commands, but I never thought it would be taken over by violence and hatred for all the less fortunate except the unborn.
How is it that a fetus doesn't need a mother and a family and a community that thrives rather than being exploited?
Death camps for the poor, the ill, the elderly? Using cheating and bullying to help the minority rule the majority by voter suppression and intimidation?
Jesus was not about lies and being on the take. The unctuous smarmy pastors are so obvious to those who are not blind to the way they profit, taking the widow's mite to fit themselves out with every kind of luxury. I hate to tune in to an increasing number of TV and radio shows that are dominated by obvious hypocrites.
I recommend the bible, the seven deadly sins and the ten commandments, not these phonies. Roy Moore violates three of the latter!
14
I am precisely a "person of the left and an atheist" *because of* not in spite of your spiteful hypocritical evangelicals who were busy labeling people like me as unchristian back in those days. It is somewhat persuasive that there appears to be no god to smite these horrible exploiters and looters.
Sadly, they are eager to remove civilization from the face of the planet.
13
Mr. Wehner fails to note how so many political figures of the Evangelical right, e.g., James Dobson, Franklin and Ruth Graham and Pat Robertson called for voting for Trump, many claiming he was a "baby Christian" and would take time to get on board with the proclaimed values of the movement. Too, he fails to note that outside of the Bible Belt, his brand of Christianity is fading.
330
Billy Graham. Although I'm not an adherent to his message. I found it inspiring and uplifting. When even in his old age he couldn't find it in his heart to endorse Barack Obama for President, I realized he was nothing, and his inspirational message was just an act.
14
You sound like a decent person,who doesn’t deserve a painful spiritual fall. But seriously, Ronald Reagan? He started this slide into mean spirited division. To me the term “evangelical” is and always has been, a pejorative. I’ve never known one who wasn’t judgemental in the extreme. I do not associate them with kindness, or critical thought.
24
Mr. Wehner, I am reminded of Secretary Rumsfeld's apt comment about 'old and new Europe...'This is late 2017 not 1980 and the 'new Republican' party is reflective of the will of its voters and supporters, as the 2016 primary process proved, not the 'old' GOP of 1980. Evangelical Christians know as do other supporters of the President that none of us is perfect, we are all too human. But unlike you media elite, we respect the President for his accomplishments against relentless headwinds, effecting the goals of committed Christians and others of faith, including the nomination of Justice Gorsuch, his knowing there is good and evil in the world in his struggle against radical Islamic terrorism, the recognition of reality in naming Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel and showing 'heart...' e.g. in the case of little Charlie Gard and other cases. As a lawyer I am disheartened you accept mere 'allegations' against Roy Moore or indeed the President for established fact. God moves in mysterious ways, but I am as a registered Democrat grateful Mrs. Clinton does not occupy the White House and that President Trump will be there, I venture, for at least four years.
Please go back and read the Gospels, four short repetitive documents, and try again. Going after the poor, the elderly, the unfortunate, and the sick is not Christian. Gorsuch is a nasty piece of work. Vote cheating is not Christian, not in my book.
17
If Gorsuch had any integrity he would have refused the position. Mitch McConnell and the Republicans subverted the Constitution in a way never seen before. Shame and more shame!
The Evangelicals like the GOP see trump as an end to their means. They just have to hold their noses.
11
They think they are the puppeteers when actually they are the puppets.
Jeff, Theyre not holding their noses. Far from it. They embrace Trump, and Moore. Moore has his Xtian Evangelical creds, and knows the right lines to use to tickle their ears. Trump is man with a sinful past, but has been chosen as a broken instrument, to do their Gods bidding...so in that he is on the right path.
Dont think for a minute Evangelicals dont have any number of excuses ready to use to support either man. They embrace both men, breathing thru their noses, as one is a righteous man, the other a chosen man...both score points.
Evangelicals would take a whole Congress of Trumps and Moores.
Whereas the GOP, has it share of the same, but still some working with a broken moral compass.
Separation of church and state- if a politician must play to a "religious" base, his concern is no longer solely the polis- this apologia reeks of "evangelicalism"- there is a natural moral law and it condemns both Moore and #45-
9
Peter, what will you do if the next election includes a candidate with your values. Will everything you just wrote vanish in the blink of an eye What if Trump is terminated as POTUS before the end of his term. Will you go back to embracing Mike Pence?
Words are worthless, sir, just as we've seen spewing out of Congress. Tell us when you actually DO something that demonstrates your objection. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, you're just another voicebox who'll continue to vote red on each issue.
9
Mr. Wehner,
Please get this in places other than just the NYT. Put it in papers all over those places dominated by evangelicals. They need to read this.
13
Sadly, Mr. Wehner, those who have embraced Trump and Trumpism do not care what you think. They reject you with disdain. You are the enemy now. You cannot be trusted and definitely not believed. You are fake news.
16
I await the day when no one calls himself an “evangelical republican.” Separate church and state. Full stop.
16
Not sure why you needed to wait for Donald Trump and Roy Moore to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. None of that happened overnight. People like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson did a fine job years ago.
27
When Republican leaders become autocratic and immoral, the rational choice for conservatives Republicans is to support conservative Democrats. Third parties are where votes go to die. But conservative Republicans won’t support Democrats under any circumstances because of the abortion issue. They believe abortion is murder and that Democrats are complicit in the murder of millions of babies. This belief allows unprincipled fanatics like Trump to charm the base with lies and consign defeated Republicans to the impotent no man’s land of third parties.
If conservative Republicans would adopt a moderate stance on abortion (one that does not treat all abortions as murder), they would be free to vote for conservative Democrats and purge the Republican Party of fanatics.
15
The strange belief that the saving of the fetus is the be-all and end-all of what should determine one’s vote is, at its core, a religious belief - that the fetus is “innocent” of “original sin” and that women, especially, are “sinners.” People whose lives are subsumed by this belief forget that women die from pregnancy, and that families starve because of too many mouths to feed. It would be truly lifesaving if this belief could be limited to just the believer - “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” - instead of being foisted upon the rest of our country.
2
You can leave the party or you can fight for it. Seems to me that if there are those tarnishing the evangelical label and ruining the Republican party, it would be more logical to oust them by whatever means. Dig up the dirt; pull those skeletons out of their closets. Shame them. Make their fall from grace and party line evident to all.
Why show mercy to those destroying the things in which you place your love and devotion?
Be the thorn that is in so deep, the animal must chew off it's own limb. At that point, it will be so weak, you can kill it.
(Figuratively speaking, of course.)
Then clean house properly, and keep it so.
Thus endeth my sermon.
2
I say this to you, not as a partisan, but as a #metoo Christian. This would break my beloved Yellow Dog Republican, Baptist Sunday School Teaching, PawPaw's heart, to see what Satan has wrought among Evangelicals in the Grand Old Party. I am praying that God will heal those who have suffered abuse, and that the abusers will be revealed and driven out of places of power. This is really, really sad, because so many of the people who have shaped my life have been Republican Evangelicals, like the writer. But our character is revealed in times like these, and I believe progressives who are believers, and our concerned conservative friends swimming against the Trump tide must join together, in one voice, and scream "No!" at the top of our lungs. Then we need to back it up with action, to both salve those wounded by evil, twisted, immoral men, and make it clear that we're all done making deals with the devil, whether he wears a "D" or an "R" after his name. No more Moores.
16
"...have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures." How dare you (the author) imply that democrats are worse than trump and moore. And how dare today's republican party take credit for ending slavery; that party has been gone a looooooong time. Take responsibility for YOUR actions - today's republicans are the party of white supremacy and hate and now the truth is finally in the open - all they really worship is money.
18
Anyone else feel like their living in a Willem De Kooning painting?
4
I look forward to a New York Times article entitled something like, "why I left my liberal and left-wing mainline Protestant church."
I'll be waiting for a long time.
1
I don't understand why this guy still has his law license.
