I just had a very scary thought - Is Pence one of those 'Rapture' type evangelicals?

[Siwsan]

Because if he is, and he takes over for trump*, we might be in a whole different kind of danger.

Or am I just looking for things about which to freak out??

[shenmue]

1. I believe he is

[Siwsan]

3. It's bad enough, worrying about trump* hitting the button, in a fit of pique.

So, For pities sake, LIE TO ME!!! We'd be going from the danger of pique to the danger of world ending pious pretension.

I'm going to keep on hoping that something happens that makes removal of the entire administration, cabinet, and anyone else attached to its tentacles, a necessity. (I'm thinking about YOU, Paul. Ryan!)

[dchill]

28. Wait a minute! Are you me?

Nope, I'm me - I checked. We think a lot alike, though. They all knew. They've all gotta go. Including Mitch.

[Siwsan]

30. I think I'm me, but then I've been drinking Sangria, so I might be confused!

[dchill]

33. Possible.

[beachbum bob]

2. Evangelism is pretty much all rapture believers

[TEB]

4. i have question

If we do see trump impeached can the American people push for new elections

[Siwsan]

6. I'm not expert, but I think they'd have to prove that Russia swayed the votes to trump*/pence

I would think that a stolen election is a package deal but I really don't know if there is ANYTHING in place to deal with an invalidated election.

[yardwork]

11. No. The Constitution names a long line of successions.

If the president can't serve, the presidency goes to the Vice President, and then to the Speaker of the House, and so forth.

[yeoman6987]

43. Oh my....by the time everyone's out, say hello president Devos

Good grief I hate even thinking that. I'm pretty sure she's not involved in Russia. Does she even know what a Russia is?

[Thomas Hurt]

5. AFAIK, he is a full blown christofascist theocrat

[Siwsan]

7. I usually refer to him as 'Torquomada' Pence.

Because I have NO doubt he would start up the inquisitions, again.

[yardwork]

8. Yes, he is and yes, he'd probably be worse than Trump.

[ekelly]

9. I think he is a Christian Dominionist.

I read something about him in a local Indiana newspaper last year, when I was there visiting family.

And yes, it's scary to imagine Pence being in charge.

[Lochloosa]

17. Yes he is.

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. Not to mention he has the intellect and maturity level of a child.

Election was stolen, Hillary won all the states she allegedly lost, Russians are involved in all aspects of our lives.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

10. pence believes in end times.

[malaise]

12. No you're right

The options are bad but the Con has to go

[Gabi Hayes]

13. he's such a terrible actor that it leads me to think he doesn't believe a word that

spews out that rancid pesthole inside which he apparently chews his food





could somebody plz start a thread on the above?

[caraher]

14. No direct answer, but a sense of his religious trajectory...

http://religionandpolitics.org/2016/10/10/the-christian-worldview-of-mike-pence/

Pence was raised in an Irish-Catholic, Democratic-voting family in Columbus, Indiana. He even considered becoming a priest. He met his wife of 30 years, Karen, at Mass at a Catholic church in Indianapolis. Yet, as Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2010, during his freshman year at Hanover College, while attending a Christian music festival, “I gave my life to Jesus Christ and that changed everything.”

Much has been made of the fact that Pence at one time described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.” However, Pence has become reticent about the shift in his faith identity, according to Craig Fehrman, who wrote a 2013 profile of him for Indianapolis Monthly. Instead, he prefers to call himself an “ordinary Christian.” Pence “was torn between his family’s faith and background and a new more exciting faith,” Ferhman explained.

Pence continued to call himself a Catholic until the mid-1990s, when he began attending an evangelical megachurch in Indianapolis. In her story about Pence’s evolving faith, Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post noted that it was during this period when “white evangelicals and conservative Catholics in the United States started to realize they had a lot more in common than their more denominationally tribal parents realized.” Together, Catholics and evangelical Christians worked to protect “traditional marriage” and enforce greater abortion restrictions.

Pence earned a law degree from Indiana University in 1986 and entered private practice. After running unsuccessfully for Congress in 1988 and 1990, he became the president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, part of a Koch brothers-backed network, which bills itself as promoting “the best thought on governmental, economic and educational issues” by “exalt[ing] the truths of the Declaration of Independence, especially as they apply to the interrelated freedoms of religion, property, and speech.” It was during his four-year tenure there, which coincided with this fuller embrace of evangelical Christianity, that Pence first began promoting “traditional family” ideologies and policies in earnest.

