Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban shared a video of a fired-up preacher excoriating Donald Trump‘s bible/constitution mashup, calling it a “ploy” and “blasphemy.” Cuban amplified Rachael Bitecofer’s post featuring the preacher and asked his nearly nine million followers simply: “What does everyone think of this sermon?”
(Bitecofer captioned the share writing: “This evangelical is over Trump. Calls his Bible disgusting.”)
What’s everyone think about this sermon ? https://t.co/WaigQoxDJm
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 24, 2024
Setting apart politics from “spiritual stuff,” Preacher Loran Livingston of Central Church Charlotte, NC says, “Politics is of this world. You think it’s your duty to be political about this that and the other. No! Your duty is to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Don’t be talking to me about my spiritual responsibility to vote. I don’t have a spiritual responsibility to vote.”
He continues to shame Trump’s Bible-cum-Constitution mashup, saying the man-made political documents consider “the people” as the top force in the world — “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The pastor resists the notion that these (almost heretical) documents belong together with the Bible, which considers God as the lone force worth considering, with people considerable only in as much as they are created in God’s image.
Trump’s Bible mashup is “disgusting, it’s blasphemous, it’s a ploy,” he says, saying the Gospel is not an American gospel.
One former pastor, who has hosted rallies for Donald Trump, responds to Cuban, saying that the preacher is wrong about his separation of God’s world from this world. That ex-pastor turned political operative, Chris Widener, asserts that the Bible requires people to be “stewards” — charged with caring for and influencing their communities, land, government, etc.
Cuban responded to Widener with a question about stewardship and the qualities a good steward should possess. Cuban lists a host of alleged Christian values in his question — values, not coincidentally, that Trump’s detractors believe he largely lacks.
How do you determine who might be a good steward ? Do any of these traits come into play: humility, self-awareness, compassion, respect for others, putting others ahead of one’s self, honesty, charitable, accepting, caring, reliable, patient, wise, forgiving ?
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 24, 2024
Cuban writes: “How do you determine who might be a good steward? Do any of these traits come into play: humility, self-awareness, compassion, respect for others, putting others ahead of one’s self, honesty, charitable, accepting, caring, reliable, patient, wise, forgiving?”
Others professed to be grateful for the separation of church and state — and honored a division between the practice of faith and the business of partisan politics.
The comment below underscores that the idea long predates Trump’s courtship of Evangelicals, as the writer tells of a moment at his church when it seemed to turn into a rally for George W. Bush.
Wow, that was amazing, God Bless this preacher,
…the last time I went to church was 20 yrs ago,
…the preacher turned his sermon into a political rally for George Bush Jr,,,, I got up right in the middle of it and left, never to return, how dare the church preach politics.
— Michael Cleere (@mikecleere) April 24, 2024