The infidelity that we must concern ourselves with is called “whoring after other gods” in the Bible (see Hosea 9:1 or Amos 7:17).
.. Whenever a nation chooses to hurt the poor, oppress the stranger, mistreat the weak and corrupt the courts in the Bible, prophets accuse political leaders of public infidelity. Unlike in a marriage, such adultery is not a private matter; it must be challenged and called out in the public square.
.. Jerry Falwell, Jr., responding to critics, claimed Jesus’ teachings are about private morality, not public policy: “Jesus said love our neighbors as ourselves but never told Caesar how to run Rome,” he wrote on Twitter.
.. It’s hard to imagine someone who proclaimed the “kingdom of God” in the first century not having a vision for the transformation of society.
.. It’s hard to imagine, that is, unless your whole faith has been built upon the justification of systemic evil. Falwell’s distinctly American reading of the Bible is not new. It was passed down to him by generations of so-called Christians who learned to read the Bible in the 19th century as a text that did not condemn, but rather affirmed race-based chattel slavery.
.. For those moral activists, the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision and the Missouri Compromise were deeply moral issues — inseparable from one’s personal relationship with God... After the Civil War, when federal troops enforced the Reconstruction amendments for a brief period in the South, slaveholder religion did not go away. Instead, it developed a way of using scripture to criticize “Northern corruption” and black political power. In a word, slaveholder religion framed the attempt to expand democracy in the 1870s as immorality... We cannot understand the “Moral Majority” that Falwell’s father helped organize to counter the policies of the civil rights movement apart from this history... This strand of slaveholder religion has always been primarily concerned with the consolidation of power and the justification of systemic injustice. The Trumpvangelicals are not forsaking their god to defend Trump. They are showing us that their god is cash, not Christ.
1992 | Gwen Ifill’s Cleareyed Coverage of Bill Clinton
“The Democratic candidates for President, anxious to woo back the disaffected middle class, have all but abandoned their traditional role as champions of the disenfranchised,” Ms. Ifill wrote in January 1992.
“It is almost an oversight, this eerie silence on the campaign trail about issues that affect the poor. But it is a telling omission for the party that had traditionally spoken for the disadvantaged …”
“Instead, wooing the middle class has become all the rage. They are angry and they vote. What Presidential candidate could resist?”
.. She noted the criticism among Democrats, including followers of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, that Mr. Clinton, by now the Democratic nominee, had “decided to sacrifice black voters’ support in exchange for winning back the Democrats — most of them white — who voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush.”
“Politicians call it taking the base for granted, a tactic that is the opposite of the one Republicans chose at their national convention to woo their base of evangelicals, conservatives and bedrock Republicans.”
.. Gov. Bill Clinton’s voice has been hoarse and strained for months, but it was not until he won the New York primary that he had the political luxury of taking the advice any good doctor would have been giving him for months: Shut up.”