a mormon didn't write this, but i wish one had

[Silver]

http://newswithviews.com/Ertl/thomas100.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Excellent article, just a fair use taste of which is pasted below. Go to the link for the entire article. (I remain anti-Trump, but the article can be read for its merits.)

CHRISTIAN RIGHT ESTABLISHMENT: BIG FAILURE IN LEADERSHIP


By Thomas Ertl
June 4, 2016
NewsWithViews.com

In war, after a great battle ends, the wounded are attended to and the dead are counted. When the dust settles, analysis of the conflict becomes much clearer. From there, the historian can see where the battle was won and lost, which general excelled, and which failed.

By late spring of 2016, a similar time had arrived in the heated battle of the 2016 Republican primary. The Republican primary season of nine months was much more intense than typical primary elections. And it was a battle of the political ages; one that may go down as the beginning of a great political revolution in American history.

It started with 17 combatants and ended with one man standing by Tuesday, May 3rd, the evening of the Indiana primary.

The symbolism of war is appropriate for what transpired. The Establishment/Goldwater battle of ’64 was nothing compared to what we have seen this election season.

One by one, the upstart Donald Trump picked off his opponents. The ones who left early—Paul, Christie, Carson, and more—left with fewer wounds. Those who continued—Jeb Bush, Rubio, and especially Cruz—may have suffered politically mortal wounds.

The primary war even inflicted hurt on non-combatants such as the two former Bush presidents with their legacy which was hit hard by Trump’s verbal artillery against brother Jeb and the Bush family.

The other non-combatant who suffered severe wounds was the candidate supply line known as the Republican Party Establishment. Traditionally, in primary battles, the party establishment remains in the background, taking a neutral position, waiting for a winner to emerge.

Instead, in an unprecedented fashion, the Republican Party Establishment has entered the battlefield, seeking to take down the leading general. History may well show that they have suffered the greatest wounds of all, having lost the loyalty of their people for a long time due to their duplicity. Who knows if they will ever get it back? When an organization’s corruption is exposed and trust is lost, it is difficult for them to get it back.

Another big loser in this historic primary battle is the Christian Right leadership. By the end of the battle, this leadership was seen in retreat behind Rubio and Cruz. Only a few of these leaders has sided with the winning general.

Furthermore, despite so many Christian Right leaders backing other candidates, over half of their Evangelical supporters broke rank and placed their support behind Trump. It has been estimated that up to half of Evangelical foot soldiers threw their support to Trump, many switching allegiances in the middle of the battle.

The louder the Evangelical officers yelled at their forces to hold the line for Cruz or Rubio, the worse things got until, in South Carolina, a huge Evangelical backing of Trump shocked the Christian Right leadership. The rest of the southern troops soon followed. No amount of name calling by the Christian Right officers could hold the line against Trump. The greater the threats, the more their men went to the outsider from New York.

The primaries have shown that Evangelicals don’t vote as a monolithic group and that the Christian Right leaders cannot control their own people anymore. This exposure and embarrassment of the Christian Right Establishment during this public primary battle has deeply wounded them. You can’t be leading if nobody is following you.

Of course, the primary setback for these Christian Right leaders did not come as a surprise—for those who had ears to hear! It is the culmination of four decades of failed leadership. They have failed to make the case for distinctively Christian positions on issues for decades, so a tipping point had to appear at some point as the beginning of the end of their influence.

THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE: THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

A glaring weakness in the leadership of the Christian Right is their servitude to the national Republican Party. This unwavering allegiance has become a huge blind spot. Their total loyalty is based on some kind of supposed common ground: as if the Republican Party is synonymous with liberty, the Bill of Rights, conservatism, and the Christian faith.

This is the Republican Party that is state-ist, big government, pro-central banks, pro-Wall Street pillaging, pro-war and pro-industrial military complex—and has been for decades. Is there anything Christian about these positions? The Christian Right is to the Republican hierarchy what the black constituency is to the Democratic Party. The Party placates them on a few issues, and then uses them for political advantage while finding reasons to ignore those “social issue” positions.

[oneClimbs]

Wishing that a Mormon wrote this reminds me of a quote by Terryl Givens:

"What Revelation 12 says is that the truth was not taken from the earth, but that it retreated into the wilderness where it was nurtured of the Lord. Now think about the implications of that. The church is in the wilderness, it’s being nurtured by the Spirit of the Lord, throughout this period of so-called darkness and apostasy. This, to my mind, gives us a radically different paradigm for understanding the relationship of Mormonism to the rest of the church and understanding the place of Mormonism in dispensational history. It also gives us an answer to the question: “When is Mormonism going to produce a Dante, or a Shakespeare or a Beethoven?” And the answer is, we don’t need a Mormon Dante or Shakespeare or Beethoven, we have Dante and Shakespeare and Beethoven. We’ve got Handel’s Messiah, why do they have to be authored by Mormons?"

Truth is independent.That said, I understand your point, it's great to see strong leadership and good ideas coming from among our people but that's only one part of the good we can do. We can also be the ones to champion all good ideas no matter where they originate.

[larsenb]

http://newswithviews.com/Ertl/thomas100.htm

Excellent article, just a fair use taste of which is pasted below. Go to the link for the entire article. (I remain anti-Trump, but the article can be read for its merits.)

CHRISTIAN RIGHT ESTABLISHMENT: BIG FAILURE IN LEADERSHIP

By Thomas Ertl
June 4, 2016
NewsWithViews.com . . . .

I agree. Good article, very accurate in my view.