Recently I was visiting a Reformed Baptist Church and the
pastor, a graduate of Liberty University continually invoked the name of Jerry Falwell
Sr. in the pulpit. He obviously admires the man and it was clear listening to
him pray and preach that he has fallen into the same idolatrous trap as Dobson,
Jeffress, the Grahams, Mohler, Perkins and a host of other conservative and
Evangelical leaders have fallen into. They think America is an 'exceptional'
nation by which they (as Christians) mean it has been granted a holy or
semi-holy status apart from other nations.
Some of this ilk have even blasphemously suggested the
Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were inspired. They
wouldn't dare equate them with Scripture, but they come close... as close as
Roman Catholics treat the inter-testamental Deuterocanonical works. In other
words these Evangelicals blasphemously and ignorantly treat the Declaration of
Independence and US Constitution as if they were a secondary canon.
This of course is without Biblical warrant and does not even
reflect America's own history... as the first secular non-Establishment state
in the post-Constantinian Western tradition. America's founding and the ideals
of the Founders match up perfectly with Enlightenment, Deist and Masonic
conceptions of society and statecraft and yet the host of false teachers which
dominate the Church have confused these notions with largely Judaized and
manipulated readings of Scripture and have forged the myth of Christian
America. They are heretics teaching a false religion and they've brought this
error into the Church... even while they call it 'Biblical worldview'.
Abandoning Biblical Christianity for the syncretistic
religion of Christo-Americanism they have fallen into a cycle of lies and
hypocrisy, expressing outrageous and misleading ethical concerns. They profess
to be pro-life but they promote death and war and an economic system that
impoverishes and enslaves people both at home but especially abroad. Their
hands are dripping with blood but wiping their mouths they insist they've done
nothing wrong. They're pro-life.
They lie about history and about what the Bible says. They
even lie about convictions they expressed only a few years before... like the
concern for checks and balances in Congress.
The liar inhabiting the Reformed Baptist pulpit blathered on
about how Trump was the most scrutinised president in history. Sadly this
deceit was part of the so-called 'pastoral prayer'. It was revolting and
offensive.
Is Trump the most scrutinised president? Actually his
misdeeds are so vast that the media has barely scratched the surface. During
the campaign journalists and authors who have covered Trump for years expressed
astonishment that the mainstream media largely ignored them and their works.
They were not offered interviews apart from alternative media forums. Trump's
business and personal past have not been explored. Nevertheless some of his
antics during the campaign and as president are so outrageous that the media is
forced to cover them. They of course love the salacious video clips and stories
of affairs with porn stars and subsequent pay-offs, but what do you expect?
Despite their ostensible opposition, actually the media loves Trump and during
the campaign gave him an unbelievable amount of coverage and on many issues a
free pass. They didn't need to do their homework and help the public
understand. They weren't interested. They were watching the dog and pony show
that was his campaign. They didn't think he would win but they (ironically) played
a significant part in helping him win. Why? Because in the end they're
entertainment outlets, not actual news. Their model backfired and undermined
the Establishment candidate. Today their anti-Trump coverage is only concerned
with promoting the Neo-McCarthyite Anti-Russia and censorship campaign. They
want him out but in the meantime he's proving useful.
Once again though if Obama had behaved this way, hiding
dubious finances, engaged in brazen corruption, paying off prostitute/actresses
and covering up affairs, what kind of coverage would that have received? As it
was the media tore into his past and the Right... well, they obsessed about it,
even relying on fantastical narratives concocted by charlatan-scholars like Dinesh
D'Souza and others. They attacked his birth certificate, attacked his name, attacked
anyone they had contact with, scrutinised his wife's past, criticised her
wardrobe and virtually anything either of them ever did or said. It still
amazes me that these same pseudo-moralists come to the defense of Melania
Trump, the antithesis of what they used to argue a first lady was supposed to
be.
George Bush was a cocaine addict and a drunk but his past was
erased because of his concocted conversion story regarding Billy Graham.
Trump's past is erased by the Christian Right, not because he has converted but
because he's doing what they want. There's an army of pseudo-clerics, false
prophets and other that continually defend him through obfuscatory rhetoric,
tactics and theological smoke and mirrors. Some reprobates like Jerry Falwell
Jr. have tried to argue that Trump is a Christian man that loves his family.
