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Get It Together, Evangelicals

By Emily Cutler | Late Night TV | December 21, 2017 |

By Emily Cutler | Late Night TV | December 21, 2017 |


Listen, I’m not a person of faith. And as not a person of faith, my criticism of the faithful might seem crude or uninformed. Worse, it might seem that I’m mocking the idea of belief itself when I attack those for what I see as their religious hypocrisy. But I need to make clear that I’m saying with the utmost respect: You’ve got to get your shit together, Evangelicals. You’re fucking this up but good.

Now, I could point out how Evangelicals have lost any moral high ground by supporting Trump and Moore (because a gay couple in a loving, committed marriage are morally destitute while an attempted child rapist is a man of god), but that’s not even the part that bugs me the most. They are humans after all, and hypocrisy is basically our favorite thing.

No, what bugs me more is, what kind of brand are you guys going for? You maybe can square away the moral gymnastics required to call Donald Trump a “man of god,” but how’s that play to the larger audience? And, as a representative of the faithless, given that you don’t seem to care about the behavior of a “man of god”, why the fuck should I give a shit what you think anyway? (That one might objectively be a bit of a crude attack on religion. You got me on that one.)

As a non-believer, I’ve been told many (many, many, many) times that it doesn’t matter how good of a person I am because my acts are hollow without belief. The belief portion itself is so important that even if Trump isn’t a “true believer,” God can work through him to enact the changes true believers want to see. Sure, Trump might be a twice-divorced, serial adulterer who treats women like objects and cheats on his taxes, but he’ll put a Christian on the Supreme Court who will outlaw abortion and gay marriage. Because as we’ve already established, the most important thing is to make sure our actions are holy, right? Acts are all that matter, which is why we need to break all of our moral standards to uphold our moral beliefs. Am I getting this right yet? I never went to Sunday school, so you’ll have to forgive my ignorance.

Despite my non-belief, I do have my own standards and values, one of which says religion that is wielded as a weapon probably isn’t filled with the loving spirit of generosity it claims to be founded on. One of my other values says being pragmatic in the face of unfavorably changing demographics means Evangelicals might want to rethink their current “Fuck ‘Em” philosophy. I mean, Jesus Christ, even the Mormans know to be nice.