Tag: Christian Ethics

A Biblical Ode to America

A few days ago The Wall Street Journal published an expose revealing the Trump administration’s intention to remake Latin America in its own image, continuing to use the well-worn strategies of assassination, economic sanctions — which commonly lead to widespread starvation — and military intervention.

The headline and opening paragraph read, “U.S. Push to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan to Reshape Latin America.”  

Recent assassination attempt against Maduro

“The Trump administration’s attempt to force out the president of Venezuela marked the opening of a new strategy to exert greater U.S. influence over Latin America, according to administration officials.”

Hence, I offer the following New Testament pesher (a contemporary interpretation) from John’s Apocalypse, chapter 18:

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.  With a mighty voice he shouted:

The harvest of a US trained Salvadoran death squad

“‘Fallen! Fallen is America the Great!’
    She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
    a haunt for every unclean bird,
    a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
    the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
    and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

“‘Come out of her, my people,’
    so that you will not share in her sins,
    so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for America’s sins are piled up to heaven,
    and God has remembered the crimes of the United States.
Give back to her as she has given;
    pay her back double for what she has done.

    Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief
    as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
    ‘I sit enthroned as queen; I am the sole Super Power.
I am not a widow;
    I will never mourn.’
Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
    death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
    for mighty is the Lord God who judges her…

..Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:

“With such violence
    the great nation of America will be thrown down,
    never to be found again.
The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters,
    will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade
    will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
    will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp
    will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
    will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world’s important people.
    By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
       In America was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people —  who stood to warn you but were few and far between — of ALL who have been slaughtered on the earth by your drones, your assassinations, atomic bombs, cruise missiles, special forces, cluster bombs, stealth fighters, torture programs, death squads, economic sanctions and regime changes.”

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: America Now Exists for a “State of Perpetual War”

Regular readers of this blog will know that I believer Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is a guy worth listening to when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.

He has demonstrated an unusually strong moral compass in renouncing his

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

past role working in the George W. Bush administration and serving as a consistent critic of the burgeoning American Empire.

Listen to his thoughts in a recent RT America interview regarding American policy today.  His sad verdict is that the U.S. raison d’etre of American empire is preserving “a state of perpetual war.”

Wilkerson’s remarks begin at the 1:50 mark.

National Budgets as Weapons of Class Warfare

(This is the final installment in my series on class warfare in America and the church’s failure to address its immorality.)

Budgets are moral documents.

How we budget our money, whether personally or as a nation, is determined by our priorities.  And our priorities are an expression of our ethics, our moral concerns.  As Jesus reminds us, your treasure is invested where your love is directed (my paraphrase; Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34).

What we care about determines where and how we spend our money.

Which raises two important questions accompanied by a few implications concerning the politics of rising deficits and the ethical significance of Christian support for conservative  politicians.

First, what does it say about this country when approximately 25 cents out

President Trump signs the Republican tax plan

of every tax dollar is spent on the military-industrial complex?

For 2019, the total amount of defense spending is budgeted to be $951.5 billion; nearly 1 trillion dollars.  The military alone will receive $688.6 billion of that money.

When that budget item is combined with various other tidbits, such as our 800 military outposts in some 70 countries around the world, and our standing as the #1 manufacturer and exporter of military armaments around the world, it is hard not to conclude that the U.S. finds its moral raison d’etre in the maintenance and expansion of the American Empire, no matter the cost in human lives.

How else can we explain our persistent, even habitual, addictive, military interventions across the globe?  According to The National Interest, the U.S. “engaged in forty-six military interventions from 1948–1991, from 1992–2017 that number increased fourfold to 188.”

Those figures are incredible.

In light of the recent revelations regarding the mind-boggling, fiscal fumblings that pass for book-keeping at the Pentagon (see post #2), I suspect that no one has the slightest idea how much money has been spent on these continuously bloody exercises in global, American muscle-flexing.

But I do know this:  between 2001 to 2014 the wars and continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq alone cost the U.S. $1.6 trillion.  Spending on all of America’s post-9/11 wars reached $5.6 trillion by 2018.  A large portion of that expense is made up of the interest payments required to service the debt created by those wars.

Yep, America fights its wars, in large part, with borrowed money.

So, when was the last time Congress tried to stop another U.S. military intervention, another war, or another bombing campaign because we could not afford it; because it was another “unfunded mandate” not included in the budget; because it would grossly inflate the ballooning national debt?

To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened.  We always seem to find the money necessary for more war, which speaks volumes about the blood-thirsty American character.

Second, the national debt has become the most grotesquely manipulated budget item in our national conversation…but NOT for the reasons many suppose.