Which one? He has three so far. Clearly Falwell Jr. perhaps more than anyone in
this insane debacle has revealed himself as lost, utterly failing to grasp even
the basic concepts of Scripture and what Christ came to preach. He is the sad
and unfortunate fruit of his father's polluted sowing. He like his deceitful
father has much to answer for. An enemy of Christ, rather than promoting the
Gospel he has instead promoted evil and given the enemies of the Kingdom great
occasion to blaspheme.
Additionally I have been somewhat stunned (and perhaps this
more than anything has motivated me to write this piece) by the virtual silence
and acquiescence regarding Trump's proposal to meet face to face with Kim
Jong-Un.
Of course time will tell if it actually happens. Trump has
famously back-tracked on almost everything he proposes to do. And indeed some
have suggested the proposed meeting is actually a ploy in the march to what he
deems as inevitable war. He twists and turns lies and deceives. In that sense
he is a classic politician and one well-schooled in the American presidency. Although
semi-literate he has nevertheless taken a few notes from the so-called Teflon
president Ronald Reagan. Much more could be said about the notes he has taken
from fascist leaders like Mussolini and how Evangelicals have embraced this but
when we have Christian leaders like the pseudo-scholar Gene Edward Veith
running around telling us that fascism was a Left-wing movement and that they
were environmentalists and the like... well, there's little hope that modern
Christian readers are going to understand the rather striking analogies between
Trumpism and fascism.
Obama was repeatedly attacked during the 2008 campaign for
suggesting that he would be willing to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Iran was presented as an aggressive nuclear aspirant that
represented an existential threat to America and its ally Israel. Now,
certainly no Christian is going to express fondness for the Islamic Republic of
Iran, though years ago they certainly were fans of the Shah and his brutal
regime. Nevertheless, Ahmadinejad certainly was indiscreet in some of his
rhetoric and he liked to poke and prod making references to the Holocaust and
the like.
I remember the warmongering John McCain was almost apoplectic
when debating Obama that the then Illinois senator would even think of
negotiating with Tehran. Obama was attacked as an amateur. His credentials were
scrutinised and mocked.
Of course Trump has no credentials other than a false
narrative regarding his business and negotiating prowess.... one that falls
flat upon even a superficial examination. Why isn't Trump a diplomatic amateur?
Why isn't his proposed meeting coming under the withering attack Obama was
subjected to?
Kim Jong-Un also leads an anti-Christian regime but by all
accounts is far worse than Iran. He most certainly has a great deal of blood on
his hands and North Korea consistently tops the list of the most dangerous
place in the world to be a Christian, even surpassing US allies like Saudi
Arabia and India.
Kim Jong-Un has directly threatened both the US and US-ally
South Korea and unlike Iran he actually possesses nuclear weapons. The DPRK pursued
them in the 1990s and then largely dismantled the programme, but after Bush's
'Axis of Evil' speech penned by an evangelical speech writer and the Bush-Obama
wars on places like Iraq and Libya, Kim Jong-Un cemented his leadership by
aggressively pursuing nuclearisation and has succeeded.
Clinton's White House was lambasted for sending over the blood-soaked
and bellicose Madeleine Albright to meet with Kim Jong-Il in 2000 and the
policies were immediately reversed by George Bush. What would the Right say if
Obama tried to negotiate directly with the DPRK? What if he had agreed to meet
with Kim face-to-face?
I can tell you what would have happened. Congress would be
moving to block his diplomatic efforts. The news would be trotting out
commentators, analysts, retired generals and a host of other figures that would
be criticising Obama. They would call him an amateur, dangerous, irresponsible,
weak and even accusing him of surrender. They would pull out the normal deck of
deceitful cards and invoke Munich and appeasement.
And now with Trump? So far the response has been a little
muted but if anything has slipped out it's been positive. I have yet to hear
any real criticism.
What stunning hypocrisy. They're just like the Democrats who
promote the lie that Trump is a Manchurian Candidate controlled by Putin and yet
then vote to give him all the surveillance powers and abilities to run wanton
with Executive privilege in the realm of national security. The Democrats in
congress played their hand and showed they themselves don't believe he's a
Russian agent. Their campaign is exposed as a deceitful ploy.
And clearly Conservatives reveal the same when they are
silent over Trump's plan to meet with the leader of North Korea.
