Ted Cruz surged to second place among candidates for President in the survey.
Marco Rubio continues to enjoy strong support from evangelicals surveyed with 44.8% of the respondents choosing Rubio as their first choice. Cruz increased to around 25% with the rest of the candidates lagging behind. Ben Carson’s stock fell and Donald Trump is near the bottom with apparently one respondent picking Trump.
The World survey has made some enemies in recent weeks. Ann Coulter exploded about it because Trump isn’t doing better. World’s J.C. Derrick replied to her rant with some facts.
Although Cruz supporters may take hope in this month’s results, I doubt they will have much more to celebrate. Said plainly, I believe a Cruz nomination assures a Hillary Clinton win. Cruz is not center-right as he implies he is; rather he is far right with supporters who want U.S. law to reflect Old Testament injunctions. He cannot back away from this and maintain any integrity with his base. In the general election, all of the pandering to the right wing fringe will be remembered.
Tag: ann coulter
An Answer to Ann Coulter's False Dilemma
If Ann Coulter still has followers among evangelical and conservative Christians, she may have lost them this week. Wednesday she stuck to the missionaries-are-Christian-narcissists argument (see her rant from last week) with lots of venom for all.
Many Christians are outraged and Coulter pretends that outrage is about all her critics have. She huffs:
I planned to respond to my critics this week, but, unfortunately, there’s nothing to respond to. They call me names, say I’m cruel, malicious, not a Christian, compare me to Howard Stern and cite the titles of my books as if they are self-refuting. (Zippy, aren’t they?)
In other words, it feels like a book tour.
Missing from these alleged refutations is what we call a “point.” What is with these Christians? I know God didn’t distribute brains evenly, but can’t they make an argument? Christian websites should start separating columns into “Arguments” and “Anger” sections.
It is jarring to read Coulter faulting her critics for a failure to advance an argument since her main approach is to just argue. She has an opinion, but I wouldn’t call what she has a point either. She likes America better than anywhere else and she wants Christians to stay home and do religion here. I get it, but I wouldn’t call it a principled argument supported by anything other than her own brand of outrage.
She contends that America is the most important country in the world and if America falls, then the whole world falls. Thus, all resources should be spent in America.
As it turns out, almost all of the resources are spent in America.
According to an article by the late Bill Bright, only 5% of church budgets go overseas. Former deputy historian of the House of Representatives Fred Beuttler wrote in a chapter on American missions:
For all the public emphasis on missions, it remains a small portion of evangelical budgets.
Beuttler cites Barrett and Johnson who assert that about $16 billion is embezzled in churches each year which is more than the $15 billion given to missions outside the U.S. It should really be obvious to anyone who attends a typical evangelical church that most money and time goes to maintaining existing ministries right here at home. Coulter already has what she wants, but she wants more.
Coulter advances a false dilemma for evangelicals – stay home or go elsewhere as missionaries. If you go on mission, then you are an idiot wasting yourself; if you stay home, you are helping save America which is good. The dilemma is an illusion. Clearly, evangelicals can and should do both. However, looking at the numbers, we are not doing both very well, with missions getting the tiny end of the stick.
This, Ms. Coulter, is a rebuttal and one which I don’t expect to see you include in your next column.
Shorter Ann Coulter: Screw Africa (and everybody else 'cept 'merica)
Subtitle: Screw the Great Commission too.
Coulter rants in Human Events today about Dr. Kent Brantly, the doctor with the Ebola virus flown to the United States for treatment:
There’s little danger of an Ebola plague breaking loose from the treatment of these two Americans at the Emory University Hospital. But why do we have to deal with this at all?
Why did Dr. Brantly have to go to Africa? The very first “risk factor” listed by the Mayo Clinic for Ebola — an incurable disease with a 90 percent fatality rate — is: “Travel to Africa.”
Can’t anyone serve Christ in America anymore?
It gets worse. Coulter spews:
Which explains why American Christians go on “mission trips” to disease-ridden cesspools. They’re tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S., tired of being called homophobes, racists, sexists and bigots. So they slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works, forgetting that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream. America is the most consequential nation on Earth, and in desperate need of God at the moment. If America falls, it will be a thousand years of darkness for the entire planet.Not only that, but it’s our country. Your country is like your family. We’re supposed to take care of our own first. The same Bible that commands us to “go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel” also says: ”For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’”
Theological genius that she is, Coulter counters a command of Jesus with a completely compatible injunction from Deuteronomy. False dilemma much?
Without any awareness of the irony, Coulter ends:
There may be no reason for panic about the Ebola doctor, but there is reason for annoyance at Christian narcissism.
Yes, Ann, there is reason for annoyance at your “Christian” narcissism.
Ann Coulter sorta hearts gays, Bryan Fischer strangely hearts Ann Coulter
Bryan Fischer really wants to love Ann Coulter, even though she took a speaking engagement with the dreaded GOProud. He is even willing to forgive, now that it is over.
I did say that Ann might surprise us all and take the homosexuals straight on, but guessed that a desire not to upset her hosts, who surely paid a princessly sum to entice her into speaking and appearing on all their promotional posters, would likely prevent her from getting up in their business.
Well, I was wrong.
Ann took them straight on and gave them some straight talk I doubt they were ready for. There is no amount of sugar that will help this medicine go down.
Fischer read this write up of the event in Politico and got all misty:
And Ann, all is forgiven. Humble pie has never tasted so sweet. You are no longer the “Joan of Arc of homosexuality,” as I described you last month, you are now Daniella of the Lion’s Den. Good on ya, lass.
Not sure what he was eating in that humble pie. Coulter never met a group she couldn’t insult so her comments seem in character and her take on it seemed different than Fischer’s.
As for Coulter, she told POLITICO the embrace of gays on the right could only be reciprocated.
“Right wingers have always liked gays. Look at all of Ronald Reagan’s gay friends,” she said, proceeding to cite an unverified rumor dating back half a century: “Look at my personal hero Joe McCarthy and his” – airquotes – “special assistant.”
Some right wingers like gays so much they take them on trips to lift their luggage, although I am not sure that is what Coulter meant. Mr. Fischer on the other hand might need a new column to deal with Daniella of the Lions Den’s fondness for gays.
UPDATE: Well perhaps Ann didn’t heart the GOProud crowd quite as much as Politico made it seem. Here is another view via RightWingWatch, from another attendee.
UPDATE: Or maybe she did a little more than the attendee above experienced. Read this conservative gay man’s take on the situation. The gay marriage argument was a very un-Fischer type argument, according to Alex Knepper at Frum Forum:
You conservative gays don’t actually care about this activist crap like marriage, or serving in the military. Ultimately, what you really want is some sort of assurance that Americans are accepting of gays, not marriage itself. Gay marriage initiatives don’t fail because Americans hate gay people; they fail because marriage is fundamentally about rearing children. Most Americans love gay people; they just don’t want that institution extended.
I’ll let conservative gays respond to that but it is probably not enough to let Ann keep her Warrior Princess badge.