4
The longer we head into a Trumpian future, the nastier and more vitriolic things seem to be getting. What I don't understand is why Republicans and Convervatives are still so angry, a trend that only seems to be increasing with each passing day. This era we are living in should be celebrated as a Republican utopia... They control every branch (or just about). So why so angry? Why still the blame on Obama? Even mention his name, and it feels like the hostility towards him has only intensified... I'm really not sure what to make of any of this. The demonization of liberals and Democrats is near complete and total... Better a pedophile than a liberal... Wow... I'm just not sure where this ends. The truth here is that this Trumpian movement is winning through the sheer volume of its hostility, even if the numbers aren't on their side. Rage-blinded and feeling victimized, despite their control. This isn't exactly the type of America that I'm hopeful for. My biggest fear? The momentum of whatever this is is heading towards an irreparable split in this country, and we will have to start looking at ourselves as truly separate people, as different as if we were completely different countries sharing the same land. This thing is splitting apart big time. But I think we're going to have to actually go through with this and things will get far worse before they get remotely better. ::sigh::
8
״the efforts to abolish slavery and to end segregation and the struggle to protect unborn life — have been informed by Christianity” The efforts to maintain slavery were also informed by Christianity. And the struggle to protect unborn life isn’t informed by Christianity. When did Christianity place the value of the unborn as higher than the value of women who are already born? And when has the Republican Party ever cared about the “unborn” once they are born? It’s the hypocrisy in the matter of “family values” that struck you as un-Christian. What about attitudes towards universal health care, early childhood education, family planning to help families get out of poverty (come on, you don’t really think abstention works, do you? And do you think married couples should have as many children as result from healthy marital relations and not use birth control, either?). What’s Christian about denying women birth control? (You know, it is men that make them pregnant.) It’s good to read that you see some problems with the Republican Party and the evangelical approach, but I think you still have a lot to think about if you want to be truly “Christian”. Try some social democratic values where sharing with those who are less well off is considered the right thing to do. That sounds much more Christian to me (a non-Christian).
12
Like others here, I welcome your clear and firm declaration of principles, but it seems useless to print it in the New York times. This is a message that is needed but it's presence here will make it either invisible or tainted by precisely those people that could learn the most from it.
4
Religion should be kept out of politics. If not, “Evangelical is no longer a word we can use.” will turn into “Christian is no longer a word we can use.” Associating yourselves with a party of liars is not going to be good for Christianity. What is so Christian about the Republican party? It seems like they value an everybody for themselves philosophy. Also, would Jesus carry a gun?
13
"...the Republican Party, which was created to end slavery and preserve the Union…"
This applies to the original Republican party, to be sure, but has nothing to do w/ the modern Republican Party which was created by the defection of racist Democrats with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
I grow weary of the claim that somehow the modern Republican Party has anything to do with Lincoln's party.
10
The party of Lincoln is one of my favorites. The party of McCarthy is much more fitting.
1
Welcome sentiments, though, I fear, too little and too late. Will you go to Alabama — now — to try to give them some real effect?
2
I agree that Roy Moore is an unacceptable candidate for office (even beyond the alleged pedophilia and innapropriate actions towards women). This is a person unfit for a dinner party let alone the Grand Olde Party.
I just wish the NYT and other news organizations would focus on the qualities of his democratic opponent in even a single story. I seem to remember feeling as though Trump was a longer shot than Moore, but alas, the media fixation on his ignobility, rather than the merits of his opponent rewarded him with our highest office. Please, give us a little more of the whole story!
6
I understand. I made the same decision in 1994 when Newt Gingrich's Republican Party took over the House. With Republicans like Gingrich, Tom Delay, Dick Army, John Ashcroft, Rick Santorum, Trent Lott, and Orrin Hatch, I was embarrassed and ashamed to admit I was a Republican. I left the Republican Party (or perhaps it left me), and I have never voted for any other Republican for any other office since then. Since that time, the Republican Party has continued to sink lower and lower into bowels of pathological dishonesty, greed, fear, anger, hate, and immorality.
13
I appreciate your opinion. It is hard to admit we might have been wrong. Old Arab proverb, "No matter how far down the wrong road you've gone, turn back."
3
Congratulations on rethinking. You may find yourself having to drop your assumptions, preconceptions, and judgments about people who are not conservative and not fundamentalist or whichever brand of Christianity, because when things get even worse with this crowd, we will have to work together to overturn it. I'm suggesting you may have to work alongside Jews, Buddhists, Muslims--all Americans, atheists, agnostics, and liberal Christians. Bahai, Taoist, whomever. In my view, you made a mistake with Reagan. But you were young then. I saw what he did to California and it wasn't pretty. You would have liked Ike. But the GOP has been a different animal ever since Nixon. Time to accept that? I don't view the current party as conservative. I view them as treasonous. They seek to destroy democracy and install a tyrannical, white supremacist oligarchy. Please. I don't really care about your religion, except to keep the obnoxious missionary types away from my very Buddhist door. You must live by your conscience, at least I hope you will. But if you have human integrity, and spiritual compassion, then prepare to work with a lot of people on the left. Because that's where sanity currently is residing.
23
I yearn for the day religion is not in politics.
I promise to not inflict mine on you.
10
Any religion that proselytizes, considers its Way the only Way, its Truth the only Truth and that its duty to God is to impose that Way and Truth on Others can not be considered reasonable, or reasoning.
Nor can that religion's adherents.
12
I’ts about time! The sham has been clear for years. Long before Trump (Voldemort, as we call him). The sham was obvious in the Republican congress throughout the Obama trems. It included almost all of them, even Susan Colins?
5
He only notes the positive results of Christianity. Thousands of people worldwide have died at the hands of Christianity as well.
5
Tens of millions. But who's counting?
7
The mistake is to combine rather than declare oneself as an Evangelical and a Republican so when your political party veers toward the scoundrels your God doesn't go with them.
7
I'm not an evangelical - an evangelical was my 7th grade Social Studies teacher who told my class "Catholics - they're not Christian. They worship idols." But I was a Republican. Not any more. I live in NY 19 and I will do whatever I can to see that a Democrat takes this district. The Republican party as it exists needs to go away.
17
The most important sentence in this whole piece... ["Some of the most impressive moral movements in American politics — the efforts to abolish slavery and to end segregation and the struggle to protect unborn life — have been informed by Christianity."] -- and the most important word in it?..." informed."
The problem today is that in the politics of Trump and Moore and Bannon (and Reagan and Bush, in their time, and Pence, waiting in the wings) is that their Christianity doesn't inform, it directs. Politics "directed," by religion is a recipe for collapse...welcome to the Trump years.
13
You seem like a personally decent human. How do you reconcile your faith with the Republican Party's war on the poor and it's willingness to bend over backwards to give the rich more and more and more?
17
Peter Wehner, From everyone without a voice, Thank you.
4
Can some Evangelical Christian please explain to me how you could think that were Christ to walk the earth today he might find anything in common with Donald Trump? I am not trying to be derogatory. I truly don't understand how anyone could believe that Trump lives his life according to Christ's example or is doing Christ's work?
6
Bravo...thank you for this answer
1
One word, one single word: Bravo!
4
The Republican party today stands for the same three things the Republican party has stood for for the last fifty years: Greed, Ignorance and Bigotry.
11
All well and good, Mr. Wehner, but you're preaching to the converted. Wish you would share your views on TBN, rather than in the NYT.
8
How many adults in the U.S. claim to believe in God? How many are now registered Democrats or Republicans? On both counts the answer is fewer and fewer every year—thank God.
4
Fake Christians throughout two millennia have hitched their wagons to the State, no matter how evil the state. Fake Christianity has associated itself with rivalries among fake Christian states, have preached that young Christians should die in wars designed to assist the secular leader of their state to attack the fake Christian ruler of another state who claims to be the sponsor of real Christianity. So this phenomenon of fake Christians aligning themselves with evil for private gain is part of the sordid history of fake Christianity. Jesus called upon us to stand against evil in its governmental form, but that part of Christianity of no interest to fake Christians.
3
Nobody can call themselves an evangelical christian and not regarded a morally deplorable person. Evangelical christians support a serial child molester. Evangelical christians voted and elected a sex criminal Trump who confessed to that very behavior himself on live microphone. There 19 women who fell victim to Donald Trump's criminal sexual advances. Evangelical christians consistently supported morally questionable behaviors. Evangelical christians do not side with the victims of gun violence. Evangelical christians consistently side with anti-reason anti-common sense anti-science. Evangelical christians always side with the anti-democracy force and anti-human rights force. These behaviors are anti-christ and anti-jesus.
8
Not everyone but certainly those with the loudest voices
Yes, a line has been crossed, and "Evangelical" no longer simply means a kind of Christian. It will be better when the American Public Sphere fully operates with these new definitions. It's akin to describing atrocities in Afghanistan committed by "Muslims", when they are perpetrated by Taliban. Franklin Graham should not be know as a Christian leaders, for example, but rather as "an Evangelical", which should be understand like "American Taliban."
6
Better late than never, I suppose. But the author will only earn a modicum of respect from decent people when he starts working tirelessly to oust every Republican from government and ensure that Democrats are elected. Otherwise, he's just a mealy-mouthed sad sack, in my books.
2
You lost me at 'two of the most monumental figures of the 20th century . . . Reagan' - huh?
6
What is an evangelical. Very much a beating around the bush article.
3
Well Peter it seems you have seen the light and the truth. You should stop looking at us DEMs as the boogieman and help us save the country from Trump and friends like Moore.
6
At this point, evangelicals and Dominionists are only superficially Christian. They're ChINOs: Christians In Name Only. Jesus is no more than their seemingly friendly and good-looking front man. Their's is a religion that celebrates first-century, and earlier, barbarism and ignorance. The writings of Paul and the Old Testament — Leviticus and Genesis are particular favorites — which are for the most part hateful, vengeful and not the least bit generous, accepting or forgiving, are at the core of their nasty religion. Good Samaritans they ain't!
