Michael Conroy/AP
Issac Bailey
Sun, October 16, 2022
And to think, I was going to give up the faith Mama instilled in me when I was old enough to walk.
Self-proclaimed conservative Christians and other people of faith have spent the past six years making excuses for Donald Trump and are now doing the same for Herschel Walker.
They cared not that Trump was the personification of everything Jesus taught us to resist. They didn’t care about his grab em’ by the genitals rhetoric, didn’t care about his open and pervasive racism. They didn’t care that he implemented a policy whose objective was to curb immigration by essentially kidnapping the children of brown immigrants. They didn’t care about his penchant to lie about things big and small, that he viewed them with such disdain he bragged he could murder someone and not lose their support.
They’re doing the same in Georgia for U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker. Make no mistake, though. This isn’t about one race; it’s about the message the GOP’s largely white conservative Christian base is sending about what it believes across the country. For Walker, they initially overlooked the gaggle of secret children he did not make known to the public until forced to despite his preaching against what he says is a scourge of fatherless homes. It’s worse this time because the latest revelations go to the heart of what they claim to believe in more passionately than anything else, the sanctity of life itself. Walker reportedly paid for an abortion of a former girlfriend and wanted her to have a second one – all while being the most extreme anti-abortion candidate during this election cycle. He is against all abortions, against any exceptions for things such as rape, incest or even the health of the mother.
The National Right to Life Committee quickly said it was going to stand behind Walker, calling it just another “Democratic character assassination attempt.” The funders aligned with Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said “We stand firmly alongside him.” Each of those “pro-life” groups say they believe Walker’s denials – even though the woman provided receipts from the abortion to the media to back up her claims. Others claim it’s because though Walker may have paid for one abortion, his Democratic opponent supports thousands or millions of them. Never mind that the abortion rate has routinely decreased faster and more steeply under Democratic administrations than Republican ones. Never mind that it increased for two consecutive years for the first time in decades when Trump was in office.
This isn’t about them. Not anymore. It’s about a mistake I was about to make I was so caught up in not wanting to be associated with them, I had second thoughts about calling myself Christian. I thought it might be better to leave behind a faith legacy that began in little ole White Chapel Holiness Church in St. Stephen, S.C., nearly five decades ago when Mama made sure we were on time to Sunday school even if she had to usher us out of the house and down the road with one shoe on our feet and unbuttoned shirts on our backs. I know now I don’t have to leave all of that behind, that I instead must be more willing to provide a counter voice. I don’t want others to believe the faith that provided guidance and clarity for my family through the toughest moments is as uncaring and unprincipled as those who have vowed to support the likes of Walker and Trump.
They are Christians. So am I. It’s just that we don’t worship the same God.
Issac Bailey is a McClatchy Opinion writer based in Myrtle Beach.
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