https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/remember-to-remember-part-1/id1433823311?i=1000710247721
SermonAudio blocks anyone who is deemed 'woke' or who embraces too robust a view of works or sacraments. They are guardians of orthodoxy or so they deem - but then they allow this kind of heretical filth. Scudder's sermons receive no sanction or censorship.
Scudder embraces the propaganda of the regime and argues that our freedoms have been secured by soldiers. The implication is often that other people don't enjoy these freedoms. The truth is most people in the world have a degree of freedom when it comes to worship with many nations having freedom equal to that of the United States. And yet they do not have the militaristic history of the United States. The idea that these wars made it possible for Christians to worship is simply a lie. If anything, militarism drives the government toward heightened states of secrecy, security, and censorship, and it was after 9/11 that the Bush administration (cheered on by Evangelicals like Scudder) began to surveil and collect everyone's personal data. Historically war reduces freedom at home - in part to hide what they are doing abroad. The US government is desperate to hide its mass murder, crimes, and other atrocities from the public. They lost control of the narrative in Vietnam and given the relatively recent history of World War II and the narratives surrounding that war - large sections of the public had their eyes opened to the hypocrisy of it all. The state doesn't want that to happen again and it relies on its myriad host of paid agents and outright brainwashed idolaters and dupes like Scudder to get the message out.
Saddam Hussein was not coming to take away our freedom, let alone our freedom to worship. Nor was the Taliban, Gaddafi, Ho Chi Minh, or the North Koreans. Ironically when rattling off death totals, he forgot the Forgotten War as Korea is known. I had to chuckle at that.
These arguments regarding soldiers and their supposed sacrifice on our behalf beg the question regarding the validity of these wars and the narratives we the public have been sold. The truth is these wars were based on lies and were often about other interests and calculations. When Christians repeat these mantras they are mouthpieces for the American Beast.
What is particularly pernicious is the way Scudder (via theological smoke and mirrors) weaves a deceptive mist confusing the remembrance of American soldiers with the gospel of Christ and the sacrifice of the cross. It's actually blasphemous and suggests the death of these soldiers was redemptive and akin to some form of martyrdom. It's amazing to listen to as he very deliberately confuses the blood of Christ with the blood spilled by soldiers. He adds to this by speaking of Hell in terms of 'tyranny' and then equates that with how American soldiers supposedly delivered its citizens from tyranny - and somehow this is still a question today in reference to not only Vietnam and Iraq but the countless other wars the US is engaged in and supports throughout the Middle East and Africa?
Again, once one understands the nature of the lies regarding these wars, the narratives and theological overlay take on both an absurd and obscene character.
Without missing a beat he jumps from the supposedly moving beauty of Arlington Cemetery to an American cemetery in the Philippines - evidently oblivious to the fact that the Philippines were stolen by the United States and brutally colonized by them. The crimes were atrocious leading to domestic American protest and some believe they were at least part of the motivation for Leon Czolgosz to assassinate William McKinley in 1901. But such questions are not permitted to be entertained. The narrative must focus on the glories of American soldiery and the language of sacrifice - even if the narratives surrounding Japan's motivations for attacking America are spun and obscured.
Remember sin and the sacrifice of the cross, but (according to Scudder) it's just as important to remember these soldiers who died for a nation, its interests, and wealth. That's the message. He says in the episode description:
...honor the sacrifices that secured our freedom—both earthly and eternal.
That equates or draws an analogy in terms of redemption. Christ purchased one kind, the soldiers who killed and murdered millions, bombed cities into ashes, dropped napalm, and massacred civilians, secured another kind of redemption. It is high blasphemy. It denigrates the work of Christ. It sanctifies evil. It is satanic. When Paul speaks about false apostles and deceitful workers transforming themselves into apostles of Christ akin to Satan transforming himself into an angel of light - this is it. This is just such an example. It could not be any clearer.
We are to extol the SEAL who killed Bin Laden but we're not supposed to ask about what motivated Bin Laden or about the US history with him and his family - or the nature of the US-Saudi relationship and its relationship to Salafist violence. We're not supposed to question the motives behind the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban - or even the context of Bin Laden's killing. No, instead think about the killer who is legitimized because he wears a uniform. In any other context he would be a thug, a monster, an assassin. Don't think about these things - just worship at the altar of nationalism - so says this Christian 'Bible' teacher.
Meditate on their blood that was shed we're told - in a way similar to the way we might meditate on the blood of Christ. No doubt Scudder would slither out of such a charge but that's more or less what he's saying and the conflation is deliberate on his part.
Christians do not celebrate Memorial Day. If your relatives died in American wars, pity them, remember them as people, lament the fact that they were deceived and fell into sin. Do not remember them in the way Scudder would have it.
