Christian Nationalism

Women Pastors? Scripture Says “No Way José”

Published by Papa Giorgio

While this post is about mainly Beth Moore, it will be a natural critique of other women preacher like Joyce Meyer, Priscilla Shirer, and others. But Revelation…

… expands even further that when persons prophecy non-Biblical ideas or additions to the clear enumeration of God’s Word, they are anathema. We use this warning when dealing with various cults and movements, like: J-Dubs, Mormons, New Agers, Word Faith/name it and claim it, and the like.

I can speak to this somewhat as the Word Faith theology was the root of havoc my parent adhered to. In the case of my father, to his death. And I came to a conclusion years ago, this understanding is very legalistic:

An additional point. This type of thinking is VERY legalistic. You will often hear about some Baptists practicing strict legalism over behavior. However, in the “Health and Wealth Gospel,” often time you HAVE to show the evidence of tongues in order to to show that you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If you do not speak in tongues, you do not have the Spirit in you. This is legalism that changes even Jesus’ promise to us (John 14:15-31).

In this set of verses He [the Holy Spirit] is called Truth v. 16-17):

  • “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

This is important because for all the evidences we give for the faith, we KNOW it to be true because of the inner witness of the Spirit. And “knowing” truth [Truth] is important when confronting a culture with God’s attributes that not only include love, but equally: justice, hatred of sin, and even judgement. Without truth [Truth], a Christian does not KNOW God, cannot express the Truth in love or in standing against evil. True evil.

It interferes with what Scripture is meant for as well:

  • All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

What a daunting rejection of God’s grace and plan for His church/people. Pride comes before a fall, and this is hubris on steroids!

What does the Bible say about women pastors?
John F. MacArthur and Paul Washer

And not only are these women pastors adding to Scripture and it’s meaning, as will be elucidated below, others do as well. Here is a snippet from my eulogy to my father:

… The charismatic and Pentecostal tradition has a lot to answer for in the proverbial “By-and-By.” Mind you, while I truly believe some of these people at my dad’s church are saved and are going to heaven, they are destroying lives of people around them. They just don’t see it.

Here I am adding a caveat.

If people follow the Word-Faith theology to its logical conclusion, then the person may not in fact be saved at all. My father rejected much of the following… I know because we argued this stuff for years. Some dangerous views that could lead some to eternal separation from their Creator are:

Listen to more actual audio of these cultists preaching a twisted faith, HERE, stuff like:

  • God the Father has a body;
  • Trinity not important;
  • Adam flew to the moon;
  • men become gods;
  • men are gods

I could go on but the point is made.

Just like the early movement in the Corinthian church that had a similar emotional outburst and rejected a healthy-well-balanced theology that Paul spoke to in 1 Corinthian 14:23. Thus, Paul would have rebuked gracefully and doctrinally my dad’s church. …

BTW, the above was added to this post just this morning after the sermon from my church. This post, again is mainly focused on Beth Moore to add additional context to my previous posts, found here:

There will be some meaty videos below that will tend to be longer at times. I will also quote from some more theologically minded books on the topic that elucidate Scripture.

This is meant to embolden one with some Scripture and understanding as well as some resources for the serious layman. Also, it is updating my understanding of who Beth Moore has become since I last looked into her many years ago. She falsely follows the narrative of Christian nationalism), she has accepted the ideas of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and is self involved (a narcissist) as one of her past fans writes in an excellent thread. Not only have I in the past rejected her positions, after going thru her more recent issues and positions since that earlier time, I can more boldly say she is a false teacher and heretic. Many good links to critiques of her can be found HERE.

See my previous posts here and here; also Front Page’s articles here and here for more; PJ-Media’s post / post will help

See more video interviews HERE & HERE of Eric Metaxes

First up is Justin Peters, someone I have come to respect as a teacher due to my closeness to just how detrimental bad theology (Word of Faith) can be in one’s life.

Beth Moore has finally eschewed biblical complementarianism and come out of the egalitarian closet. In this program, I interview Susan Heck (who has every book in the New Testament memorized and several in the Old) about her concerns with Beth Moore. I also ask Susan about the egalitarian arguments of Priscilla, the women at the tomb, and Deborah.

The following is from Chapter two of a wonderful book authored by John Piper and Wayne Grudem: Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (I PDF’ed Chapter 2 HERE):

(2) What do you mean (in question 1) by “unbiblical female leadership in the church”?

We are persuaded that the Bible teaches that only men should be pastors and elders. That is, men should bear primary responsibility for Christlike leader­ship and teaching in the church. So it is unbiblical, we believe, and therefore detrimental, for women to assume this role. (See question 13.)

(3) Where in the Bible do you get the idea that only men should be the pastors and elders of the church?

The most explicit texts relating directly to the leadership of men in the church are 1 Timothy 2:11-15; 1 Corinthians 14:34-36; 11:2-16. The chapters in this book on these texts will give the detailed exegetical support for why we believe these texts give abiding sanction to an eldership of spiritual men. Moreover, the biblical connection between family and church strongly suggests that the headship of the husband at home leads naturally to the primary leadership of spiritual men in the church. (See chapter 13.)

[….]

(16) Aren’t the arguments made to defend the exclusion of women from the pas­torate today parallel to the arguments Christians made to defend slavery in the nineteenth century?

See the beginning of our answer to this problem in question 15. The preserva­tion of marriage is not parallel with the preservation of slavery. The existence of slavery is not rooted in any creation ordinance, but the existence of marriage is. Paul’s regulations for how slaves and masters related to each other do not assume the goodness of the institution of slavery. Rather, seeds for slavery’s dissolution were sown in Philemon 16 (“no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother”), Ephesians 6:9 (“Masters . . . do not threaten [your slaves]”), Colossians 4:1 (“Masters, provide your slaves what is right and fair”), and 1 Timothy 6:1-2 (masters are “brothers”). Where these seeds of equality came to full flower, the very institution of slavery would no longer be slavery.

But Paul’s regulations for how husbands and wives relate to each other in marriage do assume the goodness of the institution of marriage-and not only its goodness but also its foundation in the will of the Creator from the beginning of time (Ephesians 5:31-32). Moreover, in locating the foundation of marriage in the will of God at creation, Paul does so in a way that shows that his regu­lations for marriage also flow from this order of creation. He quotes Genesis 2:24, “they will become one flesh,” and says, “I am talking about Christ and the church.” From this “mystery” he draws out the pattern of the relationship between the husband as head (on the analogy of Christ) and the wife as his body or flesh (on the analogy of the church) and derives the appropriateness of the husband’s leadership and the wife’s submission. Thus Paul’s regulations concerning marriage are just as rooted in the created order as is the institution itself. This is not true of slavery. Therefore, while it is true that some slave owners in the nineteenth century argued in ways parallel with our defense of distinct roles in marriage, the parallel was superficial and misguided.

Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen points out, from 1 Timothy 6:1-6, that, accord­ing to the nineteenth-century Christian supporters of slavery, “even though the institution of slavery did not go back to creation . . . the fact that Paul based its maintenance on a revelation from Jesus himself meant that anyone wishing to abolish slavery (or even improve the slaves’ working conditions) was defying timeless biblical norms for society.”3 The problem with this argument is that Paul does not use the teachings of Jesus to “maintain” the institution of slavery, but to regulate the behavior of Christian slaves and masters in an institution that already existed in part because of sin. What Jesus endorses is the kind of inner freedom and love that is willing to go the extra mile in service, even when the demand is unjust (Matthew 5:41). Therefore, it is wrong to say that the words of Jesus give a foundation for slavery in the same way that creation gives a foundation for marriage. Jesus does not give any foundation for slavery, but creation gives an unshakeable foundation for marriage and its complementary roles for husband and wife.

Finally, if those who ask this question are concerned to avoid the mistakes of Christians who defended slavery, we must remember the real possibility that it is not we but evangelical feminists today who resemble nineteenth century defenders of slavery in the most significant way: using arguments from the Bible to justify conformity to some very strong pressures in contemporary society (in favor of slavery then, and feminism now).

And this next part is from Norman Geisler’s Systematic Theology

The Gender of an Elder

All elders were males, for they needed to be “the husband” of one wife (1 Tim. 3:2). Elder was a position of authority, and women were not “to usurp authority over the man” (1 Tim. 2:12). The reasons given, which clarify that this is not merely cultural, are based here on the order of creation and elsewhere (1 Cor. 11:3) on the nature of the Godhead. However, women are not inferior in nature, redemptive status, or spiritual gifting; they differ only in function.

Women Are Equal to Men in Nature

If women were naturally unequal to men because of their God-appointed role as submissive to their head, then Christ would be naturally inferior to God, since He is submissive to the Father (1 Cor. 11:3; 15:28). For instance, Jesus said, “I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30; cf. 8:28). Both women and men were created in God’s image (cf. Gen. 1:27).

Women Are Equal to Men in Redemptive Status

Neither are women inferior as to redemptive status; soteriologically (salvifically), “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28 niv).

Women Are Equal to Men in Spiritual Gifting

Nor are women inferior to men in the area of spiritual gifts, there being no sex indicators on the gifts. There were prophetesses in the New Testament (Acts 21:29); the woman Priscilla taught the man Apollos (Acts 18:26); and women prophesied in the church service, since Paul told them how to do it (1 Cor. 11:13).

Women Are Different in Function From Men

That women are different in function in no way makes them inferior; if anything, they have an unparalleled function—childbearing—which Paul singles out in 1 Timothy 2:15. Functions (or lack thereof) do not make one naturally inferior or superior to members of the opposite sex; they merely make one different. Everyone, male or female, functions best in his/her God-given role. For example, men are neither inferior because they cannot bear children nor superior

Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree:

Some more zeroed in issues… under the covering of a pastor, via Dr. Wayne Grudem:

DOES A PASTOR’S AUTHORITY
TRUMP SCRIPTURE?

Some evangelical feminists
say that women can teach if
they are “under the authority”
of the pastors or elders

Another liberal tendency among evangelical egalitarians is the claim that a woman may teach Scripture to men if she does so “under the authority of the pastor or elders.” I say this is indicative of a liberal ten­dency because on no other area of conduct would we be willing to say that someone can do what the Bible says not to do as long as the pastor and elders give their approval.

This position is found fairly often in evangelical churches. What makes this position different from others we have treated up to this point in the book is that many who take this view say they genuinely want to uphold male leadership in the church, and they say they are upholding male leadership when a woman teaches “under the authority of the elders” who are men (or of the pastor, who is a man).

On the other hand, this is not a commonly held view among the main egalitarian authors or those who support Christians for Biblical Equality, for example.[1] These writers do not think only men should be elders, so they surely don’t think that women need any approval from male elders to teach the Bible!

But this view comes up fairly often in phone calls or e-mails to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) office, and I often hear it in personal conversations and discussions of church policies.

Is it really true that a woman is obeying the Bible if she preaches a sermon “under the authority of the pastor and elders”?

The question here is, what does the Bible say? It does not merely say, “Preserve some kind of male authority in the congregation.” It does not say, “A woman may not teach men unless she is under the author­ity of the elders.” Rather, it says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12).

Can a pastor or the elders of a church give a woman permission to disobey this statement of Scripture? Certainly not! Can a woman do what the Bible says not to do and excuse it by saying, “I’m under the authority of the elders”? Would we say that the elders of a church could tell people “under their authority” that they have permission to disobey other passages of Scripture?

What would we think of someone who said, “I’m going to rob a bank today because I need money and my pastor has given me permission, and I’m under his authority”? Or of a person who said, “I’m committing adul­tery because I’m unhappy in my marriage and my elders have given me permission, so I’m still under the authority of my elders”? Or of someone who said, “I’m committing perjury because I don’t want to go to jail and my pastor has given me permission, and I’m under his authority”? We would dismiss those statements as ridiculous, but they highlight the gen­eral principle that no pastor or church elder or bishop or any other church officer has the authority to give people permission to disobey God’s Word.

Someone may answer, “But we are respecting the Bible’s general prin­ciple of male headship in the church.” But Paul did not say, “Respect the general principle of male headship in your church.” He said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12). We do not have the right to change what the Bible says and then obey some new “general principle of the Bible” that we have made up.

Nor do we have the right to take a specific teaching of Scripture and abstract some general principle from it (such as a principle of “male headship”) and then say that principle gives us the right to disobey the specific commands of Scripture that fall under that principle. We are not free to abstract general principles from the Bible however we wish, and then invent opinions about how those principles will apply in our situ­ations. Such a procedure would allow people to evade any command of Scripture they were uncomfortable with. We would become a law unto ourselves, no longer subject to the authority of God’s Word.

We could try this same procedure with some other passages. Would we think it right to say that the Bible teaches that men should pray “with­out anger or quarreling, unless they quarrel under the authority of the elders” (see 1 Tim. 2:8)? Or that women should adorn themselves “with modesty and self-control, unless the elders give them permission to dress immodestly” (see 1 Tim. 2:9)? Or would we say that those who are “rich in this present age” should “be generous and ready to share, unless the elders give them permission to be stingy and miserly” (see 1 Tim. 6:17­19)? But if we would not add “unless the elders give permission to do otherwise under their authority” to any of the other commands in Scripture, neither should we add that evasion to 1 Timothy 2:12.

