Tag: Religious Right

What is So Threatening About the Equality Act?

Last Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi reintroduced the Equality Act for the Congressional Democrats.

The Equality Act is a bill that aims to eliminate discrimination against LGBTQ people in the same way that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against African-Americans.

Predictably, the Religious Right is up in arms denouncing the bill as another assault upon religious liberty in general, and Christianity in particular.

But is it any such thing?  Personally, I don’t see it.

I am old enough to remember the 1950s and 60s.  A southern block of religious conservatives then described Dr. Martin Luther King as a communist tool of the devil.  They fought to kill any hopes of passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Furthermore, they staunchly defended racial segregation as an expression of their Christian faith, just as so many religious conservatives are now condemning the Equality Act as an attack on their Christian views of human sexuality and marriage.

Andrew T. Walker of The Gospel Coalition has an article entitled, “The Equality Act Accelerates Anti-Christian Bias.”  He warns that “the bill represents the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America.”

Monica Burke at the Daily Signal writes that the bill will cause “profound harms to Americans from all walks of life” under the heading “7 Reasons Why the Equality Act is Anything But.”

But even if some judicial tweaking is required as our society navigates the social effects of this new legislation, I have yet to see anyone explain away the fundamental parallels between African-Americans in need of the 1964 Civil Tights Act and gay/transgendered Americans in need of similar protections in 2019.

Christianity in America was not destroyed in 1964, despite the explicit warnings of Christian racists.

Neither will American Christianity come to ruin if gay, lesbian and transgendered human beings are granted similar civil rights protections in 2019, despite the apocalyptic warnings coming from the doomsday, propaganda mills of the Religious Right.

Instead, what this debate reveals is something much more dangerous now deeply rooted in the heart of American evangelicalism/fundamentalism: an insistence that the Christian religion (as defined by highly politicized, partisan, social conservatives) deserves preferential treatment in America; indeed, that this politicized, culture-warrior view of Christianity must become normative for acceptable social behavior in the public square.

I discuss this misunderstanding of Christian citizenship at length in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans, 2018). This country’s politicized brand of Christianity is a tangled mess of confusion over what is required from citizens in the kingdom of God living as citizens in a secular society.

Mr. Walker throws out the predictably fawning, meaningless sop intended to distract his critics by saying, “To be clear, Christians reject all forms of invidious discrimination. We believe all persons, including those who identify as LGBT, are made in God’s image and deserve respect, kindness, and neighborliness.”

Well, good for you, Mr. Walker.

But pledges of personal affection are no substitute for legal guarantees.

The entrenched racism of the Jim Crow south also declared, ever so kindly, that they loved their black folks and always treated them with nothing but love and kindness, often insisting that their contented “Negroes” were just fine with the status quo.

Then the Civil Rights movement came along.

Turned out that African-Americans weren’t as contented as the white people imagined.

Unfortunately, the conservative Christian church has lost its ability to speak  with any moral authority on issues of justice and equality, because its pronouncements are generally selfish and self-centered.

The misguided case of the Masterpiece Cake Shop (for more thoughts on that debate, read my “Wedding Cakes, the New Testament and Ethics in the Public Square“) exemplified all the problems of the current Equality Act debate:

  1. Conservative Christians confuse the church with the world and the world with the church – which is odd given their tendencies towards intellectual and social isolation. New Testament morality is directed at kingdom citizens filled with the Holy Spirit, not the world at large, however beneficial its approximation would be. (I discuss this issue at length in I Pledge Allegiance.)
  2. Too many would-be Christians simply do not want to love (not really, not with actual tolerance and loving-kindness in person, face-to-face) the people they don’t like, or don’t agree with, or see as the unclean enemies of their beloved Christian civilization. Let’s get real – many evangelicals are homophobes (though I do not like that term). They don’t want anyone telling them that they must accept gay/transgendered people as equally human with the same dignity as anyone else, whether in the workplace, at school or anywhere else.
  3. They fail to distinguish personal preference from public accommodation. The Equality Act addresses issues concerning “public accommodation.”  Read the entire bill here.  The core of the legislation simply requires equal treatment, saying:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) may bring a civil action if it receives a complaint from an individual who claims to be:

  • denied equal utilization of a public facility owned, operated, or managed by a state (other than public schools or colleges) on account of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity; or
  • denied admission to, or not permitted to continue attending, a public college by reason of sexual orientation or gender identity, thereby expanding DOJ’s existing authority to bring such actions for complaints based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

The bill revises public school desegregation standards to provide for the assignment of students without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill prohibits programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance from denying benefits to, or discriminating against, persons based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Most of the protests I have seen are in reaction to the protection of transgender rights and its various implications for public space/accomodation.

