Weird Time for Christians

[RedDenver]

 

[RedDenver]

 

[TGHusker]

This kind of applies to this thread.  It is about social conservative in the GOP party - one doesn't need to be religious or a Christian specifically in order to wear the social conservative label.    This good article notes how many on the social right have now come to see that they have been 'played' by the GOP. The GOP gave broad promises but has not fulfilled those promises as expected.   It has been those promises that have kept social conservatives in the fold and as reliable voters for the GOP.  Many are having second thoughts.

Some of the recent court rulings have shaken the confidence of social conservatives that the GOP can deliver on those promises.

This quote from below sums up the feelings of many:

Quote

“The month of June ought to have made the scales fall from the eyes of religious conservatives. We have been the Republican Party’s useful idiots.”

 

 

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/1/21293370/supreme-court-conservatism-bostock-lgbtq-republicans

 

 

 

Quote

 

Other prominent social conservatives agreed. Rod Dreher, a writer at the American Conservative, told me the ruling in Bostock “really does lay bare how useless the bargain has been.”

“The GOP gives social conservatives little or nothing legislatively, and hasn’t for a very long time,” he said. “True, they have blocked some bad things over the years. That’s not nothing. But I think we’ve always known that judges are the real deal here.”

“Every institution — the media, academia, corporations, and others — are against us on gay and transgender rights, and GOP lawmakers are gutless. The only hope we had was that federal judges would protect the status quo. Now that’s gone.”

Social conservatives have been very successful at the state level, but many of those successes — abortion restrictions, for example — have been struck down by federal courts, like the case at the center of June Medical. And more worrying for social conservatives: Some of the most important decisions on LGBTQ rights — Lawrence (which ruled that laws barring private homosexual activity were unconstitutional), Windsor (which invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act), Obergefell (which found that the right to marry was guaranteed by the Constitution), and now Bostock — were written by Republican Supreme Court appointees.

“Social conservatives thought that having seen Anthony Kennedy — the author of Lawrence, Windsor, and Obergefell — off, things might finally change,” Dreher said. “Now we know we were fools.

“The month of June ought to have made the scales fall from the eyes of religious conservatives. We have been the Republican Party’s useful idiots.”

Other prominent commentators agreed: “Social conservatives have been treated like a client for whom the patron doesn’t actually have to deliver any goodies,” New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari told me. “That’s not how that relationship is supposed to work.”

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Rather than choose between the two opposing forces, the power base of the Republican Party has decided to largely throw in the towel, and hope that tax cuts and judicial appointments will do. But it won’t. And the risk for Republicans isn’t that social conservatives will vote for Democrats — it’s that they won’t vote at all.

Dougherty told me that Bostock represented a turning point for social conservatives. “There will have to be a rethinking of how social conservatives approach politics, likely with an emphasis on realpolitik and the long term. Playing rearguard defense in every election has been a way of losing the more important fights in education and the culture.”

And it’s those cultural losses that many social conservatives believe are piling up and putting their views at risk: Kantor told me he was concerned the left would ultimately “force social conservatives to choose between their vocations and their faith or to make compromises to live underground.”

But the strongest sentiment I got from my conversations with social conservatives was that many feel used by the GOP: used for their votes, used for their voices, used to get Republicans into positions of power where they would never do what they said they would.

“The demoralization of social conservatives is profound,” Dreher told me. He said that, to be fair, he’d felt that way for years, since the failure of that constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage back in the mid-2000s.

But he told me, “I really did think that at least the Republicans would be reliable on judges, because that was a way of supporting social conservatives without taking political risks. I was wrong about that too. I have no illusions left to lose.”

“The point is that we can’t count on Republicans at all. We really are on our own.”

 

 

[Landlord]

3 hours ago, TGHusker said:

This good article notes how many on the social right have now come to see that they have been 'played' by the GOP.

 

 

Well, it only took them 40+ years to figure it out, but better late than never I guess.

[TGHusker]

1 hour ago, Landlord said:

 

 

Well, it only took them 40+ years to figure it out, but better late than never I guess.

I've always said, the Moral Majority (and whatever followed it) was the best thing for the GOP and the worse thing for the American church.