If a woman says, “I will teach the Bible to men only when I am under the authority of the elders,” she has become no different from men who teach the Bible. No man in any church should teach the Bible pub­licly unless he also is under the authority of the elders (or pastor, or other church officers) in that church. The general principle is that anyone who does Bible teaching in a church should be subject to the established gov­erning authority in that church, whether it is a board of elders, a board of deacons, a church governing council, or the church board. Both men and women alike are subject to that requirement. Therefore, upon reflec­tion, it turns out that this “under the authority of the elders” position essentially says there is no difference between what men can do and what women can do in teaching the Bible to men.

Do we really think that is what Paul meant? Do we really think that Paul did not mean to say anything that applied only to women when he said, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12)?

Allowing a woman to disobey 1 Timothy 2:12 by saying she is doing so “under the authority of the elders” is setting a dangerous precedent by saying, in effect, that church leaders can give people permission to disobey Scripture. It is thus another step on the path toward liberalism.

[1] In fact, egalitarian author J. Lee Grady rejects this idea. He writes, in the context of talking about women who have public preaching ministries: “And in many cases, leaders have inno­cently twisted various Bible verses to suggest that a woman’s public ministry can be valid only if she is properly ‘covered’ by a male who is present” (J. Lee Grady, Ten Lies the Church Tells Women [Lake Mary, Fla.: Creation House, 2000], 89).

Beth Moore’s Wild Unbiblical Teachings: Michelle Lesley Interview

See Michelle Leslie’s articles on Beth HERE

10 Questions are asked in the RENEW.ORG article worth considering:

  1. Why are Women’s Bible Studies filled with False Teachers?
  2. Why did God create from scratch—not based on culture—male leadership roles in the Old Testament, in the ministry of Jesus, and in the New Testament church?
  3. Why make giftedness and not the created order the starting point?
  4. Why reject the priest/rabbi/synagogue role as a historical background for key texts in 1 Corinthians 11:3-5, 1 Corinthians 14:29-34, and 1 Timothy 2:11-13?
  5. How do Jesus and the Church mutually submit to each other?
  6. Does it bother you that you must redefine the understanding of so many passages and key words?
  7. What can you teach from Scripture on what makes a man distinct from a woman?
  8. How will you use Scripture as a basis for appointing female elders?
  9. Why do churches not grounded in secular Western egalitarianism tend to read these passages so differently?
  10. How will you stop the drift to gay, lesbian, and transgender affirmation and other forms of progressivism in your church?

A great read BTW!

Why are Women’s Bible Studies filled with False Teachers?

Why do so many women’s Bible studies have false word of faith teachings, and me-centered emotionalism from Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, Priscilla Shirer, and similar false teachers? Noted women’s Bible study author, Susan Heck, discusses why women need sound theological teaching and the importance of memorizing Scripture. Susan describes how she memorized the entire New Testament, and she’s now in the process of memorizing the Old Testament.

GOT QUESTIONS ends with these two paragraphs to a wonderful read.

Many women excel in gifts of hospitality, mercy, teaching, evangelism, and helping/serving. Much of the ministry of the local church depends on women. Women in the church are not restricted from public praying or prophesying (1 Corinthians 11:5), only from having spiritual teaching authority over men. The Bible nowhere restricts women from exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12). Women, just as much as men, are called to minister to others, to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), and to proclaim the gospel to the lost (Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8; 1 Peter 3:15).

God has ordained that only men are to serve in positions of spiritual teaching authority in the church. This does not imply men are better teachers or that women are inferior or less intelligent. It is simply the way God designed the church to function. Men are to set the example in spiritual leadership—in their lives and through their words. Women are also to set an example in their lives, but in a different way (1 Peter 3:1-6). Women are encouraged to teach other women (Titus 2:3–5). The Bible also does not restrict women from teaching children. The only activity women are restricted from is teaching or having spiritual authority over men. This bars women from serving as pastors to men. This does not make women less important, by any means; rather, it gives them a ministry focus more in agreement with God’s design.

I will end with CHRISTIAN PIRATE MEDIA dealing with some prophecy by Beth Moore that is essentially adding to Scripture.

Beth Moore’s “Outpouring ‘Prophecy'” | Pirate Christian Radio Flashback

Growing Tired of Those Who Liken Me To Racist White Nationalists

Published by Papa Giorgio

The above graphic – which I will end with, along with a graphic by Shane Claiborn, and another by N.T. Wright discussing Christian Nationalism,* I unfriended a person who, since Trump has maligned a large swath of Bible believing brothers and sisters as white nationalists, who, in wanting to control the border well — THUS, offering the most compassion to people from other countries — as racists.

* SEE MY: Christian Nationalism? Conflating neo-Paganism with Christianity

SHANE CLAIBORNE

I have previously written on Shane’s close ties to radical Marxist organizations and radically left “Christian” institutions. But this will be a good refresher course in the failure of Shane’s views.

For instance, after showing a clip, a short clip, of Trump discussing immigration, Shane Claiborne said this:

I am troubled by Trump.

But I’m even more troubled by the Christians who support him.

This is white supremacy… full stop.

Trump is an opportunist… exploiting the fears and insecurities of white people. He stokes the deepest fears of scarcity, of being replaced, of losing power. And he unleashes Americas worst principalities and powers. This is racism on full display.

But the Gospel of Jesus is about love and compassion. It’s about the promise that perfect love casteth out fear. The Gospel is about advocating for widows and orphans and having compassion for those Christ called “the least of these.”

In fact, Jesus even says that when we welcome the stranger – the immigrant, the refugee, the homeless — we are welcoming HIM.

Follow Jesus. Not Trump.

Who follows Trump like they follow Jesus.

This is a repeated nonsensical line I hear repeated by #NeverTrumpers.

SMH… it is this over-generalized statement[s] that gets under my skin.

Dennis Prager notes that when he make a generalization, he will give an example to go along with it.

Why?

So a person can deal with the argument.

But saying someone is a white nationalist or lives his life today normalizing the “seven deadly sins” is just a broad, insurmountable statements used a broad brush to merely reject opposition rather than engage it.

Trump is not a pastor of a church movement that advocates Marxism and Liberation Theology, like Shane.

Here is an excellent gathering of some of his issues as it relates to me and my family – other than being white nationalists:

This is what Shane Claiborne had to say about revered Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler:

“I think even Bonhoeffer was wrong. There’s an interview with Hitler’s secretary in a movie called Blind Spot, and she tells about when the assassination attempt failed, and Hitler was very interestingly protected from the bomb, he was convinced at that point, more than ever before, that God was protecting him and his mission, and he went forward with renewed vigilence like ever before. So I would say on the day that Bonhoeffer did that, the cross lost, and that violence just perpetuated.”