On this score, the conservative church must get to grip with two problems.

One, we have to enter the age of modern research science and recognize that many (a majority?) of gay people are born gay.  For them, there is no therapeutic cure. Insisting otherwise discredits us and guarantees that we will never really understand the struggles of our gay friends and neighbors.

Two, there is a good chance that similar genetic issues are in play for people suffering gender dysphoria.  I have no idea how it must feel to spend my life tormented by the sense of being trapped in the wrong body.  I doubt very much if anybody decides or chooses to live such an existence.  There is obviously a great deal yet to be discovered in this arena.  The church needs to stop prejudging such people, their histories, situations and motivations while accepting that transgendered people merit the same legal protections as everyone else.

The Equality Act will not affect the policies or operations of churches and other religious institutions unless those facilities accept federal funding.  The obligatory cries of religious persecution, or the loss of religious freedoms are actually laments about the possible loss of federal dollars.  It’s about the money, folks.

Losing one’s tax exempt status is not anti-religious discrimination.  Actually, I have long believed that the tax exemption for churches is actually discrimination against the surrounding community.  Why should the church’s neighbors be required to pay more for their community services (which is what happens) in the way of a public subsidy for the tax-exempt churches, which most of them don’t attend anyway?

The same logic applies to religious schools, colleges, hospitals, etc.  These types of institutions will only be affected by the Equality Act if they accept federal financial support.  Far too many of these groups want to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to benefit from public money (supplied through our tax dollars) while enforcing their own, private sectarian policies.

That is hypocrisy.

You can’t have it both ways and hope to remain anywhere within the ethical ballpark.  Remember when Bob Jones University went to court because it insisted on collecting federal money while continuing to refuse admission to black applicants? (I don’t know why any African-American would want to go there.  But, to each his own.)

I do.

If a religious institution believes that it cannot abide by the Equality Act, then let them surrender their federal grants, subsidies, or what-have-you.  Yes, this will also mean that students receiving federal scholarships or other tuition assistance will either lose their grants or be required to look for another college.  This is one of those arenas where details would need to be worked out in the courts, perhaps.

Let’s face it.  Way too much of the energy invested in these types of fights by Christian social organizations basically boil down to a fight for comfort and/or money.  Christians want to relax in a culture that accommodates itself to them.  We don’t want inconvenient types, like gays, or lesbians, or transsexuals, the kinds of people who challenge our conservative expectations in the moral, social order to raise questions or challenge the status quo.  A status quo that allows us to remain relaxed and in control.

It is long past time for American politicized Christianity to stop acting as if (a) fighting for a Christianized public square were the same thing as (b) being an faithful citizen of the kingdom of God in public.  The two are not the same thing.  In fact, they are two very, very different things.

How Can Anyone Claim to Believe in Jesus When They Don’t Understand The First Thing About Him?

A newly discovered 4th century papyrus contains a number of Gospel sayings (e.g. pericopes) that present a shockingly different portrait of Jesus.

Scholars are uniformly surprised that such widely divergent alternatives could possibly exist.  For example:

Blessed are those who resort to violence to defend themselves, for they will control the earth.

Blessed are those who carry a loaded Colt .45 Peacemaker, for they will be called Sons of the God of War.

When someone hits you on the right cheek, turn your snub-nose .38 upon  them and shoot with accuracy.

Do not resist the urge to overpower an evil person, with deadly force if required.  Use all means necessary to ensure that you and your lovely ones never feel threatened in any way.  For your life is more valuable than anyone else’s.

It should be obvious that no such papyri exists.  Just to be crystal clear, this is a spoof.

Sadly, in this age of infantile evangelicalism, we can no longer take it for granted that the average church-goer understands either New Testament teaching or the gospel portrait of Jesus.

Another perfect example of the dire, debilitating condition of conservative Christianity in this country appears in the NBC news story below.  It’s called “Armed Volunteers Train in Hopes of Protecting Parishioners Against Potential Attacks.”  Take a look:

The interviews speak for themselves.  It’s all oh-so American.  It’s also as contrary to Jesus’ model, his ethics and the Kingdom of God as one could possibly imagine.

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.”

Trump Appoints Elliott “War Criminal” Abrams Special Envoy on Venezuela — Let the Blood Bath Begin

President Trump recently appointed Elliott Abrams as his Special Envoy to Venezuela.