Listening to his description of the flag rituals I was struck yet again how something like the Lord's Supper is often treated in such a casual manner. In these same churches people walk around, whisper, and talk during prayer and Scripture reading. But you can be certain that if something is happening related to the flag or if a patriotic song is being played (which has no place in a Christian church), these same people will become silent, reverent, with great attention to propriety and great wrath toward anyone refusing to conform. It's so telling to me that I can say without qualification the vast majority of American Christians are Americans first and Christians second - which means they're not Christians at all. For most of these people their Christian identity and understanding only has real import in how it's related to their understanding and worship of America and the security and wealth it represents for them. They are lost, and yet it is men like Scudder who will give a terrible account for this deception and the resulting functional apostasy that men like him have presided over for generations now.
He
runs through the numbers of dead (in a strangely inaccurate
under-count) and yet the reasons behind these wars and the moral
questions encompassing them are not addressed. It's not allowed to be
questioned or considered. We must mourn them we're told but we're not
to mourn or remember the millions of people the US has killed in its
wars or the spin-off wars it has generated. When other nations behave
this way, their soldiers are criminals but moral equivalence is a
great heresy in the eyes of the Americanist Religion and is given a
particularly virulent form of theological argument in the
Christo-American variant - the religion of Scudder, Mohler, and other
Evangelical leaders. The Flag-Gospel tracts being promoted by Scudder
leaves no doubt as to the syncretism. You can learn about salvation
in connection to 'Old Glory' and Betsy Ross!
We're told that
without the death of these soldiers we wouldn't have 'the right' to
preach the gospel. Do we need the state to sanction us preaching the
gospel? Can the gospel be preached apart from tax exempt status? How
did killing Vietnamese and Iraqi people secure us 'the right'
(whatever in the world that means) to preach the gospel. This is
delusional thinking.
He is correct on one level that American
prosperity is due in part to its wars and therefore its duped
soldiers who killed and were killed to this end. The wars are often
about economics and resources. The New Testament doesn't teach
prosperity - I guess Scudder, a huckster who appears on TBN (a
network both heretical and criminal) wouldn't understand that. We're
told to expect persecution. A rich, prosperous, and powerful Church
is one that has been compromised and fallen into worldliness and
apostasy. If mammon is your God - which is the case when it comes to
Scudder, then by all means venerate these soldier-martyrs of the
mammon-religion. But it has nothing to do with Christianity.
And with regard to the 'Christian' heritage of the nation on display in monuments and the like - a great deal could be said. First of all, historically it must be asked as to whether or not the Founders were trying to create a Christian nation. In reality the United States was the first explicitly non-Christian nation since the days of Constantine and Charlemagne. This question is made further difficult by the fact that the Constantinian model wasn't Biblical to begin with. In Biblical terms, there are no Christian countries but even assuming there are (for the sake of argument) - the United States was not founded on that basis but on the principles of Enlightenment individualism and social contract, not a rule by the grace of God with leaders crowned by the Church as it were.
Second, the individual states had a lot of Establishment holdovers from the colonial period when America was part of the very sacral order of the British Empire and its concepts of Christian statecraft and monarchy. The creation of a federal government and its laws and constitutional principles created a contradiction. It took several generations but the vision of the Founders won the day and bit by bit these remnants of Established religion were set aside, even if monuments weren't torn down or letters chiseled off from stone facades.
Third, as already mentioned we must evaluate these principles and claims in light of Scripture. Even if the Founders were trying to create a Christian state (which they weren't), in terms of the New Testament it would have been wrong and needed to be condemned. Indeed the rebellion of '76 was wrong and many Christians at the time testified against it. It ultimately won the day and so submitting to the will of Providence we accept the new state and pay our taxes to it and so forth. That doesn't mean for a moment that God sanctioned their murderous uprising. It's simply that in His plan the US was to be created. The same can be said about Germany, Italy, Mexico, Congo, China, or a unified Vietnam. To try and impose an interpretation on these events is not only presumptuous, it is to play with fire as such narratives embrace a theology and ethics that are extra-scriptural, risk being anti-scriptural, and are inevitably heretical.
Scudder speaks of 'America's Greatness' - and just how is that measured? In terms of what? Its wealth? Its power? He might point to its 'goodness' or morality as many such are wont to do. And yet, ask the people of the world about this. America is known for its wealth, its hypocrisy, and its bombs. But people keep wanting to come here, men like Scudder will insist. It's true, people flock to America. Some seek freedom from oppressive regimes but most come seeking wealth and a desire to live in a liberal society - the same liberal society that seems to vex so many Christians and rightly so as its self-destructive values are not Christian and never have been nor can be. The glory in their shame. The things that make America 'great' are not things Christians should be proud of or embrace. Mammonism is incompatible with Christianity. Hypocrisy is always repugnant. 'Rugged Individualism' is incompatible with the faith of the New Testament. The US supposedly stands for all these principles and then beyond its borders allies with dictators, manipulates and overthrows democracies, lies, cheats, steals, and murders. It commits atrocities. It casts down governments, assassinates leaders, backs dictators, genocides, and bombs, bombs, bombs. America is not great. It's a beast like so many before it - and yet one of the 'great' beasts we might say. That's nothing to be proud of. It's calling evil good and good evil.
