I’ve been observing evangelical friends, acquaintances, family, sometimes second or third hand opinions passed via social media and other casual channels and how they process the red-hot actions de jour of our current administration, all in light of ‘the bible’. The drift of these opinions are turning into a predictable trend that I find disturbing not so much from that bible viewpoint, but rather, in the abandonment of reasoning and the inability to foresee moral consequences. People believe a lot of wacky things in the name of God and who am I to question their private faith, particularly on secondary matters that are not core to the faith. Countless sects of Christendom encompass doctrines and beliefs, that I’d never agree with but I’m taught by the same bible they follow to not rattle their faith, but I can question their mind, their logic or lack thereof, their inconsistencies, and their hypocrisies. They’re not entitled to hide behind the bible for these.
Now that the funding is being cut, gender madness/modification was a hot thing for a lot of neo-evangelicals. I use that term to describe what evangelicalism is becoming, apart from the simplicity that characterized traditional evangelical beliefs. The plight of Gaza and the war against Hamas was about the hottest thing so far this year until Donald Trump took all the wind out of their sails by making a peace deal, ceasing the war, bringing back the hostages and bodies. Suddenly, no popular cause. A close second and now perhaps the greatest conflict is the effort to remove illegal aliens from the United States along with secondary issues like divided families, dealing with illegal alien felons, all the various welfares given to them, birth right citizenship etc. Now add to that incendiary topic, the government shutdown, the attempt to extend Covid-era Obama care provisions, and the possible disruption of SNAP food assistance that will possibly foment widespread theft and perhaps riots; neo-evangelicals have a take on it and as now seems to be the rule, it’s too often counter to whatever the Trump administration is attempting to accomplish, or even more basic, the practical realities of conducting government business according to the laws and rules laid out in our present iteration of government.
The conversations I observe seem to keep gravitating to back to the same certain Bible references as all purpose tools to justify opposition to the administration and objectives of Donald Trump – just to be direct here. Somehow, that seems to be sole focus. Neo-evangelicals didn’t seem bothered enough to drag these arguments out during the Biden years, or the Obama era for that matter. This should be clue number one for anyone interested in objectivity. Here are a few Bible phrase** examples that keep on popping up:
The widow and the orphan. The widow and the orphan originated as, you guessed it, as the widow and the orphan but now encompasses every form of broken home and fatherless household. Maybe this is fine in an expanded sense until one observes where this thinking leads. American Black men are notoriously stereotyped as showing minimal paternal instinct and thus generations and whole black majority cities are essentially ‘fatherless’. Progressive leaders point to the lobsided instances of incarceration. Once you follow these ideas to their logical end, you’re ushered to the program of George Soros and company and their efforts to elect district attorneys that will summarily dismiss black criminality and free the otherwise absent Dad to return to his duties as father. Of course it doesn’t remotely work that way. If your car is hijacked, your whiteness is at fault, for example. Rarely does the neo-evangelical church directly support the widow and orphan because the state has taken those roles. Ancient Rome and its predecessors, dominant empires during the Bible times, had little concern for the widow and orphan except as ready prostitutes and slaves so it was up to the kindness of others and the church to alleviate their suffering. But the modern ‘compassionate’ government is now bonded to the works of charity that the Bible commanded us do. The real bond being cultured within the neo-evangelical church is the now-enlightened believer being dedicated to progressive leaning governments that tout the need to take care of the window and the orphan…their way.
Take in the foreigner, or sojourner. The peoples of the Bible in the ‘Old Testament’ eras were essentially tribal. They were almost always subject to conquering civilizations and empires. They were minority peoples within whatever principality governed the known civilized near east world at the time. From that, neo-evangelicals have derived that the modern nation-state of America is obligated to have porous or non-existent borders. Huh? However, that duty does not apply to all nation states, but only the one governed by the administration of Donald Trump. There was no similar uproar when Obama put kids in cages or when Biden lost 300,000 migrant children to traffickers in his haste to bring in replacement voters for future Democrat successes at the poles. Of course, it doesn’t apply to other super-power nations with which we contend but the EU was on board with following our catastrophic example. While much of the rest of the world fiercely guards their borders with force, we alone are obligated to throw open our nation, our states, our communities and homes and to subsidize migrant illegal aliens (we won’t even talk about the law here) so that they can have a better life. We won’t notice that their numbers were dominated by single men of military age, that our adversaries emptied out their jails at our expense, or that many of them got free health care while you had $307.21 deducted from every one of your paychecks, just for health insurance. And yet, your progressive influenced pastors beg of you to have compassion on the foreigner, the sojourner, because they say the bible says so.