Abrams is an old hand in the machinations and bloody, dark-arts of

Elliott Abrams with the “exiled” Venezuelan opposition leader David Smolansky

overthrowing South and Central American governments, installing brutal, right-wing dictatorships and training death squads in mass murder, otherwise known as genocide.

I fear this does not bode well for the Venezuelan people.

If you don’t know or can’t recall the history of Abram’s involvement in war crimes, Consortium News has reposted an older article by the eminent journalist Robert Parry documenting the massive bloodshed for which Abrams shares responsibility.   It is entitled “With the US Meddling Again in Latin America, a Look Back at How Washington Promoted Genocide in Guatemala.”

Below is a clip of Robert Parry sparring with Abrams on Charlie Rose about his responsibility for genocide:

Abram’s U.S. trained death squads killed some 80,000 people in El Salvador, 200 – 250,000 in Guatemala and untold thousands in Nicaragua, most of them innocent civilians.

Journalist Robert Lovato tells about his own first-hand experiences with the

Victims_Of_The_Mozote_Massacre_Morazán_El_Salvador_January_1982

U.S.-led Salvadoran coup and Abrams himself.  Find his autobiographical article, “Elliott Abrams: An Unequivocal Sign Trump Is Preparing a Baptism in Venezuelan Blood,” here.

Here is my question:

The U.S. Secretary of State recently returned from Egypt where he proudly wore his Christianity on his sleeve, assuring his listeners that American foreign policy was safely cradled in the ever-lovin’ hands of a born-again Christian whose decisions were directed by his daily Bible reading and prayer.

How in the blazes can those same Bible-clutching fingers embrace a butcher like Elliott Abrams?

Where are all the supposed Christian advisers the Religious Right boasts about, giving Trump their wisdom and righteous advice?

Are we to understand that Jesus approves of mass murder, as long as it’s America leading the way in slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent, unarmed Central American peasants?

I guess the righteous brother Pompeo says, Yes.

 

 

 

 

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s Policies “a product of ideology compounded by ignorance”

Consortium News has a recent article  by Lawrence Davidson,  emeritus professor of history, discussing the role that Mike Pompeo’s zealous evangelicalism plays in shaping his policy vision as the U.S. Secretary of State.

It’s scary, folks…very scary.

The frighteningly common notion that America’s problems can be solved by placing more “Christians” (that is, my kind of Christians; not your kind of

Pompeo talks to reporters on his recent flight to the MIddle East

Christians) in government repeatedly leads to incompetent leadership and horrific policies.

But that doesn’t stop true believers in the exceptionalism of “Christian America” from committing the same mistakes over and over again.

Secretary Pompeo is yet another example of everything that can go wrong with American evangelicalism.  His corrupted theology is affected nations around the world, exposing them to the dangers I explain, condemn and try to correct in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

The article is entitled, “Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy.”  I have copied an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started out the new year—the date was Jan. 10—preaching “the truth” about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and for reasons we will get to below, he chose to do so at the American University in Cairo. He implied that he was particularly capable of discerning the truth because he is “an evangelical Christian” who keeps a “Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” This confession indicates that Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world, much less the Middle East, in an objective fashion. We can assume that the decidedly unthinking and amoral president he serves has no problem with this prophet in the State Department because Pompeo is one of the few cabinet ministers whom President Donald Trump has not fired. 

“So what are Pompeo’s versions of foreign policy truth? In terms of his Cairo pronouncements, they are twofold. First, as is to be expected of a man of his temperament (he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point), he has identified the true enemy of the civilized world. And, again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry, the enemy is of Muslim origin. It is the “tenacious and vicious” cabal of “radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance.

“This initial “truth” is noteworthy for what it does not take into consideration, such as traditional U.S. alliances with brutal and corrupt military or monarchical dictatorships. Any move to reduce support for such regimes in the Middle East is, in Pompeo’s view, a “misjudgment” that must have “dire results.” As long as these dictatorships oppose what Pompeo opposes, their brutality and corrupt

nature can be judged acceptable. For example, Pompeo praised his host, the military dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an

Secretary Pompeo with Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi

archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler. He praised El-Sisi exactly because he has joined the U.S. in the suppression of “Islamists.” The Egyptian dictator, in Pompeo’s words, is ‘a man of courage.’