5
And here's what a not-so-hypothetical person on the left once said: ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25.40.
When Jesus thus spoke, he invoked Christianity at its marrow. To me it is incomprehensible for a Christian who through cynicism, deeds and speech to desacrate these words. Explain yourselves, Roy Moore, Donald Trump and those who support you.
7
Mr. Wehner's experience is much more widely shared than public appearances might indicate among evangelical dissenters and former evangelicals who feel churchless and abandoned--just like moderate Episcopalians and Lutherans have felt smeared and injured by the radical, pro-abortion agenda of the arrogant feminists in their respective Churches. The only hope for serious Protestant Christians in this country is an emergence of theological and spiritual depth such as that found in the writings of the uncompromisingly anti-Nazi German Lutheran theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (Adolf Hitler repaid his effort by personally ordering Bonhoeffer's execution, which was carried out just a month before the end of World War II.) It is worth noting that in the early thirties after spending a year in one of the most brilliant theological seminaries in America--Union, in New York--he was astounded at what he called the theological "superficiality" of American Christians of all religious stripes. He was bitterly critical of the worship of money and power in the New York Chuirches of the type attended by the Trump family.
1
Thanks for taking one step out of the cesspool. However, the Jesus Christ of the Bible said nothing about the "unborn," AKA the fetus. However, he did say a lot about the born, serving the poor and welcoming the stranger. I don't see any Republican doing that. Christ, in today's context, minus the purely theological, is more likely to be a progressive Democrat, a la Bernie Sanders, than Ronald Reagan, who started undermining the responsibility to the poor that was the New Deal legacy.
And both Bernie and Jesus were Jewish!
3
Hopefully Dec 12 will encourage Mr Wehner and the rest of us.
1
Had me till this; "... the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures.
Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
Like Liberalism and Atheism are one. I know many people of faith, priests, pastors, laypeople who are devout social liberals. Why, How? They believe the person has their God-given privilege to make personal moral decisions. And that no omniscient, omnipotent creator would purposely make someone gay, send them a devoted partner then condemn them to eternal torment for his own creation!
I know many Atheists, myself included, who live up to Jesus' ideals more then the xtians they encounter.
We don't need to create a Trump or a Moore, as we watched Evangelical Fascism in the US do it all by its many headed self!
Mr. Wehner, you sound like a smart guy, but what took you so long to see thru the Oz curtain of the GOP and Evangelicals?
No doubt both parties have their hypocrisy's...but the GOP, wow! Their devotion to greed/Corp Gods, should have put them out of reach for a Jesus abiding person. Dems are not perfect but their hearts are usually in the right place.
4
Evangelical Christianity in the Republican sense is not Christian. Thank you for speaking the truth.
3
Mr. Wehner,
Those of us who routinely make detailed reads of many news sources, including NYT, are used to nuanced and honest debate. It's sad and refreshing to read your lamentations, but seem somewhat wasted in the NYT, if your purpose is to be an agent of change. Are you also going to publish your beliefs in the conservative press? I can't be certain, but I suspect the very people who most trouble your soul, would never, ever, read a word published in the NYT, being a "false-news" preacher within the lame-stream-media.
3
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
I am a person of the left and an atheist. Please don't insult me with your examples. I did not discredit you. You did. You own this.
5
I think Peter Wehner is completely right about Roy Moore and Trump. But, all the same, this is a tacky op-ed.
Primarily it is his choice of the Times' columns to announce his apostasy. NYT readers don't need to hear what Wehner has to say. Their minds were made up long ago. But evangelical Christians certainly do. Moreover, if only because of the duties of friendship, he owes it to his erstwhile co-religionists to account for his decision, both for their good and for his own.
What seems tacky is that Wehner appears to have traded his apostasy -- or its announcement -- for the notoriety of placing an op-ed in the New York Times. He turns on his past allies AND he ingratiates himself with the Times --
with the professional visibility that it can afford him. Isn't this a case of trading one's birthright for a mess of pottage? All for a line on your resume? Oh, Peter.
It is not the first time. Charlie Sykes came used these same pages to come out in 2016. On his hiring from the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens changed his tune. Even the otherwise excellent Peter French of National Review recently published an attack on his allies in the Times.
No matter how deep his break with evangelical Christians, Wehner must understand that the Times remains the enemy of most of what he holds dear. Probably no other newspaper in America has more vociferously campaigned for identity politics and inflamed race against race and gender against gender. I hope he has a long spoon.
1
"Assume that you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men that Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
I can't think of an atheist that would do something that evil out of a disbelief in supernatural beings.
2
Where were you, David Brooks, and all the other recently outraged individuals when it mattered: before Election Day 2017? Amazing that so many took so long to see what was so obvious two years ago....
5
Under this argument you cannot be a Christian and a Republican that supports Trump? Is that really what you believe? But I can be a Christian and support a party that advocates abortion, booes God at their convention, has helped destroy the family unit, has kept minorities enslaved to poverty, bad schools, dangerous cities, and no fathers. I can support a party that makes drug use easier to partake in, will not protect it's borders, takes advantage of young male and female employees (Yeah, you guys are doing great at this right now!), Has leaders that have embezzled money to enrich their campaigns, sets up foundations to launder money, and can claim a former President that has done things to female staff members that would have anyone else behind bars for years. And a wife that protected and enabled him? Pete, I think you might want to study up on your Scriptures a little bit. Oh yes, and the Democrat party doesn't believe in forgiveness for anyone other than themselves. If this didn't sound so ridiculous on it's own merit I would think that most people would see a problem with this false sense of equivalence. Before the Democrat party starts calling themselves the party of morals and values, you may want evaluate your choices a little more.
As soon as Pence is president you'll be back on the bandwagon.
1
When Evangelicalism became more judgmental than loving it turned its back on the words of the Nazarene.
Fundamentalist Christians, including Roman Catholics, have become little more than a sounding board for white identity politics.
In fact Fundamentalism is a refutation of the New Testament in favor of the same teachings that give us Sharia.
2
"Some of the most impressive moral movements in American politics — the efforts to abolish slavery and to end segregation and the struggle to protect unborn life — have been informed by Christianity."
I guess you forgot that the South was just as Christian as the North, if not more so, and they used Christian ideology as a justification for slavery? I think that's a wash.
"Two of the monumental figures in the latter half of the 20th century, Reagan and Pope John Paul II, together helped to bring down one of the most malevolent political movements in history: Soviet-led Communism."
Guess you haven't been paying attention, nor read contemporary Russian writers like Masha Gessen. Maybe Russia isn't communist, but all of the soviet structures and totalitarian-ideology are still in place...only in a different form. They didn't defeat anything.
You need to man up. Looks like you've been listening to too many post-modernist and fallen into their mental traps. Go read the Bible and realize that politics and religion are higher intermixed. I'm not a Christian by any means but I know enough about the religion to tell that you have strayed way off the path.
1
Some Bible quotes which show the Republicans' hypocrisy because they do not live as Christ taught us to:
"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:25)
"Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me." (Matthew 25: 37-40)
"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (Matthew 15:11)
Oh and also, liberals aren't necessarily atheists. I'm a liberal and very religiously Roman Catholic. Some of us try to practice what we preach and not be one-issue voters.
2
AT the point when individuals stop following theologians and political parties and began to think for themselves, then there is the possibility that our society will be able to begin to crawl out of the mud and muck in which we find ourselves. It's very simple just follow the precept of the Sermon on the Mount -- it's nondenominational -- definition. A command based on words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount :
“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
Don't get hung-up on the use of the word "men" as a general referent to individuals regardless of sex. You all know what is meant!
How can you be a conservative and a Christian? The conservative ideology is anti Christian. Where Christianity asks its adherents to see the world selflessly, Conservative dogma encourages greed and selfishness. When Trump is gone you will simply revert back to the cruel policies encouraged by conservatism.
i guess better late than never. but reagan and jp2? two autocrats bent on molding others to their own brand of "religion" and "patriotism". welcome, mr wehner, but many of us knew what you spoke so eloquently about for a very long time ... like around reagan..
1
Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Wehner, that the thought processes of some born again Christians and the Tea Party Republicans have in common a distain for facts and rational thought, but embrace conspiracy theories, bigotry, and ignorance. A large majority of both the Republican Party and the born again support the likes of Trump and Moore, while they attack Democrats and centrist Republicans. These are your people. Oh, and you left out John XXIII; he never gave safe haven to a prince of the Church who protected priests who raped children.
1
These days it seems when you join a church, you pretty well join the Republican party too. My wife's home church used to refuse to put up an American flag because God was God of the entire world, not just one nation. Now the Sunday school materials have abbreviations such as CIA and FBI. All this hurts the church itself.
