‘An Election Where Angry Sells’: Readers on the ‘Brutalism’ of Ted Cruz
Ike in Texas challenged Mr. Brooks’s description of the candidate as “a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace.”
“Tell that to the unborn children he is fighting for every day. I didn’t see Obama leave an empty seat for them” during the State of the Union speech, Ike wrote. “Tell that to the nation of Israel, whose trust and relationship the current administration has thrown away.”
.. Other readers said evangelical Christianity today emphasizes fundamentalist interpretation, not mercy.
“Evangelical Christianity in the U.S. is about politics, not religion,”Gillian Scobie wrote. “Its literal and highly selective reading of the Bible feeds political interests and pays little or no attention to the so-called Christian virtues.”
For others, the rise of Mr. Cruz recalled dark moments in the history of Christianity.
“There’s a wide range of beliefs among evangelicals. Yes, there are those that believe in following Christ, in compassion, generosity, paying more attention to one’s own faults than other people’s,” Jeff in Evanston, Ill., wrote. “But there is also the fire and brimstone crowd, the true believers, the kind that hunted down witches in puritanical New England. Ted Cruz is one of them.”