The underlying story of the rally was that Trump wanted to distract attention from the fact that he had faced down Ailes and lost.
.. Having lost the battle over Kelly, he shifted to a new demand. “Trump offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox News contribute $5 million to his charities,” the network said in a statement.
.. Trump may not be as great a negotiator as he proclaims, but he is undeniably a terrific marketer, with an impressive ability to spin defeats into victories.
.. Any other candidate would have been pilloried for doing what he did—you can imagine the consequences if Hillary Clinton tried to skip a Democratic debate because she objected to Anderson Cooper’s presence, then announced that she would host a charity event instead and use the Clinton Foundation to collect the money.
Liberty alumni trash Trump endorsement
“For a school that focuses on loving God and loving other people, it’s odd to endorse someone who only seems to love himself and other people who love him.”
.. “To try to equate Christian fruit with creating jobs is laughable,” said Dean Inserra, a 2003 Liberty graduate and lead pastor of City Church Tallahassee, a Southern Baptist congregation in Tallahassee, Fla., with about 1,500 attendees.
.. But several alumni said the endorsement illustrated that Falwell had lost sight of the university’s mission to “build champions for Christ.”
“The goal of Liberty University is not to defeat Democrats,” Inserra said. “A populist nationalism has become the chief religion of the day at Liberty. … This is a tangible example of what it looks like to gain the whole world but lose your soul.”
Donald Trump Divides God’s Voters
Mr. Trump’s standing among evangelicals shows just how little those issues matter to a good many erstwhile culture warriors, at least when picking a president. If he turns out to be their standard-bearer, this once-cohesive movement will have to spend this election season asking itself what it really means.
Trump and the Heresy of Christianism
Those younger then me, the Millennials, are now learning to associate “evangelical” with Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and the NRA.
.. Back in 2003, he said, “I have a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists. They are as anathema to true Christians as the Islamists are to true Islam.”
.. However, his “Make America Great Again” slogan, along with his maligning of women, immigrants, and all “losers” while triumphantly holding up a Bible, fits Christianism perfectly.
.. The current presidential campaign is revealing how far popular evangelicalism has drifted from it theological moorings.
.. It’s time to acknowledge that large sections of the evangelical movement have d/evolved into an entirely different animal—a species with seven heads and ten horns, a beast that takes Christ’s name while opposing everything his kingdom stands for. I cannot force the news media to stop using the “evangelical” nomenclature, but going forward I am committed to identifying this movement’s true name. It is the heresy of Christianism.