https://julieroys.com/sherri-tenpenny-covid-denier-christian-nationalism/
This is the hour of deceived deceivers. If every dog has his
day, this is the hour for those who have embraced quack medicine and have (via
their sorceries) created a toxic brew that is deceiving people in terms of the
gospel and in this case is literally causing people to lose their lives.
Following the Anti-Covid craze I have found that among the critics
my 'thirds' rule generally applies once again to most of these pundits and
teachers. About a third of what is said is true, about a third is true or
partly so but distorted and miscontextualised to such an extent that what's
presented is in the end false. And finally about a third of the information out
there is just plain false.
This is not to say that everything flowing from government
and media mouthpieces is true. By no means would I suggest that. But the nature
and intent of Covid misinformation from these outlets is different. In many
cases it errs in the other direction.*
What's happening in Right-wing and Christian-Right circles is
(to put it another way) a mix of truth, misinformation, and blatant
disinformation.
There are conspiracies out there. History and current events
are full of them. The fact that the government and the corporate media have
lost any semblance of control of the narrative is largely their own fault.
They've lied in abundance and often and the social consensus and basic public
trust have broken down.
The problem is the same sceptical public is also more ignorant
than ever and driven by erroneous ideology and the media it has made them
malleable and easily manipulated by the powerful monied forces that would use
them. As such they've fallen prey to not merely conspiracies but ridiculous and
absurd fantasies, disinformation, and propaganda that have no basis in history
or reality.
The Establishment media is having a field day with this. If
you doubt the Warren Commission, then undoubtedly you're of one mind with QAnon
adherents who are looking for reptilians among us. It's insulting but sobriety,
decency, and any notion of truth have been abandoned. It's all about raw power
and both sides of the political spectrum are willing to lie with abandon.**
And let's face it, when it comes to Trump, many of his
followers are not adherents, fans, or supporters. They're believers and
cult-followers. They're not committed to ideals as much as they are committed
to Donald Trump. How this is 'conservative' is anyone's guess.
Or in other cases they are merely partisans. They hate the
Democrats – which is fine by me, but they should then hate the Republicans too.
And so because of their hate of the Democratic Party they have cut off their
nose to spite their face and have thrown in with something even worse.
In reference to the linked article, figures like Tenpenny
masquerade as Christians but what she really is a Christian Nationalist or
Christo-American – in other words a syncretist, a promoter of heresy and
another religion. Christianity is merely a gloss or vehicle for her true
religion which is a kind of tribalist mammon-driven Americanism.
New Testament doctrine and certainly its ethics are foreign
to her and she is in fact hostile to them. Her popularity (and those like her)
only testifies to the dangerous and degenerate state of American Evangelical
Christianity. Her unregenerate mind cannot even grasp a concept like
mortification and the idea that we don't live for ourselves. Confusing the
Enlightenment regime of 'rights' and narratives about 'tyranny' and America's 'greatness',
not to mention a contrived and historical narrative rooted in an anti-Christian
historiography, she cannot grasp that as Christians we are called to something
very different, very foreign to all of her Americanist intuitions.
As far as 'sort of' Christians, she would do well to look in
the mirror. She has confused a myriad of outside loyalties with her supposed
allegiance to Christ – whom she clearly does not know. She is an every way a
'sort of' Christian, in other words no Christian at all. She needs to be called
to repentance and put of the Church.
Knowing the tree by its fruit we can see the putrid result of
her thought – a result that is hurting people and granting occasion for the
world to blaspheme and hate the Church – not for the gospel but for those who
have confused the gospel and the Kingdom with power and mammon in the world.
It's sad to behold.
The 'false witness' anti-mask argument utilised in the
article is not only ridiculous but it is literally bearing false witness
against the clear commands of Scripture. Even if I believed the mask to be
worthless (which is contrary to all evidence) it is not sinful to wear one. You
can make an Enlightenment-rooted ethics case on a libertarian basis for the
'tyranny' of the mask. However as Christians we rely upon the teachings of
Christ and the apostles and on that basis there's no viable reason to refuse to
comply with local ordinances to that end. Besides if it in any way helps to
restrict the spread of the disease we should be the first people to wear them,
without hesitation or complaint. The anti-mask arguments utilised by many
Christians are in fact rooted in sinful thought, rebellious intent, and in
sheer disobedience to God's commands.
Again I cannot overstate the tragedy of the fact that people
like this (deceived deceivers) are able to gain massive followings, but tragic
or not it's something we're told to expect in this present evil age which is
characterised by those who have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof.
I know there are other voices in theologically conservative
circles that are opposed to the likes of Tenpenny and the wider spectrum of
those like her. Where are their voices? It is a sad moment that one has to turn
to the likes of feminist Evangelical Julie Roys to find these blatantly false
teachers called to account and receiving the condemnation they deserve and the
condemnation that needs to be proclaimed to the larger church.
I hope the reticence and resounding silence that dominates
many conservative Evangelical and Confessional quarters is not due to the fact
that Church leaders know their congregations are full of people like Tenpenny
or not all that far removed from her views. I hope they will address the full
spectrum of these issues having enough foresight to realise that these are
cancers within their congregations that are going to become manifest soon
enough, cancers that are dangerous, will spread, and yes, metastasize. I hope
they are not silent merely to protect the cash flow and their incomes. If their
entry into ecclesiastical service was motivated by Middle Class concerns like
stability, respectability and lifestyle-comfort they need to know that they
stand condemned and will answer for it at the Throne of God.
