Every week, millions of Christians gather to worship and remember the tenets of the faith: belief in God, in Jesus Christ as his son and their savior, and in the Holy Spirit. Many utter the words of the Lord’s Prayer each week, and in doing so, ask that God forgive our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
These are the ABCs of the Christian faith — and they should theoretically be an easy answer to offer if, like President Donald Trump, you’re asked what might happen when you die, and what you might do when Judgment Day comes.
And yet, when asked last week by Ross Douthat on 60 Minutes where Trump thinks he’ll go when he dies — and if he could forgive his political enemies if his salvation depended on it — Trump was brutally honest.
“Well, I’m a religious person, so in theory I go to heaven,” the president said. “I hope so. I don’t want to go to hell.”
Could he forgive opponents like former FBI Director James Comey and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
“Well, then I wouldn’t be real, would I? I mean, if I said to you, sure, the easy answer to that is ‘Oh, yes, I could forgive,’” Trump told Douthat. “The answer is no. I want to be honest, no.”
Even if God asked it?
“Before the judgment, no,” he said. “I do hate some of my enemies…I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.”
Evangelicals are Christians.
Nobody follows Christ’s teachings. He said to give away everything to the poor, the jacket off your back, and to live like a bird in the field. So, by your stated metric, only a few hermits living in the wilderness are Christian.
Yet, there are billions of Christians that don’t live like birds in the field. Deal with reality as it is, not as you wish it to be.
People don’t follow them perfectly, but evangelicals straight up don’t follow them.
Modern evangelical Christians in the US are made up of pro-slavery southern fundamentalists, wrapped up in the idea the earth will soon end and you need to recruit more evangelicals. It’s a hate based pyramid scheme.
Everybody straight up doesn’t follow them.
Evangelicals are Christians OR there are no Christians.
All fall short of the Glory of God. Accept reality as we know it, not as you deem it should be. You’re not the “True Christian Decider™”.
There’s nothing more Christian than hate, you should read the Bible. Search the key word “hate”, God hates quite a few people. He hates them so much, He tortures them forever (“these are the six things that the LORD GOD hates…”)
This is just the no true scotsman fallacy. Evangelicals are one of the largest sects of Christianity. You can disown them if you like, but outsiders to the Christian faith aren’t going to care who is the real Christian when all sects claim to be so to the exclusion of all others.