1
Congratulations to Peter Wehner who has refused to get on the hypocrisy train in his religion and political party....Now let us get more Congress members to get off that train as well.
1
"...Rather than Republicans and people of faith checking his most unappealing sides, the president is dragging down virtually everyone within his orbit."
The president is not doing this so much as giving your party's members within his orbit the opportunity to dive ever deeper into the swamp of corruption that trump embodies, intent on serving their own interests, primarily totalitarianism with a smiley face, a flag, and a Jesus fish glued to the GOP's collective bumper of their fetid dump truck.
A political party that will happily march to the drumbeat of racism, sexism, environmental degradation; that is disregarding the needs of poor, handicapped, and frail elderly Americans - some of whom are veterans; and fomenting toxic nationalism and international isolationism, etc., etc., and then declare themselves "Shocked! Shocked, mind you..." when you now feel the heat of myriad negative GOP goals coming home to roost.
Begun under your sainted Pres. Reagan, these philosophical leanings, backed by policy decisions for the past 30+ years, now rise up on their hind legs and start smashing and tearing up American democracy with clawed hands. To say nothing of our reputation across the globe....
Sorry to break it to you, but it is YOUR party that gave us a joke of a president in the shape of a reality TV show star. And this is one patriot who has no respect for your pearl-clutching political/religious discomfiture.
2
"the Republican Party, which was created to end slavery and preserve the Union..."
It took you 50 years after Goldwater et al's "Southern Strategy" to realize this is no longer true?
2
The face of the Republican party and the meaning of Evangelism has been changing for a long, long time. You are just coming to the realization of this in a kind of latent bewildered manner. Thousands and thousands of Americans died of AIDS during Reagan's term and Evangelicals were on the band wagon proclaiming God's revenge on homosexuals. My feelings on any religion is that there has to be a scapegoat to make the whole thing work. Religion is the easy way to explain just about anything to anyone who will listen without asking any questions. The same is going on with government today. People don't seem to have the sense God gave them to ask questions and become responsible to themselves for some degree of critical thinking.
2
As Karl Marx once wrote in Capital: " The English Established Church, e.g., will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income."
I respect your honesty and commitment to your faith and values Mr. Wehner. But what you are dealing with are people who use political ideologies and religion to mask what are essentially money making schemes. Trump - as was revealed by his son not so long ago - is very much dependent on Russian money for his fortune as no other bank in the world will lend him money. And 'Judge' Moore uses God and Jesus to hide his libidinous escapades with 14 year olds, etc...
But don't despair. Those who support them today - in the electorate - hold no real values or beliefs. Religion for them is a stick they use to hit people who remind them of who they could be and politics is a weapon to make others as miserable as they are. You are clearly not one of them and for that I respect your path and your being! People like you will survive this folly and be there to help rebuild once the era of decadence has subsided.
Church and state, when linked together, become the jaws of a trap. No one is free when the two are in partnership for the purpose of achieving and maintaining power. This is what the Taliban and ISIS are all about.
It doesn't matter what the state or the religion is; together they are toxic.
4
There are no modern Jeremiahs among Christians in America because the "Faith" is just another commercial. To raise your voice is to disappear into digital oceans of Internet without a boat or a lifesaver. Even the Pope's knees buckle under the current currents. Once again, the worst of religion has returned.
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
That says it all.
"Welch: You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
Comments of Joseph Welch to then Senator Joseph McCarthy.
It's a good question for a lot of republicans today.
1
Mr. Werner, Thanks for mentioning George W’s work on the global AIDS crisis; however, you failed to recognize Ronald Reagan’s mass murder of a generation of gay men here in the United States. Im sure it’s easy to glance over his inaction considering the near canonization of RR by modern republicans. It seems he was a great precursor to your current lack of faith in your fellow evangelical republicans.
2
Will you pledge to vote Democratic next time and every time? Or start a third party? If not, I'm not interested in what you have to say and you're no less a hypocrite than the rest of them.
2
Sir, you demean atheists. Atheists are every bit as moral as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.
Further, it is clear that many of those who claim to believe in a god, are as immoral as they come.
5
You're late. Where were you when evangelicalism lost it's way? Perhaps, had you done something sooner, we would not be in this mess. People like you are why I eschewed my religion, despite considerable religious training and considering the ministry-and that was decades ago.
1
Well you certainly get a failing grade for history. Reagan and his bigotry, not to mention hubris, are nothing to look up to. Reagan had no more nor less to do with the Soviets than Ford or Carter. For that matter every western leader since wwii had a more or less equal role in its demise. Even Bush senior who's term saw the end if the Soviets played a part. Republicans have been the party of "dumb" since Reagan. On another point, how can you mention Reagan and aids in the same sentence without choking on your words? Seriously. Think about that for a while. If you think that Reagan was a Christian then we have a radically different idea of Christianity. Jesus would never have approved of anything he did.
2
Mr Wehner,
I was once a Christian, in the "born again" sense. Spent a good deal of time in my Methodist church (in the 70s), sang "Kum Ba Yah" more times than I like to think and helped make James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend" into a song about Jesus.
But, like St. Paul, I've put away childish things and no longer am a believer. Part of what drove me away was Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell, who together turned evangelical Christians against the one man who as President, I thought, could truly be called a Christian: Jimmy Carter.
I guess you're just getting there a bit later than I did (I'm almost 20 years old than you).
Why were you not upset by those two posers?? This was happening waaay before Trump and Moore.
5
He told us exactly who he was during his campaign, so no surprise there. This is what happens when you mix your religion with your politics. It does justice to neither.
3
Do tell us, which, exactly, was the last straw? when did it finally and at long last become apparent that the GOP was utterly morally bankrupt, meanspirited, and corrupt?
Was it when Trump mocked the disabled? used antisemitic tropes against his opponent? Insulted the bereaved? called racists 'fine people'? let Puerto Rico eat cake? worked hard to take food and health care away from the elderly, the widowed, the orphaned, and the poor? when did it all become too much for the 'real' Christians? What finally did it for you?
Thankfully. I'm not bitter.
8
I did not see apology or what the author might do to make amends for the damage he and his fellow travelers have done to the country and the world.
6
I agree with everything you say, Mr. Wehner. But I take some comfort in that, among evangelical thought leaders, many have refused to go along with the trend you describe. I'm not speaking of the ones who seek mass followings, but the ones who shape evangelical theology, publish in evangelical presses, and teach in evangelical institutions.
We could use some reporting on them -- not just on those on the evangelical left (some of whom have made their own devil's bargain with progressive politics), and not just the well known conservative dissenters (Albert Mohler comes to mind). I'm thinking of the scores who realize that integrity is weightier than identity politics, and who take to heart the Niebuhrs' warnings about the inevitable corruption that power works upon creed.
1
There is some terrible blindness here.
Mr. Wehner mentions Trump and Moore as perfect men to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity.
Then he makes abizarre comment that these two are SO bad, that a "person of the left and an atheist," could have created them, to embarrass or shame evangelicals and the GOP.
No. It's you, Mr Wehner, who created them. Not boogymen atheists, not evil "persons of the left," - YOU, Mr. Wehner, the GOP and Evangelical whites.
For the past 36 years, since Reagan, you personally have chosen to not see the immorality, the racism, the contempt for the poor, the sexual control of women, the environmental degradation of this land.
You, along with evangelical Christians and the Republican Party: YOU created Trump and Moore, you supported them and still support them, with or without the evangelical label. They are your end product.
1504
Thank you, exactly my thoughts. To think and say that the people that you define to be at the other end of the political and religious spectrum could have any interest to create Trump, Moore and Co is part of the problem the GOP and Evangelicals have, which Mr. Wehner has not left behind yet. Stop thinking that other people always have bad things in mind (e.g. women seeking abortion, people seeking healthcare, the neighbour against whom I must protect myself with a gun, the gay person marrying and many more).
11
That is not what he is saying at all. He is saying IF the counter to evangelical politics - progressive left - tried to create something to discredit the other side it would look like Trump and Moore. He does not blame the left for producing them.
10
Thank you, Dr...always astounding to see how blind blind "faith" can actually be. Funny how Mr. wouldn't recognize his own Jesus if he actually did come back. All that progressive radical feminism, equality, acceptance, love, and tolerance emanating from him would almost certainly be equated with liberal atheism. What a delicious irony/paradox from our astute "conservative" set....
8
As despicable as Roy Moore's behavior with children, his abuse of the Christian faith is even worse. Evangelicals seem to flock to some of the worst of us just because of their claim to hold Christianity as their own. This includes bad politicians like Trent Franks, self serving churches like Joel Osteen, and a whole spectrum of self serving borderline criminals. Please people, be careful who your hero's are. Most of them could not care about Christian values and are just using them to achieve power including the current occupant of the White House.
