Featured Why Authoritarian Christians Support Trump

A very interesting study.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/living/religion/paul-prather/article57553638.html#storylink=cpy

MacWilliams sampled 1,800 registered U.S. voters from across the political spectrum in an attempt to understand Trump’s popularity.

“Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened.”

Statistically, MacWilliams found, among those likely to vote in the Republican primary, 49 percent ranked high on the authoritarian scale. That’s more than twice as many as among Democratic voters.

And Trump sings these folks’ love song:

“From pledging to ‘make America great again’ by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States,” MacWilliams wrote,



“I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter’s preferred candidate,” he said. “Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant: authoritarianism, followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter.”

Authoritarians, a group studied by social scientists for decades, inclined sharply toward Trump.

MacWilliams summarized what it means to be authoritarian:

“Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened.”

Statistically, MacWilliams found, among those likely to vote in the Republican primary, 49 percent ranked high on the authoritarian scale. That’s more than twice as many as among Democratic voters.

And Trump sings these folks’ love song:

“From pledging to ‘make America great again’ by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States,” MacWilliams wrote, “Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.”

Reading this, I experienced an “aha!” moment.

Not all of Trump’s Republican supporters are Christians, I know, but many are. And while religiosity was not the key factor in predicting support for Trump, many self-described Christians, be they devout disciples or only sporadic churchgoers, definitely incline toward authoritarianism.

You see, there’s historically been an emotionally charged split within our faith between disciples who focus on authority and those who focus on freedom, between those driven and riven by fear, and those propelled by hope and joy.

In the Christian vernacular, it’s a spiritual contest between “the Law” (capital L) and “Grace” (capital G).

Christians who lean toward the Law are all about God’s authority, the Bible’s authority, church leaders’ authority, men’s authority, civil authority. They’re the church’s cops and prosecuting attorneys.

They serve a stern God who lectures dryly from above, brooks no dissent and expects them to flog the daylights out of the dense and disobedient.

They thrive on order. They insist on doing things, whatever those things might be, the way they’ve always been done, whether or not that happens to make sense anymore, just because that’s the way they’ve always done them.

They operate largely from their own fear: fear of God’s wrath, fear of being wrong, fear of outsiders, fear of the public’s jeers.

Compared with them, Grace people, of whom I am happily one, are practically God’s do-gooder public defenders — or God’s loosey-goosey flower-children. (Although I tend toward khakis and a button-down myself.)

Grace people serve a God who is unimaginably merciful, infinitely liberating and surprisingly understanding of every kind of birdbrain.

They believe their job, being his children, is to love all colors and nationalities and faiths and political views and theological quirks. They’re about forgiving their enemies and making peace and and welcoming strangers and helping the poor, no questions asked.

Grace folks drive the authoritarians mad.

And vice versa. We Gracies giggle when we picture them showing up in heaven, only to discover, to their purple-faced dismay, that the Lord let us in as well.

Probably neither side has a lock on the whole truth.

 

You really have returned to your nasty mouth ways. Sorry to see you repentance and asking for forgiveness meant so little.

By the way you are wrong again. I will accept an apology for your mistake and your ill-chosen word.


From: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/

Donald Trump: Ban all Muslim travel to U.S.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called Monday for barringall Muslims from entering the United States.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," a campaign press release said.

 

Source please. In the article I cited there is nothing said about this being temporary. So, still looking for an apology for your ill choice of words and saying that which is not correct. And it makes no difference if it was suggested to be permanent or temporarily, the statement is correct. He said all Muslims should not be allowed into the country.

At your age and being a minister you should not resort to insults and false replies, at least replies you do not back up with authority. You are not an authority simply because it is what you want to believe.

 

Carpo, and you really believe that Trump or Cruz is not dictatorial in their basic outlook on others?

How about addressing the topics raised in the OP?

By the way, I consider your ratings of my posts as huge compliments.