Combining Conservatism With Christianity, Somehow

EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS believe that everybody should be a Christian, so its surprising that more of them seem to support Donald Trump than Ted Cruz. After all, Cruz is outspokenly devout, while Trump is not. Cruz begins each day on his knees in prayer, he says, and Trump, meanwhile, appears to have a very non Christian lifestyle, replete with money, women, and pride. At least one evangelical christian minister is trying to remind us of this, and steer the flock away from Trump, but to no avail. Another evangelical Christian minister explained it by reminding us that we are not electing a minister of the United States, we are electing a president of the United States. And yet, Cruz seems to have all the right stuff; he is extremely conservative, and extremely Christian, and, for whatever reason, the two go together in American politics. The more conservative an American, the more likely said American to be extremely devout, the pattern seems to be. The Christian faith is a long standing tradition, and political conservatism embraces tradition, while liberalism embraces change. Perhaps the answer to this strange combination lies in that fact, somewhere. Hence we have, as the late great Gore Vidal called them, the "Jesus, guns, and Money " crowd. They don't like being called that, you might notice, if you try it sometime. But why not? Isn't that description accurate? The fact that the message of Jesus is the exact opposite of the conservative guns and money message makes no difference; conservative Americans find no problem reconciling christian faith with corporate capitalism, the carrying of firearms, and the rebuke of cooperative economics, taxation, and redistribution of wealth. So, at least for the time being, "render unto Caesar" and "give unto the poor" will have to manifest among the progressive wing of the American political spectrum.