33
I assume your are still a Christian but you may no longer be a Republican. May I suggest then that, freed from the constraints of party loyalty, you now apply your Christian values to addressing these issues:
1. Apply your Christian values to work for Universal Health Care in America. In a nation as rich as ours no citizen should die prematurely because he/she can't afford health care.
2. Apply your Christian values to work for sensible controls on the ownership of firearms. No Constitutional right is unlimited. Too many Americans die because there are too many firearms not too few.
3. Apply your Christian values to work for the elimination of the Death Penalty. It is a certainty in America that the State has executed innocent people.
Christians value life. These are things all Christians should support.
44
There are so many issues that should be included in any list of critical needs but as our system of Capitalism necessarily operates to defeat societal efforts toward increasing basic quality of life (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) for the many rather than corporate profit for the few. The god of corporate america stands with evangelicals and the GOP as the Trinity.
3
I am an atheist and a centrist. We do not care to discredit GOP because we favor truths and objectivity and prefer to live and let live. We respect our constitution and understands GOP's place in our system. It is the GOP who feels the need to make an enemy of us in order to attack us.
Evangelicalism is rotting US from within. It provides believers (mindless drones) indisputable ideological basis to believe that their Lord wants them to be rich (justifies economic cruelties), that the Lord despises LGBT (justifies discriminatory practices), that the Lord wants women to be subservient to men (justifies sexual harassment), and when in doubt, it is God over country, Bible over Constitution.
Evangelicalism is dumbing down a generation of American students by introducing such lies as "Intelligent Design", by touting the Bible, basically a story book written by unknown authors, to be the Gospel Truth. This treasonous act will render us impotent against a rising China.
Evangelicalism is rotting the GOP from within. The Bible acts as the source of absolute power that is corrupting the party and its supporters absolutely. This rot and corruption justify their support for Roy Moore and Donald Trump.
Evangelicalism and the GOP are destroying our governments and our unique democratic system. Evangelicalism and religion have no place in politics and governance. They need to be eradicated from all public institutions.
23
I've been waiting for somebody to write this column. however, the evangelical sect has been unchristian since well before trump and moore.
23
Yes.....the movement is now nothing more than bandwagon "spirituality" that finds more strength in numbers than doing any meaningful inner work. To be fair, that underlying hypocrisy permeates all man-contrived religion, but it's especially mutated this movement to not even remotely resemble what it was at its inception.....Good call....
2
I am both a liberal and an atheist who grew up surrounded by conservative Republicans and the religious. I never knew those people, with whom I now disagree politically on a fundamental level, to be anything but kind, earnest human beings who would do anything for a stranger in need. Ironically, in many ways my non-religious based morality was engendered but them.
There has been a coup, not only in the Republican Party, but against the morality of good-meaning people on the right and, in the final analysis, the country.
I am confident that the vast number of Americans are good people who agree more than they disagree. I am hoping, because I no longer pray, that someone with courage will step up and united us again against the poisonous, vermin who have divided us and taken control.
16
Peter Wehner's caricature of a non-Republican as "a person on the left and an atheist" is interesting. Because when I think of a good Christian person, it's former President Jimmy Carter (a Democrat) who comes immediately to mind.
50
Where has Mr. Wehner been since 1972 when the GOP so enthusiastically adopted Nixon's racist "Southern Strategy?"
The GOP's moral bankruptcy is nothing new, but it has become so clear that these days even intolerant evangelicals can see that modern Republicans are hypocrites and Fake Christians.
----- Once a modern Republican, never again a decent person.
Loyal, decent, ethical Americans should shun all Republicans socially and, to the extent practicable, commercially.
13
Ah yes. The Southern Strategy. It carried the South in 1968 for....George Wallace. Oh dear. In 1972 Nixon won 49 states ie comprehensive victory was assured with or without the South.
The Southern Strategy is a convenient myth but a myth nevertheless in light of some basic facts.
Must have been my "Republicans and Russians" comment that offended the tenets of moderation but for the life of me I cannot understand why a FDR Democrat/Goldwater Republican should be excluded from comment. Perhaps it was the pseudo-Christian analogy...
2
Mr. Wehner, I am a "person of the left" precisely BECAUSE I am a Christian.
39
There are humble Christians in the Democratic Party. Yes the term Evangelical is corrupt because of those that feel saved one day then go off the path thinking they're better than others and in the worst case with the attitude God favors me with wealth, the other person without anything is "getting what he deserved." Evangelical in many people's minds means hypocrite, pure and simple. To say someone is just saved from then on absolves their actions for the rest of their life. They aren't Christians. Christians need to be led to the fountain then walked with along the path set for them (by someone else in faith). The whole movement needs Christ to flow through them and through their works! Sounds sort of Catholic doesn't it? Christians are compassionate, Ayn Rand's ideology run wild is not Christian. Both ideologies are the Republican Party now. Don't you think they might be opposite? That party is literally eating itself from the inside from money. We do need a two party system. Mr. Wehner I ask you and others like you to pick up the pieces so we can govern.
10
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
I am of the left and atheist, and have to say, I have watched Republicans and Evangelicals working for decades to create precisely the scenario we have now. Ronald Reagan knew how to solidify the racist (mainly) southern vote, and the Falwell's of the evangelical world spewed decades of hateful bile, both causing unnecessary misery to millions. You own Mr. Trump and Mr. Moore.
43
Good for you! You'll find life much easier once you discard the absurd 'belief' that the earth has been around for only 6,000 years!
11
And while almost everyone winces, wrings their hands and moans — waxes eloquent, hyperbolic even as here about the obvious — that Trump and his cohort of courtiers and coterie of hangers-on are destroying our country from within — no one actually rises up and tries to stop him.
22
Neither Ronald Reagan nor Pope John Paul II influenced the events of November 9, 1989 when East Germans walked through openings of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of East Germany, and sequential dissolution of the Soviet Union, was caused by financial collapse of the communist system.
17
Oh, there you go, bringing facts to the party when everyone else just wants to love the myth that Reagan exploded the debt to save us from Communism.
The USSR was collapsing from corruption and financial mismanagement - it really didn't need our help. But life is much more fun when we can demonize a foe - and it helps take our attention away from the fact that Reagan was changing the US - into an "I" society vs a "we".
And Trump will continue the game by demonizing instead of solving.
Mr. Wehner - I suppose the fact that you were so close to both Republican conservatism and evangelical Christianity is the reason you never saw this coming. Those of us who are more removed from the movements saw it coming many, many years ago. It was the inevitable result of what began with Reagan and even earlier, in the 1960s when the Republicans decided that whites were better than blacks. The party of Lincoln is long, long dead. Fascism has come to American wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, and you, sadly, helped it along.
18
I agree that "evangelical" has lost its meaning. I think "followers of Christ" is a more accurate label. Followers of Christ do not go along with those you mention.
8
It's good that you acknowledge how un-Christian Donald Trump and Roy Moore are, but you make two grave mistakes. First, with your hypothetical example of "a person of the left and an atheist," you imply that liberals lack faith and (therefore) lack morals. But you don't need a god-forsaken leftist to discredit evangelical Christians; they've been doing it themselves for decades. Second, the Republican Party embodied un-Christian values long before Trump, with its focus on the welfare of wealthy white (heterosexual) males at the expense of everyone else. Jesus did not say government is the problem or make up phony stories about welfare queens to fuel racial animosity and class war.
16
Evangelical means Hypocrite to me. I'm appalled at the words and actions of so many so called Christians. Jesus is love but hate seems to be the driving force of this presidency along with the love of money. Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" Have they read the New Testament?
21
Too Little, Too Late.
Someone as intelligent as Mr. Wehner is smart enough to have seen the warning signs years ago under Reagan's lack of sympathy for the poor, lack of sympathy for AIDS sufferers and his callous disregard for balloning the deficit in the name of defeating Russia while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
He should have recognized Hilary's health care was something to be fixed not ridiculed and stamped out.
He should have spoken out about AIDS back then, not applaud someone 20 years later because it's in political vogue.
No, Mr. Wehner, we are happy to have you, but we never would have gotten to this point if smart, caring people like you had seen the light back then.
And as for your religion, it has no place in politics...when I hear the word "Christian" spoken by politicians, all it does is make me feel like I will never be included in any reindeer games.
Thanks for the Op-Ed, but it's a squirt gun against the coming army.
25
Thank you for speaking out Mr. Wehner. I'm somewhere between Barack Obama and David Brooks politically, but I've been impressed by the quality of thought on the intellectual right these days. I find it morally serious and eloquent. The problem with the right these days is that the most influential people in the movement are lunatic blowhards like Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin and Dennis Prager.
11
A nice piece. Several like it have appeared of late. Too bad they are in the NYTimes and not one or more of the top ten Alabama newspapers. Here, Mr. Wehner is unfortunately preaching to the choir.