Ever since Ronald Reagan implemented the voodoo economic formula of “tax cuts for the rich + massive military spending = a growing national deficit” conservatives have eagerly used their feigned hysteria – feigned because they never complain when Republican presidents are creating this debt; in fact, as with the recent Trump tax overhaul, they applaud the creation of more debt – over the national debt as an excuse to cut the budgets of government social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and others.

The Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell – one of the more manipulative, cynical politicians ever to sully the halls of Congress – is

Sen. Mitch McConnell

already at it.

Not long after Congress passed both Trump’s disastrous new budget and his tax overhaul last year, Sen. McConnell began trumpeting the predictable, and wholly fallacious, lament that the growing national deficit is due to “the three big entitlement programs that are very popular, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.”

But his conservative mantra bemoaning our “entitlement” programs as wholly responsible for the national debt is the Republican (and weak-kneed Democratic) equivalent of Chicken Little flailing her wings and crying, “They sky is falling!”

Not only is this warning a lie, even if it were true, it would be a predictable result of our immoral budget priorities, inhuman spending decisions flaunted by Congressional conservatives every time they take out their fiscal crowbars and pull the sky down onto the heads of America’s weakest members.

Let’s think clearly about this issue:

  • America does have a growing debt, but let’s be honest. That debt grows faster during Republican administrations.  That claim is not partisanship; it’s just a fact.  (I know, analyzing national debt is complicated. I am not suggesting that budget priorities are the sole cause of the national debt.  But because conservative arguments always make it the #1 issue, I make it my primary focus.)

Sorry for the poor quality of the following image.

This is class warfare.  It is the weaponization of our national budget, using it to bludgeon the poor while enabling the rich.  It is the very behavior that God’s Old Testament prophets condemned as deserving of God’s judgement.

Some of the richest members of our society – remember that Congress is composed largely of millionaires (see post #1) – decide to give more and more of our tax dollars to support the expansion of American Empire and protect its multi-national, corporate investments around the world.  (Read The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, by David Talbot, for a shocking account of the CIA’s history of shameless dirty-work performed in obedience to America’s richest, corporate task-masters.)

At the same time, those millionaire politicians ask the richest Americans to contribute less and less to assist the country’s most needy members.  See here and here about the vast level of economic inequality in America and the global economy.)

Then these very same millionaires have the unmitigated gall to accuse senior citizens and the poor of inflating our debt burden and insisting that the only solution is to cut their benefits.

Really?!  Are you kidding me?

To make matters worse, most evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote for conservative, Republican candidates, mindlessly support this God-forsaken economic hocus-pocus.

Not only is it all a tawdry display of narcissistic political theater, it is a heartless strategy to balance the budget-breaking expense of American Empire on the trembling backs of society’s weakest members; to rip food from the mouths of children whose only healthy meal comes through a school lunch program in order to shovel new, despoiling delicacies into the voracious, gaping maw of the American war machine, endlessly thirsting for more blood.

I am sorry, but I must be emphatic.

Every follower of Jesus Christ, every disciple who is serious about conforming themselves to the image of a crucified, suffering Savior, has no choice but to decry the politics of America’s ever-expanding global warfare in the cold-hearted pursuit of America’s intensifying class warfare.

Voting matters.  Why do most evangelical voters use theirs to oppress the poor at home and to wreak havoc around the world?

Class Warfare in the United States.  All Hail American Empire!

(This post is part two in a series discussing America’s class war and its bearing upon Christian ethics and the church).

During the 1980 presidential primary race, George H. W. Bush famously described candidate Reagan’s “trickle-down” economic proposal as “voodoo economics.”  (See post #1).

Check out the video below:

If the first ingredient in Reagan’s cauldron of economic voodoo was tax cuts for the wealthiest who needed them the least, the second ingredient was a huge expansion in the nation’s military budget.  Check out this article by Matt Taibbi at the Rolling Stone for more on our current military spending.

More than half of the nation’s discretionary spending goes to the military-industrial-surveillance complex.  The following pie chart depicts the 2015 budget allowances.  Over half, 54% to be precise, went to the military:

The United States spends as much money on its military as the world’s next ten nations in line.  President Trump approved a $717 billion defense bill, increasing U.S. military spending by over $200 billion in 2017.

 

Remember all of this money is going to an institution that recently failed its first ever audit and is unable to account for $21 trillion.  That’s right:  $21 trillion unaccounted for by our military-industrial complex!  Haven’t heard this fact discussed much on network news, have you?

That the American public allows this kind of abuse to continue is not only a classic example of throwing good money after bad, it is the ultimate illustration of something called the Stockholm Syndrome, when kidnapping victims are gradually brainwashed into sympathizing with, and even assisting, the very criminals holding them hostage.

Similarly, the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Department and U.S. arms manufacturers all conspire to hold this country hostage.