“Pompeo’s second “truth” is the self-evident fact of American exceptionalism. He told his listeners that “America is a force for good in the Middle East.” Pompeo does not articulate the reference, but his claim taps into the Christian image of the U.S. as “a shining city on the hill”—a God-blessed light unto the nations. This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes. 

“As proof of American’s alleged beneficence, Pompeo makes a series of dubious claims about the behavior of the United States government. Here are a few. Comments within brackets are those of this author: 

“For those who fret about the use of American power, remember this: (No.1) America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force.” [Since World War II we have been liberating dictators from their own rebelling people.] (No.2) “We assembled a coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.” [The subsequent two Gulf Wars plus the U.S. imposed sanctions regime killed at least half-a-million Iraqis.] (No.3) “And when the mission is over, when the job is complete, America leaves.” [Unless the “liberated” countries’ government wants Washington to establish bases which, it seems, they almost always do. The U.S. now has some 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.] (No. 4) The U.S. and its allies helped destroy most of ISIS, and in the process “saved thousands of lives.”[There is no official number for the civilians killed in the so-called war on terror, of which the campaign against ISIS is but a part. However, there is no doubt that, to date, it is at least in the high hundreds of thousands. ] (No.5) “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.” [Unless you have a really perverse definition of “normal,” this is a total fantasy.]”

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?

CBN Christian News Misrepresents the Issues While Advocating for the Rich

CBN Christian News has recently posted an article that grossly misrepresents Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion about increasing the marginal tax rate.

The article is written by Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation (more on this later).  It is entitled, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 70% Tax Rate Won’t Work.”  Sadly, it is another example of the many ways

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

in which so-called Christian journalism regularly fails on both counts – failing to provide either real journalism or a distinctively Christian analysis.

Like so many others,  Mr. Moore is too busy carrying water for the wealthy powers-that-be to offer his readers anything beyond the standard conservative, Reaganomics talking-points.  (See my first post in my series on Class Warfare in America).

Since I recently wrote a post discussing American taxation and Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion, I thought it would be worthwhile to use this CBN article for another exercise in how to think critically while reading the news.

There are many things that could be discussed here but I will limit myself, first, to dissecting three specific instances of misrepresentation and falsehood.  Second, I will then pull back for a broader discussion of the political origins to Mr. Moore’s commentary.

Three Specific Points:

First, throughout his entire article Mr. Moore’s tone works to conjure up the conservative bogey-man of a predatory federal government hell-bent on confiscating as much of the reader’s money as possible through higher taxes.

Since, his writing is a piece of commentary, I can let Moores’s overt subjectivity slide.  (His obvious disdain for Democrats reeks through every sentence, but he is entitled to his opinion.  I am no fan of the Democratic party, either).

I’ll give just one example:  Moore describes Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion as “cheery talk of returning to confiscatory tax rates.”

“Cheery talk”?  Notice that Moore’s opponents can’t be taken seriously.  Their heads are in the clouds.

But we can’t forget that all taxation is “confiscatory.”  Should no one pay any taxes at all?  Many libertarians will answer Yes to that question.  But I am not a libertarian.

Taxation is a part of the social contract in which we all participate, allowing our government to provide the numerous services benefiting us all.  It is not a confiscation but a contribution to the common good and the general welfare of the country, of our communities.

Choosing to use that negative word, confiscate, is a rhetorical strategy intended to appeal to every reader’s defensive, selfish, inner-Scrooge.  Sadly, it works, all too well.  Even among the readers of “Christian news.”

Only the selfish – and study after study shows that the billionaire class has a very high percentage of those folks – begrudge assisting their neighbor (who needs the fire department when his house catches fire) or paying their own way (for wear and tear on the roads and highways they drive every day) by paying their share of taxes.

Returning to my main point, what cannot be forgiven, however, is Moore’s clear suggestion that a 70% tax rate would take 70 cents out of every dollar earned by every taxpayer in America.  He knows better, but stoking this lie works to the advantage of his propaganda.

In other words, Mr. Moore is lying and he knows it.  Unfortunately, many readers will not understand that this entire discussion is about marginal tax rates, and Moore has no interest in clarifying this confusion.  He is more interested in sowing fear and anger than he is in educating his readers, so he fails to mention this important fact.

Check out the following sites for easy explanations of how marginal taxation works (here, here and here).  The fact is, only a portion of the millionaire’s/billionaire’s highest bracket of income would be taxed at 70% (or 90% or 50% or whatever); much of it would not.  And the vast majority of Americans would never come anywhere near that higher bracket, remaining unaffected by the marginal tax increase.

Mr. Moore knows all of this.

