LF: Trump Knocks Carson as a Seventh Day Adventist as Iowa Polls Shift

Until now, Donald Trump and Ben Carson have been content to co-exist as the two Republican “outsiders” dominating the presidential campaign scene.

Together, the bombastic billionaire real estate executive and the eerily soft-spoken former neurosurgeon have shared about half of the overall Republican support in the presidential sweepstakes while the other candidates have languished with single digit showings in the polls. But as Trump and Carson prepare for another crucial Republican presidential debate in Boulder, Colorado on Wednesday, the gloves are definitely coming off.

With two new polls showing Carson surging ahead of Trump in Iowa, Trump has begun lashing out with the same tactics he has used effectively against former Florida governor Jeb Bush earlier this year – saying that Carson lacks the energy and negotiating smarts to be president and that he is too soft on immigration. “Carson is lower energy than Bush,” Trump declared during a Jacksonville, Florida rally on Saturday. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Carson immediately retorted in Iowa that “My energy levels are perfectly fine,” noting that he often spent as many as 15 to 20 hours in the operating room during his career as a nationally renowned surgeon. In an obvious reference to Trump’s showboating, combative political style, Carson added that “jumping up and down and screaming” doesn’t qualify one to be president.

During an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press today, Carson said that Trump and other critics often mistake his soft-spoken manner as a sign of a lack of energy. “I have plenty of energy,” he said. “But, you know, I am soft-spoken. “I do have a tendency to be relaxed. I wasn't always like that. There was a time when I was, you know, very volatile. But, you know, I changed.”

Over the weekend, Trump also veered into more treacherous political territory – and may have offended the state’s politically active evangelical Christians -- by singling out Carson’s Seventh-day Adventist faith and suggesting that it somehow puts his chief rival on the religious fringes when contrasted with Trump’s more “middle of the road” Presbyterian faith.

“I’m Presbyterian,” Trump said on Saturday in Jacksonville. “Boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist I don’t know about. I just don’t know about it.”

Carson angrily demanded an apology. He also suggested during an interview on Fox News Sunday that Trump’s outbursts might be a sign of desperation, especially his attack on Carson’s religious faith after complaining two months ago that Carson had improperly questioned his own faith.

Back in September, Carson caused a stir when he credited his faith for his success in life and contrasted that with Trump, who had said that he never asked God for forgiveness and refused to cite his favorite Bible verse. Carson later apologized.

“He went a little ballistic on that, so it seems a little interesting that he would now be doing that,” Carson said. “You know, I really refuse to get in the mud pit. You know, Hillary [Clinton] was actually right when she said the Republicans are there trying to destroy each other. I really think that was a huge mistake in the last [presidential election] cycle, and I’m certainly not going to get into that no matter what anybody says.”

Evangelical voters make up a substantial part of the Iowa’s Republican base, and it’s a group that Trump has had difficulty wooing. Why he called out Carson on being a Seventh Day Adventist and further offending evangelicals more generally is hard to fathom.

By Sunday, Trump was back-pedaling on the controversy, even while refusing to apologize to Carson for having raised the topic in the first place. Questioned by George Stephanopoulos of ABC News’ This Week on why he even brought up the subject, Trump sputtered, “I just don’t know about that particular religion.”

“I would never say bad about any religion,” Trump said. “I said, ‘I don’t know about it.’ That’s not an insult.”

For a front-running candidate who lives and breathes polling results and who has been riding the crest of an anti-establishment movement in his party, Trump suddenly has something to worry about.

They believe that the Sabbath Day is Saturday, not Sunday, so they conduct their services on that day. They do not think that God ever changed the day.

Also, they do not eat pork or other unclean animals, or drink alcohol, or use caffeine. Many are vegetarians.

They are Sola Scripturalist Trinitarian Protestants whose origins date from a specific moment: 1863.

They are young-Earth creationists, believing in the six literal days of creation.

Now as to the Presbyterians. They too are Sola Scripturalist Protestants, Calvinists by origin.

The religion has moderated considerably in modern times. Like all of the major 16th Century Reformation-Era Western religions: Catholicism, Lutheranism, Reformed Calvinism and Presbyterianism, they have a history of horrific bloodshed and evil in their past.

On the ground, the Seventh Day Adventists are a dynamic, growing, emotional church. Presbyterianism is a drying, dying husk of a "Mainline Protestant" Church.

I myself, as a Catholic outside looking in, find the Adventist zeal to be admirable. I find the lack of modern Presbyterian zeal to be symptomatic of the spiritual weakness of old-style Protestantism, and I find the history of the Presbyterian Church to be pretty deplorable.

So, on balance, I would say that Donald Trump's white, Scottish Presbyterian attack on Black, sincere Adventism has highlighted religion, and when the religions are compared, Seventh Day Adventism is a more zealous and moral form of Christianity than Presbyterianism, and without the baggage of utterly disgraceful history that the Presybterians bear along with every other Western Church of the Reformation Era.

Trump's attack on the Seventh Day Adventists, from his Presybterian pulpit, reminds me of the barbarism committed against Catholic Irish by Scottish Presbyterians in the not-very-distant past, and has racial overtones to it as well: the decaying white Church attacking the vibrant Black Church.

The effect of Trump's attack on me is to look more favorably on Carson, and less favorably on Trump.

Adventists are nice people and are polite to all Christians, but philosophically, they consider Catholics to be the enemy. They consider the Catholic church to be the keeper of the Sunday Sabbath which is the mark of the beast. they consider the papacy to be the Anti-Christ.

Of course, that never really comes up in typical worship. Just as the idea that most of a Calvinist congregation is predestined to go to Hell never really comes up.

My main problem with Adventists is the way they treat vegetarianism as a religious ritual, even they they admit that it is not wrong to eat meat. All members are encouraged to be vegetarians in a way that goes beyond health concerns. It reminds me of tree hugging liberals.

Oh, I know. Protestant anti-Catholicism is old hat to Catholics in America, especially to those of us who have spent any time in the South.

The Presbyterians used to hate us. The Adventists think they do too. Truth is, the Adventists are mostly Black, and as an historically oppressed minority, they haven't been in a position to actually DO anything to Catholics. But there's a long and bitter history of violence against Catholics on the Presbyterian side (in Europe).

So the philosophical bit about Adventists thinking the Catholics are their enemy is a yawn. Catholics know that Protestants and the Orthodox are all in error too. Obviously - if we thought each other was right, we'd leave our religion to join the other one!

I think Adventist vegetarianism is a noble thing. They don't want to hurt animals. Someday, God tells us, the world will be vegetarian again, as it once was before the Fall. The lion will eat straw and lay down with the lamb, and a little child will lead them all.

If the Adventists strive to return to Eden, before man killed and ate animals, I think that is to their moral credit. But it's awfully hard to preserve good health and be a vegetarian without supplements.

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