They concoct imaginary threats (like Iran), bilk the American tax-payer for hundreds of billions of dollars in ransom money every year, and then watch approvingly as the masses dig deep to hand over the military’s blood money while standing to salute the flag and sing “God Bless America.”

The entire scenario is obscene.  Especially because the spending is not motivated by the requirements of national defense, regardless of the political rhetoric used to assuage any (rare) objections or questions from the public.

The only reason standing behind our massive military budgets is the continued expansion of the American Empire, an Empire that enriches our billionaire class.

Do we really need 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world?  No.

Is it necessary for us to conduct secret drone bombing campaigns in 8 different countries?  No.

Don’t worry.  The carnage is bi-partisan.  In 2016 President Obama dropped nearly 31,000 bombs in seven countries.  President Trump, “the most hawkish president in modern history,” topped that by 9,000, dropping nearly 40,00 bombs in 2017.

At the end of the day,  all of these bombs and wars boil down to war-profiteers making more and more money.  Listen to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson lambaste the unfettered greed laying at the heart of American war-making.

Yes, American warfare boils down to billionaires making more and more money; retired generals and admirals becoming CEOs, sitting on more and more boards of directors for more weapons manufacturers; or signing six figure contracts for their “consulting work” (otherwise known as lobbying) on behalf of armaments companies like Raytheon, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

Check out the Ten Companies Profiting Most From War.

In 1935, Marine Corp General Smedley Butler wrote the anti-war classic, War is a Racket.  He would know.  I encourage you to read the general’s short book, if you haven’t already.  Below is an excerpt:

“WAR is a racket. It always has been.

“It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

“In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.”

General Smedley’s words are as true today, perhaps more so, than they were 80 years ago.

Nearly 1/4 of every tax dollars goes to the military budget

Once again, feeding the war machine results in a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthiest Americans.  First, our tax dollars justify increased, military expansion.  Second, that expansion funnels hundreds of billions of dollars in profits to the CEOs and shareholders who run the burgeoning U.S. arms industry.

The rich get richer while everyone else bears the burden.

Of course, the greatest burden is the cost of war in human lives.

Rarely do the rich sign up to go to war (though a few legislators tried to change that in 1935. It didn’t happen). That responsibility falls to others who have few, if any, other options for a career or for higher education.  And who knows how to begin counting the untold numbers of civilian casualties created by America’s sleek, stealth drones firing anonymously from thousands of feet in the air, killing innumerable, nameless brown people, men,woman and children, for who knows what reason.

But, don’t worry, American tax-payer.  Every bomb dropped, every missile launched is just more money in the bank for another U.S. corporation perfecting the dark-arts of human slaughter.

The final injustice of our obscene “defense” budgets (we really ought to call it an “offensive” budget) is the neglect of the American people and the social needs of our society.

In 2017, the U.S. budgeted $623 billion on national defense.  Many budget analysts argue that by reducing our defense budget down to European levels, we would have the money needed to do such things as:

  • Provide free, universal, early childhood development programs to all our children
  • Debt-free college for anyone attending a state university
  • Student loan forgiveness
  • Dramatic reductions in our rates of homeless and childhood-poverty
  • Reduce the nation’s deficit
  • Provide free health care to every American

Everything discussed here are humanitarian concerns that ought to animate every disciple of Jesus Christ.

What could be a more pungent expression of “loving your neighbor” through social engagement than working to starve the war-mongering beast of American Empire for the good of everyone, at home and around the world?

Caitlin Johnstone on the Hypocrisy of US Foreign Policy

The journalist Caitlin Johnstone has posted a good discussion, entitled “If America Stopped Destroying the World, the Bad Guts Might Win,” about the

Caitlin Johnstone

rank hypocrisy of American foreign policy, a policy that continues to work at toppling any foreign government we don’t like (which typically means that they won’t cooperate with American demands) and promulgating wars of strategic convenience when and where we choose.

She specifically addresses U.S. aggression in Venezuela and the Middle East.

This American Empire is an evil beast that no right-thinking Christian can possibly support, much less cheer onward.

No, Jesus may not have explicitly condemned Caesar or the Roman Empire, but he left us plenty of explicit ethical instruction which, when taken seriously, makes it impossible for his disciples to endorse or to approve of Caesar or to support the Empire’s bloody exercise of raw power for its own interests.

Below is an excerpt.  You can read the entire post here.

“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Saturday that the government under Venezuela’s recently re-inaugurated president Nicolas Maduro is ‘illegitimate’, and that ‘the United States will work diligently to restore a real democracy to that country.’

“Pompeo’s remarks, which were echoed by Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, are interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is because Venezuela’s presidential election in May of last year (which incidentally was found to have been perfectly legitimate by the international Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America) was actively and aggressively meddled in by the US and its allies. The second is that while the US government is openly broadcasting its intention to continue interfering in Venezuela’s political system, it continues to scream bloody murder about alleged Russian interference in its own democratic process two years ago.

