The Old Testament, New Testament And The Quran All Revere The 10 Commandments
Friday on Bill Maher’s show Mark Esper, Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, said “The first year of a second Trump term will look like the last year of the first Trump term, in other words, with all the craziness… There’s no way I’ll vote for Trump, but every day that Trump does something crazy, the door to voting for Biden opens a little bit more, and that’s where I’m at.”
The following morning, Jessica Piper and Zach Montellaro noted that the battle for Trump-skeptical Republican voters isn’t just about well-educated people in suburbs; it’s also in traditionally redder exurbs now. There’s “a significant bloc of voters,” they wrote, “who did not want Trump in… the kinds of places that were skeptical of Trump in the 2016 GOP primary and, while largely voting for him in the 2016 and 2020 general elections, have remained somewhat resistant to his takeover of the Republican Party… ‘You hear a lot of moderate Republicans now who say that they’ll never vote for Trump again,’ said Parker Fairbairn, county GOP chair in Emmet County, Michigan, on the northern end of the state’s Lower Peninsula, where Trump won 55 percent of the vote in the 2020 general election. In last month’s primary, he got two-thirds of the vote there. What distinguishes Emmet County and similar geographies from the other suburban ones is their broader politics. These aren’t the kinds of suburbs on the outskirts of major cities, where wealthy, educated professionals have already fled the Republican Party. They’re farther away from urban areas. They’re less densely populated, and they have fewer voters with college degrees. These places— which include North Carolina’s Republican-leaning exurbs, and conservative but less Trump-inclined counties several hours north of Michigan’s major cities— still vote predominantly for Republicans, both at the presidential and local levels… [I]in a close election fought on the margins, even small shifts matter. Republicans’ success at bringing those voters back into the fold will help determine whether Trump ousts Biden from the White House. Democrats’ ability to draw away even a small percentage of the non-Trump GOP voters— or, at the very least, convince them to stay home— can help keep him there. That push and pull sets the stage for a battle over the hundreds of thousands of non-Trump primary voters.”
But these exurban areas don’t just include some Haley voters who might swing towards Biden. They also include a lot of Christian voters who might be offended by Trump and his extremist supporters. John Pavlovitz, for example, is offended by professed Christians who have no real interest in Jesus and who “loudly claim things like religious liberty while methodically swallowing up the personal freedoms and elemental rights of other people. They incessantly broadcast their devotion to God on their bumpers and bellies and profiles, while living antithetically to the compassionate heart of Jesus actually found in the Scriptures. Their spirituality is largely performative: a showy firework display of culture war talking points and religious buzzwords that distracts from the truth that their lives are yielding almost nothing truly loving to anyone but people who agree with them on everything— or those they see as ‘their own kind.’ Most telling however is that their theology is built on an idea that Jesus fully rejected: compulsion. At the core of Jesus' movement two-thousand years ago was a personal invitation to follow him in the ways of empathy, mercy, and justice. It was at its core, an appeal to the voluntary orientation of the heart of each human being he crossed paths with. It was something to be embraced or rejected without fear of repercussions. In other words, it is nothing like the Christianity of the current Republican Party.”
The United States is currently a few months from possibly falling into theocracy at the hands of a small and powerful minority of professed followers of Jesus— and it would have made him sick to his stomach.
…If you read any of the Gospels (even the ones in the Trump-autographed Bible), you realize pretty quickly that if Jesus' feet were on the planet right now, the Conservative Church in America would be one of the first tables he'd overturn.
You see, Christianity as modeled by Jesus was never meant to hold power. It was never about control or brute force or dictating the laws of the land or imposing itself on people's lives. It was never intended to be a political or religious institution but a chosen community of like-hearted people working together for the common good.
…This is why actual followers of Jesus don't want Conservatives' compulsory Christianity.They don't want legislated morality.They don't want people's bodies and bedrooms and marriages invaded by someone else's theology.
Actual followers of Jesus understand that spirituality is the most intimate of expressions, wholly and deeply personal and made by a human being for themselves alone.
Actual followers of Jesus aspire to a life tangibly emulating Jesus in the world and perpetuating the compassion they find there, but they would never pile those expectations on anyone else.
Actual followers of Jesus believe their personal faith shouldn't dictate the laws others live under because they know he preached a kingdom that transcended the systems and paradigms of this place.
Actual followers of Jesus want a world where people's most intimate of relationships and decisions are not the jurisdiction of any faith tradition, because they recognize that choosing or rejecting a spiritual path is a sacred and singular decision.
Actual followers of Jesus want no part of the Republican Party's supposed Christianity because Jesus would have wanted no part of it.
They and he want something resembling Christ.
Christians probably know that throughout the Bible, there are instances where the Israelites turned against leaders who they once supported but who were later seen as corrupt or evil. Take Saul, the first king of Israel. He began his reign with the support of the people, but over time, his disobedience to God and his increasingly erratic behavior led to his downfall. He became jealous and paranoid, particularly towards David, who was anointed by the prophet Samuel as Saul's successor. Saul's jealousy and attempts to kill David led to a rift between him and the people. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul disobeys God's command to completely destroy the Amalekites and their possessions. This act of disobedience led to Samuel declaring that God had rejected Saul as king over Israel. Saul and his sons were killed by the Philistines at the Battle of Mount Gilboa which led to David eventually becoming king, a transition of power reflecting the Israelites' rejection of Saul's leadership due to his corruption and disobedience to God.
And that wasn’t the only time that the Israelites turned against a rotten leader. King Ahab is portrayed as one of the most wicked kings in the Old Testament. He married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who led him to worship foreign gods and under his rule idolatry, injustice and moral decline were rampant. He was killed in a battle against the Arameans by an unaimed arrow and pigs licked his blood, making him unclean. (Melville named Captain Ahab in Moby Dick after him.) King Manasseh of Judah, is also described as one of the most evil kings in the history of the Jewish people, also leading the nation into idolatry, apostasy and spiritual decline— practicing witchcraft, and even sacrificing Jewish children in pagan rituals. According to 2 Kings 21:10-16 and 2 Chronicles 33:10-17, Manasseh's idolatry and general wickedness provoked the anger of God, leading to the pronouncement of judgment against Judah and Jerusalem. The biblical texts describe how the nation suffered under divine punishment, including military defeat, captivity and destruction.
This didn’t end after Jesus came on the scene. Simon Magus (a sorcerer for whom simony was named), for example, clashed with Peter and his leadership in Samaria was rejected. Trump was a great big mistake for Christians. They should right that wrong in November.
