What a sad moment. Ocasio-Cortez the much vilified Democratic
representative from New York and member of the hated 'Squad' has spoken truth –
and a truth that puts Evangelicals to shame.
The Right has made too much of Ocasio-Cortez. Some
commentators suggest that 'The Squad' in fact dominates the Democratic Party
and that Biden and Pelosi both answer to them. A ridiculous notion – at best Ocasio-Cortez
is a classic figure of the Pseudo-Left. She's not opposed to the American
system in any real way. She simply wants some of the wealth to trickle down to
the poor and disadvantaged and since the market won't do it naturally, she's
interested in legislation that makes it happen. But again, she represents no
existential threat to the system or the American Empire as a whole. She's no
socialist. Only by completely redefining the concept can she be found within
its parameters.
And as far as influence and power, the so-called Green New
Deal (which is almost synonymous with her name) was dead on arrival and always
has been. For that matter it was never meant to be taken seriously, its extreme
(and yet mostly green-wash) proposals were a bargaining tactic – heavily watered
down by the DNC Establishment and finally killed by the Washington bureaucracy
and the money that flowed into Joe Manchin's coffers. It was never going
anywhere and what was finally killed (as part of Biden's Climate Plan) was only
a deformed shell of what had been presented. It was a tactic and more than
anything else a marketing ploy by Ocasio-Cortez to win over a loyal base –
which she then steered back into the corrupt Wall Street-friendly Democratic
Party.
Functionally the so-called Squad (a Left-wing bloc of junior
congress members) serves in a capacity similar to Elizabeth Warren and (the
soon to fade away) Bernie Sanders did under Bush and Obama. They make noise,
try to tweak policies toward the Left but in the end they capitulate and all
but guarantee that actual Left wing voters that are unhappy with the DNC, will
stay with the Party and vote for it in the end. They get a lot of a press – a
good deal of this is due to the hysteria on the Right, but in reality The Squad
wields very little power.
The kerfuffle over AOC's 'Tax the Rich' dress at the Met Gala
typifies the kind of pseudo-Left politics she represents. Hobnobbing with the
wealthy in a setting of glitz and glamour, she wore an extremely expensive
protest dress – its message hypocritical and empty. There's no challenge to
Wall Street or the Empire – just the hope that they'll take a little less and
dole it out to keep the masses at peace and give them a modicum of hope.
While her views on climate may be seem extreme to those on
the Right, their own views are also problematic, extreme, and ethically dubious.
Ocasio-Cortez is not a figure that commands any kind of
admiration, empathy, or even respect. And yet the attacks against her are the
result of unjustified hysteria (fed by FOX and the Koch network) and point to a
growing threat of violence from the Right.
In other words Ocasio-Cortez is nothing. The story here is actually
the Right and how they've made her into a monster and endlessly fixated upon
her. While wielding little actual power, one might say The Squad does represent
something the Right fears – minority women coming to power by democratic means.
And it must be said, it's not just that they're minority women (for even the
GOP can find and in others cases create or buy some of them), but women that
reject the Judeo-Christian America narrative and its Right-wing capitalist
paradigm and claims of moral exceptionalism. It's a sign that the Right's
vision of America is in jeopardy.
All that said, Ocasio-Cortez is part of the culture war
that's taking place in US politics and the Right has actually moved so far to
the Right that by historical definitions the party is slipping into fascism. As
far as the Christian Right goes, it's safe to say that they've lost their
minds. They've abandoned their ethics and have dismantled the ideological
foundations that once undergirded their fundamentally and fatally flawed
project. Their garden has gone to seed and is now dominated by weeds.
Power is both their goal and their god and the capitalist
United States is (de facto) the kingdom of heaven manifest on Earth. Contrary
to the New Testament, the ethics of this hybrid religion are libertarian and
its morality is (as is often the case with Capitalist societies) rooted in
utilitarian argument. Decadent to the core, and dominated by the idol of mammon
(which excludes them from faith in the God of Christ and the New Testament),
they have functionally canonised not just America's founding documents but
their particular myth-narrative concerning them. In other words they have concocted
a poisonous brew and have now grown drunk on it.
It is the ethic (or really anti-ethic) of libertarianism and
a dangerous kind of nationalism that drives Right-wing figures to pose with
guns and juxtapose this image and message with that of a holiday family photo.
The Evangelical faction that has made the unbiblical holy day of Christmas a
central plank in the culture war has moved so far afield from the New Testament
that they no longer know what the coming of Christ is all about and the nature
of the message we are called to preach. It's not merely the 'peace' message
secularists pick up on – peace of course only coming in reference to faith in
Christ, repentance from sin and reconciliation with God. While the Christian
message of peace is focused differently than say those who advocate for peace
in opposition to war, they are not as divorced from some basic Christian
ethical concerns as some on the Right would have it.