And many more of these shepherds are (I know) more or less on
board with Tenpenny's kind of thinking. I pity their flocks.
In the end I remain surprised that few seem willing to
entertain the fact that we should expect pandemics and disease. Of course
American society (and the apostate Church that is largely indistinguishable
from it) are going to fall under judgment. The world is broken and under curse.
The New Testament expectation of This Age is more akin to a dystopia than some
kind of earth-manifested Zion. And that's been the case throughout Church
history. It's a tale of Beasts and apostasy, of defections, and false Zions –
and an army of false shepherds to vindicate and promote it all.
But the mammon-driven Church won't hear it. They literally hate
the Kingdom Christ reveals in the Gospels. They won't hear that this age is one
of suffering, tears, and persecution. The Church is called to the wilderness
life, but they won't have it. And so while I am personally surprised that up to
this point our modern society hasn't experienced more pandemics and worse, when
a relatively mild one arrives, it quickly exposes where people's hearts are at.
It was like a headlamp exposing the rottenness within the Evangelical and
Confessional Church, the disease that's been festering for more than a
generation. It's been eye-opening to be sure. And it's tragic because so many
have died unnecessarily. Deceit and selfishness reign and false teachers like
Tenpenny flourish in this dark hour. The Evangelical airwaves are filled with
this kind of deceit not to mention FOX – which is virtually the oracle of
modern Right-wing Christianity.***
I know one thing. This is only the beginning and it's clear
that God is sending strong delusion upon not just the West but the
world-compromised Church. It's happened before and it's happening now.
----
*At times the government and Mainstream Media have attempted
to downplay the risks. In other cases you have (for example) Biden saying around
4 July 2021, 'Take off your masks,' with the hope that it would lead to further
vaccinations and a momentum rooted in boosted morale. It failed because those
opposed to masks were in many cases also opposed to vaccinations. And in time
it became clear that the easing up was disastrous and opened the door to the
Delta variant's proliferation.
Or one thinks back to the 2020 outbreak of the pandemic and
how American officials were trying to downplay it – knowing full that it was a
pending crisis. While the Trump CDC was taking it lightly, those who watch real
news and pay attention to the world outside the United States realised that
what was happening in places like Italy was something very serious indeed. And
it was also clear that it was coming to the United States. Its arrival was
inevitable.
There has been confusion over children in school and the
policies to that end. The truth is that it's not safe for children to be in
school or for the public at large but closing schools and going back to remote
learning has become highly undesirable in the eyes of Wall Street and much of
the economic Establishment. They're engaged in a cold kind of calculus. People
will die and have died and it's a price they are more than willing to pay to
keep the economy moving.
And the Biden administration and its media allies have
shamefully and actively sought to rekindle the Wuhan Lab myth – a
politicisation of Covid in an attempt to gain some anti-China traction out of
it. The disease was not born in a lab and if it was some kind of conspiracy to
take down America – then the architects should be fired. What a failure and in
the end the greatest harm has not come from the pandemic in itself but in the
terrible degenerate response of the American public.
For those who argue it's some kind of combined plot between
the Democrats and Beijing in order to destroy the middle class (or some
variation thereof) – they're delusional and their reasoning is not rooted in or
in contact with basic reality. They clearly do not understand how the world
works. Are the Democrats capable of evil? To be sure. Is Beijing? Of course.
But the proposed plot lacks any credible evidence and it is at a most basic
level incoherent. The millionaires who run the DNC are not looking to lose what
they have and see their assets liquidated and their power stripped away. They
may be evil but they're not insane – but those who suggest this theory are
perhaps worthy of the label.
This is further exemplified in the schizophrenia over the
China-Covid narrative. When China is evoked then Covid is real and very
dangerous. But apart from that narrative it's unremarkable, a variation of the
seasonal flu or by some estimations a complete fiction. Which is it? You cannot
have it both ways.
The truth is it's a deadly disease and the 700,000 American dead
is not an inflated number including all manner of deaths – a piece of
disinformation spread by the Right. On the contrary the number is most
certainly low.
**Witness the recent debacle over the debt ceiling and the
Right's rage at Mitch McConnell – who is apparently not Right-wing enough! He
cut a deal to temporarily raise the debt ceiling so the US wouldn't default on
its debts. It's clear that the FOX-Christian Right nexus wanted the Democrats
to raise the ceiling alone – so they could be blamed for the country's fiscal
woes. Or they were also more than willing for the US to default and take a huge
hit internationally and economically so that they could score points against
the Democrats and win next year's mid-term elections. They are literally
willing to harm the country so they can score political points. I'm not a
patriot by any means but if I were I wouldn't call that a patriotic political
strategy. I would call it subversive, self-serving, and dangerous.
*** The volume of disinformation is just incredible. Most of
it can be debunked within just a few minutes. But Christian leaders and radio
shows keep promoting this filth – endless lies about tens of thousands dying
from the vaccine. Some even suggest it's a 'genocidal' campaign. The attempt to
vaccinate people against a deadly disease is an attempt at genocide. What do
you even say to such people? And these same people turn a blind eye to war and
justify an economic system that breeds war and literally kills people and whole
societies. The degree of delusion has erected an impenetrable and unassailable
Trumpian wall. I don't how to reach these people.
The leaders of the world are certainly an evil lot but this
is just beyond the pale and irresponsible. It's not even rational and instead
demonstrates that these teachers and 'ministry leaders' are ignorant of the
Scriptures and even the basics of how the world and its political economic
systems work. It just beggars belief. It's a case of the blind leading the
blind and increasingly I believe it must be called what it is – Judgment.