Right-wing evangelist Jonathan Shuttlesworth — a close friend of Rodney Howard-Browne, the Florida megachurch pastor who was arrested after violating coronavirus lockdown orders — told his followers that he intends to hold a large Woodstock-like Christian gathering in defiance of stay-at-home orders.
Meanwhile, CBS News reports over 1,200 people attended services at a Louisiana church, again defying the governor’s coronavirus ban against more than 50 people gathering.
The pastor of a Tampa megachurch is facing charges after refusing to close its doors despite a “safer at home” order meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Fox 13 News reports.
The sheriff says up to 500 people were in attendance at Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne’s Sunday services.
Washington Post: “It sure might feel apocalyptic. But not if you ask Christian writers and pastors who have spent years focusing their message on the Book of Revelation — the New Testament’s final book. It lays out a lurid, poetic vision of the End Times, in which many evangelical leaders interpret it to mean that Jesus will return to Earth, believers will be raptured to heaven and those left behind will suffer seven dreadful years of calamities. Most of these Revelation-focused prophesiers don’t see coronavirus as heralding the Second Coming and the end of life on Earth as we know it.”
Said Christian writer Jeff Kinley: “If a person were just completely ignorant about what the Bible says about the End Times, they may think this right now: This is it.”
“The Bible is very specific about what will happen before the End Times, Kinley says, and those events haven’t all unfolded yet. For one major thing, the ancient temple in Jerusalem is supposed to be rebuilt first.”
DNC chair Tom Perez told Axios he “doesn’t know what faith” supporters of President Trump are worshipping when they go to church after going to Trump rallies.
Said Perez: “I think the challenge that I see among a lot of people that go to Donald Trump rallies, and then they will go to church on Sunday… I don’t know what faith they are worshipping… Donald Trump has done more to hurt the least of us among us than just about any president I can think of.”
“A planned UK tour by US evangelist Franklin Graham is in question after every venue booked by the preacher canceled planned appearances, following an outcry over his homophobic and Islamophobic comments,” CNN reports.
President Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White defended herself against criticism over a prayer she made earlier this month in which she asked for “all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now,” saying her words were taken “out of context for political gain,” CNN reports.
Associated Press: “It’s Trump’s latest nod to the white evangelical voters who have proven to be among his most loyal backers. And it makes clear that, as he tries to stitch together a winning coalition for reelection, Trump is counting on the support of his base of conservative activists to help bring him across the finish line…”
“It also shows how much times have changed.”
“Past presidents who opposed abortion, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, steered clear of personally attending the march to avoid being too closely associated with demonstrators eager to outlaw the procedure. They sent remarks for others to deliver, spoke via telephone hookup or invited organizers to visit the White House.”
Politico: “Until Trump carried 52 percent of their votes in 2016, American Catholics supported the Democratic nominee in all but four presidential cycles since 1952. But after betting it all on the thrice-married Manhattan businessman — Trump won white Catholics by a 23-point margin, compared to Mitt Romney’s 19-point victory in 2012 — they never received so much as a ‘thank you’ from the 45th president.”
“If the 2020 election will be won or lost in the Rust Belt… the president can’t afford to have Catholics feeling left out… Inside the Trump campaign, preparations are underway for a “Catholics for Trump” coalition and a series of events that will get the president and his surrogates in front of friendly Catholic audiences.”
President Trump took aim at Pete Buttigieg at a rally in a Miami megachurch, claiming the the Democratic candidate was faking his faith ahead of the election.
Said Trump: “All of a sudden, he’s become very religions… this happened about two weeks ago.”
Of course, he also made fun of Buttigieg’s last name.
President Trump rallied his evangelical Christian base of supporters on Friday, portraying himself as the restorer of faith in the public square and claiming that God is “on our side,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “Evangelical Christians of every denomination and believers of every faith have never had a greater champion, not even close, in the White House, than you have right now. We’ve done things that nobody thought was possible. Together we’re not only defending our constitutional rights. We’re also defending religion itself, which is under siege.”
“The United Methodist Church is expected to split into more than one denomination in an attempt to bring to a close a years-long and contentious fight over same-sex marriage,” the Washington Post reports.
“The historic schism would divide the third-largest religious denomination in the United States.”
Vox highlights analysis from political scientist Ryan Burge which “finds that on issues ranging from border security to immigration detention, white evangelicals — a group that includes dozens of individual denominations, from the Southern Baptist Convention to the Pentecostal movement — are substantially more conservative than the average American and even the next most conservative religious group.”
“Six days after a scorching editorial in an evangelical Christian magazine called for his ouster, President Trump ditched Christmas Eve services at a liberal church in Palm Beach for an evangelical service — the second effort he has made in four days to woo evangelical voters,” the Palm Beach Post reports.
“Whether the president’s decision to change the venue and denomination of his long-standing Christmas Eve tradition was tied to the editorial is not known. A White House press officer referred questions to the Florida GOP press liaison, who referred questions back to the White House.”
An editor at The Christian Post has abruptly quit the publication after it aligned itself with Donald Trump as part of a spiraling evangelical Christian civil war, the Washington Post reports.
“President Trump is going to rally his religious supporters in Miami, a move that comes after an evangelical Christian magazine called for him to be removed from office. Trump is rolling out an ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ coalition on Jan. 3 in Miami,” the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports.
President Trump is still tweeting about the Evangelical magazine calling for his removal from office.
Said Trump: “I guess the magazine, Christianity Today, is looking for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or those of the socialist/communist bent, to guard their religion. How about Sleepy Joe? The fact is, no President has ever done what I have done for Evangelicals, or religion itself!”
President Trump went after Christianity Today in a series of tweets after it published an editorial calling or his removal from office.
Said Trump: “A far left magazine, or very ‘progressive,’ as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather … have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion and your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.”
Christianity Today, the flagship Evangelical magazine founded by the Rev. Billy Graham, called for President Trump to be removed from office.
“We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump.”
“To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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