Infamous Pastor Argues Christian Obligation to Elect "Strongman" Donald Trump Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The Republican Party's evangelical wing is wrapped up in a curious bit of hypocrisy both symptomatic and emblematic of egregious sin among evangelical conservative Christians. Recent presidential cycles have celebrated Republicans rushing to various prayer festivals and other Christian gatherings hoping to snare votes by showing off their piety for the sake of being seen by others; this behavior as well as the congregants' expectation that these candidates should do so directly contravene Jesus Christ (Mt. 6.5↱). The Response and other such political events masquerading as Christianity are bacchanalia of sin. In 2008, as this slapstick tumbled forth, Pastor Robert Jeffress attempted to set Christians against one another, attacking the religious faith of Republican candidate Mitt Romney; in 2011, he escalated his attack at the Values Voter Summit, itself a product of the infamous Family Research Council, which in turn is a wing of the notorious, Wildmon-founded hate group American Family Association. The incendiary Baptist televangelist apparently revels in the notoriety; earlier this week Jeffress asserted a "biblical" demand for a "strongman" to lead the United States: "But as far as his worldview, Trump's worldview," he continued, "you know, I was debating an evangelical professor on NPR and this professor said, 'Pastor, don't you want a candidate who embodies the teaching of Jesus and would govern this country according to the principles found in the Sermon on the Mount?' I said, 'Heck no.' I would run from that candidate as far as possible, because the Sermon on the Mount was not given as a governing principle for this nation. "Nowhere is government told to forgive those who wrong it, nowhere is government told to turn the other cheek. Government is to be a strongman to protect its citizens against evildoers. When I'm looking for somebody who's going to deal with ISIS and exterminate ISIS, I don't care about that candidate's tone or vocabulary, I want the meanest, toughest, son of a you-know-what I can find, and I believe that's biblical." (Blue↱; boldface accent added) Pastor Jeffress is emblematic of a disruptive subset within American Christendom; evangelical bigots and authoritarians tend to define the Christian voice in the American political discourse. To wit, are all Christians really so hateful and self-centered? We know this isn't the case, yet how do we measure this apparently outsized delusional influence by which right is wrong and Christian faith is entirely about oneself? Or we might simply consider the conundrum: Did Pastor Jeffress ... ... just disqualify Christians from the presidency? ... or ... ... propose a Christian serving the presidency should abandon faith? In either case, the concomitant question is the same: Do other Christians accept this assignation? It seems rather an important question. And Jeffress is hardly alone in this context; there are plenty of conservative Christian preachers advocating political defiance of Christ in Jesus' name, amen. This seems rather problematic in a certain sense. Functionally, we know there are millions of Christians in the U.S. who vote against policies promoted by the evangelical conservative Christian political bloc. Rarely, however, do they stand up to their brethren and publicly rebuke such rejection and abandonment of Christ? As Pastor Jeffress sees it, such dereliction is Christian duty. But in between there are also proactive Christian evangelists who have the appearance of running interference; they resent the discussion of Christianity but have nothing to say about the injurious influences people are describing and struggling against. It seems strange to disdain the description while ignoring the reason it exists; to wit, if people hadn't been voting about authoritarianism derived from assertions of "Christianity", this apparently distressing confusion of rhetoric wouldn't even exist. That is to say, were evil not perpetually stalking the land, asserting its Christian identity with impunity, people would not have cause to worry about this assertion of Christianity. These in-betweeners seem more interested in complaining that people notice than actually addressing the problem. The problem is looking to my kindly Christian neighbors and saying, "Okay, you're up. Go, do, settle this with your brethren, please." Shall we presume they've been doing this the whole time? If not, why not? If so, well, yeah, then I think we all get the point that these conservative evangelical wolves aren't listening. So what the hell are we going to do? Doctrinally, our Christian neighbors cannot simply shrug, say, "Well, I tried", and leave their brethren to the Fires. Even still, though, there remains the fact that meanwhile, we must all continue to find some way to deal with this. Let's illustrate it this way: • There are Christians who vote for justice and goodness while not making much of a spectacle trying to stop their brethren from trying. As much as, say, homosexuals appreciate those votes and prayers and support, we're going to set them aside for the moment, because conservative evangelical Christian politics rhetorically require, by dint of identity assertion representing all Christians, that these others don't exist. • Many conservative Christians assert god-given Liberty. • Pastor Jeffress asserts a biblical requirement against that Liberty; the Word of God apparently requires an American strongman. ↳ Which of these competing conservative assertions of Christianity