[SEE HERE FOR MORE] Mark Tooley in the Weekly Standard writes:

“Shane Claiborne is a Christian counter-culturalist and pacifist who went to Baghdad in 2003 to express solidarity with Iraq when the first U.S. and Allied missiles landed.”  

“CBS News asked him whether he was a traitor:

If this bloody, counterfeit liberation is American .??.??. I am proud to be un-American. If depleted uranium is American .??.??. I am proud to be un-American. If the imposed ‘peace’ of Pax Americana is American, I am proud to be un-American.”

“In Jesus for President Claiborne wants Christians to disavow their country and all civil governance in favor of exclusive allegiance to a nonviolent Jesus whose chief mission is resisting ‘empire.’ But Claiborne’s interpretation of Jesus, his few selective quotations from early church fathers notwithstanding, is largely divorced from the universal church’s understanding of the Savior. Instead, Claiborne insists on a narrowly reinterpreted Jesus as distilled by Yoder and several others in 20th-century America for whom Jesus is more social critic than Resurrected Redeemer.”

Barton Gingerich of the Institute on Religion & Democracy writes:

“Claiborne often touts radical political themes.  His 2008 book Jesus for President likened American to the Third Reich and the biblical Whore of Babylon . . . Claiborne has also praised Occupy Wall Street and recently called for an ‘excorcism’ of Wall Street.”

[….]

“Shane Claiborne. . . warned on July 4 that ‘patriotism can be a dangerous thing if it leads to amnesia about the dark patches of our nation’s history.’ He proposed that instead of Independence Day, Americans celebrate ‘Interdependence Day,’ to recognize that ‘we are part of a global neighborhood.’”

In an Interview with Tony Campolo, Shane Claiborne said, “One of the barriers [between religions] seems to be the assumption that we have the truth and folks who experience things differently will all go to Hell. How do we unashamedly maintain a healthy desire for others to experience the love of God as we have experienced it without condemning others who experience God differently?”

Here is another quote by Claiborne, “When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.” (see here)

Author Dave Hunt sums up Shane Claiborne’s teaching this way, “Some of Claiborne’s agenda toward the poor is commendable and may be well suited to social welfare programs such as the Peace Corps or UNESCO, but it does a terrible disservice to the biblical gospel. ‘Biblical’ needs to be underscored here because the gospel has specific content that can only be derived from the Bible. The gospel is what the Bible is all about. It is God’s way of salvation. . .Since the gospel has an eternal objective (e.g., it is a person’s only means for spending eternity with God), there is nothing of temporal significance that should be given priority over it. …

(EXPOSING THE ELCA)

I am a huge fan of a Chinese Christian who started life as a committed philosopher of Buddhism, saw his coutry heading towards a cliff, was eventually forced to relocate under Mao, became a Christian and wrote veraciously about the Christian worldview and theology. Very few books are translated from Chinese to English. But in a missions class at seminary taught by Dr. Ray D. Arnold, who was one of the 1,000 missionaries that General MacArthur called to go to Japan at the conclusion of WWII. One blog notes this about the endeavor:

  • Perhaps General MacArthur didn’t succeed in bringing Christianity to Japan in the institutional sense.  But he did bring mercy, forgiveness and respect for human dignity–the heart of Christianity–and these the Japanese graciously accepted.

… taught by Dr. Ray D. Arnold, he introduced me to this prolific author and professor with a booklet he quoted from in class (I will emphasize the portion he used as a quote):

As Dr. Carl F. H. Henry pointed out: “The Chicago evangelicals, while seeking to overcome the polarization of concern in terms of personal evangelism or social ethics, also transcended the neo­Protestant nullification of the Great Commission.” “The Chicago Declaration did not leap from a vision of social utopia to legislation specifics, but concentrated first on biblical priorities for social change.” “The Chicago evangelicals did not ignore transcendent aspects of God’s Kingdom, nor did they turn the recognition of these elements into a rationalization of a theology of revolutionary violence or of pacifistic neutrality in the face of blatant militarist aggression.” (Cf. Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, “Evangelical Social Concern” Christianity Today, March 1, 1974.) The evangelical social concern is transcendental not merely horizontal.

We must make it clear that the true revolutionaries are different from the frauds who “deal only with surface phenomena. They seek to remove a deep-seated tumor from society by applying a plaster to the surface. The world’s deepest need today is not something that merely dulls the pain, but something that goes deep in order to change the basic unity of society, man himself. Only when men individually have experienced a change and reorientation, can society be redirected in the way it should go. This we cannot accomplish by either violence or legislation” (cf. Reid: op. cit.). Social actions, without a vertical and transcendental relation with God only create horizontal anxieties and perplexities!

Furthermore, the social activists are in fact ignorant of the social issues, they are not experts in the social sciences. They simply demand an immediate change or destruction of the social structures, but provide no blueprint of the new society whatsoever! They can be likened to the fool, as a Chinese story tells, who tried to help the plant grow faster by pulling it higher. Of course such “action” only caused the plant to wither and die. This is exactly what the social radicals are doing now! And the W.C.C. is supporting such a tragic course!

We must challenge them [secular social activists] to discern the difference between the true repentance and “social repentance.” The Bible says: “For the godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret; but worldly grief produces death” (II Cor. 7:10). This was the bitter experiences of many former Russian Marxists, who, after their conversion to Christ came to understand that they had only a sort of “social repentance”—a sense of guilt before the peasant and the proletariat, but not before God. They admitted that “A Russian (Marxist) intellectual as an individual is often a mild and loving creature, but his creed (Marxism) constrains him to hate” (cf. Nicolas Zernov: The Russian Religious Renaissance). “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one…. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:10,23). A complete change of a society must come from man himself, for basically man is at enmity with God. All humanistic social, economic and political systems are but “cut flowers,” as Dr. Trueblood put it, even the best are only dim reflections of the Glory of the Kingdom of God. As Benjamin Franklin in his famous address to the Constitutional Convention, said, “Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.” Without reconciliation with God, there is no reconciliation with man. Social action is not evangelism; political liberation is not salvation. While we shall by all means have deep concern on social issues; nevertheless, social activism shall never be a substitution for the Gospel.

Lit-sen Chang, The True Gospel vs. Social Activism, (booklet. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co: 1976), 9.

But publications like this: “Lit-sen Chang (1904–1996) and the Critique of Indigenous Theology,” would be anathema to Shane and clan. The success, by the way, of the Evangelical Church in China today is in part to the hard work of Lit-sen Chang. The Chinese underground church would be in awe of Shane’s douchery in playing with Marxist fire and labeling it ecumenism.

DAVID FRENCH

Another person who is lauded by this recent unfriended friend is David French. He seems to link and recommend French a lot even though French believes I am a racist rube as well. So let us begin with a change from French as an “Evangelical who supports Mitt Romney” to maligning evangelicals in an atheists documentary.

