One of the amusing things to observe is how so many leading lights in the evangelical Christian movement have abandoned all pretense of upholding moral standards in their efforts to defend their support of Donald Trump. That support was always highly hypocritical even at the best of times, excusing vicious assaults on the poor and the LGBT community and other marginalized groups as long as the politician opposed abortion and spouted pieties about their god and family values. But now even that fig leaf is gone and they have been revealed to be absolutely shameless in their abandonment of even the rhetoric of morality.
Some of you may be familiar with the ‘divine command theory’ espoused by evangelicals like William Lane Craig, who fancies himself as an intellectual, that is used to excuse the numerous atrocities committed by their god in the Bible, saying that if their god does or says something, it must be good and we cannot question it. It is a perfect example of a superficially clever argument that only a person who values belief in god over basic morality, or even decency, could construct. If I had set out to create a parody of biblical morality to discredit the idea of god, I could not have done a better job. Craig embodies the type George Orwell spoke of in his Notes on Nationalism (1945): “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Evangelicals have now extended that mantra that was once reserved for their god to cover Trump, effectively saying “If Trump does or says something, it must be good”. I have said before that a better name for this theory is the ‘Smucker’s theory of god’ because of the advertising slogan of that famous jam and preserve company that “If it’s Smucker’s, it has to be good.”
Franklin Graham is the son of famous evangelist Billy Graham and inherited his empire and David Badash provides the latest example of how deep he has drunk of this hypocrisy.
“I think this thing with Stormy Daniels and so forth is nobody’s business. And we’ve got other business at hand that we need to deal with,” Graham told The Associated Press, as the American Family Association published (via Joe.My.God., video below.)
Graham actually said Trump’s sex life is “nobody’s business.” His paying off a porn star is “nobody’s business.” His affair just months after his youngest son was born is “nobody’s business.”
…“I think when the country went after President Clinton, the Republicans, that was a great mistake that should never have happened.”
But the internet never forgets and Graham’s revisionism of the Clinton era is easily exposed.
[T]he Franklin Graham of 2018 sounds very different from the Franklin Graham of 1998.
“Private conduct does have public consequences,” Graham wrote in a 1998 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “Clinton’s Sins Aren’t Private.”
“Just look at how many have already been pulled under by the wake of the president’s sin: Mr. Clinton’s wife and daughter, Ms. Lewinsky, her parents, White House staff members, friends and supporters, public officials and an unwitting American public,” Graham wrote.
We have already seen that when it comes to Trump, there is no bottom that can be reached and that we keep sinking deeper and deeper into lying and corruption. It looks like the evangelical movement, having yoked itself to him, will sink with him.
Its just a matter of time before the fundies sink to where the center of the Earth should be and still keep sinking somehow.
I’m sorry to be nitpicky, but the slogan is “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.”
That can be read the way you’re using it in the post, but I’ve always understood it as “It’s not the most appetizing name, so we’d better be good enough for people to buy it.”
To confirm it, I Binged* the slogan, and according to them -- https://www.smuckers.com/frequently-asked-questions
So it did have the meaning I always understood originally, but now they mean it in the way you’re using it.
* Okay, I used Google. But I watched an episode of the current version of Hawaii Five-0 that had some serious Microsoft product placement and one of the characters said something along the line of “Bing it”. It was so forced that it amuses me to say that instead of “Google it” on occasion.
Some of you may be familiar with the ‘divine command theory’ espoused by evangelicals like William Lane Craig, who fancies himself as an intellectual, that is used to excuse the numerous atrocities committed by their god in the Bible, saying that if their god does or says something, it must be good and we cannot question it.
What God Wants God Gets
God wants sedition
God wants sex
God wants freedom
God wants semtex
I thought the evangelicals had been fairly consistent about poor people and the LGBT and friends crowd. From what I could tell they like talking about poor people the same way they like talking about Jesus. It’s just downright inconvenient when the people you’re talking with actually exist so real poor people can never be good enough. And since their religion exclusively tries to put the yoke on heterosexual sex drives, LGBT people generally… yeah I’m just going to skip repeating that one. They’re loud enough about their repugnant views on their own.
Well if we’re discussing the Smucker’s slogan (in the original sense), we have to return to season 1 of SNL. This clip is audio only, but the jokes are all in the text anyway.
I would be amusing if it was seasoned with some schadenfreud from these fuckers feeling some pain for their bullshit. When they’re just getting away with it because ABSOLUTELY ALL OF THEM ARE LYING HYPOCRITICAL FUCK-SHITS it’s not so funny. It’s disgusting.
@ 2 Tabby Lavalamp
With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.
Clearly, who ever wrote that copy never had Smucker’s Grape Jelly.
@ Mano
I see the the link to the original post by Craig is returning a 404 message. Strange.
@jkrideau:
Craig’s site has changed since the link was first posted. The original can still be found in the web archive, but the post is still on the site in a different location, in all its horrorific glory.
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/slaughter-of-the-canaanites
Owl mirror @#8,
Thanks for providing the new link to Craig’s post. I have updated my post accordingly.
Please, please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE let this be the case. Franklin Graham, et.al, are so fucking tiresome, I just want them to GO AWAY. And FOREVER!