 

[RedDenver]

 

[RedDenver]

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[admo]

On 6/26/2020 at 6:28 PM, BlitzFirst said:

Ahh the things people do and think in the name of religion.

 

And Ahh.... the humble, quiet, simple loving things people do on a daily basis for other people, because of Jesus, with the helpful teachings of God through the Catholic religion, the Baptist religion, the Methodist religion, the Jewish religion, the Lutheran religion, the Mormon religion, etc, etc.  

You ought not to ridicule those little ones who pray, and are steadfast through their religion, just because you are an unbeliever, or atheist yourself.

Pick up your cross and follow the Lord Jesus to salvation.  Or, as some do, choose the easy way out, whatever way is the opposite of the Lord's.  Religion is a source of discipline.  No discipline, no obedience. No water, no hydration. No rules, no game. No workout, no results. No food, no life.

 

Religion does not have to be mocked over and over and over by such a minority group, who seem to speak the loudest and most often.  And with a crooked tongue.

 

I will have patience with those who mock God, who mock religion, who mock others that fail, fall down, get back up, and try again for God. Not because of my own merit, but because of a journey with God;  through religion, teaching, discipline, knowledge, understanding, prayer, contemplation, sacrifice, love, and obedience.

[Moiraine]

1 hour ago, admo said:

And Ahh.... the humble, quiet, simple loving things people do on a daily basis for other people, because of Jesus, with the helpful teachings of God through the Catholic religion, the Baptist religion, the Methodist religion, the Jewish religion, the Lutheran religion, the Mormon religion, etc, etc.  

You ought not to ridicule those little ones who pray, and are steadfast through their religion, just because you are an unbeliever, or atheist yourself.

Pick up your cross and follow the Lord Jesus to salvation.  Or, as some do, choose the easy way out, whatever way is the opposite of the Lord's.  Religion is a source of discipline.  No discipline, no obedience. No water, no hydration. No rules, no game. No workout, no results. No food, no life.

 

Religion does not have to be mocked over and over and over by such a minority group, who seem to speak the loudest and most often.  And with a crooked tongue.

 

I will have patience with those who mock God, who mock religion, who mock others that fail, fall down, get back up, and try again for God. Not because of my own merit, but because of a journey with God;  through religion, teaching, discipline, knowledge, understanding, prayer, contemplation, sacrifice, love, and obedience.

 

 

Religion isn’t required for doing good things for other people, and none of this refutes the fact that people murder in the name of religion. Stating the latter should not cause you to be defensive. People who use religion as an excuse to commit acts of evil should not be people you consider to be your brothers. You should just agree this is bad. 

 

And if you think being athiest is easier than being Christian in the U.S. I don’t think you really pay attention. In fact, there are special rules created to benefit Christians and there are people fighting to create more of those rules. 

[Landlord]

wow @admo you're so enlightened please lead us proud simpletons into the truth

[admo]

7 hours ago, Landlord said:

wow @admo you're so enlightened please lead us proud simpletons into the truth

 

LOMS, you are one my most favorite people on this board for years and years.  I respect you and so many on this board, seriously.  I did not mean to go off into a tangent.  I apologize for offending you or anyone else. 

[admo]

8 hours ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

Religion isn’t required for doing good things for other people, and none of this refutes the fact that people murder in the name of religion. Stating the latter should not cause you to be defensive. People who use religion as an excuse to commit acts of evil should not be people you consider to be your brothers. You should just agree this is bad. 

 

And if you think being athiest is easier than being Christian in the U.S. I don’t think you really pay attention. In fact, there are special rules created to benefit Christians and there are people fighting to create more of those rules. 

 

Moiraine, I appreciate you a lot.  I think you are very, very intelligent.  I do agree with what you said about that. Sometimes I just get worn down, and I did not make a good argument about it.  I am sorry. 

[admo]

Blitz, I am sorry man.  I got carried away. 

[knapplc]

1 minute ago, admo said:

 

Sometimes I just get worn down, and I did not make a good argument about it.

 

 

Don't sweat it. We have ALL been there. Some of us get there a lot.