[Siwsan]

16. Very informative - Thanks!

[LeftInTX]

48. I wonder if he is a "charismatic"

Charismatic Catholics are one hell of a weird group. In 1988, our church had a 'Life in the Spirit' retreat. The name sounds benign and I assumed it would be a nice quiet, meditative spiritual retreat.

OMG...I almost died...I got there and they were speaking in tongues and tried to force me. They were throwing themselves on ground....dancing weird....acting all ecstatic.

Apparently they believe the 'gift of tongues' is a gift of the the Holy Spirit.

[H2O Man]

15. Yes.

He belongs to a branch of his church that believes that sex is dirty, and that destroying the environment is good, as it will speed up when stained-glass Jesus returns.

[Siwsan]

19. I seem to be living in a constant state of YIKES!!!!

It's exhausting.

[H2O Man]

20. Pence is dangerous.

My concern is that republicans will, after Trump gets the boot, claim that he can "bring America together," similar to Ford. And Pence is a worse shit than Ford.

[Siwsan]

21. If the "boot" is related to a flawed election, wouldn't it also invalidate Pence?

I mean, if they prove that Russia influenced and hacked the election, Pence would be just as invalid as trump*.

I probably don't want to know, but none the less I really wonder how deep the rot goes.

[H2O Man]

22. While that would be great,

there is zero chance of it happening outside the court of public opinion. But it's possible that Pence has issues that could knee-cap him. However, that would lead to whoever the Speaker of the House is.

[Siwsan]

24. Well, Damn!!

We need a major topple, and that just puts the country in a whole different category of danger.

[H2O Man]

25. The good thing is

that the grass roots is beginning to exercise its strength. If Pence gets in the Oval Office, we can put him in check.

[Siwsan]

29. At least he has a grasp of how our government runs. trump* is void of any understanding

I am not kidding when I say that they need to make a change in campaign rules that says before anyone can register as a candidate for office, they must to take and pass an exam on civics/government.

[milestogo]

18. He's scary in an entirely different way than Trump.

When comparing evil with evil its hard to say which is worse - both are crazy in their own ways.

[politicat]

23. He is a Dominionist. If he's a Premillennial Dispensationalist is uncertain.

/beyond this point lies inside baseball, deep theology and irreverence; may not be suitable for all viewers. Discretion is advised. TL;DR: his current church doesn't demand a faith in the Rapture (the Dispensationalist part of the term) but does take as a tenet of faith the Premillenial part (Christ is coming, and is he pissed.).

...

For the theology wonks who are still interested and are content with a 45K foot overview, Pence was raised Catholic, and the Rapture and especially Premillenial Dispensationalism are deep heresies based on inferior understanding of the texts. Roman Catholic doctrine has little tolerance for the idea, which is derived from a poor reading of Revelation by a monolingual (English) itenerant preacher in the American Midwest in the late 19th century who used the KJV, which is itself a heretical document. (Indeed, there are people who still haven't gotten over the Protestant Reformation.) Within Catholicism, the idea of apocalypse is the end of an age, not the end of existence. (And John's Apocalypse was probably deeply influenced by the early Roman Empire, the Jewish genocide and destruction of the Temple in 70CE and possibly the Vesuvius 79CE eruption, and the follow-on devastation.) Ages end regularly, and the idea of the salvation of an Elect is both rank Calvinism and antithetical to the message of Christianity. Given that early education, he may be wary of PMD theology.

Pence is now associated with the Evangelical Free Church of America, which is not only Protestant, but is a Baptist offshoot. (Their Statement of Faith). Traditionally, Baptists also rejected Calvinism, but that goalpost has gotten wiggly over the past century. (Calvinism rejects free will, stating that since God is omniscient, there are people doomed to Hell or elected for Salvation; Baptists strongly rejected that at foundation, but they're good at forgetting that now.) The problem is that American Protestant Theology as a whole is pretty damn wiggly, mostly because most of the people who are preaching are not theologians. They don't understand and actively dismiss the historical, contextual, social and linguistic document they are discussing. They work from a 3rd or 4th generation translation, with limited access to the original languages, and work on the premise that the book they hold is perfect. Further, very few have actually read it as either a whole work of literature, or as a set of curated works of myth, law, poetry, history and advice columns. That's not how contemporary American Protestantism works -- instruction is focused on small aspects of the work(s), and on memorization. Questioning is often not okay, and doubt is discouraged.