should represent Christianity? → Hint: In either case, they both oppose Liberty and require cruelty. You know, in Jesus' name, amen. And therein lies the problem. One of the tacit trade-offs in these poltical relationships is that the more liberal Christians generally don't whine about generalizations the way the in-betweeners do. Every time they vote, and "Christianity" is on the ballot, they are exactly aware of why others are showing the word sharp tongues. We should not envy them; part of their doctrinal obligation is to endure this until they can figure out a way to witness effectively unto their brethren that does not require stooping to sin. Meanwhile, perhaps we might start identifying some boundaries. Pastor Jeffress provides an excellent example: Are "Christians" obliged to raise a "strongman" whose principles and behavior defy Christ? ____________________ Notes: Blue, Miranda. "Jeffress Says He Backs Trump Because It's 'Biblical' To Support A 'Strongman". Right Wing Watch. 13 July 2016. RightWingWatch.org. 16 July 2016. http://bit.ly/2aiT0ca Weigle, Luther, et al. The Bible: Revised Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971. University of Michigan. 16 July 2016. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
It's so obvious some Christians will believe whatever they want. The moral outlines in the Bible are no obstacle to creative interpretation. I think that's because the Bible is full of mixed messages. Exactly the kind of thing you would expect if it were written by fallible men.
Corpus Christi Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I would add, especially in the context of human frailty and fallibility ... well, if it sounds like I'm correcting an error in your formulation, the reason that appearance would be in your formulation at all is because it's in practical effect. That is, you are not in error to assess what has been given to you, so to speak. The actual error is a chronic, even congenital conflict 'twixt reality and necessity in the general Christian paradigm. To wit, the Christianity you would critique is presented including this problem. An example is an English-language Bible translation called the Revised Standard Version↱. Historically speaking, it lost a fight with the King James Version; historically speaking, it should have won, but (ahem!) them's Christians for ye. The fundamental question has to do with specific translations of particular words; the larger functional effect is the annexation and distortion―the Christianization―of Hebrew Scripture. The assembly of the Revised Standard Version specifically undertook an effort to respect what appear to be the more appropriate translations of certain words, aiming to restore some of the Hebrew context to the Hebrew Scriptures; the larger functional effect was to create tension in some of the circular logic by which Christ is justified as the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. In other words, this would seem to be a pretty big issue, but in truth it only lurks in obscure corners, such that the most the average, say, American, hears about it is in the sense that they probably know at least one KJV-only advocate. Basically, conservative Christians didn't like the RSV, but Christians who perceived an interest in actually understanding the Bible did. (Trivial digression: It was especially interesting, in the case of a largely and customarily but not as I recall officially KJV-only sect, when a scholar widely-respected within the church community published a Bible paraphrase that, in addition to being what it was in the first place, also contained very curious reorientations of the Bible, such as the part when God explains that He is kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden to prevent them from attaining eternal life―Gen. 3.22-23, itself a curious question―into a passage about how the fall of Man was part of God's Divine Plan.) And when we take a moment to consider the diverse historical contexts of the Bible―a phrase accentuated for a specific reason―we might notice that underpinning the Christianization of Hebrew scripture is a presupposed subordination and subsumption according to post-hoc Christian prerogative. In short, "the Bible is full of mixed messages", presumes an erroneous singularity about the Bible itself. Colloquially: We treat the Bible as a single story; it is, in fact, an anthology. The "editors" set the canon according to political justification. With minor tweaks to the translation here and there subject to the needs of an essentially political thesis―the usurpation or inheritance of God's Covenant with the Chosen―and centuries of catechismal justification digging deep foundations in societal belief and praxis, the general question of the Hebrew context within the Christian canon today seems both obscure and elusive. From a context of, say, post-Freudian literary classicism, it looks as if creative interpretation, especially reserved to an elite class, was part of the point from the outset.
Or maybe God is precisely that way after all. Why should (y)our humanist sensitivites be any measure of what the True God ought to be like? Maybe God/gods really do first make mad those they want to destroy.
In one sense, any interpretation is necessarily creative, inasmuch as it is an interpretation. These are basic issues of textology as such. Notice how in religious circles, they tend look down on interpretation -- "You should read books for what they say, not for what you believe them to say." e.g.: Don't interpret the Bible, just read it: http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=601