There will be no peace in this age but we as Christians would
never foment or support war. And while the world will certainly continue in its
murderous ways, our conduct as Christians is different. We are citizens of the
heavenly Kingdom of Zion and we live by its ethics. Our refusal to live by the
sword and the ways of mammon is part of our witness against the world. The
gospel message is one of condemnation and hope. We offer hope but it means a cost,
a change, a shifting of allegiance away from the kingdoms of the world and the
swords and mammon they represent – a veritable culture of death. Our refusal,
persecution, and sometimes subsequent martyrdom are a condemnation of the world
and its systems. When we take up the sword we abandon the gospel message and
its ethics. And this is what we're seeing when we witness Evangelical figures
like Lauren Boebert glorify the gun, not to mention the larger array of evil plots
and designs they're involved in and allied with. Their testimony is destroyed.
Their faith is false and their professions are bankrupt. And the same is true
of the churches and church leaders which tolerate and encourage them.
Sadly Ocasio-Cortez is right. For a group that has made so
much of Christmas and the 'cultural' importance of its message, it's clear
(even to a lost person like AOC) that they no longer promote or live by an
ethic that is even remotely related to the 'Christmas' message – or what we
might call the gospel. Apparently the Incarnation was a call to seek power or
as the New Testament puts it regarding false teachers – they think godliness is
gain. The message of hope and reconciliation with God by means of the
Incarnation is transformed into a call to arms, a will to power. The ethic of
Christ has been altered and replaced by the ethic of Lamech.
The issues are bigger of course than just guns and their
glorification. Wealth itself can become a weapon of violence – another reason
why we're not to seek it. We are to follow in the footsteps of Christ and live
by His example. The only justice, the only righting of wrongs will come with
the Parousia and the subsequent destruction and re-creation of the Earth. But
this is not carte blanche for
Christians to 'live it up' in this age and build their own individual and
corporate Babels – or to beat the servants, or even to point guns at them.
These people have completely lost their way and live by the
ethic of consequentialism – the end justifies the means. It's literally this ethic that is condemned by
Paul in Romans. And make no mistake for these Lamechite Evangelicals, the end they
seek and lust after is their own power and glorification. And they will shoot
you and your children in the head if you dare to resist them. That's their
gospel. If you don't see this as functional apostasy then you do not understand
the gravity of what's happening right before your eyes.
While the end is important and ever our focus, in New
Testament Christianity the race itself is what's important. There's no reaching
the end unless you run the race faithfully. The victory only arrives in the age
to come. If you 'cheat' in terms of ethics, then you don't win – whatever
result your cheating produces. And the embrace of cheating (to extend the
analogy) is a sure sign of rotten fruit – a false faith.
There can be little doubt that for some of these folks the
cancer of Evangelicalism's Cheap Grace and Easy Believism has played a part in
their way of thinking and living. Throw in the Once Saved Always Saved perversion
of what the Scripture teaches about assurance, not to mention the imperatives of
Dominionism – and it's a virtual formula for ethical collapse. Today's
iteration is but the latest in the long, sad, and corpse-strewn history of the
apostasy known as Christendom – the counterfeit Zion.
When unbelievers are morally 'calling out' Christians, it is
judgment on the Church. When someone like Ocasio-Cortez has more of a moral
compass than Christian leaders, then it's a clear sign the Church has lost its
way. And guns and violence are far from the only issues. The conduct and
personal character of figures like Lauren Boebert and Mark Meadows (to name a
couple of the prominent Evangelicals who have been in the recent news) are
marked by rebellion – yet another rejection of New Testament teaching and ethics.
First and foremost they are traitors to Christ's Kingdom and yet the apostate
Church elevates these people and lionises them. From Boebert's categorical
rejection of Christian womanhood to Meadows normalisation of deceit and his
violent schemes (of which Boebert is a part), they have entirely lost their way
and in no way represent the faith of Christ.
The Evangelical movement can talk all it wants about being
pro-life and condemning the Culture of Death, but once again this is revealed
as being just talk. Worldly power results in death and the god of
Evangelicalism is power. Abortion is a convenient issue they use to manipulate
their political base but from guns, to foreign policy, to economics, to Covid –
the Evangelical movement is clearly and firmly embedded in the world's culture
of death. In fact, they're slaves to it.
And while they profess to love Christ and celebrate (high
place fashion) his holy day (which was never commanded or entered God's mind) –
their true conduct surrounding 25 December, reveals all – gluttony,
consumerism, decadence, and a kind of sick hybrid Lamech-religion of mammon,
guns, and a pseudo-Zion.
The Glory of the Incarnation and its telos could not be further
removed from their minds.