17
This column should have been written right after Trump was elected. You were unaware of the Access Hollywood tape?
Yet evangelicals overwhelmingly voted for Trump? Did you?
18
Wehner. America is not a theocracy, and was set up that way on purpose. If you evangelicals would behave more like the documented actions of Christ, things would be better for all. Amen.
11
I don't think he is implying that America should be a theocracy. The whole point of the piece, it would seem, is the gross deviation that Republicans and Evangelicals have taken in the last few years(though I would say that the seeds of this were sown during Regan and fueled by Gingrich). They have both devolved into schemes of self-benefit to the detriment of everyone else, hand-in-hand while the country burns.
1
Mr. Wenger makes several good points and I applaud his return to reason. However, I can't help but point out that this should have happened decades ago. Maybe with the arms for hostages issue, but surely with the invasion of Iraq and the resultant deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and the complete destabilization of the Middle East. Perhaps he might have fought the lie machine known as FOX news - Maybe he did. I suspect that he, and many like him, enjoyed the electoral fruits of those lies. Unfortunately, your soul has been sold and you can't get it back now because too many have suffered and died. Next time, search ypur soul prior to handing ot to Satan.
5
"Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore."
Ye gods....what an off-handed slur this is upon the left and the atheists. As if you needed to be one or the other or both to set about to wreak political havoc upon opponents. I'll leave the "create a couple of people in a laboratory" to the nightmares of the fantasy-soaked paranoid types.
The conceit doesn't need an assignment to anyone group in particular to work as a horror story. And the analogy doesn’t fit anyway. Trump and Moore weren’t “created" in the laboratory sense…they created themselves in an atmosphere of acceptance by groups of people looking for scapegoats and white paradise.
The author has some more work to do to cleanse his mind of stereotypical boogiemen on his journey to spiritual/political peace.
9
Mr. Wehner, I have been aware of you--and your painful predicament--since March of 2016. It was then your piece in TIME magazine--"The Party Of Reagan Is No More"--first appeared. I was struck by that piece, Mr. Wehner--I have gone back and reread it (online) a number of times.
"Having done all, to stand." It says that in Scripture somewhere. That, sir, would be my word to you. And to other "evangelicals"--oops! sorry--mustn't use that fateful word--to other "conservative Christians." Including myself.
And I would suggest: there are more--far more maybe--disillusioned and disgusted "conservative Christians" out there than you might think.
But we are still a minority. That's where the "standing" comes in. To hold fast--to hold as with a grip of iron--the standards of decency, of probity, of transparency which (so far as I can see) were held by the Apostles themselves. This madness may pass, Mr. Wehner. When--how--I have no idea. What disillusionment, what destruction it may leave in its wake I have no idea.
Sometimes I think, you just HAVE to stand firm, stand fast not KNOWING when the storm will break. Or how. Or anything.
And you DO things from time to time.
Like write the piece you just did. For which, all I can say is. . .
. .. thank you. From the bottom of my heart. . .
. .thank you.
5
To be an evangelical republican in 2017 is simple. The litmus test requires one to be pro-Trump and merely pay lip service to our Lord and Savior. Trump has became the Christian Right's Messiah and Roy Moore is Trump's 13th disciple.
7
I am grateful for Mr. Wehner's honest reflections, his integrity, and the difficult choices he has had to make.
That said, the paragraph beginning 'Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist..." was jarring. And offensive. The conflation of being a "person of the left" and "an atheist" is a sloppy and lazy reliance on a stereotype. Atheist are found on the left and the right. People of faith are found on the left and the right. I consider myself as mcsh a person of faith as Mr. Wehner. but am also to the left politically. The stereotype that Mr. Wehner put forth is at least equally insidious and inaccurate as the stereotype that all evangelical Christians are right-wing red-necks who support child rapists and serIal sexual exploiters.
I don't think he intended to promote the stereotype. But he did. He's a thoughtful and good person, but I hope he will be more careful in the future.
10
I truly resent the assumption that "a person of the left" would automatically be an atheist.
When I read the Sermon on the Mount I find nothing to support the positions taken by white evangelical Christianity. Rather these so-called Christians cheer when they see vulnerable people lose access to health care or food stamps. They carry guns to protect themselves from people like the man saved by the Good Samaritan.
Yet somehow many people seem to believe that God is a Republican. I believe these people need to consider the motes in their own eyes and stop calling people "of the left" Godless heathens.
13
Too little, too late. You and your Republican true believers hitched your wagon to the likes of the departed and loathsome Jerry Falwell early on; reaped the whirlwind of Reagan's winking racism of starting his campaign in the killing fields of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi; watched war criminal Bush 43 hot dog it with a strutting mission accomplished in a Navy jet; you kept silent while the tea partiers raised their pitchforks and birtherism while President Obama worked to clean up the wreckage of Bush's unleashing of our economy transformed into a casino. I wasn't looking for I'm sorry, but every Republican who voted for Reagan, Bush 43, and Trump 1 and done, I hope, have a lot to answer for.
11
Well, Mr. Wehner, it is you, people like you, and your whole prosperity-gospel-believing, pro-birth, our-way-or-the-highway self-righteousness that has turned many of us completely away from religion and the awful “American Christianity,” you so firmly preach and support. As a fiscal conservative but social liberal, there’s no place in either party for people like me. I love seeing you all destroy each other. Those of us in the middle are really tired of it.
4
Kyrie Eleison (Lord Have Mercy)!
There are not a lot of Senators or Congressmen who are going to come out of the last judgement in good shape, thats where those who cared for the poor, widowed, naked, orphans, hungry, immigrants, and imprisoned get to stand on the Lord's right hand.
Many TV Evangelists are also going to stand with the goats, especially those who protect men who harm children from growing Spiritually.
If memory serves me still, any Alabama Christian or preacher man. who honors a politician, who has harmed children is in a heap of trouble with the Lord.
7
How many more disillusioned supporters of the Republican Party will it take to break the current fever? Maybe more than you think.
Trump represents a realignment of political forces. This will involve many former members departing and new members being attracted. Those leaving, while conservative, were thoughtful and moral, you might say liberal in their own way.
The new members represent a hard-edged, resentful and vengeful mob. Trump struts before them and leads them in chants of “Lock Her Up!” Let’s not kid ourselves. Trump is a fascist and he is whipping up all the anger and resentment he can to shore up his power among his base.
The Republican Party doesn’t want to lose the chance to loot the place on the way out. Trump is a convenient tool to sell their destructive policies to an angry mob who will probably be most harmed. When the harm arrives, Trump will just blame “elites” and demand to rule by decree because the system is “rigged”. He already talks the game. It’s just a matter when the crisis arrives that allows him and his circle to grab control.
7
If you actually read the bible (try a red letter edition), and think about what Jesus is reported to say, I think that if you were looking for Jesus in the world today you'd be much more likely to find him in a Planned Parenthood waiting room than any evangelical church.
10
There are few thoughts here that qualify as such. This is a thoughtless person who actually supported Reagan at a time when Reagan was a joke to any thoughtful person. The rest of the piece is one thoughtless and empty idea after another. Superstition has its place, but only in nursery rhymes and children's literature. To devote an entire adult lifetime to such drivel is a sign of a lower mammal, not the rational human beings that Aristotle and Socrates, through Hegel and Marx, believed formed the basis of civilization.
3
Have you read Aristotle? He was not an atheist. There are more historical examples of significant, thoughtful, and intelligent people who believed in a deity than those who did not.
Morality has little to do with how people label themselves. I would suggest if your behavior is inconsistent with loving your fellow human being, then it is time to change your religious beliefs.
4
Let us hope Mr. Wehner is basically a well intended person who is finally evolving to the point he wants to understand reality. Let me say it in a fashion that will be understood in his lexicon. 'God gave us a brain and logical faculties so that we could distinguish rhetoric from reality. And God expects us to use it.'
Mr. Wehner, All religions have always claimed to be the truth and the administrators, aka clergy, have always used that to control the believers' behavior, including voting behavior, to enhance themselves or their patrons. It's up to the believers, like you, to use that god given brain to decide if you have been tricked.
It looks like you are belatedly doing so.
Congratulations, keep it up! (And please explain it to your friends!)
3
I was hoping to read in this comment that President Obama more embodied the teachings of Jesus Christ than Donald Trump did. I guess I was expecting too much.
12
Many, if not most, evangelical Christians are showing that they have no problem in voting for a anti-christ as long as they get empty promises and a reason to think they can speak loudly about their bigotry and desire for a theocracy.
6
I am a devout Christian. I refuse to allow a label to be attached to me. I am a follower of the Gospel of Christ.
The Gospel means: too good to be true news.
Most Christians do not have any idea what it actually means. They are still living and teaching the Old Covenant of Law. Jesus came and fulfilled that covenant. We are no longer under the law or if we are it means Jesus died in vain.
