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voting for trump for the sake of religious freedom? you’re making a mistake

voting for trump for the sake of religious freedom? you’re making a mistake

Last updated on: October 14, 2016 at 10:43 am by Guest Contributor

voting for trump for the sake of religious freedom? you’re making a mistake 2016-10-14T10:43:51-04:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

by guest writer Nicole Everitt

Those who defend Trump as the better candidate because of Hillary’s religious “persecution” of Catholics are making a foolish error, and certainly not in the name of the Gospel. As a contemporary Roman Catholic, I acknowledge with little to no pain to myself: the world generally hates us. This isn’t going to change. We are misunderstood; we are constantly begged to go into that “new spring” alongside the sexual revolution. What I read in those leaked emails is nothing new. Creating organizations with the hope of causing change within the Church? Trying to create discord? Folks, if the Catholic Church in America is true to Rome, she will not falter; she can’t. You might lose some Catholics who’ve had enough (but “we already lost 98% of them”, wouldn’t you say, “with all that contracepting?”) The Church in Rome is not about to bend; her dogma isn’t about to be swayed by any amount of American politicking.

Let’s be honest: we create plenty of our own discord all on our own. If you think I’m wrong, you need to go read the comboxes whenever Pope Francis does anything. How many times have I read, “I think that Pope Francis is trying to ruin the Church” and other comments to that effect. How many times have I read: “Bring back the Traditional Latin Mass; Novus Ordo is why we’ve had such steep cultural declines and Catholic faith is dying.” Yadayadayada. We look skeptically at women who claim to be nuns but aren’t in habits, wondering if they’re “real nuns” or “fake nuns”.

Stop fooling yourselves: what Hillary has said is nothing new; it’s nothing we haven’t tried to pull off on our own before; and it’s not going to change the Church. It might make your life momentarily harder, if Hillary is elected and decides to start making things harder for Catholics. What could she do, though? Can she force you to take The Pill? Can you force you to be sterilized? (She’s condemned that in other parts of the world, so I don’t think it’ll happen here.) Can she force you into a gay marriage? Will she shut down your Churches and criminalize the priesthood? (Didn’t we say after gay marriage was legalized, all our priests would go to jail because they’d be breaking the law denying gays their right to marry? How many times has that happened now?) Hillary is the same as all of us: we will cause our own division and discord through the urgings of the devil. That’s just the way it is. Stop fearing her, and start to fear yourself.

And then let’s talk about persecution. How many times does the Bible say, more or less, “you’ll be persecuted because of Me” and “blessed are the persecuted” and “rejoice in your persecutions, feel at peace, for I am with you”?

I’m only paraphrasing a little bit here.

But I did actually go to OpenBible, because I’m a Catholic and hardly know my scripture: it quickly found 100 references to persecution in the Bible, and there was a lot of “blessed are you” in there.

Onto the flip side of this coin: rallying behind Trump because he isn’t Clinton. Trump, who has said we should have a full ban on Muslims entering the United States, who makes me think of Japanese internment camps. The fear in America is so thick you could slice it. Here are a few of Trump’s comments from last fall: “France declared this state of emergency where they closed the borders and they established some degree of warrantless searches. I know how you feel about the borders, but do you think there is some kind of state of emergency here, and do we need warrantless searches of Muslims?” the reporter asked. “We’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago,” Trump said. The Yahoo reporter then asked Trump, “Do you think we might need to register Muslims in some type of database, or note their religion on their ID?” Trump responded: “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely. We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”

Trump later clarified that he only really wants the database for refugees; but then he’s gone on to say that he wants a full Muslim ban, even considering American citizens who are Muslim, have travelled abroad to “at-risk” nations, and returned home. He then walked that back, too, but it’s truly unclear where he stands, as his position is like me making pancakes for breakfast.

Flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop.

Here’s my issue with Trump; he’s actually proposed banning a religion. He incoherently implied he might like to database them, survey them, and keep a close eye on their mosques. When you compare this to John Podesta, who isn’t actually running for President, saying, “maybe we should make some fake Catholic groups to try and influence change in the Church”, I think it’s easy to conclude which one is worse – but then again, judging from the Catholic hysteria lately, I am obviously wrong. Apparently, Catholics are only concerned with saving their own hides lately.

Never mind that Catholics are part of the 80% of Christians in America, and that we comprise 20% of the Christians in America, mind you.

Never mind that Muslims have no majority power, comprising just under a percentage of the population.

Never mind that what Donald Trump has said could be applied to any religious sect that the government at the moment decides is a threat. (First they came for the Jews; then the Socialists; then the Catholics – and last they came for me, and there was no one left to defend me because they had all been taken, that sort of thing.) If he can somehow stack the Supreme Court to decide a Muslim ban is constitutional, then I don’t see what stops him or any subsequent president from banning other folks.

Continuing to support Trump because Hillary hates Catholics requires that we ignore the countless ways he has violated the most basic of Gospel precepts. And if we accept his program of hatred, we must admit that we are rejecting all the Biblical calls to accept persecution as it may come for the sake of the Gospel, ignoring Jesus’s command to turn the other cheek, ignoring the command to forgive seven times seventy, ignoring the command to love your enemies… Because we’re too obsessed with the specter of Hillary. There will be no defending the needy, the widows, the powerless, the poor, the voiceless. We are too busy saving our own butts from Hillary’s incoming persecution.

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. (Isaiah 1:17)

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31: 8-9)

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. (Psalm 82:3)

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