Kylee Griswold via THE FEDERALIST hits this one out of the park for us:

… Long before French became a willing participant in atheist Rob Reiner’s anti-Trump “documentary” “God & Country” earlier this year, he was invoking white guilt to toss a cohort of Christians who vote differently than he does into the “Christian nationalism” basket. Evangelicals (specifically white ones) who were hesitant about getting the rushed and mandated Covid jab were actually “reluctant to consider the health of their community” and had a “spiritual problem.”

Less than two weeks after radical pro-abortion and pro-transgender candidate Joe Biden became the presumptive Democrat nominee in 2020, French said those who favored Trump were of low character and competence — even though, as Nathaniel Blake wrote in these pages, French was previously “behind ‘Evangelicals for Mitt’ and spent years arguing that our political leaders need not be avatars for our beliefs.”

Then there’s French’s evolution on so-called “gay marriage” in federal law. He says his views on traditional, biblical marriage have not changed. But during the fight over the misnamed Respect for Marriage Act — which requires every state and the federal government to recognize homosexual “marriages” and was signed into law by French-endorsed President Biden — French claimed:

Religious belief is not the same thing as declaring civil law. … I don’t want the law to discriminate against those Americans who sincerely hold different views of sexual morality, sexuality, and marriage and organize their lives and their institutions accordingly.

As Megan Basham wrote in The Federalist at the time, “In other words, he makes the same argument about marriage that Catholics Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have about abortion — he has personal views based on his faith but does not want those views, however endorsed they may be by the Creator of the universe, to be reflected in U.S. statute.”

He didn’t stop there, though. French thinks now that the institution has been legally desecrated, it should stay that way forever: “It would be profoundly disruptive and unjust to rip out the legal superstructure around which [gay Americans] ordered their lives.”

While David French was a senior editor of The Dispatch, the NeverTrump publication performed a dishonest “independent fact-check” of pre-2020 election advertisements from the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, which exposed Biden and Kamala Harris’ support for abortion until birth. Facebook then used that fake fact-check to censor the pro-life ads.

There’s plenty more where that came from. From launching character assassinations, to going after the weak, to defending the taxpayer-funded indoctrination of children with divisive racial politics, and more — the David “Winsome” French well never runs dry.

But the Pharisaical metanarrative is a familiar one: a self-righteous religious leader who sets his own rules, measures his opponents by them, morphs those rules when it suits him, and then boisterously gives thanks that he’s not like the unpalatable white Trump voters over there.

French is not so much a regime handmaiden as he is a court eunuch who became so by choice and nonetheless thinks he is in a position to lecture others on masculinity. He’s a turncoat who scolds others about loyalty, a liar convinced he’s the last honest man on Earth, and a party apparatchik whose vaunted principles always seem to align with his paychecks.

In recent years, he’s made a name for himself using Sunday — the traditional Christian day of rest and worship — to smear the faithful for the unpardonable sin of believing God’s law is superior to man’s law. ….

After Kylee wrote the above article… David French responded. In character of course.

Dissecting French’s Latest Delusion

French doesn’t name me in his self-obsessed screed, but I’m clearly the subject of his ire. The “professional polarizer” links to my article on the subject twice, once calling it “misleading” but without naming anything I got wrong — probably because he can’t. Every nasty thing he’s ever written about white evangelicals is public.

In his latest installment, French recaps how “apolitical” the PCA was when he and his wife joined it in 2004 through 2007 when he deployed (he can’t help himself). Then everything changed. This is the crux of his piece:

Two things happened that changed our lives, however, and in hindsight they’re related. First, in 2010, we adopted a 2-year-old girl from Ethiopia. Second, in 2015, Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign.

In other words, the religious and political landscape changed when “Trump’s rise” drew racists out of the evangelical woodwork, and principled David French, who just so happened to detest Donald Trump and made his living demonizing Trump’s supporters, couldn’t abide it.

This is absurd.

First, it’s either intellectually dishonest or completely delusional to ignore the actual catalyst that changed American politics during the period French identifies — and, in fact, birthed the Trump years. And no, it’s not the French family’s skin color nor sleeper racists inside the church who were just waiting for a “Celebrity Apprentice” president to make their move.

It was the Barack Obama years — a Rubicon-crossing era masked by smooth rhetoric, disdain for marriage, promotion of on-demand abortion, attacks on Christian consciences, the targeting of conservative political groups and their donors, the demonization of firearms, illegal power grabs to advance unlawful immigration, the introduction of campus kangaroo courts, the regular embrace of racism and antisemitism, and much, much more.

Besides Obama’s slick celebration of immorality and gaslighting of anyone who “bitterly clung” to social norms and biblical tradition, there was no going back after his egregious weaponization of the federal government against his political opponents, including secret spying on Republicans. Trump was the equal and opposite reaction to all of that, no matter what French says.

[….]

Now, lest French or anyone else accuse me of racism, it should go without saying that any attacks on a person’s Imago Dei child, including those based on skin color or heritage, are despicable. It’s wrong for trolls to exploit children and deploy threats, whether via direct message or in person.

But French is insane if he thinks he’s the subject of unique threats, that these threats originate from the church, or that they’re a defining characteristic of Trumpers. For just one example, look at who attacked another white mother of a black adopted child, Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Most people don’t feel the need to compulsively victimize themselves as French does, but since he went there, I guess I’ll bite: I don’t have half David French’s platform, but my life has still been threatened by left-wing nutjobs, something nearly all my colleagues can say as well. Threats and hate mail are an occupational hazard of public figures.

Additionally, I receive assaults on my faith, vulgar comments on my posts, and trolling of unsuspecting family and friends. And of course, some confrontations happen in real life or from people you know personally. It’s ridiculous, however, to view political and religious metanarratives through the lens of a few cynical anecdotes or DMs — especially when most people don’t live and breathe your Twitter feed, as French knows.

After earlier writing, “When I deployed to Iraq in 2007, the entire church rallied to support my family and to support the men I served with,” French writes this near the end of his piece:

I do not want to paint with too broad a brush. Our pastors and close friends continued to stand with us. Our church disciplined the man who confronted me about Trump during communion. And most church members didn’t follow politics closely and had no idea about any of the attacks we faced.

You don’t say. You mean more people offered support when you publicly deployed than when you privately received nasty social media messages and one-on-one attacks? Does this guy have an editor?

Pure Projection

It’s even clearer now than when French’s PCA panel was announced that my diagnosis was correct. French is a turncoat and a party apparatchik whose alleged principles seem to line up perfectly with his paychecks.

It’s not my job to judge the authenticity of French’s faith. But when, of the PCA’s General Assemby, he says he’s “now deemed too divisive to speak to a gathering of Christians who share [his] faith,” I wonder whether he means those nonwhite, enlightened parishioners who share his hatred for Trump or the untouchables he thinks are neo-Confederates.

