The religious right discarded Jesus and accepted a thrice-divorced philanderer accused of rape as their leader who gives them hope. And now, this morning, the Trump apocalypse has come to fruition.
You say some powerful things. I agree this is the Trump Apocalypse. I agree that we have alienated our friends and taken back-stabbers as associates in Putin's Russia and The Saudis. I agree that the racist scourge is making it worse and hateful but you can't blame it all on Musk and Thiel. They are just feeding what already existed and reared its ugly head after Obama was elected.
What I take exception to is the blame. You started with some good ownership of your part in causing this to happen, in feeding the moral majority monster that cause Christians to think: 1) abortion is our original sin that will turn God's favor from us as a nation; 2) If they voted for anyone who was pro-choice they risked going to hell for killing babies.
But your assumptions and your blame of others is really unacceptable and lacks logical thinking. I've been in many of the different types of churches you mentioned and am now in a mainline church, which serves the hungry 3 days a week, and provides a food pantry. In each and every church Jesus Christ is preached. Some were better than others. So what you say is insulting at the least. And untrue at the best.
But moral majority thinking made the dividing lines. The Moravians have a motto, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all else, love." In Jesus' own words the essentials are to "love God with all your heart soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Upon this all the law and the prophets stand". That is the essential teaching. I submit it is the only essential. When we aren't doing this, we aren't doing God's work.
You are angry, but you and I have forgotten the essentials. You make wild claims of mainline churches (liberals), far right evangelicals (angry as you say), and leftists, whom I can only assume from context, you view as unbelievers who push the world to accept their world view, all combining to make this Trump Apocalypse happen but you ignore the food they were fed.
Those for-right evangelicals were fed food from the moral majority that made their GOP vote essential to their entry to heaven. They have been fed fear that makes them feel they could lose their place in the kingdom as a result of their vote, since it has to be anti-abortion then they would literally elect anyone they are told would stop abortion. And told they were. The Baptist's, Nazarenes, Charismatic churches in our community were literally given a list they were told to vote for to be righteous. People left our church because our Pastor in 2020 preached that voting for a person like Trump (without naming him specifically) was wrong. Why? Because they believed the moral majority lie.
Your major premise that these groups colluded to foster the environment that made Trump possible is in error. It's blame. Those to blame are those who encourage single issue voter issues and tied them to abortion instead of to the character of the person. Now some of those voters are rejoicing in "owning the libs" even while their world is being destroyed. Blame the organizations who fostered this type of voting, who insisted that we had to make our secular society righteous for God's favor instead of following our mission, to tell people the good news of Jesus and his love.
Frankly, all your blame doesn't address the real issue. Christians stopped loving the "other" and started seeking power. They stopped loving God and seeking him. They got so stuck on the morals of society that they forgot that only God changes hearts. hearts won't be changed if when they meet God's people they meet angry, demanding, hateful people.
You have a blame problem similar to Trump to deflect from your initial issue the campaigning you did as a young man to help grow the moral majority. That is a hell of a huge burden to have to own and repent. It hurts when we have to examine ourselves and see where we may have done things to harm the kingdom, the people God loves, and those who do not yet know God. Because ultimately all else we have done is just fodder. It is when we love and help someone, give to their need either spiritually or physically, that is when the kingdom is present.
Let's face it, you thought you were doing the right thing, you were naive, and you contributed to leading people astray. I get it. I have done some things in the past, trying to do what I thought God wanted and still to this day I cannot say whether I did the right thing. I think the measuring rod is love. Jesus drove out the money changers because they were using God's name in vain for their personal gain. Jesus embraced the lepers and the prostitutes, the people who were completely unacceptable to those pious leaders, in our society it would probably be those leftists you so deride. Who will drive out the Paula Whites profiting off the poor to hawk her wears and sell "blessings"? That's a table Jesus would over turn. Or how about those Trump Bibles? Those use God's name in vain.
My point is that to start a change you and I must address our own hearts before God. Railing on your audience and blaming them doesn't lead them to repentance, it just looks like scapegoating. Then we have to love as Jesus loves, to love those leftists and libs and even those deluded by the moral majority.