“What is the difference between the behavior of the United States, which remains far and away the single worst offender in foreign election meddling on the

Woolsey lets the cat out of the bag on Fox News. The US meddles wherever it bloody well pleases

planet, and what Russia is accused of having done in 2016? According to a comment made by former CIA Director James Woolsey last year, it’s that the US interferes in foreign democracies ‘for a very good cause.’

“And that’s really the only argument that empire loyalists have going for them on this subject. The US is different because the US has moral authority. It’s okay for the US to continue to interfere in the political affairs of foreign nations while it would be an unforgivable and outrageous ‘act of war’ for a nation like Russia to do the exact same thing, because the US is countering the interests of the Bad Guys while Russia is countering the interests of the Good Guys. Who decided who the Good Guys and Bad Guys are in this argument? The US.”

Class Warfare in America. Whose Side Is the Church On?

(This is the first in a three-part series on class warfare in the U.S.)

Americans have been fighting a serious class war for at least the past 30+ years, and the lower classes, especially the poor, are getting the stuffing beaten out of them.  Few people want to talk openly about America’s class war, but it’s a fact.

The church needs to get to grips with it.

Instead of siding with the rich time after time, the people of God must stand up for the poor.  We need to recognize that our current tax policy, which serve as a major offensive weapon in the billionaires’ arsenal against the poor, is a moral catastrophe.

Trump signs the 2017 Republican tax plan

Did you agree with President Trump’s tax-cut plan passed by Congress last year?  Did you cheer for his budget with its massive increases for the nation’s military-industrial-surveillance complex?

If you said Yes to either of those questions, then you supported a HUGE transfer of wealth that was taken away from the poor and the middle-class, and handed over to the rich and that new class of “people” called corporations.

THAT, my friends, is class warfare waged through the utterly undemocratic processes of Washington D.C., where the majority of our politicians are bought and paid for by millionaires, billionaires and corporate lobbyists.  They don’t represent you and me.  They represent big money.

We all need to get over the long out-of-date Cold War fear of saying anything that might sound even slightly Marxist (oooohhh, the big, bad boogy man…) and recognize that our society has been viciously twisted by a brutal 30+ year, class war being waged from the top down.

That war has empowered America’s richest families and biggest corporations to stomp the needy into the ground – not only in this country, but around the world.  (Read John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; The Inside Story of How American Really Took Over the World, to learn about just one example of the international scope of America’s economic war against the poor).

As I demonstrate in my book, I Pledge Allegiance (see pages 155 – 157), it was not Karl Marx but Jesus Christ who insisted on building a just society – beginning with the Christian church – where everyone’s needs could be met, and no one need go without.  Ages before Karl M. was even a glimmer in his father’s eye, Jesus’ church was living by a definite code: “from each according to your ability; to each according to your need.”

That’s right.  Marx was ripping off Jesus.

Recently, the newly elected Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, suggested raising the upper tax bracket to 70%.  Naturally, like robotic guard dogs hardwired for mindless assaults against anything that threatens their gold-plated, private communities and the corporate powers-that-be, the usual conservative, Republican and DINO (Democrats in name only) suspects have uniformly attacked this young, bright politician.

Paul Krugman (a Nobel Prize winning economist) is absolutely correct in applauding Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s view of taxation.  Take a look at his latest editorial, “The Economics of Soaking the Rich.”  Below is a brief excerpt, but you should read the entire piece:

“I have no idea how well Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will perform as a member of Congress. But her election is already serving a valuable purpose. You see, the mere thought of having a young, articulate, telegenic nonwhite woman serve is driving many on the right mad — and in their madness they’re inadvertently revealing their true selves…

 “The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics and arguably the world’s leading expert on public finance…And it’s a policy nobody has ever implemented, aside from … the United States, for 35 years after World War II — including the most successful period of economic growth in our history.”

Did you know that during the post-war period Krugman refers to, the upper

Professor Paul Krugman

tax bracket in this country was 90%?  That’s right.  The richest Americans paid 90% in taxes on a portion of their income.

Many people fail to understand this point, and the pundits who feign moral outrage at such suggestions will never explain this point in public.  After all, they are not trying to inform; they are working to protect their own financial interests.

When someone like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez suggests implementing a 70% tax rate, it does not mean that every American would pay a 70% tax on every dollar earned.  Not at all.

It means that the wealthiest Americans (and corporations) in the highest tax

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

brackets would pay a 70% tax on a portion of their total income.  What portion would be decided in negotiations over the subsequent budget changes.

That’s called “from each according to your ability.”  I also call it good sense.

If Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president, could smile on a 90% tax bracket fueling a healthy post-war economy, then why can’t today’s Congress embrace a 70% tax bracket; especially when we are repeatedly told that our current economy is booming?

Simple.

First, far too many of our elected representatives are millionaires or richer!  The typical member of Congress is 12x wealthier than the typical American family.  Time Magazine referred to Congress as the millionaires’ club.  How enthusiastic will these people be at the thought of raising their own taxes?

Second, Washington D.C., and the American public, continue to be mesmerized by the dark enchantment of a mythical, fire-breathing monster called “trickle-down economics.” This farcical tax policy was conjured up from the pit by President Ronald Reagan, the national bamboozler-extraordinaire.  Others have relabeled it supply-side economics or Reaganomics.  But call it what you will, it remains the same destructive strategy for continually enriching the rich while further impoverishing the poor.

Only one thing “trickles down” from the powerful billionaires standing on top of you in this class battle.  Take a guess at what it is.  (I’ll give you a hint:  it ain’t well paid jobs or affordable health care.)

Here is some more analysis from a real economist, Paul Krugman.  Also, please look at the impressive graph included in this part of his article:

“You see, Republicans almost universally advocate low taxes on the wealthy, based on the claim that tax cuts at the top will have huge beneficial effects on the economy [the supposed ‘trickle-down’ effect]. This claim rests on research by … well, nobody. There isn’t any body of serious work supporting G.O.P. tax ideas, because the evidence is overwhelmingly against those ideas…[emphasis mine]

“Why do Republicans adhere to a tax theory that has no support from nonpartisan economists and is refuted by all available data? Well, ask who benefits from low taxes on the rich, and it’s obvious.

“And because the party’s coffers demand adherence to nonsense economics, the party prefers ‘economists’ who are obvious frauds and can’t even fake their numbers effectively.”

Yes, the multi-millionaire, Ronald Reagan (worth $10.6 million in 1981 dollars when he took the president’s office) launched a new, immoral class war against the poor and the middle-class.  Reagan whipped up irrational – even racist – hostilities against “big government” and supposedly ghetto dwelling “welfare queens” in order to sell his political snake oil dressed up as a tax plan.  However, the real goal was producing a vast economic benefit for Reagan’s friends and campaign donors, members of an exclusive club I call the Triple-Bs:  Billionaires and Big Business.

The working poor, the needy, the destitute, and even the middle-class, have been losing ground ever since.  That lost ground includes their homes, jobs, savings accounts, educational opportunities, health care and government assistance.

It is long past time for the conservative church, all those who consistently vote Republican, to wake up and smell the coffee.

You have been naïve (perhaps) but not guiltless co-conspirators in the heartless exploitation of America’s poor and needy, our children, our sick, and our elderly.  It is time to rip off the cruel partisan blinders, repent of our selfishness and confess, “Yes, we need the politics of Jesus!”

From each according to your abilities.  To each according to your needs.

Has Jerry Falwell Jr. Embraced His Inner Dispensationalist Cult-Member?

Perhaps you have already heard about the latest brouhaha generated by Jerry Falwell Jr.’s interview with the Washington Post.  Aside from the

Jerry Falwell Jr.

political hypocrisy strewn throughout the entire piece, two points, in particular, have gained significant public attention.

If you have been following this controversy, you may want to skip down and begin reading at part two of this post.  Otherwise, beginning with part one will catch you up on the issues involved.

Part. One:

First, when asked, “Is there anything President Trump could do that would endanger that support from you or other evangelical leaders?”  Falwell flatly answered, “No.”

Falwell’s response unveils his cult-follower mentality when it comes to all things Trump.  Ruth Graham at Slate Magazine explains the ridiculous, idolatrous illogic of Falwell’s answer:

“His explanation was a textbook piece of circular reasoning: Trump wants what’s best for the country, therefore anything he does is good for the country. There’s

Ruth Graham, journalist

something almost sad about seeing this kind of idolatry articulated so clearly. In a kind of backhanded insult to his supporters, Trump himself once said that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing his base. It’s rare to see a prominent supporter essentially admit that this was true.”

I will go one step further and suggest that not even Jesus Christ himself demands such blind, a-moral loyalty.  At least, the apostle Paul admitted that he stopped short of offering that brand of devil-may-care devotion to Jesus Christ himself!

In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, Paul seems to suggest that there is at least one thing the man from Nazareth could have done that would have caused Paul not to believe in him.

Jesus could have stayed dead.

For Paul insists:

“…if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.   For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.   And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile…”

Not even the Lord and Savior of the universe demands the type of undiscerning, a-moral devotion that Falwell has placed in Donald Trump.

Folks, Falwell expresses a truly idolatrous brand of politics.