“If you dissent [from particular pro-Trump arguments], yeah, there will be people in the church who still love you and support you and respect you, but there will be people who come after you,” French told Mika Brzezinski and race-baiter Al Sharpton on MSNBC Monday morning.

Never forget he went after them first.

David French & the Vapors of Civic Virtue Escaping from a Mystery Box | Doug Wilson

Now I would have some things to say to those who went into the Capitol that day. First, I do believe that their resistance on J6 was not in accordance with the Word of God. That’s not how you do it. This was not Protestant resistance theology, but more like Keystone Kops resistance theory. And related, in the second place, as Tallyrand so elegantly put it one time, it was worse than a crime—it was a blunder.

Wintery Knight has some articles as well worth your attention. Here are some issues I wish to highlight from his excellent coverage.

Secular Left Funding New David French / Russell Moore Church Curriculum

… This time, she [Megan Basham TWIX | DAILY WIRE] takes on 2 of the people who try to present themselves as Christians, even as they are doing everything they can to destroy Christianity in America: David French and Russell Moore.

Here’s her latest report in First Things:

Secular news outlets from NPR to the New York Times are hailing Tim Alberta’s new book, The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory, for furthering the popular thesis that evangelicals have abandoned themselves to political idolatry. By “political idolatry” they mean “political conservatism,” as neither Alberta’s book nor the many prestige outlets enthusing over it have a word of criticism for Christians who advance left-wing causes. However, a curious passage in the book suggests that those leveling this charge may be most guilty of infecting the church with partisanship.

Alberta reports on The After Party, a forthcoming program led by Duke Divinity consulting professor Curtis Chang and developed with New York Times columnist David French and Christianity Today editor in chief Russell Moore. The program offers pastors and small groups a curriculum “reframing Christian political identity from today’s divisive partisan options.”

According to Alberta, during its germination phase, the project hit a roadblock. Evangelical donors had little interest in funding an explicitly political Bible study. Thus, to get The After Party off the ground, the trio (all frequent critics of evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump) turned to “predominantly progressive” “unbelievers.” In fact, they turned to secular left-wing foundations.

I don’t want to say any more about what she found out in this post. I want you to read it yourselves – the whole thing. It’s just what you would expect, though. Wealthy left-wing billionaires, LGBT activists, pro-abortion activists, gender ideologues, transgender activists, and more.

She adds this, though:

Does anyone really believe these secular progressive grant-makers are interested in developing a church curriculum about politics without an eye toward affecting policy? Or that this curriculum will strengthen evangelicals’ commitment to the very causes progressives despise? Between 2013 and 2014, the Ford, Rockefeller, and Tides foundations contributed a combined $1.3 million to the Evangelical Immigration Table’s “Bibles, Badges, and Business” initiative, launched to mobilize evangelical support for amnesty legislation such as the failed Gang of Eight bill. Hewlett and a host of other major left-wing donors bankrolled the Evangelical Environmental Network’s Evangelical Climate Initiative with the aim of generating churchgoer support for cap and trade legislation. Secular progressive foundations have not hesitated to leverage new evangelical ministries to sway Christians to their political will.

[….]

… What we need are rank-and-file Christians to know what is going on, and speak up to make sure that their churches aren’t being led by secular leftists.

The funny thing about the secular leftists and their puppets David French and Russell Moore. They don’t realize this, but any Christian faith that is divorced from the Bible, and wedded to the Democrat party, loses it’s ability to save. …

David French Wants Christians Who Accept Jesus’ Definition Of Marriage To Be Persecuted

If you’ve been following David French’s writing closely, you’ll know that he no longer supports public policies that are consistent with the Christian worldview. In this post, we’ll take a look at Jesus’ definition of marriage, then we’ll see whether David French thinks that Jesus knows more about the definition of marriage than the Democrat party.

First, what does Jesus think about marriage?

Here’s what Jesus says about marriage.

Matthew 19:1-11 [WK’s link is to the NIV. I substitute the ISV below]:

1 When Jesus had finished saying these things,a he left Galilee and went to the territory of Judea on the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 Some Pharisees came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?” 4 He answered them, “Haven’t you read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘That is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?, 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must never separate.”

7 They asked him, “Why, then, did Moses order us ‘to give a certificate of divorce and divorce her’?”, 8 He said to them, “It was because of your hardness of heart that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not this way. 9 I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

10 His disciples said to him, “If that is the relationship of a man with his wife, it’s not worth getting married!” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this saying, except those to whom celibacy has been granted.”

To be a Christian, minimally, is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. That means that we accept what Jesus teaches, on whatever he teaches about. We don’t overturn the teachings of Jesus in order to make people who are rebelling against God feel better about their rebellion. It is central to the Christian worldview that Christians care more about what God thinks of them than what non-Christians think of them. In fact, Christians are supposed to be willing to endure suffering rather than side with non-Christians against God’s authority.

Here’s an article from The Federalist by conservative Christian lioness Megan Basham.

She writes:

[P]erhaps no one has done more to further the idea that Christians should not let the God they worship influence their policy views than one-time defender of traditional marriage, David French.

[…] As a political pundit, French has been singularly influential in evangelical establishment circles, referenced regularly not only in Christianity Today’s pages and podcasts but also giving speeches at Southern Baptist seminaries and winning praise from outlets such as The Gospel Coalition as “one of the few Christians who is able to bring gospel-centered arguments into the public square.”

In all three of his essays on RMA in the last week, French reveals that he, too, has evolved on marriage and… discourages Christians from resisting the enshrinement of gay marriage into U.S. law.

French… adds, “Religious belief is not the same thing as declaring civil law … I don’t want the law to discriminate against those Americans who sincerely hold different views of sexual morality, sexuality, and marriage and organize their lives and their institutions accordingly.”

What does David French think about same-sex marriage as public policy?

French reveals that… believes [the Obergefell ruling’s] argument for ushering in an entirely new form of marriage, unknown to previous ages, was well-founded. He writes that as far back as 2004, he believed, “In a diverse, pluralistic republic, granting the same rights to others that we’d like to exercise ourselves should be the default posture of public advocacy and public policy.”

Now that the fundamental transformation of marriage has taken place, French argues it should be permanent: “It would be profoundly disruptive and unjust to rip out the legal superstructure around which they’ve ordered their lives,” he writes.

When it comes to policy, David French thinks that the Democrat party’s definition of marriage is better than Jesus’ definition of marriage.

Previously, I noted how the Alliance Defending Freedom thinks that the “Respect for Marriage Act” will threaten the religious liberty of Christian organizations:

The so-called Respect for Marriage Act is a misnamed bill that expands not only what marriage means, but also who can be sued for disagreeing with the new meaning of marriage.