I think the moment that left me literally stunned is how he wanted to equate the 'remember' aspect of Memorial Day with the remembering (and memorial) associated with the Lord's Supper. We mourn, remember, and thank God for the soldiers just like we do in the Lord's Supper with reference to Christ. The deliberate conflation of these events goes beyond the pale of even some of the worst patriotic theologies I've ever encountered. If people listening to this on a Sunday morning aren't running for the door it's only because they've been so severely deceived that their faculties of discernment have been destroyed.
We mourn that Jesus died for sinners and sacrificed his life for them - just like the million plus soldiers who died for Americans past, present, and future. They are (Scudder seems to suggest) like mini-Christs. I can only call out this blasphemy so many times.
As expected such chaotic thinking leads to endless justification and compromise in terms of the larger culture. We're to celebrate the deceased police officer, a woman who rejected the Christian calling of womanhood in the New Testament as well as the basic ethics of the New Covenant. But because she wore a uniform and carried a gun, she is a hero-patriot super-Christian and ready to gun down anyone who might invade their 'right' to worship. This is so alien to the New Testament and Early Christianity it's hard to quantify the magnitude of this error.
But according to Scudder the congregation was 'blessed' by this woman's disobedience and the church's wayward leadership.
Scudder's awe regarding God is only matched by his awe of America.
As I and a few others have often said, I joined the American military like every young man in my generation because (at least in part) I wanted to be a Luke Skywalker fighting the Dark Side, the Empire. Instead, I discovered to my horror that I was a stormtrooper for the Empire. Part of that realization for me was becoming a Christian, seriously reading the Bible for the first time in my life, and discovering the nationalist, Americanist religion I had been taught was not in the Scriptures - nor was the Dispensationalism I was reared on. I had to start over and realized that the ideology of men like Reagan and Goldwater was not in fact Scriptural. I had been deceived by 'Bible Teachers' - men like Scudder. And this along with the Evangelical gospel of cheap grace had led me to all but abandon the faith in my teens. It was only in my twenties in a state of crisis that I turned to the Scriptures and cried out to God. Though I had to repent of joining the legions, the fact that I was stationed overseas afforded me a tremendous opportunity to think outside the box and consider the nature and behaviour of the American Empire. The crisis then was in the Balkans and Bosnia in particular. I knew the history and knew we were being misled. This caused me to dig deeper and over time I also was able to witness other incidents of outright deception. It was good for me to see these things and wrestle with these issues but I needed out. It sickened me to wear the evil uniform. I was eventually able to exit the military by the late 1990's. The uniforms and medals went into the dumpster and I was free. Here's an irony. From my vantage point men like Scudder are in chains, living in cages, blind, naked, and deceived.
I couldn't bring myself to listen to part 2 of this message. The first 25 minutes were unbearable and grievous to hear. I weep for that congregation sitting under such a false and deceptive and deceived shepherd. Scudder is the definition of lawlessness.
It's sobering but we must understand that someone can have a 'high' view of Scripture and yet effectively cancel it out by the error of syncretism - an embrace of ethics, principles and even idols that make the message of no effect.
The result is the same as those who embrace Theological Modernism (or Liberalism). These latter folks have a low view of Scripture but ironically some will exhibit a real zeal to live out the 'red letter' aspects of the Gospel.
The one position is theory without practice and the other practice absent theory. Both represent dangerous and misguided forms of Christianity - perversions of the gospel.
In the case of Scudder, redemption is confused with evil acts, sinful passions, and outright lies that are equated with or effectively substituted for Christ's redemptive acts. That fact that he does this while holding up the Bible just makes him that much more dangerous and pernicious.
And if all of this wasn't bad enough, Scudder is a fervent Dispensationalist who supports some of the most egregious and extreme policies within political Zionism and vigorously advocates the Judaizing doctrines of that system. He supports everything from the murderous Settler extremists to those that would blow up the Middle East by rebuilding the Jewish Temple - something no Christian can support. The very notion represents a blasphemous rejection of Christ's completed work and it can safely be said that Scudder has misunderstood Scripture on a massive even fatal scale. He is a false teacher and should be considered extremely dangerous. Warn people about this man and his evil Scripture-twisting teaching. He allies with the heretics of TBN and is an agent of disinformation and heresy - and when it comes to Israel his phoney presentation is via the means of air conditioned buses and five-star hotels for his decadent American audience. You wouldn't want them to sweat or get their hands dirty. They must receive a packaged and sanitized presentation of the false narratives of Zionist Dispensationalism as it encourages its followers to get their checkbooks out to support conquest and murder and to lobby congress to continue funding the Gaza genocide and now the war with Iran.