Yes, I realize that sorting out this issue requires a conversation about the relationship between faith and historical evidence, but we don’t have time for that discussion here.  I suggestion that you take a look at my book, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture and then follow up on its bibliography.

The second point of controversy was Falwell’s defense of his position by referring to his “two kingdoms” theology.  He explained:

“There’s two kingdoms. There’s the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. In the heavenly kingdom the responsibility is to treat others as you’d like to be treated. In the earthly kingdom, the responsibility is to choose leaders who will do what’s best for your country.”

I won’t bother to address the problems created by Falwell’s two kingdoms theology – though I have serious doubts about Falwell’s ability to express an informed opinion on Lutheran theology — since I have critiqued Luther’s own application of his two kingdoms theology, its dangerous uses in 20th century history, and explained what I understand to be the New Testament’s teaching about God’s kingdom in my book, I Pledge Allegiance.

Part Two:

So…this brings me to the thoughts motivating me to add something further to the conversation surrounding Falwell’s interview.  Others, like Professor John Fea (here and here), have covered the issues well, but I suspect there may be another suggestion yet to be explored:  the possible influence of dispensational theology in the age of Trump.  If this term is new to you, start with this Wikipedia page and Google on from there.

Not long ago I came across a separate interview with Jerry Falwell Jr. where he said that he “did not look to Jesus” for guidance in his politics, but was directed instead by his concerns for “a law and order candidate.”  (Unfortunately, I have not been able to relocate the source for that interview.  Any help out there???).

Here are the two interesting puzzle pieces that got me thinking.

 One, Jesus’ life and teaching, items such as Jesus’ own pacifism, the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of our Lord’s ethical instruction, have no role in forming Falwell’s view of Christian politics.

 Two, he believes that Christian values in this “earthly kingdom” are separate and distinct from God’s values in the heavenly kingdom.

Well, it just so happens that those two positions were (are?) identifying characteristics of the earliest, die-hard advocates of American dispensational theology — a stream in which I suspect Liberty University is squarely planted.  Though I can’t cite a scientific poll to prove it, I am reasonably certain that dispensationalism (in one or another of its various forms) is the most commonly embraced “theology” in North America, especially among those who are theologically unaware.

American dispensationalism is the fuel that feeds the raging fire of U.S. Christian Zionism.  That alone is enough to make it highly suspect, as far as I am concerned.  It is also one of the several reasons I abandoned my youthful dispensationalism long ago.

Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952), the founding president of Dallas Theological Seminary, which remains the Mecca of dispensational thinking to this day, was the first American systematician of dispensational thought.  His 8-volume work of Systematic Theology, first printed in 1947, remains in print today.  (My father gave me a complete set as a college graduation present.  Yes, I was, and probably still am, a nerd).

An important feature of Chafer’s dispensationalism was his emphasis on the postponement of Jesus’ ethics.  He taught that when Jesus said the kinds of “irrational” things we find in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, he was speaking solely to the Jewish people who were supposed to receive him as their messiah.

But since the majority of Jesus’ contemporaries rejected his messiahship, the implementation of that ethical teaching was deferred, postponed until the future arrival of the “millennial kingdom” when all of Israel will finally recognized Jesus as the One they have been awaiting.  (For more detail, check out this page published by someone called The GospelPedlar.  It has a good summary with citations explaining Chafer’s theology of “Postponed Ethics.”

So, for old-time dispensationalists like Chafer and his modern devotees, Jerry Falwell Jr. is reflecting sound dispensational, theological conviction when he ignores Jesus’ ethics while deciding his politics.  For this frame of mind, the church does not now inhabit the proper kingdom age for the application of Jesus’ teaching to the Christian life, certainly not to a Christian’s politics.

This earthly kingdom is not the correct kingdom for Jesus’ ethics to be seriously applied, across the board, to all of Christian living.  Although Chafer’s dispensationalism has nothing to do with Martin Luther’s two kingdoms theology, we can see an important convergence of ideas at this point.

Arriving at the same place by different routes, both groups (Lutherans and dispensationalists) endorse the idea of different kingdoms in different spheres with different behavioral expectations for God’s people.

I admit that I have not called Jerry Falwell Jr. and asked him whether his political thinking has been self-consciously shaped by Chaferian dispensationalism.  After all, he is a lawyer with a B.A. in religious studies from, you guessed it, Liberty University.  Are my prejudices showing?

Maybe I should give him a call someday, but he probably wouldn’t talk to me. (See his refusal to talk with people like Shane Clairbone here, here, here and here.)

What I DO know is that ideas matter.  They matter a great deal.  Theological ideas matter supremely to God’s church.  (Any believer who is anti-theology doesn’t understand what he/she is saying.)  We don’t have to know their source or history.  We don’t even have to be able to articulate them clearly, much less expound upon their ramifications, whether intellectual or behavioral.