While proponents of the bill claim that it simply codifies the 2015 Obergefell decision, in reality it is an intentional attack on the religious freedom of millions of Americans with sincerely held beliefs about marriage.

The Respect for Marriage Act threatens religious freedom and the institution of marriage in multiple ways:

  • It further embeds a false definition of marriage in the American legal fabric.
  • It opens the door to federal recognition of polygamous relationships.
  • It jeopardizes the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that exercise their belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
  • It endangers faith-based social-service organizations by threatening litigation and liability risk if they follow their views on marriage when working with the government.

The truth is the Respect for Marriage Act does nothing to change the status of same-sex marriage or the benefits afforded to same-sex couples following Obergefell. It does much, however, to endanger religious freedom.

David French  wants Christians who agree with Jesus about the definition of marriage to be persecuted by the secular left state. That’s why he supports this Democrat party legislation.

(Read It All, Trust Me, It Is Worth It)

In an excellent end to a pretty lengthy article in THE FEDERALIST, Kylee Griswold nails her ideas expressed in her piece:

None of this is to say Christians ought to embrace apathy or be pacifists. The anti-religious newsrooms pushing cover stories about so-called Christian nationalism would love nothing more than to shame and bully faithful disciples into sitting down and shutting up.

The Capitol riot was a convenient hook for their narrative, but they don’t just believe the people who showed up in Washington that day were religious extremists. They think all Christians are. It isn’t that they don’t want you in Statuary Hall. It’s that they don’t want you on the school board, in journalism, or on campus. They want to chase you out of churches, out of public office, and even out of political conversations.

Believers, however, know faith without works is dead and that our faith isn’t confined to Sunday morning services. What we believe about God and man and redemption ought to affect every decision we make, including our civic engagement.

If we love God, love our neighbor, and wish to steward our resources and lead our families well, sitting on the sidelines of the political and culture wars is really not an option. Contrary to French’s assessment, it isn’t about making ourselves more culturally comfortable; it’s about being consistent in our beliefs and doing what’s right.

As long we remain on this Earth, Christians will be assailed as bigots and nationalists. This evergreen dynamic of Christians being not “of the world,” but striving to be faithful while they’re “in it,” is way bigger than Jan. 6, Donald Trump, David French, or America. Don’t confuse true believers who rightly fight for both faith and freedom as Christian nationalists. They’re just Christians.

One last reference to the divisive nature of French in his attacks that mirror what he rejects in whom he accuses. Here is a paragraph intro to the larger American Reformer excerpt via Rod Dreher:

  • James Wood has further thoughts on his controversial — unjustly controversial, in my view — First Things essay gently criticizing famed pastor Tim Keller. It was unjustly controversial because some of Keller’s friends took unnecessary umbrage at what struck me as a balanced piece written by a man who greatly respected, and still respects, Keller, but who thinks that Keller’s mode of pastoral engagement is insufficient to the times. (THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVER)

Here is David French being his mean Trumpian self, via James R. Wood:

The Kellerites propound to abhor division among Christians, and yet I have found them far more divisive than they admit. This is captured in the common trope: “Punch right, coddle left.” Those who are devoted to the third-wayism of Keller generally appear to assume the worst from one side of the political spectrum and give the benefit of the doubt to—or at least provide an apologetic for—the other. (Case in point: David French’s recent piece on my essay.) Kellerites make up a significant portion of the “never Trump” movement among Christians, and this movement is unforgiving of those who have chosen, for whatever reason, to vote in that way (full disclosure: I did not in either election). They are also quick to join in the chorus of denunciations of “Christian nationalism,” which is often a bogeyman label for any robust pursuit of conservative Christian influence in politics. Make what you wish of Aaron Renn’s Three Worlds schema, but I think it is a bit obvious that, for example, in recent years conservative Christian political engagement that would have been seen as somewhat innocuous in previous years is quickly and regularly denounced as authoritarian “Christian nationalism.”

[….]

While few critics have echoed French’s imputation of malice…

[….]

It also encourages the sort of false equivalences French employs against Wood: “When it comes to negative partisanship, neither side has clean hands. If we truly live in a ‘negative world,’ then Christians helped make it negative.” French implies that Christians deserve the hostility they face. There are of course cases in which this is true, such as the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Southern Baptist Convention in recent years, or those that seem perennially to plague the Catholic Church. But French’s writing over the past five years indicates that he has in mind the bogeyman of white Christian nationalism.

[….]

But time has revealed liberal universalism to be a parochial delusion. History is up and running again. The political has returned with a vengeance. And those who continue to mistake the third way for a universal doctrine are at risk of sleepwalking into political idolatry that insists upon a paradoxically post-political ideology.

(AMERICAN REFORMER)

[one-half-first][/one-half-first][one-half][/one-half]

… Moving on to Natalie Grace

The clip at the very top of this post by JIM G., was one of the final straws for someone who says he is a conservative. If it were just that one graphic he posted – fine. But time and time again he posts stuff by Leftist Democrats or “Christians” who call me a white supremacist – and use [debunked] examples/excerpts of Trump trying to prove he is racist as well. JIM G. found me originally by a critique I had done on the Emergent church… I assume he agreed then with my assessment. Which can be “summarized” here:

But as Trump came and went from office […] he has encamped in the same movement that is heretical to the historic Christian faith. As well as putting forward radical Dems.

… To Wit …

Natalie Grace

These people just say colloquial stuff to emote. Here is the rest of that graphic at the top:

In other words, I could say:

  • “What if God doesn’t actually care about the laws against drug use, but does care about how those who follow Him think about, talk about, and act towards those who use drugs and sell to others? BTW, my question is rhetorical. God obviously cares more about our hearts towards drug users than any arbitrary, man-made line in the sand [laws on the books].”

You could put a million recipes that show these people are just saying poetry to make themselves feel better than Trump. Or people like myself.

David Mamet dealt with this human proclivity well years ago:

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

This is all people like JIM G. and Natalie Grace are doing. Transferring sainthood to fell better. To feel superior, morally.

In trying to get approval by the other side, or the New York Times/Washington Post crowd, these people find they have to think of “Christianity as a collection of theological bits and pieces to be believed or debated.” Rather than approaching the Christian “faith as a conceptual system, as a total world-and-life view” — Ronald H. Nash, Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas. They have to grab some legalism from the O.T., sprinkle it with Emergent post-modernism, form a cudgel with flowers on it, and get busy beating Christians as racist white supremacists who support Trump and all the distorted ideas the New York Times and Washington Post says he has.

As for me?

I got better things ta do.

So I unfriended this tiresome attack[s] by a “friend.”

