God-Botherers to the Fore (Update)

Two stories this morning seem to hang together. First, from NCRM, this article on a Washington Post op ed by Albert Mohler responding to criticisms of the so-called "Nashville Statement." It's a document rife with the trademark "Christian" characteristics of arrogance, smugness, self-absorption, and authoritarianism.

This got a laugh from me:

We signers know ourselves, like all humanity, to be broken by sin. We have no right to face the world from a claim of moral superiority. We know and confess that Christians have often failed to speak the truth in love.

I wonder why they never act like it. He's right about them having no claim to moral superiority: they have no idea what morality really is.

David Badash, in the NCRM article, takes that a little farther:

He also does not address why same-sex marriage, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are his targets, along with those who support the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion.

Why not speak to divorce? Inequality? Immigration? Economic challenges?

Why not speak to the historic Hurricane Harvey, which Mohler's group was apparently unaware was ravaging Texas and Louisiana as they were releasing their statement attacking LGBT people.

"In releasing the Nashville Statement, we in fact are acting out of love and concern for people who are increasingly confused about what God has clarified in Holy Scripture," Mohler says.

In other words, he's doing what evangelical Christians have been doing for decades: calling LGBT people sinners while claiming their "truth," aka hate and condemnation, is love.

He makes a couple of good points: why weren't Mohler -- and Tony Perkins, Donald Wildmon, and the other signers of this "statement", out helping people in Houston? (Can you imagine Tony Perkins ladling out stew in an emergency shelter? Neither can I.) Update: Speaking of Harvey, Joel Osteen just doesn't know when to shut up.

“The reason it may seem like God is not waking up is not because he’s ignoring you, not because he’s uninterested, it’s because he knows you can handle it,” he stated and added that Christians should “take it as a compliment” from God when their lives are impossibly difficult.

I'm sure those people who have lost everything take great comfort in that. (There's video at the link, if you can stand seven-plus minutes of Osteen's teeth.)

As for why they aren't addressing those other issues -- well, how can they make money off of that? I mean, it's not as easy to scare people with divorce as it is with men in the women's bathroom. And Trump has the immigration thing wrapped up.

Oh, and Dr. Mohler? When your idea of love starts with judgment and ends with condemnation, you've really missed the point.

And it seems that the left are not the only ones calling bullshit on the "Nashville Statement":

“Had white evangelicals leaders … withheld support for Mr. Trump after the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes, maybe their opposition to same-sex marriage would be viewed … as a principled, rather than a bigoted, position,” said Skye Jethani, a prominent Chicago-area pastor and author. The Nashville Statement met such criticism in part because white evangelicals’ broad voting support of Trump, at 81 percent, despite his moral violations, “squandered” their moral authority, he said.

My one problem with that comment is that they -- the signers -- are the only ones who believe they have any moral authority. (I mean, outside their flock of sheep -- and I don't think it's by chance that the Bible repeatedly refers to Christ's followers as "sheep.") Otherwise, he's right: their hypocrisy is dripping all over everything.

And as for Mohler's statement that they were called on the "clarify" God's teaching on human sexuality -- no. The "Nashville Statement," like the Manhattan Declaration, is a manifesto, and an instruction to political leaders. Enter Digby:

He is a violent, cretinous narcissist and his cabinet is filled with Goldman Sachs greedheads and government slashing zealots. His foreign policy is incoherent and national security is totally in the hands of generals. And then there are the theocrats who are getting every last thing they want from their beloved pussy grabbing, sexual predator.

Peter Montgomery surveys the success of the Religious Right under Trump:

Amid the stream of outrage about President Donald Trump that dominates my Facebook feed, one friend desperately sought a silver lining: “Well, at least we don’t have the theocrat Pence as President.” It reminded me that I, like some of my LGBTQ friends, thought during the Republican primary that we would prefer Trump to someone like Ted Cruz, whose unshakeable religious-right ideology and matching policy agenda was clear.

We were wrong. My Facebook friend is wrong. Not only is Trump a reckless and divisive president who shows contempt for anyone who crosses him and who has energized a white nationalist movement that could wreak havoc on American political and social culture for a long time to come—he’s also the best thing that’s ever happened to the religious right.

In case anyone is still wondering, the religious right is not about morality or virtue -- it is about power, which should be obvious to anyone with the slightest acquaintance with the history of the Moral Majority and its successors.

Digby is right in line with my take:

But what's most important about this is the complete breakdown of any pretense that these "Values Voters" have any moral core or are in any way sincere in their beliefs. They are nothing more than a political faction looking for power and they are willing to use any means necessary to achieve it. Let's not ever be confused again or allow the media to use them as some kind of symbol of morality in our politics.

They are beyond hypocrites. They are simply frauds.

And cynical manipulators on top of it. As Digby puts it, this is enough to make me lose my lunch.