Oh and by the way, I think the bakery should have made the cake for the gay couple. Why? Because it would have shown love and compassion. You don't have to agree with what a person chooses to care about them and show love. Instead they just looked angry and vengeful. "We don't serve your kind". What an unloving statement.
It's been a work-in-progress for decades. A vile amalgam Lost Causerism repackaged for the Post civil-rights era, Red Scare tactics (which were ALWAYS a basket for antisemitism, anti-intellectualism, homophobia, brutish nativism and jingoism) and an unhinged apocalyptism that was formed of equal parts vengeance for the humiliation of the Scopes Money Trial, a perverted concept of Ecclesia Militans, Dominionism, but most of all an unscrupulous lusty of power and influence all of which were pureed and stuffed into a piping bag so that the Fox Newses, Rush Limbaughs and the hundreds of other channels to fill the gullets of the gullible and fearful, all the while keeping them ignorant of sources of their fear and problems. Don't even get me started on the toxicity of Musk.
It's a generally accepted in addiction that in order for someone to change their behavior and seek help, they would need to hit rock bottom, or experience consequences that were oftentimes terrible and beyond repair. What's truly terrifying to me right now, is that I do not if these people felt they have hit BOTTOM yet!
It's been a loooong time since an Amen! roiled up from a darkened depth and came crashing out with such conviction from me. I didn't know I was capable of such a reaction, let alone feel its penetrative truth and it's welcoming sting.
Quite the conviction, likes to single out non Christians as a significant problem. Gives no recognition of the British & French creating the nightmare of today’s Middle East. It’s Russia, them Saudis and South Africa, the axis of evil. Evidently it sells.
Thank you for these. I do enjoy that you know history well. Odds are high we saw some of your father’s movies along the way. As far as AI and AI Overview:
“The phrase "Seville Acadian" likely refers to the Acadian families who, in 1784, sought to establish themselves in Louisiana at the expense of His Catholic Majesty, with records of this event found in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain.”
This is very powerful. Thank you for saying what needs to be said.
You say some powerful things. I agree this is the Trump Apocalypse. I agree that we have alienated our friends and taken back-stabbers as associates in Putin's Russia and The Saudis. I agree that the racist scourge is making it worse and hateful but you can't blame it all on Musk and Thiel. They are just feeding what already existed and reared its ugly head after Obama was elected.
What I take exception to is the blame. You started with some good ownership of your part in causing this to happen, in feeding the moral majority monster that cause Christians to think: 1) abortion is our original sin that will turn God's favor from us as a nation; 2) If they voted for anyone who was pro-choice they risked going to hell for killing babies.
But your assumptions and your blame of others is really unacceptable and lacks logical thinking. I've been in many of the different types of churches you mentioned and am now in a mainline church, which serves the hungry 3 days a week, and provides a food pantry. In each and every church Jesus Christ is preached. Some were better than others. So what you say is insulting at the least. And untrue at the best.
But moral majority thinking made the dividing lines. The Moravians have a motto, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all else, love." In Jesus' own words the essentials are to "love God with all your heart soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. Upon this all the law and the prophets stand". That is the essential teaching. I submit it is the only essential. When we aren't doing this, we aren't doing God's work.
You are angry, but you and I have forgotten the essentials. You make wild claims of mainline churches (liberals), far right evangelicals (angry as you say), and leftists, whom I can only assume from context, you view as unbelievers who push the world to accept their world view, all combining to make this Trump Apocalypse happen but you ignore the food they were fed.
Those for-right evangelicals were fed food from the moral majority that made their GOP vote essential to their entry to heaven. They have been fed fear that makes them feel they could lose their place in the kingdom as a result of their vote, since it has to be anti-abortion then they would literally elect anyone they are told would stop abortion. And told they were. The Baptist's, Nazarenes, Charismatic churches in our community were literally given a list they were told to vote for to be righteous. People left our church because our Pastor in 2020 preached that voting for a person like Trump (without naming him specifically) was wrong. Why? Because they believed the moral majority lie.