Christian Nationalism? Conflating neo-Paganism with Christianity

Published by Papa Giorgio

What I find interesting about the article by Rachel S. Mikva (USA TODAY) is her grouping these people with Christianity. For instance, she seems to think that the horned guy mentioning “god” means he is referencing “God” (the Judeo-Christian God). For instance, here is a decent article zeroing in on the neo-Pagan aspects of the white supremacy movement. Of which I know personally about being that I was in jail for almost a year-and-a-half. I know their neo-Pagan systems of belief well. As well as studying the Third Reich love of this Paganism. See for instance:

  • God vs. Hitler (RPT)
  • NAZI Occultism (RPT)

…more to follow audio…

Here is an excerpt from THE CONVERSATION:

…Then Jacob Chansley, sometimes called the “QAnon Shaman,” took his bullhorn and announced gratitude to God for being able to “send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists that this is our nation, not theirs.”Bare-chested to expose his white supremacist tattoos, he had paused briefly to remove his Viking-inspired horned headdress and cap — presumably to assume a properly humble posture as he claimed the United States for himself and his fellow-believers.  

One thing that should make it very clear where Angeli’s politics lie are his tattoos. On his torso he has a large Thor’s hammer, known as Mjölnir, and what appears to be an image of the Norse world tree, Yggdrasill.

Mjölnir is one symbol we can be pretty sure was used by the original adherents of the Norse belief system, perhaps to summon the protection of the god Thor. Yggdrasill is the giant ash tree that supports the Norse cosmos, its branches reaching into sky realms inaccessible to humans, and its roots to the subterranean realm of the dead. Unlike Thor’s hammer, it was only rarely depicted by the Vikings, and representations such as the one below are modern interpretations.

Above these tattoos with a central place in Norse mythology is one that is more contentious. It depicts a valknut – an image that appears on two Viking-Age stones from Sweden carved with scenes from Norse mythology, including the Stora Hammars I stone on the island of Gotland.

The symbol’s original meaning is unclear, but it appears in close proximity to the father of the gods, Odin, on the stones. As Odin is closely connected with the gathering of fallen warriors to Valhalla, the valknut may be a symbol of death in battle.

Snorri Sturluson, a medieval Icelandic collector of myths, tells us in his “Language of Poetry” that a famous giant called Hrungnir had a stone heart “pointed with three corners”, and so the valknut is sometimes also called “Hrungnir’s Heart”. Whatever its original meaning, it has been used in more recent times by various neo-pagan groups – and increasingly by some white supremacists as a coded message of their belief in violent struggle…..

Another post with some names of the Norse gods is here. When I was in jail, I met a couple “Odinites”

ODINISM

…Odinism is another term for Asatru, a pagan religion. But in the FBI’s Project Megiddo, it was described as a:

… white supremacist ideology that lends itself to violence and has the potential to inspire its followers to violence in connection to the millennium. What makes Odinists dangerous is the fact that many believe in the necessity of becoming martyrs for their cause. — FBI Report: Project Megiddo

In response, a prominent Asatru organization published Asatru/Odinism: A Briefing for Law Enforcement Officials

ARTICLES:

The New Romantics ”A Swedish expert on right-wing extremism says that racist Odinism is the radical religion of the future.” By Mattias Gardell, professor of religious history at the University of Stockholm’s Center for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, writing in the Spring, 2001 edition of Intelligence Report (published by the Southern Poverty Law Center). See also: Clarification, by Mattias Gardell.

SEE ALSO

(APOLOGETICS INDEX)

ASATRU

What is Asatru?
Long before Christianity came to northern Europe, the people there – our ancestors – had their own religions. One of these was Asatru. It was practiced in the lands that are today Scandinavia, England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and other countries as well. Asatru is the original, or native, religion for the peoples who lived in these regions. Simply put, you might think of it as ”the religion of the Vikings” since they were its main followers in the years just before our ancestors were forced to adopt Christianity.

What does the word ”Asatru” mean?
It means, roughly, “belief in the Gods” in Old Norse, the language of ancient Scandinavia in which so much of our source material was written. Asatru is the name by which the Norsemen called their religion.

[…]

What are the basic tenets or beliefs of Asatru?
We believe in an underlying, all-pervading divine energy or essence which is generally hidden from us, and which is beyond our immediate understanding. We further believe that this spiritual reality is interdependent with us – that we affect it, and it affects us.

We believe that this underlying divinity expresses itself to us in the forms of the Gods and Goddesses. Stories about these deities are like a sort of code, the mysterious ”language” through which the divine reality speaks to us.

We believe in standards of behavior which are consistent with these spiritual truths and harmonious with our deepest being.

How does Asatru differ from other religions?
Asatru is unlike the better-known religions in many ways. Some of these are:

We are polytheistic. That is, we believe in a number of deities, including Goddesses as well as Gods. (We have a tongue-in-cheek saying that a religion without a Goddess is halfway to atheism!)

We do not accept the idea of ”original sin,” the notion that we are tainted from birth and intrinsically bad, as does Christianity. Thus, we do not need ”saving.”

We do not claim to be a universal religion, a faith for all of humankind. In fact, we don’t think such a thing is possible or desirable. The different branches of humanity have different ways of looking at the world, each of which is valid for them. It is only right that they have different religions…..

Asatru is also called Odinism:

  • Asatru (pronounced AS-a-tru or OW-sa-tru) is a word which means ”those true to the Gods” in Icelandic. It is one of the words used to label the pre-Christian, native religion of Scandinavia and the Germanic countries. Another term used for these beliefs is ”Odinism,” and it will be used throughout this document as meaning the same as Asatru. (Source: A Brief History of Asatru, or Odinism)

That quote is part of an article titled, Asatru/Odinism: A Briefing for Law Enforcement Officials. It was written in large part in response to the inclusion of Odinism in the FBI’s Project Megiddo report:

Finally, Odinism is another white supremacist ideology that lends itself to violence and has the potential to inspire its followers to violence in connection to the millennium. What makes Odinists dangerous is the fact that many believe in the necessity of becoming martyrs for their cause. For example, Bob Mathews, the leader of The Order, died in a fiery confrontation with law enforcement. Also, William King relished the fact that he would receive the death penalty for his act of dragging James Byrd, Jr. to his death. Odinism has little to do with Christian Identity but there is one key similarity: Odinism provides dualism — as does Christian Identity — with regard to the universe being made up of worlds of light (white people) and worlds of dark (non-white people). The most fundamental difference between the two ideologies is that Odinists do not believe in Jesus Christ. However, there are enough similarities between the myths and legends of Odinism and the beliefs of Christian Identity to make a smooth transition from Christian Identity to Odinism for those racist individuals whose penchant for violence is not being satisfied. (Source: White Supremacy, Project Megiddo)…..

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