We simple breath in the lingering aroma of influential ideas, assimilating

Liberty University

them unwittingly from our (church) environment.  And the American church offers an environment seeped in the aroma of old-time dispensationalism.

As I continue to ponder the damning conundrum of America’s conservative/ evangelical/fundamentalist  church offering up its overwhelming support to Donald Trump, I can’t help but wonder if this is another part of the dispensational legacy fallen like poisoned fruit from the American tree of unbiblical theology.

Chris Hedges Challenges Us to Put Faith Into Practice

Truthdig – an online magazine that I read regularly – has published an excellent essay by Chris Hedges describing the anti-war protests of Phil and Dan Berrigan during the 1960’s movement against the war in Vietnam.  It is entitled “Resistance is the Supreme Act of Faith.”

I became a follower of Mr. Hedges’ work years ago when I read his excellent book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, reflecting on his many years as a war correspondent.  It’s a book that I believe every American should read.

I have copied selected excerpts from the Truthdig article below.  You can find the entire piece by clicking on the title above.

“The struggle against the monstrous radical evil that dominates our lives—an evil that is swiftly despoiling the earth and driving the human species toward extinction, stripping us of our most basic civil liberties and freedoms, waging endless war and solidifying the obscene wealth of an oligarchic elite at our

Catholic priests, Phil and Dan Berrigan, leading an anti-Vietnam, anti-draft demonstration

expense—will be fought only with the belief that resistance, however futile, insignificant and even self-defeating it may appear, can set in motion moral and spiritual forces that radiate outward to inspire others, including those who come after us. It is, in essence, an act of faith. Nothing less than this faith will sustain us. We resist not because we will succeed, but because it is right. Resistance is the supreme act of faith.”

…….

 “The Berrigans, who identified as religious radicals, had little use for liberals. Liberals, they said, addressed only small, moral fragments and used their pet causes, in most cases, not to bring about systemic change, but for self-adulation. Liberals often saw wars or social injustices as isolated evils whose end would restore harmony.”

…….

 “The Berrigans excoriated the church hierarchy for sacralizing the nation, the government, capitalism, the military and the war. They argued that the fusion of secular and religious authority would kill the church as a religious institution. The archbishop of New York at the time, Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, in one example, sprinkled holy water on B-52 bombers and blessed the warplanes before their missions in Vietnam. He described the conflict as a ‘war for civilization’ and ‘Christ’s war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam.’  Phil Berrigan, the first priest to go to jail for protesting the war, celebrated Mass for his fellow prisoners. The services were, for the first time, well attended.”

 I, personally, wish that churchmen like the Berrigan brothers would include a more forthright, verbal witness to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in their lifestyle of public resistance.

On the other hand, they at least are/were doing the work that precious few evangelicals bother to think about.

I wish that religious activists like Chris Hedges, a former Harvard divinity student, could understand that the foundation stone of spiritual death in this world is not found in temporal systems of repression, whether social, political or economic, but are rooted in the all-pervasive nature of humanity’s sinfulness.

On the other hand, he at least publicly identifies and  condemns the many evils that most evangelicals bless and embrace.

The kingdom of God on earth will never erupt from within.  It is a foreign entity, a rule from witsout, that only arrives with the resurrected Jesus.  I believe that this fact is the beginning of our only hope in life as well as in death.

But I also wish that more men and women who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ would also understand the essential, moral, spiritual continuity that ties Christian self-denial to our faithful resistance against all forms of evil, whether that evil shows itself in militarism, warfare, capitalism, nationalism, inequality, civil religion, racism, or injustice.

The church’s failure to make  this connection consistently, to think and to behave with coherence across all these areas of life, cripple our witness, stunt our spiritual development, and abandon a needy world to the merchants of half-measures.

I encourage you to read Mr. Hedges’ weighty words and think about his lessons through the lens of Jesus’ own ethics.  Perhaps, my book I Pledge Allegiance can help, if this is a new exercise for you.

A Story of Christian Self-Denial in Palestine

Terry and I always make a point of worshiping with Bethlehem Evangelical Church whenever we are visiting the West Bank.  On this occasion I took some time to visit and have coffee with pastor Nihad Salman.  I specifically wanted to talk with him about what it is like to be a Christian leader in the Occupied Territory.

Pastor Salman not only answered my questions, he provided a moving example of what it means to live a life devoted to faithful Christian discipleship.  The Christian population in Gaza and the West Bank has dropped dramatically in recent decades, not so much because of “Muslim extremism” (though it certainly can be difficult for Christians to live freely in a predominately Muslim society) but because of the many pressures and insecurities created by Israel’s military occupation.

Pastor Salman’s repeated message to me were these words of Jesus, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross

Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity

and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”  (Matthew 16:24-25)

Whoever loses their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.

