old guard: james dobson (aging veterans of the culture wars. US is and should remain Christian nation (Ted Cruz))
institutional: rick warren (pragmatic: megachurches, charities, seminaries: (Rubio))
entrenpenurial: kenneth copeland, jerry falwell jr (not theologically aligned, but have prosperous businesses, need publicity and attention: brash personalities, no political correctness (Trump))
arms length: (don’t want to fuse faith with profain politics (Rubio), don’t want to make the church into a political football)
Millenial: (more atuned to religious pluralism: I know people on the other side and like them (too soon to tell))
Liberal: (Jim Wallis, Jimmy Carter: Democratic)
Cultural: (were raised Christian. Don’t go to church anymore (Trump). Southern guy is suseptible)
The Presidential Candidates Ranked By Their Usefulness In A Bar Fight
Let’s be clear here: Ted Cruz is not just the worst presidential candidate to have on your side in a bar fight. He is the worst possible human being to have on your side in a bar fight. And it’s not only because when he speaks he sounds like Eddie Murphy doing his nerd character. It’s that everyone hates Ted Cruz, and they hate him for a reason. Not just Democrats, everyone. Ted Cruz is famously and vigorously loathed by everyone in his own party. Fellow Republican Bob Dole has been out of politics for like 20 years and even he takes the time to hate Ted Cruz.
.. This isn’t just a warning about having Cruz on your side in a bar fight; don’t even enter the same bar as Cruz. As Cruz’s government shutdown stunt illustrates, he’s the guy who will goad, insult, and posture until you’re suddenly in a brawl you never wanted or needed to have. Once the fists start flying, he scoops the tips off the tables and weasels out the back.
Stanley Hauerwas
Hauerwas, therefore, believes that the Niebuhrs’ thinking is subject to the same flaws as Jerry Falwell, with Hauerwas and Willimon stating that “few books have been a greater hindrance to an accurate assessment of [the Church’s] situation” than H. Richard Niebuhr’s famous book Christ and Culture.[66] Thus according to Hauerwas, while they may have disagreed when it comes to policy, both the Niebuhrs and Falwell fell prey to the notion Christians have a duty to use the political process as a means to enact “Christian” legislation or pursue justice.
Racial Identity, and Its Hostilities, Return to American Politics
President Obama and Bernie Sanders have speculated that frustration over lost jobs and stagnant wages can explain much of the blue-collar support for Mr. Trump and conservative populists more generally.
The explanation, however, is not quite satisfactory. As Matthew Yglesias at Vox suggests, many white Americans are most likely drawn to Mr. Trump’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant message because they agree with it.
Such voters are nostalgic for the country they lived in 50 years ago, when non-Hispanic whites made up more than 83 percent of the population. Today, their share has shrunk to 62 percent as demographic change has transformed the United States into a nation where others have a shot at political power.
.. But the reaction of whites who are struggling economically raises the specter of an outright political war along racial and ethnic lines over the distribution of resources and opportunities.
.. Racial animosity has long helped foster a unique mistrust of government among white Americans. Nonwhite voters mostly like what the government does. But many white Americans, researchers have found, would rather not have a robust government if it largely seems to serve people who do not look like them.
.. European countries are much more generous to the poor relative to the United States mainly because of American racial heterogeneity. “Racial animosity in the U.S. makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters,” they wrote.
.. white taxpayers have opposed welfare because they see themselves “as being forced, through taxes, to pay for stuff for blacks that many of them could not afford for their own families.”
.. Daniel Hungerman from the University of Notre Dame found that all-white congregations became less charitable as the share of black residents in the community rose.