As the Trump Presidency comes to a close (exactly how, who knows?), I wanted to gather up various threads that have come up over the last four years that specifically discussed Trumpism with respect to conservative American Evangelicalism, as well as collect articles that speak to the contemporary moment of it.

I don't have any particular rhetorical ends for this thread. The floor is open to comment on any of the threads, articles, or whatever else gets posted. I just think it's useful and interested to have a consolidated place to look back over the time. I'm sure I've missed some (especially specific threads of thought within other larger posts), so feel free to add as you feel appropriate.

Old Threads:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...today-1633232/

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...icals-1587102/

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...-post-1759224/

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...trump-1639438/

New articles:

https://slate.com/human-interest/202...reactions.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...356_story.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...apitol/617591/

There is a fundamental, implicit presupposition that has to be present for people to be able to have meaningful dialogue with one another. It is the presupposition that the other person, is at least in part, in service to or aimed at truth. As long as that presupposition is present, then each person will give themselves the freedom to suspend their frame(s), which is the only way meaningful dialogue is possible.

If that presupposition is eroded and I no longer grant truth orientation to the other person, then I can only relate to them as someone within a threatening frame, so I will automatically adopt the anti-frame. Further, it is now impossible for me to temporarily suspend my anti-frame while I am relating to this other person. At this point, meaningful dialogue becomes impossible and we are confined to the domain of power, escalation, and potentially violence.

The political discourse has reached a tipping point in which that presupposition has been eroded for each side. Ultimately this is a religious issue. Once an attachment to the anti-frame has been established, the other side will never be trusted enough for me to suspend or reject my anti-frame. You see this in the dynamic between theists and anti-theists as well.

A while back I differentiated between two types of conscience: the social conscience and the Holy Spirit. The anti-frames operate at the level of the social conscience. Only the HS, or the deeper conscience, can guide us to reject our anti-frame(s).

Since meaningful dialogue with an anti-frame is impossible and engaging with the other person’s anti-frame elicits the anti-frame in myself, the productive response begins with disengagement.

Someone with a high level of self mastery is capable of making a more productive move. They can disengage the anti-frame and follow that by eliciting the deeper conscience in the other person through surrender. This is the meaning of the turn-the-other-cheek teaching. It changes the domain of the interaction from the power domain to the faith domain for both people involved.

Why do you keep making up newshit craig? "Frame, threatening frame, anti-frame".

Just call them paradigms like the rest of the world.

Frame as in frame-of-mind or mental framework.

Kinda like a mental paradigm.

I thought he meant "frame of mind" which was important and legit. We have to ask ourselves, which side, religious or non-religious, is known most for clinging to their side of it at all costs, instead of being open to actual realities? The answer is obvious for all religions. No one has to say it. Of course to deny it it takes a lot of words, tons of sophistry all of which avoids the very basic realities of the world.

What if the holy ghost was first conceived of as exactly that: a ghost? Just another ghost by ghost believing peoples. I mean that's a problem. So when things like that are brought up, our religion compels us to make ad hominem attacks. And soar into sophistry that claims a pipeline to the almighty while ignoring any real world problems.

Anti-frames always have a justification. Always. To realize at some level that I have been hijacked by an anti-frame, and then to immediately make the move of considering justification - that simply means that I continue to be hijacked by the anti-frame.

There can be no appeal to considering justification if someone wants to cease being part of the problem and strive to be part of the solution.

The AP VoteCast survey shows that 81% of White evangelical Protestant voters went for Trump this year, compared with 18% who voted for Biden. What a huge embarrassment to this branch of Christianity. Might as well vote for Satan himself.

(I am generally pro-Christianity)

Only the church can truly defeat a Christian insurrection.