He is purposely misleading his readers by feeding us misinformation and falsehoods.  This, folks, is utterly unacceptable in any source touting its “Christian perspective.”  It is the most un-Christian, even anti-Christian, sort of writing one can imagine.

In fact, I will say this:  it is worse than printing something overtly Satanic, because Mr. Moore is deliberately abusing his readers’ trust by planting lies which he knows will manipulate his audience into supporting a position built on falsehood.

Now, THAT, my friends is a truly demonic strategy, if ever there was one.

Second, Moore repeats a favorite argument of Reaganomics fans by claiming that Reagan’s tax cuts, and the majority of subsequent tax cuts, increased the national revenue (with no citations for personal follow-up).  In other words, the government gains more money, not less, when it cuts taxes on the rich, according to Moore.

But recall economist Paul Krugman’s claim about “reputable economists”

Professor Paul Krugman

in his article endorsing Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion:

We need to do some research here.  As luck would have it, I already did some.

Check out this detailed analysis and discussion of the Kennedy, Reagan and Bush tax cuts and their effect on the U.S. economy (at econdataus.com with copious citations and data for follow-up, unlike Moore’s article).  It is fascinating.  Or you can jump down to the excerpted summary below:

“The argument that the near-doubling of revenues during Reagan’s two terms proves the value of tax cuts is an old argument. It’s also extremely flawed. At 99.6 percent, revenues did nearly double during the 80s. However, they had likewise doubled during EVERY SINGLE DECADE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION! They went up 502.4% during the 40’s, 134.5% during the 50’s, 108.5% during the 60’s, and 168.2% during the 70’s. At 96.2 percent, they nearly doubled in the 90’s as well. Hence, claiming that the Reagan tax cuts caused the doubling of revenues is like a rooster claiming credit for the dawn.”

I won’t fault Moore for having a different interpretation of the economic data, but I can fault him for: (a) not citing the sources for his argument in a way that allows the reader to check it on her own; (b) failing to mention that there is a serious debate on the issue among economists; and (c) leaving the impression that all those on the opposite side of the fence are ignorant, dopey-eyed dreamers out of touch with reality and ignorant of history.

Finally, strangely enough, Moore dismisses the idea of taxing billionaires at higher rates by claiming that in the bad old days of higher taxes:

“IRS data confirms that almost no rich people paid those 70, and 80 and 90% tax rates. They hired lawyers and lobbyists to escape paying the taxes, or they stashed their money away in exotic tax-exempt shelters or bought tax-free municipal bonds to avoid forking over the majority of their income to the IRS.”

This is a strange way to bolster his argument.  In fact, it undercuts his point.

His claims may be true, I don’t know.  But, if so, the obvious solution is not to lower taxes on the rich (that is like saying “since a speed limit does not prevent drivers from speeding, we should do away with the speed limit”) but to impose stricter regulation on the many ways created by billionaires for hiding their wealth – methods, by the way, that are not available to the poor or the average taxpayer.

The Author and the Bigger Picture:

Where do Mr. Moore and his article come from?  To answer that question, we need to step back and look at the broader political context of this taxation debate.

For a number of decades, the conservative movement (including Libertarians like the Koch brothers) have brilliantly implemented a strategy

US President George W. Bush speaks on the war on terror 01 November 2007 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.  AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN.

for changing – even controlling – the terms of economic and political debate in this country.

A key ingredient in that strategy was the creation of the think tank.  Think tanks are “academic” institutions that employ researchers to produce books, articles and position papers legitimizing the conservative worldview held by the wealthiest, conservative Americans.

The Brookings Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation are three examples of U.S.-based think tanks.  Remember that our author, Mr. Moore, works for the Heritage Foundation.

These think tanks are bankrolled by wealthy, conservative donors for the sole purpose of influencing public debate to their own political and economic advantage.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with wealthy donors contributing to a research institution…as long as their money does not control the results of the institution’s research.

Once that shift occurs, it’s no longer doing research but producing propaganda.

These think tanks are not intended to promote academic freedom.  Just the opposite.  Their researchers, like Mr. Moore, are paid for one purpose and one purpose only:  to produce “data” and to make arguments that advance the economic and political interests of their wealthy, conservative sugar-daddies.

So, now that we know who Mr. Moore is, where his ideas come from, and what he is being paid to do, his arguments and information are not the least bit surprising.  Neither are his lies, manipulation and misinformation.  He is a hired gun, paid handsomely to promote trickle-down Reaganomics to the general public, by any means necessary.