We christians are now under the New Covenant of Grace, if only they understood. God Himself tells us, "My people perish for lack of knowledge."
Politics should not be involved at all. It is our jobs as christians to allow Jesus to live His life through us. We should be telling the world the good news that Jesus has set us free from the law because He fulfilled the law for us knowing no one could ever live up to it's requirements.
The bible tells us "It is the goodness of God that brings man to repentance." It the so called christians want God's will to be done on earth they need to preach of goodness of God and all the world will come to know Him.
Instead they allow Satan to deceive them into believing they are still under the Old Covenant Law.
3
Keep speaking up please. We need as much moral courage as possible. The Republicans have made a pack with the devil. Find a voice who can stop the poisonous Hannity crew.
5
What is perplexing to most people is how can you profess to love The Word and be a Racist and Sexist at the same time? People are saying they are voting for Moore because they don't believe the women when they know they are being untruthful. They need to justify why they are supporting a child abuser and racist so these Evangelist lie and broad brush the women as liars. We must realize we are talking about Alabama the state that elected George Wallace numerous times as governor. It is politically incorrect today to be an overt racist so they use Pro Life and love of country as their excuse to support a child abuser and racist. Alabama wants to go back to the days of the Old South and they think Roy Moore and Trump will get them there. I just wish they would stop pretending they are doing Gods work. A Moore win may go over well in the state of Alabama but it seriously compromise us in the eyes of the word. Alabama just can't get over it was a Democratic President that pushed through the Civil and Voting rights acts in the 60's. Someone needs to tell them the Civil War has been over for 152 years and its time they stop fighting it.
8
It is one thing to recognize that Trump and Moore are not Christians. But can the writer also recognize the Christian values embodied in Barack Obama? You cannot be a true evangelical Christian without recognizing both.
11
It should have been enough when Trump came down his golden escalator (too lazy for golden stairs) and said:
" When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists." that should have done it for TRUE Christians.
But in 2011 when Trump backed the Birther nonsense, that should have done it for True Christians.
When the Central Park 5 were PROVEN to be absolutely innocent and Trump insisted they were still guilty, THAT should have done it for True Christians.
When Trump was accused of cheating people out of millions at Trump U, and called the judge who ruled against him biased for being of Mexican descent, that should have done it for True Christians.
When Trump was the only hotelier in Las Vegas who wouldn't cut a deal with the underpaid union cleaners, that should have done it for True Christians.
And, when the Access Hollywood tape came out, that should absolutely have done it for True Christians.
When Trump appointed people to destroy our education, parks, pollution controls, that should have done it for True Christians.
But when it has become clear that Trump is working to destroy all our government structures of liberty solely to protect himself and his fortune, & endorsed Moore, nobody who hasn't had enough has no right to call themselves a true ANYTHING!
9
"...the global AIDS and malaria initiative is one of President George W. Bush’s greatest legacies..."
To me it's nauseating to hear the suggestion that evangelicals deserve credit for combatting AIDS when they were the biggest obstacle to AIDS research in its early years. Hateful, narrow-minded, heartless and cruel, they self-righteously insisted that AIDS was God's punishment visited upon wicked homosexuals, and Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party played right along. Have you forgotten those days?
A fundamental quality of humans is that we're social beings. We naturally care about each other. Sometimes religion brings that out. Sometimes it's an effective prophylactic against feeling compassion or having any capacity for self-criticism.
8
When a person no longer practices what it preaches, they lose their identity and integrity
3
The Ronald Reagan you admired: would that be the same man who began his campaign for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi? Who spoke in the code of "welfare queens"? Who refused to recognize AIDS as a plague on the gay community?
Your selective memory and renunciation of current evangelicalism are a day late and a dollar short, Mr. Wehner.
6
You now reject Trumpism, but as I recall how the Republican party, and Evangelicals, evolved to a racist xenophobic party over more than 30 years, you have accepted and propagated a lot a thinly veiled "dog whistle" messages. Any honest thinking person had to know! Trump is the result of Republican politics over many many years, he did not suddenly transform it. You were complicit.
7
It would be great if the evangelical magazine "Christianity Today" reran this article.....I don't think too many evangelicals have the courage and sincerity to read it w an open mind.
6
Good for you. You are a little late to the game, I must say. But good for you. The President's you served led the way to this moment. Trump is the insane relative to Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. The GOP would have preferred to keep him hidden in the attic, but he escaped!
2
Mr. Wehner, welcome to the Resistance! While you may not have consciously decided to burn your bridges behind you, you have. Your Evangelical friends and acquaintances will view you as having betrayed what they will call 'the cause of Christ.' And, of course, the Republicans will think you're a victim of liberal propaganda.
As has been said in another context, "Once you see, you cannot unsee." You see what's happening to the country we love, and who's causing it. The only question is what you'll do about it.
6
Say, that is great.
But I am sure you still believe the poor have too much money and the rich don't have enough.
4
"But for now a solid majority of Republicans and self-described evangelicals are firmly aboard the Trump train, which is doing its utmost to give a seat of privilege to Mr. Moore."
"a seat of privilege"--Not much up on the history of Senate since Washington, not to mention the latest New Jersey boy from the Senate who should be in prison.
Give me a break: If we can have a Boxer protégé and ardent cultural Marxist like Harris, why not Moore? Nice balance, to be sure.
Let's not trash this man for the past he has and shares with us in this essay. He has stepped forward when so many in his circle have not. He has done good in his life, and while I am certain that we share opposing views on some issues, I am not going to sit in judgement of him today. He is taking a stand, and by doing may lead others to do the same.
5
Took you long enough, Peter Wehner. But, welcome to the resistance. Couldn't tell, from the article, if you'll vote against Trump, or the Republican, whoever it is, come 2020, though.
2
This is just scratching the surface, but as long as you're tossing out the names of men who have defamed the name of Christ, don't leave out Jeffress, the Falwells, Robertson, and Franklin Graham. For that matter, you can also included the last thirty presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention.
3
When I first heard about Evangelicals during the Reagan years, it was about people like Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and their brand of “me first” and “my religious beliefs outweigh the Constitution.”
Peter Wehner’s column is the first time in decades that I’ve seen evangelicals as fellow humans, trying like the rest of us just to navigate the challenges of everyday life. I hope you represent the future of your movement because it will be a good group of people to be navigating with.
4
Your discussion needs to be in the WSJ and on Fox News.
On the NYT, it is largely worthless in terms of impact, other than making some liberals feel good about themselves, and hopeful about conservatives.
That your revelations are relatively newfound, is also troubling. The patterns and immorality and extremism of position you cite, have long been evident in Republican and Evangelical ranks. It's good you've finally recognized them. But again, for your recognition to have any meaning, it needs to be on platforms that Republicans and Evangelicals turn to for their news, not in the NYT. On the NYT it only is more a "feel good" piece for yourself and many readers.
5
Well done, Mr. Wehner. As someone who walked away from the Catholic Church (I would not have been a "Christian" according to proudly ignorant evangelicals) at long last after the child abuse and gay hatred of my church finally sunk in, maybe you are finally deciding to listen to the simple words of actual Christianity. Love your neighbor.
4
The party that will whistle and look at the ground while they vote for Roy Moore will go to a special place in the next life. Imagine risking your mortal soul for tax cuts that go to billionaires anyways?
2
Hey, I'm no Christian but I'm pretty confident that Jesus would not have approved of the present day Republicans or Evangelicals.
3
He needs to publish this where Republican evangelicals will read it. I am glad to learn that there are decent, rational, evangelicals out there but we need more of them and this forum is not the place to find and enlighten them.
509
Agreed!
1
The first thought that comes to mind, and what I want to say, but probably shouldn't—because it's not very Christian—is: "What took you so darn long?" You cite Reagan and John Paul II for bringing down Soviet Communism, and George W. Bush for his global AIDS legacy. But the unholy alliance between the GOP and evangelicals led to our government to dragging its feet on AIDS in the first place—under Reagan—causing countless young people and peers of mine to die. Shame!
My second thought is: Thank you. It's not easy to shift long-held identifications. Thank you for making that effort. I have examples in my own life of hanging on too long to unhelpful ideas and identifications. It ain't easy. Kudos to you.
The third point I want to make is to ask: Why merely push for institution renewal and regeneration (in the GOP and Evangelicism)? Why not sit down with those of us in other institutions and with different political leanings. I would consider myself a faith-filled liberal. I was happy to see the downfall of communism. And happy too to see George W. Bush take on global AIDS and malaria. Perhaps there is more that we can do together without having to separate ourselves into constructs like "evangelical," "Republican," "conservative," Democrat," and so on. Let's talk!
