Good questions, ttbn.

<<What do people who presume the ability to speak with authority on 'conservative Christians” think came first - the conservatism or the Christianity?>>

I think that’s going to be different for every Christian. I’ve known of Christians to abandon the faith because their churches were far too conservative for their liking, but, then, I’ve also seen leftie atheists become conservatives because they “found god”.

As as an aside, no one needs to presume “the ability to speak with authority on conservative Christians”. They are loud enough, and politically powerful enough in the US, for us to all see what they believe and why.

<<Do conservatism and Christianity even collate.>>

That depends on who you ask. Stepping back into my Christian shoes, I would say ‘no’. Certainly not the more extreme, devil-take-the-hindmost style of economic conservatism we see in the US anyway. Jesus was too much of a hippie for that. The origins of the rationale underpinning the seemingly-unChrist-like politics of the Christian Right in the US can be seen in the works of Thomas Robert Malthus.

<<Anglicans and Uniting Church congregations call themselves Christians, but they and their leaders speak as lefties when trying to interfere with day to day life and politics.>>

You mean interfere like the Christian Right does?

Why can’t Christians be lefties? Aside from abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality, the Jesus I once believed in was a raging lefty.

--

This insistence that the world is going to pot never ceases to amuse me.

The data simply does not support such an assertion. By most measures, we are currently living in what are the best times humanity has ever known.

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_is_the_world_getting_better_or_worse_a_look_at_the_numbers

This is something that even a partisan hack like Ben Shapiro acknowledges, but you wouldn't think we were living in very good times going by what we're fed in the mainstream media. Especially not with the 24-hour news cycle we're now exposed to.

This inconvenient fact is devastating to conservative Christians, though, who insist on believing that the end times are fast approaching (and have believed so for nearly two thousand years).

No mention of his stance on abortion here. This is an important issue for many Christians. Most of them see his occasional crude remarks as nothing in comparison to killing the unborn

"By most measures, we are currently living in what are the best times humanity has ever known."

There is no question that materially, mankind has never had it so good. I've mentioned here more times than I'd like to recall.

The problem however is more about the future rather than the present and the fact that the vast majority do not understand how we got here, that it wasn't just 'dumb luck', and that the attributes that allowed us (the west) to create the most successful society of all time, are being frittered away.

Historically when a successful society forgets its past and ignores those things that created the success, it is ultimately doomed.

It is the loss of these attributes, free speech, property rights, individual responsibility, Christian values, rule of law and a host of others that great thinkers like Shapiro, Peterson, Steyn and so many others are warning about.

That so many fail to understand how we got here from there and fail to understand how easily it could all be lost, is the reason some think "the world is going to pot" and seek to warn of the dangers and suggest ways to reverse course.

_______________________________________________________________

As to the actual article, the problem for people like Suter is that they never understand that not everyone sees the world as they do. So if Trump is adopting a new path toward a hoped for peace arrangement in the M-E, a path that Suter doesn't accept or (perhaps) even recognise, they assume his aims are suspect. But the old 'solutions' have been shown to be utter failures. So a new approach seems rather sane.

yes Rhys Jones the defunding of the Planned Parenthood butchers is music to any decent human beings ears. What a callous murderous mob championed by Obama and Hillary.

@ttbn very true and I wonder what RUNNER has to say about Christians having too much voting power in the US?

Methinks Suter underestimated the influence of Jewish interests on Trump.

Suter ignores or has forgotten Trump's son-in-law and Senior Presidential Advisor, Jared Kushner, is Jewish [1].

It just so happens "Trump put Kushner in charge of brokering peace in Israeli–Palestinian conflict...[2]

and

"On [May 14, 2018] Kushner acted as the face of the administration at a ceremony celebrating the U.S. Embassy in Israel being moved to Jerusalem – an action that triggered more unrest in the volatile region." [3]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Kushner

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Kushner#Senior_Advisor_to_the_President

[3] http://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/14/kushner-hails-new-jerusalem-us-embassy-as-palestinians-are-killed.html

//The problem however is more about the future rather than the present//

So basically: everything is fine but unless everybody gets on board with my ideological viewpoints pretty damn quick-smart, then repent ye sinners, for the end is nigh.

Now, where have I heard that before?