I’ve never regretted the years I’ve spent abroad. But when confusion sets in, it’s more often than not about my own American culture. I’ve lived in countries where people worship gods, who take the form of elephants or monkeys or perhaps an invisible transcendent deity or their ancestors or wisdom and inner peace. I mention this because one becomes accustomed to acknowledging the fact that different communities venerate divinities or qualities of mind, which encompass a spectrum of attributes. However, in the monotheistic cultures of the West, the unspoken assumption or perhaps the taboo that cannot be broken is the pretense that folks all worship the same divinity when such is clearly not the case.
Some communities such as the white Evangelical supporters of Donald Trump use the term “God” to describe a moral authority that leads them to bow down to racism, pedophilia, cruelty, and misogyny. No behavior is considered heinous so long as their patriarchal leader, Trump, endorses it.
I don’t understand why everyone pretends that this divinity is the same one that other folks worship, and describe as a God of love and compassion and selflessness. Besides, the Trump supporters’ God is white. The other Christian God is colorless. Are you sure it’s the same God?