Whatever you did unto the least of these, you did it unto me. This exhortation encompasses all the aforementioned, but it is so much more expansive to include any that are suffering anything and that means everyone else. Of course, I get it; we live in the most affluent nation in all of history and are the dominant civilization at the moment. Seen in the broadest sense, we could take our entire wealth, give it to the billions of people that have just a tiny fraction of what we have and we would hardly made a dent. But if we did, how then will the poor of the world benefit from the advances that our free society brings about? Domestically, the contrasts are even more stark if that’s possible because our poorest can literally be our neighbor or the pile of blankets laying out on the sidewalk in front of your brownstone house. Certainly, charity is an obligation and a mandate of Christian love, but as mentioned of the widow and the orphan, these become complicated in a complex society where the state takes on the role previously held by the church and small civic societies, but that exchange has become grotesquely perverted. You’re now ‘charitable’ congressman wants to tax you through the roof to do your biblical duty for you. He/she will funnel perhaps 50 – 98 % of those dollars through the public treasury to pay civil servants to do the Lord’s work for you. They will regulate what Christians can and cannot do and likely as is now the trend, will forbid you from bringing Christ, your church, your faith, anywhere near their homeless shelter, foster parenting, crisis pregnancy or gender confusion counseling, and the list goes on and on.
Justice… Justice has been the rallying cry of oppressive governments and ideologies for centuries. Perhaps you’ve heard of liberation theology? When you hear any cleric invoke the word ‘justice’ it’s almost always an analog for the spectrum of socialism and communism. Neo-evangelicals are blind and ignorant toward the historical realities and horrors of communism, much of which has occurred directly within the generations of their fathers and grandfathers. Neo-evangelicals are ignorant of the plain progression of thoughts, words, and actions that lead to and derive from the utterance of their pastor using bible descriptions of Christian duty tainted by government bureaucratic doctrines and priorities and the political forces steering that government toward patently godless ends. The neo-evangelical simply cannot conceive of it.
Here are a few examples of questions and considerations that any discerning evangelical would ask of their church, pastor, and peers, to avoid being manipulated by the enemies of Christ for their political ends.
Is ‘America First’ offensive to you?
Do you believe that America has no special place or standing as a country of Christian heritage?
Have your church, pastor, and peers sought to only or predominently invoke Christian charity during and in the context of the Trump administration?
Did your church, pastor, and peers make any concerted effort to apply any social stigma on the actions representative of the Biden or Obama administrations and other political leaders carrying out their interests and priorities?
Do you know of or believe possible that George Soros and other globalist antagonist would influence, advise, or fund any church organizations and hierarchy that influences your local congregation, directly or indirectly and would that concern you?
Does your church, pastor, and peers regard the spectrum of socialism and communism in any positive regard?
Does your congregation identify with or follow the influence of those still ironically described as ‘evangelical leaders’ like Bill Kristol, David French, or Russel Moore?
Do you believe that America has a Christian duty to accommodate Islamic people integrating any aspect of their Muslim faith into public life and policy, including any acceptance of Sharia law?
Beware when your church, pastor, and peers elevate and manipulate bible passages to fulfill a political agenda. Globalism is not compatible with Christianity. George Soros has no interest in spreading the gospel. If you’re being taught to hate or be ashamed of American exceptionalism, you’re being taught to hate the Christian heritage of this nation. While the state has supplanted much of traditional charity, it is also trying to supplant your Christian faith. Do works of charity where you can, there are plenty of holes in the system, but never accept that their priorities must be your Christian duty.
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** I abstain from quoting exact scripture references only because there are hundreds of them and the invested reader likely knows them or how to find them. My function is not to argue exegesis, but rather, to point out obvious logical fallacies in their application.