'Sheer selfishness': MAGA evangelicals ripped for 'tying cruelty to the Christian cross'

05 June

Pastor Paula White at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas in 2021 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) continues to draw scathing criticism from countless Democrats — as well as from some Never Trump conservatives, including MSNBC's Joe Scarborough — for comments making light of the effects that the draconian Medicaid cuts proposed in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" will have if it passes in the U.S. Senate.

When a voter at a town hall in Iowa warned that "people will die" if they lose access to health insurance, Ernst replied, in a flip way, "Well, we are all going to die." Subsequently, she made a video in what appeared to be a cemetery in which she doubled down, mocked her critics' concerns, and said, "I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth…. I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. For those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I'd encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

According to analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), up to 16 million Americans could lose their health insurance if Trump's megabill, in its current form, passes in the Senate.

In a scathing column published by the New York Times on June 5, Never Trump conservative David French points to Ernst's comments as a glaring example of "tying your cruelty to the Christian cross."

"The fact that a sitting United States senator was that callous — and then tried to twist her cruelty into a bizarro version of the Christian gospel — is worth highlighting on its own as another instance of the pervasive 'own the libs' ethos of the Republican Party," French argues. "But Ernst’s fake apology was something different — and worse — than simple trolling. It exemplified the contortions of American Christianity in the Trump era…. Trumpists think it's good to be bad. But why bring Jesus into it?"

French laments that pro-Trump evangelicals, including Paula White — a major proponent of the Prosperity Gospel — are celebrating "sheer selfishness."

"Consider also the evangelical turn against empathy," French writes. "There are now Christian writers and theologians who are mounting a frontal attack against the very value that allows us to understand our neighbors, that places us in their shoes and asks what we would want and need if we were in their place. But Christianity is a cross-shaped faith. The vertical relationship creates horizontal obligations."

French continues, "While Christians can certainly differ, for example, on the best way to provide health care to our nation’s most vulnerable citizens, it’s hard to see how we can disagree on the need to care for the poor. Put another way, when the sick and lame approached Jesus, he did not say, 'Depart from me, for thou shalt die anyway.' He healed the sick and fed the hungry and told his followers to do the same."

David French's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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