God Is Indeed Dead

Grifters gonna grift, and con men stick together to bail
each other out in times of trouble and, of course, to make a buck.

In case you haven’t been following Donald Trump on Twitter,
today is a special day for the nation’s evangelical flock, who have set out to
distract from increasing calls for Trump’s impeachment by holding a big MAGA
prayer fest.

“I think if people would just pray—for our president, pray
for this nation—that god will hear those prayers and answer those prayers,” one
of the organizers, Franklin Graham, told Fox News. “The president is the
president. He won the election. It’s been very difficult for his enemies to
accept that. Just pray for the president.”

Uh, no.

Fox said that 250 Christian leaders planned to join Graham on Sunday,
including Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.—who
used Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen to cover up a scandal involving
“personal photographs”—and wackadoodle almost-billionaire televangelist Kenneth
Copeland, who owns
five jets and was recently obliterated in an interview with investigative
journalist Lisa Guerrero.

White evangelicals are among the biggest segment of Trump’s
base, and this isn’t the first time they’ve bailed him out. In 2016, Vice
President Mike Pence, also a religious fanatic, spoke
at Liberty University during the presidential campaign. This was just after
the infamous Access Holllywood tape dropped,
in which Trump bragged about committing sexual assault. Yet in the eyes of many
so-called Christians who support Trump, sexual assault is just fine, apparently.
After Trump became president, he repaid the favor by choosing Liberty
University as the site of his first commencement address.

While Trump does benefit from this so-called “Special Day of
Prayer”—with pressure mounting for lawmakers to impeach him following an important
statement this week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller—let’s not forget that
the real reason for this pseudo-religious PR stunt is for evangelical grifters
to make even more money.

Frank Schaeffer, a
reformed evangelist whose family was friends with Graham’s family when
Schaeffer was growing up, laid this all out Sunday morning on MSNBC’s AM Joy with Joy Reid.

This “Special Day of
Prayer,” Schaeffer said, is merely a fundraising opportunity for “evangelical
con artists.” “It’s a triple irony,” Schaeffer said, adding that, “religion is
a fiasco in America today.”

Schaeffer also
pointed out that Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, who Graham
attacked on Twitter last month for being gay and happily married, is more
in line with the Christian teachings of Jesus Christ than Graham is. Buttigieg
also is certainly more Christian than the adulterer Trump, who doesn’t even
know how to properly
cite Bible passages.

So, if we’re going
to be praying for anything—if you believe in that sort of thing—let’s ask for an
end to this Trumpian nightmare, one in which the country has been hijacked by
right-wing Republican charlatans whose only god is represented by more money, more
abuse, and more power. I’m pretty sure there’s a Bible quote or two about that.

Or, alternatively,
we could just turn up XTC
really, really loud.