They demonstrate their concerns are not really about national
security but one simple thing... power.
They will lie, cheat and steal... and even murder to get it
and hold on to it.
These people are born of the sewer. Where does that leave the
sycophantic Christian leaders who support them?
They railed against Obama for his executive orders which he
turned to because Congress refused to work with him on anything. Of course the
Family Life Network's hacks pretend this didn't happen and call the democrats
'immature' for refusing to work with Trump... something that actually isn't
true. The Democrats always cave in and work with Republican presidents. They
certainly did with Bush, offering little resistance to his wars and fiscal
policy.
Trump has so far governed largely by executive orders.
Recently his White House manipulated a national security statute regarding
steel and aluminum production in order to introduce tariffs. He circumvented
congress because the largely pro-Wall Street congress wouldn't have supported
their introduction. Whether you support the tariffs or not is irrelevant to
this question. I'm referring to 'how' Trump brought them about and manipulated
the law to avoid congressional resistance.
Ironically it's a handful of pro-Labor Democrats (the few
that are left) that would have supported Trump on this issue.
Now if Obama had done this, what would be said? He would be
attacked as being against the free market, for assuming dictatorial powers, for
disrespecting the Constitution etc.
Is anyone on the Right or in Christian circles attacking
Trump on that basis?
Do people not see? I guess they don't. Your rulers are evil
and this is what we should expect. This is the picture presented to us by the
New Testament. That said, as per Romans 13, even evil rulers serve a purpose.
Let them spin their lies and plot their murders. That's what politics and power
are all about. That doesn't mean we jump in and support it, nor does it mean we
can somehow convert the Bestial order into the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul
contrasts what we are in Romans 12 with what the government is in chapter 13.
But look at what the Christian Right has done? Building on
the long dark Constantinian tradition they have re-cast Sacral theology for the
new era and not only have they embraced the liars, scoundrels, manipulators and
schemers that haunt Washington and Wall Street...
They have become the very same. They approve of their sins
and glory in their shame.
Again I'm not upset by the world behaving as the world. Pigs
roll in mud. What do you expect?
But the Church, the leaders of American Christianity the men
who are supposedly teaching and applying Scripture... look at what they have
become. Look at what they are.
They've taken the Bride of Christ and turned her into a
whore. They have blood on their hands. Literal blood in the case of poor people
(including poor Christians) in places like Latin America and Africa and they
have metaphorical blood on their hands when it comes to the myriads of souls
they are sending to hell. The whore rides the beast, the false church
syncretises with the state. It's a recurring theme throughout Church history.
Evangelicalism and its leaders have fallen into the same trap and now walk the
same dark paths. Rome and Constantinople uphold Scripture as God's Holy Word
and have elements of the gospel too but that does not remove their idolatries
and the reality that they were and are false churches.
Just the other morning I encountered a Christian man I've
known for many years. He continually disappoints. He's too busy to learn
doctrine. He's ignorant of Scripture and what his church teaches. He works long
hours and is consumed by hobbies. When it comes to Biblical issues, doctrine,
Church history and the many ideas which encompass these topics, he's a dullard and
almost emotionless and apathetic with regard to these topics.
And yet when the discussion turned to the 2nd Amendment,
the Constitution and Abortion he became animated and passionate. He believes he
knows a great deal about these issues and yet clearly does not. He's a consumer
of Glenn Beck and has been misled and misunderstands many things.
But what struck me was the passion and energy. He deeply cares
about these issues about which he is somewhat deceived and yet the more
important things he has cast aside.
What a fool. And yet the real bitterness must be directed
toward those who have misled him. There are many like him and they are
aggressively courted by the leaders of the Christian Right. They are recruited
for the culture war and they willingly give of their time, money and even their
children for this larger cause.
They've lost their way and in the midst of catastrophe the
leaders of the Church continue to spew out lies and in many cases lead God's
people into calamity. Nothing could be more incongruous with New Testament
Christianity than professing followers of Christ swaggering around in their
war-glorifying veteran hats and NRA t-shirts with a gun holstered on the hip.
What has happened? God help us.
Do not trust these people. Do not give them your time or
money. Do not after their works.
Call them to repentance. Wake up Evangelicals and professing
Conservative Christians, your leaders cross sea and land to make proselytes and
they're making you...you twice the children of hell.
See also: