I have been reading Tim Alberta’s new book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory (HarperCollins, 2023). The book analyzes the rise of Donald Trump and MAGA Christianity within American evangelicalism.
How is it that Christian devotion to such a pagan politician has succeeded in splintering American evangelicalism?
I believe that Vincent Bacote, theology professor at Wheaton College, hits the nail on the head when he accuses American evangelical leaders of failing to disciple, to catechize, their people.
I couldn’t agree more.
For instance, the so-called “Great Commission” is not a command to evangelize unbelievers. It is a command to disciple, to teach and rigorously instruct believers into faithful Christian discipleship. Evangelism is crucial, but it is only the entry point for the radical demands of true Christianity.
Jesus commands his followers, “Go and make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20).
A Christian disciple is someone who puts into practice all the upside-down, crazy, counter intuitive, radical lifestyle choices that Jesus taught his disciples, and us, to embrace. That requires a lifetime of sacrificial self-denial and devotion.
Along these lines, Alberta quotes Professor Bacote:
“Jesus loved them [the 12 disciples] but he did not infantilize them. Time and again, when His disciples got something wrong — or even when they simply showed human weakness — Jesus rebuked them. He chided them for being faithless. He censure them for the vanity and biotry and prejudice. He criticized them for not grasping His instruction.”
This is what discipling loopks like And this . . . is what’s absent inside much of the American evangelical Church.
“If you ask me what’s the biggest problem with evangelicalism, I’d say it’s a catechesis problem. It’s a formation problem, a discipleship problem. These are people who are supposed to have a knowedge of the Bible, but many of them don’t . . . A lot of these people are just not going deep enough.”
By remaining shallow in the scriptures, Bacote said, too many American Christians have avoided a necessary showdown between their own base cultural proclivities and God’s perfect standard. When Christians are discipled primarily by society, inevitably they look to scripture for affirmation of their habits and behaviors and political views. But if the Bible is the word of God, then God ought to be interrogating those things.
I’ve never voted for a Republican. I’ve rarely voted for a Democrat. Most of my presidential votes have gone to 3rd party candidates.
It is difficult, if not impossible to find a national candidate who represents my values, my Christian values.
None of the establishment candidates who call themselves “Christian” are anything more than establishment hacks who paste a Christian bumper sticker over their predictable, partisan political views. And most of them lie, anyway.
If you think Mike Pence is an honorable man, I’ve got some swamp land to sell you in Florida.
In this regard, the philospher Cornell West is unique. Even though he has no chance of winning, he believes and says the things that I believe. He analyzes the world in the way that I believe it ought to be analyzed. He prioritizes the issues that I believe a Christian public leader ought ot prioritize.
And this is exactly why he will never win. But at least by supporting him we can have a presidential campaign that speaks the hard truths that America needs to hear.
Check out this 30 minute interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald:
For those of you who are interested in following up on my last post discussing the Christian church’s relationship to Pride Month, I promised you that I would add a link to my pastor’s Sunday morning message covering this topic.
You can find that link here. I hope you enjoy it and find yourself challenged and encouraged.
Jon Stewart recently had a joint interview with Hilary Clinton (former Democratic Secretary of State for the Obama administration) and Condoleezza Rice (former Republican Secretary of State for the Bush administration).
Below I have posted the full interview followed by two excellent analyses from a couple of my favorite news commentators: Kristal Ball (former journalist for MSNBC; currently cohost of the independent news program, Breaking Points) and Briahna Joy Gray (lawyer and political consultant with a profession pedigree too long to list here).
If you can’t watch the entire interview, I encourage you to check out both of the following commentaries. In addition to Ms. Gray’s and Ms. Ball’s excellent insights, I will add a few observations of my own:
Both Clinton and Rice illustrate the inevitably corrupting effects of power and political success. The hypocrisy, self-justification, and dissimulation demonstrated by these women is astounding. Their apparent obliviousness to the jarring disconnect between their past actions and their current “explanations” makes one wonder if a professional diagnosis of “sociopath” is a job requirement for all federal Secretaries of State.
There are no differences whatsoever between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to US foreign policy. The US political establishment is monolithic on this score. Everyone is equally imperialistic, arrogant, and utterly indifferent to the extensive damage America leaves in its wake as we blithely cruise from one catastrophe to another “policing” the rest of the world.
Women become warmongers as easily as men.
This interview strengthens my belief in the Christian doctrine of Original Sin.
Christians who understand themselves as citizens of the kingdom of God will realize that we cannot align ourselves with either of our major political parties and that the military-industrial complex stinks of fire and brimstone.
David Corey is a professor at Baylor University. He has a fine article on the Comment website discussing the divisive role played by politics in the fractious life of the American church.
He does not address the spiritual disease at play when so-called Christians prioritize political agreement over and above shared devotion to Jesus Christ.
But he does offer an excellent analysis of the spiritual dimension of true friendship and what our divisive politics tells us about the absence of true friendship in American life.
All around us, friendships old and new are coming to grief over politics. What is the cause of this? Part of the problem relates to how we practice politics today: we have become more warlike and tribal. Another part of the problem stems from our contemporary understanding of friendship. Genuine friendship places weighty demands on us, and most of us prefer relationships that are quicker and easier, and thus less enduring.
Politics and friendship are deeply connected. As strange as it sounds, how we understand what politics is has an effect on the kinds of friendships we are likely to enjoy. And, conversely, how we understand friendship will affect our practice of politics.
What exactly is the connection between politics and friendship, and how should we assess the relative value of each when they come into conflict?
In anticipation of tomorrow’s national elections, Chris Hedges’ most recent post is appropriately titled “Destroyers of Democracy.”
If you know anything about Hedges, then you already have guessed that his critique of our electoral system and the political options given to us includes a condemnation of both political parties.
Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt.
Neither party has the needs or the interests of working people on their lists of political, social priorities.
Though their styles are different, both parties are equally authoritarian. Biden’s recent speech about the preservation of American democracy was nothing more than a blatant attempt at fear-mongering undecided voters into casting their ballots for the do-nothing shills that march in lock-step behind Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer.
Don’t fall for it.
Though I will vote tomorrow, I have no expectation that my vote — nor your vote, nor anyone else’s who doesn’t make enough money to be listed among the Fortune 500 — will make any difference in the state of my country or its future.
Am I too gloomy? No. I am old, experienced and thus realistic.
Thankfully, I know that my true citizenship is in the kingdom of God. I know that God’s kingdom will one day make all things right, as they should be.
I eagerly anticipate that day and pray for its speedy arrival. With all the saints from the past, all Christians can pray, “Come Lord Jesus. Come!”
In the meantime, I do the best I can to live out a kingdom lifestyle pleasing to my Lord; to explain Jesus’ kingdom values to others; to work, agitate, and yes to vote in ways that may help to spread the benefits of Jesus’ kingdom values to others.
But I place no hope in any political party or its candidates.
I have no expectations that any candidate will remain true to his/her campaign promises — unless, of course, those promises offer more money, influence and power to the wealthy.
I am too old to naively imagine that our current, corrupt political system will ever change for the better — though I am certain it will continue to deteriorate and become worse.
Don’t listen to the mindless muttering of the feckless false prophets, the modern-day soothsayers of evangelical idolatry, men and women who have sold their souls to the godless architects of Republican political power.
You know their names…
These blind guides have betrayed the kingdom of God in exchange for a lukewarm bowl of tasteless political porridge.
Thus they have already earned their only reward: a millisecond of Twitter fame that will one day condemn them as wasteful servants who failed to prepare for eternity.
Their anti-Christ foolishness seems to know no bounds while they feverishly expand the selfish boundaries of their own ministry domains filled to the brim with thoughtless flocks of misguided followers.
No. Instead, do this: Memorize the Sermon on the Mount.
Give great thought to how your political commitments ought to be molded by Jesus’ own ethical priorities and instructions.
Plant yourself on the side of the poor and the needy.
Speak up for the voiceless. Labor for those who lack the resources needed to improve their lives by themselves. Give yourself away to those who have nothing left to give back to you.
Remember that money is not speech, its power.
Remember that power ALWAYS corrupts.
Remember that every government lies.
All politicians, but especially winning politicians, are compromised by their largest donors.
No interest is as powerful as self-interest.
In this world, money will always rule the roost.
Remember the social commentary of Thucydides who lamented the fact that “The rich always do as they choose, while the poor suffer as they must.”
Then decide to spend your life working to overturn the status quo, for the rules of wealth and power are as true today as they were in the days of Thucydides.
Obediently following hard after Jesus is the only way to get this right.
Remember, the ends never justify the means. In fact, corrupted means only lead to corrupted ends. Sure, compromise may win you a seat at the table, but you’ll find yourself dining with the devil rather than serving with Jesus.
Our only hope is found in the Jesus prayer: Father in heaven, cause your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen
And now for an excerpt from Chris Hedges’ prophetic article:
With the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday, Biden and other establishment politicians hope to paper over the rot and pain of the system they created with the same decorum they used to sell the country the con of neoliberalism.
The bipartisan project of dismantling U.S. democracy, which took place over the last few decades on behalf of corporations and the rich, has left only the outward shell of democracy.
The courts, legislative bodies, the executive branch and the media, including public broadcasting, are captive to corporate power. There is no institution left that can be considered authentically democratic. The corporate coup d’état is over. They won. Americans lost.
The wreckage of this neoliberal project is appalling: endless and futile wars to enrich a military-industrial-complex that bleeds the U.S. Treasury of half of all discretionary spending; deindustrialization that has turned U.S. cities into decayed ruins; the slashing and privatization of social programs, including education, utility services and health care — which saw over one million Americans account for one-fifth of global deaths from Covid, although the U.S. has 4 percent of the world’s population; draconian forms of social control embodied in militarized police, functioning as lethal armies of occupation in poor urban areas; the largest prison system in the world; a virtual tax boycott by the richest individuals and corporations; money-saturated elections that perpetuate our system of legalized bribery; and the most intrusive state surveillance of the citizenry in U.S. history. . .
. . . Biden, morally vacuous and of limited intelligence, is responsible for more suffering and death at home and abroad than Donald Trump. But the victims in the U.S. Punch-and-Judy media shows are rendered invisible. And that is why the victims despise the whole superstructure and want to tear it down.
These establishment politicians and their appointed judges promulgated laws that permitted the top 1 percent to loot $54 trillion from the bottom 90 percent, from 1975 to 2022, at a rate of $2.5 trillion a year, according to a study by the RAND corporation.
The fertile ground of our political, economic, cultural and social wreckage spawned an array of neo-fascists, con artists, racists, criminals, charlatans, conspiracy theorists, right-wing militias and demagogues that will soon take power. . .
I encourage you to read Mr. Hedges’ recounting of the many ways American democracy has been undermined over the decades. You won’t be wasting your time.
Recently, Chris Hedges was interviewed by Jimmy Dore and asked to explain what he meant by his claim that the USA is not a democracy. The clip is titled “Your Democracy Was Stolen Long Before January 6.”
Two journalists, Joh Schwarz and Ken Klippenstein, at The Intercept have an important article explaining the role of corporate price gouging in the current struggle with inflation.
Only such a rare, candid moment could explain the capitalist system in a nut shell.
Just as nothing will cause a heartless CEO to find religion as quickly as the prospect of a higher profit margin!
Halleluiah! Praise God! And pass the plate.
By his own admission, this corporate big-wig admits that, along with the current international supply-train issues, corporate price gouging is another major factor in driving up prices for American consumers.
Here is an excerpt:
As corporate profits reach record high, Iron Mountain executive tells Wall Street inflation is great for “the bottom line.”
THE CEO OF Iron Mountain Inc. told Wall Street analysts at a September 20 investor event that the high levels of inflation of the past several years had helped the company increase its margins — and that for that reason he had long been “doing my inflation dance praying for inflation.”
The comment is an unusually candid admission of a dirty secret in the business world: corporations use inflation as a pretext to hike prices. “Corporations are using those increasing costs – of materials, components and labor – as excuses to increase their prices even higher, resulting in bigger profits,” Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Clinton, recently argued. Corporate profits are now at their highest level since 1950. . .
. . . It wasn’t a one-off comment by the Iron Mountain CEO, William Meaney. On a 2018 earnings call, he invoked a Native American ritual, telling participants that “it’s kind of like a rain dance, I pray for inflation every day I come to work because … our top line is really driven by inflation. … Every point of inflation expands our margins.”
Iron Mountain’s CFO Barry A. Hytinen also said on an earnings call this past April that “we do have very strong pricing power” and for the company, inflation is “actually a net positive.”
This article from the Washington Post was published in April 2014, however I doubt very much if the correlations have changed. It’s date also shows how long the US has been flirting with the idea of military intervention in Ukraine.
The article is well worth reading. Below is the article final paragraph:
However, the further our respondents thought that Ukraine was from its actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene militarily. Even controlling for a series of demographic characteristics and participants’ general foreign policy attitudes, we found that the less accurate our participants were, the more they wanted the U.S. to use force, the greater the threat they saw Russia as posing to U.S. interests, and the more they thought that using force would advance U.S. national security interests; all of these effects are statistically significant at a 95 percent confidence level. Our results are clear, but also somewhat disconcerting: The less people know about where Ukraine is located on a map, the more they want the U.S. to intervene militarily.
The American Establishment is feverishly propagandizing us into preparing ourselves for a confrontation with Russia over Ukraine.
Day after day more anonymous sources – who never provide any evidence to substantiate their “frightening” revelations, and are never asked by the corporate media to produce whatever evidence they may have – drop another scary soundbite into our vapid, undiscerning public discourse.
Fear-mongering among the uninformed is one of propaganda’s most useful strategies because the uninformed are easy to mislead.
Fortunately for energetic propagandists, the average American imagines that world history began yesterday, which makes the general public a sucker for lies and disinformation about that scary world looming beyond our glistening shores.
This time-dishonored tactic is now being exploited with wild abandon by every major American news outlet, without exception. I am urging you: do not believe a word of what you hear on this subject from ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, or Newsmax.
Now that the US is firmly rooted in a “second Cold War” with Russian – a needless and very dangerous antagonism manufactured out of whole cloth by our military-industrial-media complex – its time to beat the drums of war again. Or so the Establishment believes.
Why? Because war always makes a lot of money for the military-industrial complex, including US corporations.
The beast must be fed. It’s hungry. It can’t devour Afghanistan anymore, so it needs fresh meat. God help us all.
Here is what every American needs to know, remember, or investigate concerning the history of US, Russian, Ukrainian relations:
(By the way, for one of the best, most sensible discussions of the current
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (retired). Former chief of staff for Colin Powell during the George W. Bush administration
problems, please watch Medea Benjamin’s informative conversation with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson – a man who knows his stuff inside and out — right here.)
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 much of eastern Europe was thrown into turmoil. Two events were particularly troubling for Russia as it watched its empire disappear.
First, the Warsaw Pact, the eastern European counterpart to NATO which had served as the guardian of Soviet security, was quickly disbanded.
Second, East Germany reunited with West Germany, creating a unified German republic as a part of NATO.
Russia, quite reasonably, saw these two developments as an immediate threat to its national security.Not only had NATO, Russia’s historic antagonist, expanded, it had just taken a monumental step eastward towards the Russian border. And many other formerly Eastern-bloc countries were lining up to follow suit.
Mikhail Gorbachev (Photo by: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images)
The Russian leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev – who was responsible for the new openness that led to the collapse of Soviet communism – quickly asked for a US guarantee that NATO would not invite any former members of the Soviet Union to join its western alliance.
President George H. W. Bush agreed.
Bush promised that NATO would stop in its tracks, moving no further east
George H. W. Bush
towards the Russian border. (I have always held that NATO should have immediately disbanded along with the Warsaw Pact. I was once arrested for demonstrating for this cause. But no one in Washington D. C. listens to me. Alas.)
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton quickly ignored Bush’s pledge to Gorbachev. By manhandling the easily manipulated Boris Yeltsin, Clinton began to expand NATO further eastward.
NATO membership requires that new entrants must possess a certain level of military capability. After all, NATO members all pledge to defend one another in case of an attack.
US weapons companies make a bundle of cash selling new, advanced, American-made weaponry to these fledgling member states. And, of course, all of those missiles, rockets, and guns are generally pointed, you guessed it, towards Russia.
For 30 years, then, Russia has watched its old nemesis, NATO, moving further and further east, coming closer and closer to its western border, in direct violation of the promise given by an American president.
Most recently, NATO invited Ukraine, which borders Russia, to join its
Vladimir Putin
military club. The US wants to begin selling advanced weaponry to Ukraine. Is it any surprise that Russian president Vladimir Putin sees NATO and the United States as a direct threat to Russia’s national security?
Of course, not. He would be stupid not to, and one thing Putin is not, is stupid.
In the current negotiations, Putin’s primary demand is that president Biden not allow Ukraine into NATO. Behaving like a typical American politician, Biden told Putin to drop dead.
And here we are. Unnecessary, dangerous escalation on every front.
Let’s stop and put ourselves in Putin’s shoes.
How would the US respond if an antagonistic country, let’s say China, began to move its military into Canada or Mexico, cheek-to-jowl with the US border?
We all know the answer to that question.
Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?
President Kennedy learned that the Soviets were moving nuclear missiles
President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, June 3, 1961. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
into Cuba. He immediately told Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev that the US would not tolerate Soviet weapons near its borders. We came close to a nuclear war over this, and Khrushchev withdrew the missiles.
Why should we expect Putin and the Russians to react any differently?
What we need right now is an American president who will demonstrate the wisdom and humility of Nikita Khrushchev.
There are no two ways about it folks. In this current “confrontation,” the United States is the threatening aggressor. We have always been the mangy wolf salivating at Russia’s western doorstep. We are the ones causing these problems. Not Russia. Not Putin.
No wonder Putin has become antagonistic!
All of the blame – all of it! – falls on the US and now onto president Biden.
Recall that war-mongering is a bipartisan habit in this country. The US loves to be at war. Powerful people make a lot of money, billions of dollars, from it.
But American saber rattling must stop! Please call or write your senators and representatives. Tell them that you strongly oppose this administration’s position on Russia and Ukraine.
Tell them you do not want a new Cold War with Russia, and they need to stop bad mouthing president Putin in public. It doesn’t help. Putin is not the bad guy in this particular drama.
Tell them that Ukraine has no business joining NATO. The US has no business sending American troops into Ukraine or the surrounding nations.
and MAGA Christianity within American evangelicalism.
post is appropriately titled “