Your major premise that these groups colluded to foster the environment that made Trump possible is in error. It's blame. Those to blame are those who encourage single issue voter issues and tied them to abortion instead of to the character of the person. Now some of those voters are rejoicing in "owning the libs" even while their world is being destroyed. Blame the organizations who fostered this type of voting, who insisted that we had to make our secular society righteous for God's favor instead of following our mission, to tell people the good news of Jesus and his love.
Frankly, all your blame doesn't address the real issue. Christians stopped loving the "other" and started seeking power. They stopped loving God and seeking him. They got so stuck on the morals of society that they forgot that only God changes hearts. hearts won't be changed if when they meet God's people they meet angry, demanding, hateful people.
You have a blame problem similar to Trump to deflect from your initial issue the campaigning you did as a young man to help grow the moral majority. That is a hell of a huge burden to have to own and repent. It hurts when we have to examine ourselves and see where we may have done things to harm the kingdom, the people God loves, and those who do not yet know God. Because ultimately all else we have done is just fodder. It is when we love and help someone, give to their need either spiritually or physically, that is when the kingdom is present.
Let's face it, you thought you were doing the right thing, you were naive, and you contributed to leading people astray. I get it. I have done some things in the past, trying to do what I thought God wanted and still to this day I cannot say whether I did the right thing. I think the measuring rod is love. Jesus drove out the money changers because they were using God's name in vain for their personal gain. Jesus embraced the lepers and the prostitutes, the people who were completely unacceptable to those pious leaders, in our society it would probably be those leftists you so deride. Who will drive out the Paula Whites profiting off the poor to hawk her wears and sell "blessings"? That's a table Jesus would over turn. Or how about those Trump Bibles? Those use God's name in vain.
My point is that to start a change you and I must address our own hearts before God. Railing on your audience and blaming them doesn't lead them to repentance, it just looks like scapegoating. Then we have to love as Jesus loves, to love those leftists and libs and even those deluded by the moral majority.
Oh and by the way, I think the bakery should have made the cake for the gay couple. Why? Because it would have shown love and compassion. You don't have to agree with what a person chooses to care about them and show love. Instead they just looked angry and vengeful. "We don't serve your kind". What an unloving statement.
Thank you! It all makes sense!
It's been a work-in-progress for decades. A vile amalgam Lost Causerism repackaged for the Post civil-rights era, Red Scare tactics (which were ALWAYS a basket for antisemitism, anti-intellectualism, homophobia, brutish nativism and jingoism) and an unhinged apocalyptism that was formed of equal parts vengeance for the humiliation of the Scopes Money Trial, a perverted concept of Ecclesia Militans, Dominionism, but most of all an unscrupulous lusty of power and influence all of which were pureed and stuffed into a piping bag so that the Fox Newses, Rush Limbaughs and the hundreds of other channels to fill the gullets of the gullible and fearful, all the while keeping them ignorant of sources of their fear and problems. Don't even get me started on the toxicity of Musk.
It's a generally accepted in addiction that in order for someone to change their behavior and seek help, they would need to hit rock bottom, or experience consequences that were oftentimes terrible and beyond repair. What's truly terrifying to me right now, is that I do not if these people felt they have hit BOTTOM yet!
Keep saying it!
Thank you
It's been a loooong time since an Amen! roiled up from a darkened depth and came crashing out with such conviction from me. I didn't know I was capable of such a reaction, let alone feel its penetrative truth and it's welcoming sting.
This is “good trouble.”
Thank you.
We know what the problemis. Do a podcast half as ling with solutions.
Thanks so much Frank Schaeffer, you are correct 💯...It had to be said, ✊🏼💕💜🙏🏼
Thank you for your analysis.
Quite the conviction, likes to single out non Christians as a significant problem. Gives no recognition of the British & French creating the nightmare of today’s Middle East. It’s Russia, them Saudis and South Africa, the axis of evil. Evidently it sells.
Always love hearing your perspective, Frank.
Thank you for these. I do enjoy that you know history well. Odds are high we saw some of your father’s movies along the way. As far as AI and AI Overview:
“The phrase "Seville Acadian" likely refers to the Acadian families who, in 1784, sought to establish themselves in Louisiana at the expense of His Catholic Majesty, with records of this event found in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain.”