Pardon the somewhat bitter tone……..
Some are apparently surprised by this, but I'm not. Apparently John Ashcroft, the Evangelical and former Attorney General who is also famous for losing an election to someone who was dead...is now the 'Ethics' advisor for Xe, the notorious company formerly known as Blackwater.
You would be hard pressed to find a company more universally reviled than Blackwater. To many especially in Iraq and Afghanistan they are nothing less than murderous thugs...and that's being nice. Of course they seem to benefit from quite a bit of support within the American Christian community. Blackwater's founder Erik Prince is president of a foundation that has donated large sums of money to the lobbyist Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund, and Calvin College.
Compromised of ex-military soldier-of-fortune types, usually a pretty crude lot, the leadership is nevertheless intimately tied in with some of the power circles of American Evangelicalism. In fact, at times they have marketed themselves as some sort of Christian fighting force. Their latest endeavour can be read about here.
In the linked article you can watch a stirring video of Ashcroft expressing his patriotism in song, but I suppose it has never occurred to him that many would not consider him patriotic at all, but an outright traitor. While serving in the Bush administration, Ashcroft led the charge to completely toss out and set aside many key rights protected by the Constitution. He had no problem with squashing free speech, eliminating the Fourth Amendment protections regarding search and seizure, and seemed to glory in rendition, holding people without trial and the list goes on.
I guess sometimes you have to break the law to save the Republic, that is, a nation built on the foundation of law.
While I'm not an American patriot, I do find Ashcroft's synthesis of Christianity and American Patriotism to be not only morally offensive but outright heretical. His treason against America is one thing. Far more important is his wicked betrayal of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
This seems to be taking place at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, that's also disappointing. Formerly the home of good men like T. David Gordon, and Meredith Kline, (and some not so good ones) I'm disappointed to see that they allowed something like this to take place. This video has been floating around for years, a clip of it appeared in Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11, but I guess I never realized it was taking place at a major Evangelical seminary.
I guess what I remember best about Ashcroft was what I perceived to be his absolute indignation during press announcements and briefings...complete disgust with those who opposed the administration and its goals and certainly anyone who didn't share his vision of America.
It's probably never even entered his mind that others may feel the same way about him and what he stands for.
The fact that he's now the Ethics Advisor for a company that thinks the Gospel is murder by assault weapon is no surprise. He already has a proven track record of evil and twisted interpretations of Christian ethics, exactly what Blackwater/Xe is all about.
Welcome to American Christianity 2011. Bristol Palin doing the cha-cha on Dancing with the Stars, Christian Mercenaries, Colson calling the pope the 'holy father', Christian Miss America, and on it goes.
As I said, pardon the tone, but Ashcroft is really the epitome of what’s wrong with American Evangelicalism. I do become a bit indignant. In addition to venting a bit, the reason I post stuff like this is to just keep throwing things out there. A lot of people have simply never thought about some of this stuff and some just don’t really know what’s going on.
I think more than a few will testify with me…once you start seeing it, it’s rather overwhelming.
It's not that any of it surprising...we should expect it. In fact it will grow worse.
We certainly need not despair...the road is narrow, we know that. And with the decline, there will also be many successes. We won't see them on CNN. The Kingdom does not come with observation.
Nevertheless it's still pretty shocking when you're living in the trenches and encountering it day after day. And most shocking of all... the vast majority of professing Christians just sort of go along with along of it. A lot of people sense maybe something is wrong, but they either can't put their finger on it, or they come up with solutions (all the Christian fads) which demonstrate they've utterly failed to understand the nature and depth of the problem.