I wish I could say it is surprising to see a supposedly Christian news outlet like CBN promoting and benefiting from what is, in effect, a public swindle by a high-priced conman.  But, alas, this has become not only the way of the world, but the way of modern, American evangelicalism.

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.

Meanwhile, Over at the Babylon Bee…Missionaries for Trump

Missions Trip Successfully Converts Entire Village Into Republicans

“UNDISCLOSED—A missions trip to a remote tribe in an undisclosed closed country has successfully converted the entire village into conservative Republicans, sources from the missions team confirmed Friday.
 
“After contextualizing the basics of right-wing beliefs to the culture of the tribe for several months, the missionaries finally made a breakthrough as they communicated to the group their need for conservative political philosophy to save them from their sins. Finally, missionaries gave a moving altar call Thursday evening, and the village elders responded in faith, accepting Republicanism as Lord of their life.

“The rest of the village soon followed.

“’When the people saw the glory of our savior Donald Trump, they erupted into spontaneous celebration,’ one of the American missionaries said in an emotional video uploaded to Facebook. ‘It was so great to see these people finally abandon their un-American culture and embrace the gospel of the United States, forever changing their eternity.’

“At publishing time, missionaries had confirmed there was still much work to do, such as converting the village into middle-class white people.”

If you are not familiar with “The Babylon Bee” check it out here.

Not only is this funny, it is all too true.

Years ago I was investigating the claim that missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators had worked with/for the CIA.  I discovered that it was true.

As I rummaged around old Wycliffe literature, I also discovered a lesson-planning book from the 1960s describing scenarios to be translated into native languages, once the alphabet had been created, and then used to teach students how to read their language.

One lesson went like this, complete with cartoon characters in frame after frame:

Traditionally, an Indian went fishing.

Caught a fish.

Took it back to the village in order to share the catch with everyone.

This is bad.

Instead, when you go fishing.

And you catch a fish.

Bring it back to the village and sell it for money.

Then you have money to buy new things.

And your neighbors learn that they must work to earn more money for themselves.

I kid you not.  Think about this…

What Does a ‘Christian Vote’ Look Like?

Dr. Suzanne McDonald is a theology professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI.  She is also a dear friend and former colleague.

She recently wrote an editorial for the Holland Sentinal newspaper entitled “My Take: What Does It Mean to be ‘Too Christian’?”  Her thoughts were sparked by a candidate’s remark that he might be “too Christian” for some people to vote for him.

She offers excellent counsel on what it means to cast a “Christian” vote.

I have included an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article by clicking the link above.

“…it raises a a number of issues with regard to all those who are seeking to vote in ways that express their Christian convictions. By saying that he might be “too Christian” for some, Huizenga’s comment also implied that committed Christians ought to support him. I’m sure that he is well aware of the many passionately committed Christians whose views on how best to deal with these issues, and many others, differ significantly from his. Huizenga is not “too Christian” for such folks. It is precisely their understanding of what it means to be deeply committed to the gospel, and how that commitment plays out in matters of public policy, that may motivate them to vote against him.

“That said, both in perception and in reality, Michigan’s Second Congressional District is a strongly “conservative Christian” district. To all of us who might fall into that category, I want to offer this challenge: Since when has the gospel been reducible to only one or two issues? How atrophied has our understanding of the gospel and Christian political engagement become, when simply passing a litmus test on abortion and/or same-sex marriage is all that passes for reflecting Christian commitment in the public square?

“No Christian, conservative or otherwise, should be a one- or two-issue voter. No Christian’s vote should ever be guaranteed on such a narrow basis, as if a preferred answer to issues (a) and (b) means giving a pass on issues (c), (d), (e), (f), and (g), even though they might be deeply contrary to the thrust of the gospel.

“Of course, voting as a Christian (and as a non-Christian, for that matter) is always going to require compromise. All politicians and all parties will uphold positions and legislate in ways that are incompatible with how we understand the gospel on a range of issues. From a Christian perspective, there is no “Christian Political Party,” and there are no ideal Christian candidates, because there are no ideal Christians this side of the coming kingdom.

“To vote well as a Christian is not simply to consider a couple of “trigger” issues, but to look for a platform that reflects the breadth of the priorities that we find in the scriptures as a whole, seen in the light of the gospel of Christ. Since the scriptures call us to seek the flourishing of all people, and the whole of creation, we should think as widely as this as we ponder how best to cast our votes.”

I agree with Suzanne 100%.