Osler's Razor

Lots of politics. As one of the Republicans who consistently votes against my economic interest, let me give your latest question a shot as a Christian Republican.

I think you and I probably agree that the USA was founded by Christians who lived and breathed Christian principles just as much as they lived and breathed the principles of the English judicial system and the English political tradition. So, Christian principles certainly animated the founders of this country and provided the cultural wallpaper for our experiment in American self government. And I think you and I certainly agree that Christian principles should continue to inform American culture.

So, the question is partly a theological argument over what principles should we emphasize and partly a political theory question over what role government ought to play in promoting Christian principles. Republicans who seem less enthusiastic to you about using government to feed the hungry and clothe the naked (I think caring for prisoners is pretty bipartisan) are probably just simply not "Progressives" (defined as folks who believe that government can and should make life better for people).

Christian conservatives, many of whom are very active in churches and connected to myriad charitable organizations, who reject a great society approach to amelioration, may just have an honest disagreement on how best to make life better for people. That is, they may see big government as a long-term detriment to the people big government tries to help. Or they may see big government as an inefficient vehicle that squanders resources directed at those in need. There is, in fact, lots of data out there that offers lots of fodder for both sides of this argument. I suspect that many of the Christian Republicans with whom you find fault just see the issue differently than you do, believing that big government solutions are actually not solutions at all.
 

As a fiscal conservative and social policy progressive, I believe that the issue is best seen as a native reactionary tendency in much of the population, especially those of evangelical Christian background. Some social policy progressives are aligned not only with the mandates of Jesus in Matthew 25, but also with civil rights for those who do not follow what many Christians believe to be the mandates of the Old Testament law, together with some of the apostle Paul's (perhaps mistranslated or misunderstood) injunctions. So a broad brush links those who advocate government programs to deal with poverty, hunger, medical needs, over-incarceration, education, etc., with civil rights and equality of treatment for minorities, women, gays and lesbians, those with physical bodies that do not match their psycho-social understanding of themselves, etc., etc.

For some in the evangelical community, this is a holy war, fighting to preserve what they perceive to be the God given blessings they perceive that they have and others do not, attributable according to them to the failure to observed what they believe the Bible teaches. And then there are those who believe that their advantage is the result of their own efforts -- rich, white, male oligarchs -- and will fight to be able to continue to reward themselves and those like them with benefits beyond any reasonable ability to consume, other than to be able to gloat over their bank balances.
 

And then there are the growing number, a majority, who are either not christian, actively atheist, or "spiritual" (whatever they define as such). We find the emphasis on "christian values" to be deeply offensive, especially in the context of the current Republican campaigns that seem to define these values as anti gay, pro forced birth (and not caring for these births after they are forced), anti contraception, and an ISIS like desire to force everyone to follow their beliefs.

I for one find these terrifying! Not to mention the emphasis on turning back decades of work on our environment, the support for income inequality, and the denial of the changes we cause in our climate. The most terrifying trend is the war on science, when It proves that reality is far different from their beliefs.

The so called "Christian right" would be more believable if they didn't claim the Bible is inerrant, and then pick and choose only those parts that support their beliefs.

I tend to agree with the Farmer -

Lee