The religion of the political right is Pseudo-Christianity

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2025/03/pseudo-christianity-is-political.html

Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberston formed nationwide political groups, the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, primarily as a means of opposing abortion rights, with an appeal to the Republican party. It became difficult to distinguish partisan political positions from the brand of Biblical theology preached by Evangelicals, including open endorsements of Republican candidates from pulpits. It is a blend of partisan politics, fundamentalist theology and the white, Christian nationalism that has been part of Evangelical eschatology for a little over a hundred years.

Stephanie Messina, whose story about her exodus from the MAGA cult is linked above, provides insights as to what most of the pseudo-Christians on the political far right believe that not only identifies them as a cult, but sets them aside from mainstream Christianity, placing them into a category that I call "pseudo-Christian," because they use a lot of the language and the structure, but have actually abandoned the Christian gospel, the core teachings of Jesus.

Messina says, of her church and pastor, "We were told Trump had been chosen by God, that he was a disheveled man like David, who was also an adulterer. Trump was a 'baby Christian', meaning he had just gotten saved, so we should give him grace because we're all sinners. Since he was a new creature in Christ, you couldn't hold anything against him."

"We saw Trump as the persecuted white savior," Messina goes on. "We believed Trump's critics were just blinded by Satan, and he was fighting for us."

The problem with this is that Trump is not "a baby Christian who had just gotten saved." Trump has repeatedly rejected the Evangelical interpretation of Christian conversion. He cannot get past the step requiring acknowledgement of being a sinner in need of God's grace. He has repeatedly and publicly declared, in media interviews where he is asked, and by several of the right wing evangelists who have been at great pains to try and make him look converted.

"I haven't done anything that requires God's forgiveness," has been Trump's repeated response. So Trump is not, by his own admission, a Christian at all. So he can't be "fighting for Christians."