You’ve heard it many times before from various sources, but here it is, tying it all together. Unheard and disrespected moral objections (by the then- recently unemployed) to a positive change to healthcare leads to budget battles with the goal of undermining the law and blaming the consequences of the undermining of the law on the Obama Administration, which leads to debates about the morality of the idea of public assistance which brings with it claims of implicit bias, and in that tinderbox, all it takes is an over-saturation of social media with one particular story about a particularly messy excessive force case while fear-mongering over threats abroad lead to a somewhat understood xenophobia which gets labeled racism by an actor with baggage. Underneath this is a cultural antagonism towards Christian stances on gay marriage (unclear when that started and why- it would require a deeper survey of the history of the gay rights movement in the USA), Christian homeschooling (since Ruby Ridge) and intelligent design being introduced into the public school system in spite of it being more appropriate in the parochial system (since Dubya it’s been a big thing in Tennessee and Kentucky). With Clinton, the hate would have been institutionalized to a degree- though I think that that’s somewhat unfounded to say. Nevertheless, the concern is still there. With Trump, the hate will remain cultural- maintained by how Christians tend to vote, which, to be objective, goes against several of their values- and there’s no point in criticizing the excuses being made there- unless you like arguing. I don’t.
But (no pun intended), let’s play devil’s advocate here. Let’s suppose that social justice is the end product of a legalistic perspective on faith, which means that a liberal Christian’s God is more one of rules, which makes it less real as it makes faith less of a relationship than it is, so do they really believe? Please don’t be hurt; I just invite you to think for a moment. After all, wasn’t it the Pharisees that would debate the fine line between night and day for countless hours for the purposes of determining when the Sabbath was so that they could punish someone for working and they could feel good about checking a person? Wasn’t it the Pharisees that hated Jesus for knowing that there was more to loving and fearing God than following his laws? What makes God more real- the feeling you get from doing good, or when the Spirit hits a few people at a prayer meeting and they start prophesying and speaking in tongues, and every so often (though it’s rare), you hear an interpretation?