Whoever works to save their life will lose it.

Nihad repeated those words over and over again in the course of our conversation…with a great big smile on his face.  And he shared story after beautiful story of the ways in which God’s grace is changing lives in the West Bank.

Many members of Nihad’s extended family have moved to the United States.  They regularly call trying to persuade him to relocate with his family as well.  “You can pastor another church here in America,” they insist.  “Your children will have more opportunities with better educational choices.  Get out of there while you can.”

Becoming a parent can sometimes become the greatest stumbling block to

Illegal Jewish Settlements are surrounding Bethlehem cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank

faithful discipleship.  Which is the reason Jesus warns us that his followers must love Him more than their own children.  He said, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

So, this is what Nihad tells his family living in America: “Yes, my children could have better opportunities for important universities and high-paying jobs in the United States.  Yes, they may only have basic employment here and never make much money or have the opportunities your children will have.”

 “But Jesus has called me to be a pastor in Bethlehem.  He tells me that I must lose my life for His sake if I am to find true life at all.  And that includes the lives of my children.  They, too, must learn to lose their lives for Jesus. And we are all finding a wonderful life of mercy and grace here in the West Bank.”

Yes, I had the privilege of drinking coffee, praying and reading scripture

The light of the gospel is shining brightly in Bethlehem

with a saint in Bethlehem.

I was encouraged by Nihad’s model of genuine Christian discipleship, for here is a man who has said No to himself and Yes to our crucified, resurrected Lord Jesus.

This is what real Christianity looks like in every part of the world.

Please remember to pray for Pastor Salman, his family and the ever-expanding ministry of Bethlehem Evangelical Church.

P.S.  This particular church is not alone.  Over the years, Terry and I have worshiped with a wide variety of Christian churches throughout the Bethlehem area.  The gospel is being proclaimed widely by many faithful men and women in Palestine.

Politics as Witness

The Christian blogosphere, Patheos, has published a guest opinion piece by Daniel Darling and Dean Inserra entitled “What Is Politics Doing to Our Witness?”.  I have copied the two, closing paragraphs below.  You can read the entire piece here.

“While the fracturing of friendships over politics is unnecessarily sad, even more tragic is the experience of those outside the church who may engage in a conversation about the gospel, because they have seen the church in action on their social media timeline and have decided that this is a gospel not worth investigating. Have we gained the world and lost our souls?

“As we steward our earthly citizenship, let us always be pointing, by the words we say and the way we say them, to a citizenship in a city whose builder and maker is God. Let’s not gain a political world and lose our missional soul.”

The authors thankfully remind their readers that a disciple’s citizenship in the kingdom of God takes priority over all other allegiances.  I admit that I am biased here, because this is the core of my message in my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

Unfortunately – at least in my view – that is where the similarity between these two authors’ and myself ends.  For, while they rightly lament the unseemly levels of hostility and slander that often characterize Christian political discourse nowadays, a concern for personal deportment marks the beginning as well as the end of their concern.  Apparently, politics’ main threat to Christian “witness” is its power to fuel hostility within God’s family.

The glaring hole in this argument, however (and, again, I am not dismissing the importance of this solitary observation), appears in the authors’ failure to connect (a) the specific policies enacted by our politics to (b) the ethical norms demanded of us by citizenship in God’s kingdom.

The Patheos article leaves both the real-world consequences of our political choices and the personal demands of kingdom citizenship unaddressed, unspecified.  Both “the kingdom” and “politics” remain blank cyphers waiting to be filled in by the individual in whatever way they think best.  Of most importance is ensuring that our conversations on these subjects is always winsome.

Apparently, winsomeness is the key to winning people to the gospel.

But if the kingdom comes first, shouldn’t the kingdom be determining the shape of my politics, going above and beyond the shape of my demeanor when talking about my vote?

Is it ok to vote for genocide as long as I debate the decision with kindness?  I am sure these two authors would say “no” to that question.  But on what basis?

Here is my question:  What if my political decisions are rooted in fear and hostility?  Is that acceptable, as long as I talk about my xenophobic, fear-based political life in a calm, friendly, winsome tone of voice?

If the kingdom of God really does come first in my life, shouldn’t the Father’s kingdom ethics, as taught by Jesus, exercise control over my political actions – actions that go well beyond the way I talk with others about my choices?

Isn’t the content of my politics as (if not more) important to “my Christian witness” than my personal deportment?

That, my friends, is the crucial existential break that has set American evangelicalism and the Religious Right adrift, lost in its own sea of moral relativism.  The compartmentalization of a contentless kingdom, discreetly isolated from our idiosyncratic political choices, has left America with an individualistic church fueling a heartless, destructive politics, all in the name of Jesus.