Kiki maybe you should read the Bible some more. False and corrupt prophets like Trump often co-opt and use religious form to gain power. It rarely ends well. Jesus didn’t fall for this. But the MAGA movement’s politicians and pastors have. Good Friday is a day when Christians remember Jesus Christ’s death on the cross — his execution upon an instrument of state torture. It is also a powerful reminder of how dangerous it is for society when authoritarian politicians and corrupt religious leaders conspire for power and dominion. Good Friday’s warning resonates deeply even now, nearly 2,000 years after Jesus’ death. That’s because the relationship between the religious authorities of Christ’s time and the brutal Roman governor who ordered his execution, Pontius Pilate, is little different from the Christian nationalist bond that exists between today’s Republican Party and conservative American Christianity. Regional Roman dictators like Pilate relied on local religious elites to help them build power by keeping order within their jurisdictions. In exchange, the religious leaders were allowed to keep power and status. Everybody benefitted — except for critics like Jesus, the poor, and the oppressed. Two millennia later, modern Republican politicians like Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., use conservative evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders in a similar fashion, repeatedly citing their faith, sharing their national spotlight and promising businesses the “religious freedom” to practice harmful discrimination. Eager to bask in the political glory, far too many pastors and priests lap it up, indoctrinating their followers with the ideology of Christian nationalism: the false ideas that America is a Christian nation, and that there is no difference between one’s conservative Christian identity and one’s national identity. Yet these same politicians, despite their claims to uphold biblical morality, completely ignore the Gospel. Instead, they try to cut access to health care for the poor and middle class, control the bodies of women and LGBTQ people in the U.S., and force public schools to teach our children a falsified and racist version of U.S. history. When these outwardly religious Republicans lose elections, they don’t think twice about changing the rules, attacking the right to vote or demanding that Congress throw out millions of ballots from 2020, which would have disproportionately affected the votes of Black Americans and other people of color. Why, then, do so many conservative religious leaders turn their backs on Jesus to stick with their favorite immoral politicians? It is because they now worship at the altar of power, not God, as the title of investigative journalist Katherine Stewart’s latest book, “The Power Worshippers,” suggests. I don’t doubt that these pastors, priests and pundits believe they are doing the right thing, yet I am reminded of Luke 4:1-13, when Satan tempted Jesus with absolute dominion: “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus didn’t fall for it, but the MAGA movement’s politicians and pastors most certainly have. Trump’s attempted power grab on Jan. 6, 2021, featured Christian nationalist signs that declared “Jesus is my king, Trump is my president.” The attack itself was partly inspired by the attendance of religious leaders at “Stop the Steal” rallies, including the book-burning pastor Greg Locke, the prominent Christian radio host and author Eric Metaxas, and the Catholic leaders Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and Bishop Joseph Strickland. The evangelist Franklin Graham initially downplayed the failed coup, dismissing it as the work of “antifa.” Viganò and Locke have since joined the “ReAwaken America” megachurch tour headlined by Eric Trump, Michael Flynn, the disgraced former general and Trump national security adviser, and a host of MAGA celebrities. Tour speakers use their church platforms to spread QAnon conspiracy theories, decry political opponents and Covid vaccines as “Luciferian,” and assure their audiences that everyone in the room is on “Team Jesus.” At one “ReAwaken America” event last year, Flynn even proclaimed that America should “embrace one religion.” We’ve seen what happens when religious leaders partner with authoritarian rulers before: Not just when Pontius Pilate killed Jesus, but also when the Deutsche Christen threw its support behind Adolf Hitler, and in Eastern Europe today where Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest supporters. Yet while Trump’s authoritarian MAGA movement has become all but synonymous with white evangelical Christianity, it does not speak for most Christians in the U.S., who are sick of seeing our faith hijacked for hateful political agendas. Holy Week is a time for Christians to unite in Jesus’ resurrection and call to new life, not be divided by the old life’s hunger for earthly power. It is my prayer that history will remember today’s Christians in the U.S. as standing in the tradition of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his courageous opposition to the Nazis, rather than as spiritual heirs to Hitler’s Deutsche Christen. This Good Friday, let us take up our crosses and love our neighbors by standing up to those brutal authoritarians who would destroy both democracy and the church in Jesus’
There is not a big enough toilet to handle the BS you deliver. Your absolute hate for Trump is awful. Your posts drip and are sticky with your hate for Trump all phony misplaced hate. Yet you come here with your love for the bible while spouting hate. Does Jesus like your hate for another human? Even worse you equate Trump and anyone who agrees with his policies and how he governed as totalitarian. That's rich coming from you, or Rex or Hitler himself. You and your whole stinking party are the worst thing that's ever happened to this great country. Take your phony outrage and shove it.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/22/how-to-smear-christianity-without-really-trying/ Even less reasonable than being bent out of shape for evangelicals’ political action is acting surprised or confused that it’s happening at all. J&JW refers repeatedly to evangelicals’ sense of embattlement, initially referring to it as “real or imagined.” Allow me: it’s real. All this out of nowhere stuff about men only marrying women, heading their households, being strong and beating up bad guys, sex, sex, sex, and sex, is the horns. That is, it’s what you get when you mess with the bull. It’s what you get when you displace the church, and make its pastors and members look first feeble-minded, then evil-minded. It’s what you get when you turn public opinion against the military, which is not only a normal thing for a state to maintain, but the family business of a whole lot of families. It’s what you get when you sneer at women who wish they spent their days picking flowers with their kids instead of paying minimum wage to the female subordinate who toilet trains them, hears their first words, and teaches them to walk while Mommy is at work. It’s what you get when you make a joke of marriage, and heroes of the sexually deviant. It’s what you get when you rub everyone’s noses in sex, sex, sex, and sex while howling that not doing so would violate the First Amendment. It’s what you get if you say dogs are cats, and force everyone else to say it too. It’s how you drive people who think cats are cats to vote for a guy who will fight for their space to keep thinking that, though he himself thinks of women as cats. It’s how you fracture a nation.
nah there are cultures where religion is mocked and insignificant and they are fine. i think the least religious country is estonia, and its awesome. plus of course eastern countries that have very little church influence, japan, taiwan etc. all perfectly fine. dont need jeebus. the US is retarded religious by advanced country standards. that doesnt make it better.
Caca, I can tell from reading your posts that you have more anger and hatred for others than anyone on this board. Anxiously awaiting your hate-filled denial.