45
I'm interested in what this means in a practical sense for Mr. Wehner. Are you going to start voting for Democrats? Stop voting altogether? I applaud the soul-searching -- although the Republicans have set a low moral bar indeed when they support one man who molested a 14-year old and a president whose entire history of narcissism, fraud and sexual misconduct was on the front pages of tabloids even before he was elected. But in terms of how Mr. Wehner will now live his life, what does it all add up to? Does this disgust you enough to do anything other than to stop publicly calling yourself an evangelical Republican?
23
This is all great, and it’s deeply encouraging to see conservative Christians breaking with trump for all the right reasons. Yet, by asserting that “a person of the left and an atheist” could not have designed better men to discredit evangelicalism than trump and Roy Moore, the writer displays the kind ofthinking that led evangelicals to trump.
Namely, liberals cant have real faith, liberal Christians ar an oxymoron and, most important, liberals seek to attack and destroy faith.
27
What's happened to "evangelical Christianity" is similar to what has happened in Islam. People who do NOT represent that tradition's true teachings have claimed its mantle for themselves and horrified those who really do try to live by those religions. Christian evangelicals looking for public voices that really do communicate the Gospel's message might look to the current pope or to Rev. Barber.
14
I'm not exactly looking forward to reading any further pieces with 'poor me, I was an evangelical, and now I''m not.'
7
There is no stain in the category "conservative," as there is none in "liberal." But evangelicalism represents a strain of religion different from many other Christian sects. It's core idea is that if one 'truly' believes Jesus is God, all is forgiven. A serial liar, con-man, sexual predator, is better than a woman who defends children's rights, including their health, and raised the status of women globally - if the criminal says Jesus is great. This is the slippery slope St. Augustine warned against. Humans are never 'saved for good,' only saved and not so good. When people think they've got a key to utopia, here or in the afterlife, watch out.
Trump isn't an aberration for evangelicalism, he's a consequence. Once you believe you're safe, blame-free, because you have an iron-clad identity, you can let your instincts and biases run wild. Doubt, the foundation of science, is banished. Where there's no confessionl, reasoning deteriorates. It's why power corrupts absolutely. But the powerless aren't immune, if they think shouting "God is great" lets them murder.
Evangelical conservatism was born after southern school segregation. Middle-class whites put kids in evangelican schools, cheap, discriminating, and tax free. The first generations so educated are the base today. A bit like the impact of Saudi-funded madrases. As the man said, it's easier to see the log in the other person's eye, than the speck in your own.
24
Many of that first generation of homeschoolers and conservative Evangelicals went to Liberty University to study law and politics. After McConnell blocked Obama's Federal Court appointees, he is now packing the Federal Courts, life-time appointments, to these people. That's why I'm quite concerned about the future of America. Another conservative Supreme Court (McConnell outright stole that seat from Obama) member and all of these Liberty Law people in Federal/State courts......it's very worrisome to me. Much could change in the courts. When we lose the Judiciary to Trump or someone else like Trump, we are looking at going backwards as a country, not forward.
5
I can only hope more of Mr. Wehner's ilk follow his lead. It's past time.
8
Evangelical Christians are a large part of the problem. It is shocking that it took Mr. Wehner this long to see the GOP is filled with hypocrisy, pathological lying, greed, corruption and a party that has waged class warfare against ordinary working class Americans for decades - as a matter of fact, since his hero Reagan started it all in the 80's. I find his, and other extremist right-wingers, mea-culpa a little suspect and very late in coming. Mr. Wehner, you had better start convincing extremist Christians to look at policy and not be single-issue voters, you know like the decades old war against a women's right to choose for example. You should tell them to vote for candidates that Jesus would support (WWJD?), it certainly wouldn't be Trump or most of the current Congressional GOP members.
13
I have worse news for you: Jesus was a left-wing radical. Conservatives are the ones who killed him.
If you keep going down this road of intellectual honesty, eventually you’re going to have to pick between Jesus and Reagan. Their views on the poor and the meek, on the stranger and the widow, on the throwing of stones - there’s really no way to reconcile them.
40
“What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet”
-Shakespeare
As far as I’m concerned, evangelicals can call themselves whatever they want, but they’ll still smell just as bad.
17
Mr Wehner-your Party has left you long ago; you are just now realizing how far gone it is. The GOP is now Trump, and Trump is now the GOP. Perhaps you, David Brooks, David Frum, Bret Stephens, George Will and Christopher Buckley can form a new party that resembles what the GOP used to be. But yours will be doomed to be a small minority party with no real political power (basically a think tank). Or, you can join the “Democrat” Party you have all despised. Good luck with your decision, or should I say Hobson’s choice?
9
I see this differently Peter. I don't see your distancing yourself from Moore and Trump to be a repudiation of your faith or your politics, I see it as you standing up for Christianity and Conservatism. Let the others be born again, you're fine the way you were. Thanks for sticking to your guns and the underlying promise of both schools of thought.
2
Mr. Weiner makes a valiant attempt to redeem Evangelical Christianity and emerges as a thoughtful and honest person in so doing. He is, however, wrong. Evangelicalism in America is what it has long been. Religious fanaticism of white pseudochristians working for a rigid patriarchy, domination of "those people", and a government that imposes their dark and narrow world view on the mass of humanity.
19
None of the Republican primary candidates in 2016 would admit in public they believed in evolution.
Similar for global warming.
And how does one praise Reagan with his take care of the rich trickle-down economics and claim to be a follower of the teachings of Jesus at the same time.
14
When this is all done, and evangelicals have jumped off the cliff with the likes of Trump and Moore, what hope do they think they have when they reach out to a non-believer and say, "Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" When someone tries to spread the gospel and at the same time say they voted for Trump, all they will hear are the sounds of laughter. Do they know how ridiculous they sound? The only good coming out of this, is that they are going to end up being such a tiny minority of a self-deluded group, that they won't have any effect on politics.
7
This is all about Sex, Money and Power, baby. Some people get greased, some steal it, some prostitute themselves for it. Does anybody reading this really believe that Moore and Trump are true believers in whatever they're peddling? Nah, they want Sex, Money and Power.
Jung said it best: The emotions a man has toward Sex, Money and Power at age 17, are appropriate for a 17 y.o. They become less appropriate at age 30, and if not changed by the time they're 40, they cannot help but become hopelessly neurotic. These guys aren't going to change. Maybe some of the evangelicals will.
BTW- you'll note the use of men in my comment. Women seem to be more realistic, and to not fall for this hyperbole the men do.
4
If it wasn't for White Women we wouldn't have Trump right now. Women are not excused from this madness.
4
One can be a Christian with out evangelizing. Leading by example, living like Christ, is an effective way to spread the good news. Evangeiicals have a very effective option they can choose to teach the ways of Jesus to the world, and doing it well doesn't leave much time for preaching.
7
Honestly, it's not enough to change a name. It's the same thing, quite frankly. MORE people in America -- thankfully -- are turning away from sky gods. More people describe themselves as agnostic or atheist -- now, more than they ever have. Religion is the reason for most every war we've ever had. Religion is why the Middle East will NEVER see peace. And it's all because of some fake thing up there in a cloud? Forgive me. But I have to laugh.
6
I don't believe ISIS or North Korea has to lift a finger to attack us. Our tail-spin began a year ago, and because no one of unlimited resources in this country will take a stand to stem the momentum--the bottom is not yet in sight.
11
A skunk by any other name is still a skunk and the stench remain no matter what you call it.
As long as Evangelicals continue to demand that our governmental institutions enforce their values and beliefs on others and shape the laws of the land in their favor and as long as they support politicians who favor the rich man over the working man, the rich man over the poor man, the rich man over the old or disabled man, then they constitute a grave danger to a democratic society where all men and women are deemed to be equal.
Christians are not more equal because they are Christians any more than white people are more equal because they are white!
Evangelicals deserve as much contempt as do the political tools of the very rich who work to make their patrons wealth and power as absolute as possible and seek to return us to a class bound, heavily stratified society where birth spells out one fate for life!
17
..."sometimes admitting to bizarre behavior in their own words". More like abhorrent and illegal behavior in their own words.
5
"Both the Republican Party, which was created to end slavery and preserve the Union, and evangelicalism, a transdenominational effort to faithfully represent Christ in word and deed, shaped my life and outlook, helping me to interpret the world."
This is the fundamental flaw in all of evangelical Christianity. Thinking that you faithfully represent Christ in word and deed. Really? In reality, Christ healed the sick, fed the poor and ministered to prostitutes and the outcasts of society. Does that sound like the Republican Party? Jesus of Nazareth took issue with the "scribes and the pharisees"--people who occupied precisely the same niche in society as the self-satisfied, proud, liberal-baiting people who call themselves "conservatives".
"....over the years Christians, myself included, have not gotten the balance right. But overall I felt that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement were imperfect forces for good, and I spent a large part of my life defending them."
See if you can't take another step or two away from this very narrow interpretation of what is actually good, and benefits living beings.
16