Look. You got a choice. Either the Vice-President of the United States is right, or his boss is, the man we elected President in 2016. You've got only two options: did Donald Trump lose to Joe Biden last month, or was the election stolen by a hundreds of election officials in at least six states, who manipulated voters, votes, and ballots in a criminal conspiracy that included hundreds of lifelong Republicans. Either what Mike Pence said last night is the truth, or what Donald Trump said is the truth.
Either this nation's elected representatives are telling the truth, or else a shrinking minority who believe him are. Who do you believe?
A couple decades ago I served on a Christian broadcasting board. A wonderful broadcast preacher named Dr. Joel Nederhood, at more than one meeting, told board members to be sure to tell everyone that Madeline Murray O'Hare was not campaigning to rid America's airwaves of Christian programming, that no such suit is pending, that the FCC is not considering banning the proclamation of the gospel from the airways. "It makes Christians look like idiots," he told us, "because the FCC keeps getting bushels full of letters from people telling them something that has no validity at all."
If it wasn't true, why did Christians believe it?
For the record, Madeline Murray O'Hare was not a pleasant person. She made herself titular head of the "American Atheists." It was Madeline Murray O'Hare who argued her son's victimization when discriminated against by mandatory school prayer. The court agreed.
The whole story included Dr. James Dobson, who, it was said, claimed Ms. O'Hare was engineering the demise of Christian programming on radio and television. Dobson wasn't saying that. And neither was O'Hare. But thousands, even millions of Christians believed it. They were wrong, but they wouldn't believe it.
Why? I'm no psychologist, but good ones would likely say that the story somehow fit a fundamentalist Christian's moral profile: atheists, God-deniers, were most certainly the enemy. The atheists had already run prayer out of schools; now they were coming after TV preachers. That makes sense in the human mind because all of us really need enemies, some clear powers of darkness. What did the Apostle Paul say in Ephesians 6? "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." If Madeline Murray O'Hare wasn't among "the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms," who on earth was?
A campaign that had no basis and took years to peter out because the fear Ms. O'Hare created fit with perfect exactness into a pre-existing framework of faith that thousands or millions of believers already carried. In a way, they wanted to believe she was after them. They needed to believe it.
I saw four kinds of flags being flown by the gang who took over the nation's capitol yesterday. Hundreds of Trump flags were hoisted and carried along in the wind beside just as many stars-and-stripes. That was a patriotic mob. I saw at least one confederate flag, which wasn't surprising from such an all-white mob, and at least one huge Jesus banner. Trump's minions pray a ton, just like they wave the flag a ton.
Remember, more than any other single cultural group, white Protestant Christians ("white evangelicals") keep Trump in power. They're the ones who believe him. That mob yesterday was full of people who prayed, I'm sure, before they started marching down Pennsylvania Avenue.
But that doesn't mean they're right. That doesn't mean the man who stokes them into his version of "American carnage" isn't flat-out lying.
There's only one man who can start the impossible work of trying to bring people together in this nation, and that man is Donald J. Trump, the man whose lies about election fraud instigated the whole mess.
I'm not thinking he will any time soon.
He may not be a criminal--that remains to be seen. But what's perfectly clear after yesterday's long speech before the mob that tried to take over the Capital, is that he's a bald-faced liar, just as he always was. Now more than ever, the man is dangerous.
His disciples have to ask themselves whether they believe Donald J. Trump or Mike Pence. It's that simple. That's the choice--and each one of us has to choose.
Actually it was the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) not the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) that I think folks were up in arms about. What is so sad is that so many want to feel so persecuted. Persecution is real, but too often here in the US, our President the prime example, just want to whine. So sad, and so costly.
ReplyDeleteOops. Thanks! I'll get it.
ReplyDeleteActually it was the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) not the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) that I think folks were up in arms about. What is so sad is that so many want to feel so persecuted. Persecution is real, but too often here in the US, our President the prime example, just want to whine. So sad, and so costly.
ReplyDeleteSorry, my screen hadn't refreshed and I posted again. Thanks for your post. It needs to be said, but I wonder how many of us are listening. I am very concerned that too many will head down the rabbit hole chasing rumors when the mainstream social media try to shut down the crazy stuff.
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