A Desecration of the Christian Faith
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theatlantic.com
A Desecration of the Christian Faith
Former national-security adviser Michael Flynn is fusing deranged political ideas with a mangled version of Jesus’s teachings.
11:00 AM · Oct 26, 2022
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/michael-flynn-maga-christian-trump/671852/
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https://archive.ph/aT2JR
A prayer at a “ReAwaken America” event in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a few days ago, at which Michael Flynn appeared, captured the sensibilities of this moment: “Father God, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We’re asking you to open the eyes of President Trump’s understanding, that he will know the time of divine intervention. He will know how to implement divine intervention. And you will surround him, Father, with none of this deep-state trash, none of this RINO trash. You surround him, people that you pick, with your own mighty hand. In the name of Jesus.”
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who once led the Defense Intelligence Agency, resigned as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser after less than a month for allegedly misleading the vice president, and then pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. (He later filed to withdraw his guilty plea, insisting that he had been set up by the FBI, and was eventually pardoned by Trump.)
Flynn has been embraced by MAGA world in part because he’s seen as a martyr, the victim of a “deep state” hit job. But what turned him into a rock star on the right was the post-pardon chapter of his life, as the Associated Press’s Michelle Smith points out in the recently broadcast Frontline documentary “Michael Flynn’s Holy War.” It was then that Flynn, whom a former military colleague describes as being susceptible to “extreme thinking”—fully took up residence in a world of fantasy and illusion, of crazed conspiracy theories and disinformation.
Flynn didn’t just claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump; he floated the idea of having Trump declare martial law and try to “rerun” the election. He suggested that the president should seize voting machines. And he said that the election involved “probably the greatest fraud that our country has ever experienced in our history.” At an event in Arizona last month, Flynn said, “Did you know that a governor can declare war? A governor can declare war. And we’re going to probably see that.”
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Well, I guess it depends on how broad a historical perspective one has.
If you look back at roughly 2,000 years of Christianity, the amount of time that Christianity has co-existed with constitutional democracy is around 10% of that time span.
For 90% of its history, Christianity has been the eager and willing handmaiden of monarchs, autocrats and despots.
If one believes that "Christian nationalism" is some kind of aberration, then I would suggest one consider why these national symbols look the way they do, and this is just a sample:
Here is a traditional Christian:
Here are some traditional Christians doing traditional Christian stuff:
These Qanon cultists are, at least, much more like traditional Christians through history than the relatively recent "mainstream Christian denominations" with the squishy sort of "be nice" ethos.
Looking forward to reading much more from you