Pence is absolutely a Dominionist -- he believes Christians (who agree with him; those who disagree aren't Christian in his opinion) are a chosen people who are given Dominion over creation, and should rule as care-taker kings until Christ's return. Dominionism comes with a lot of very destructive baggage, and it is premised on the idea of Millenarianism -- that Christ will return and reign as a god-king for 1000 years. The question is whether Pence is a Premillenial (that before Christ returns, there will be a time of destruction under the rule of an adversary) or a Post-Millenial (that Christ will only return when the world has been converted.) Traditionally, Baptists have been Post- rather than Pre-, and thus their missionary work.

Either way, Pence's theology is probably uninformed, poorly defined, and (my bet) is a tool in service of his ego and thirst for power. He doesn't behave like he deeply understands Christianity as taught by Jesus and even Paul. I'd call him a Christianist Dominionist Bibliolator rather than a Christian. He worships a book about, and his idea of what the book says, not what his actual prophet said and did.

This is a brief distillation of several years of Fred Clark's Slacktivist blog dissection of modern Christianity/Christianism and the awful Left Behind books. Who is a great writer with a very, very good grasp of contemporary Protestant culture and the theology they don't understand. And is also a very faithful Christian.

2nd TL;DR: yeah, Pence's theology is something that should be concerning. I'm interested in seeing where he's attending now, and who his DC spiritual advisor is, because that will tell a lot about his ability to separate his faith from policy. I don't know the answers to those two questions right now.

[Siwsan]

26. I'm beginning to think I should start my own, uncomplicated religion

One would think that the 10 Commandments and 8 Beatitudes would be sufficient for people who need religious guidance, to follow and live a good life.

[guillaumeb]

31. No matter how simple you attempt to make it,

it will quickly become complicated.

[dchill]

32. How about just one rule? The Golden one?

I'm for that.

[Siwsan]

34. I completely agree

Keep it simple.

[3catwoman3]

38. I did not take our sons to church when they were kids.

I didn't want their brains to get warped (except by me - )

We talked a lot about spirituality and morality, and living a good life. I told them many times that if people could just bring themselves to abide by the Golden Rule, we would not need any others. It ccvers pretty much anything that I can think of.

I didn't tell many people about not taking my kids to chrch, because you get looked at like you are some terrible, neglectful parent. I finally came up with a term for my approach. Some people home school. I home churched.

[politicat]

49. 2,000 years of personal disagreements become a crust of tradition.

Every faith does this. Every institution does it. It's somewhat necessary, both for mercy and justice, and for the accumulation of power. Because there are always edge cases that get complicated (how does one deal with abusive parents, under the 10C&8B rule? Put up with it? Remove oneself from them? Keep trying to bring them around?) and personal arguments turn into protocol. Minority faiths exist under threat of a dominant culture; they have to accumulate at least some power to survive and ensure their followers are not destroyed.

Bumper sticker faith's and bumper sticker solutions don't work. That's how Protestantism got its start, to an extent, and how the weirder schisms continue. Theology is not for amateurs, because if god-ness were easy, it wouldn't be a mystery, in the sense of something perceived but not explicable.

[flying rabbit]

35. Nice post.

[3catwoman3]

36. I cannot think of anyone in the entire...

...cabinet that I would want in the Oval Office. Not a single one.

[lunasun]

42. Sad but true. They are all deplorables

[3catwoman3]

45. The acting Secretary of Agriculture...

...is a Democrat, but it is not clear to me if he would be eligible. The Wikipedia page says this -

"This listing assumes that only acting officers whose prior appointment required Senate confirmation are eligible for the line of succession."

[ProudLib72]

37. Don't worry

After the Pencetown Massacre, the repukes will have yet another chance to get it right.

[TheBlackAdder]

39. Well, the rapture will be when the living and dead are swept up in the air to meet Jesus.

.


Armageddon will not occur because that requires the gathering of kings... that ain't happening in a battle.


It might have happened back when Jews wrote the Old Testament, or unknown writers in writing rooms wrote the New Testament. But, in any event, it's a Bronze Age tale of what will happen.


.

[3catwoman3]

46. Just rapture them all now, PLEASE!

I will be happy to be left behind with all the rational folks.

[lunasun]

40. He scared the shit of me in the VP debate . First an absolute liar and fake guffaw type

who is so dopey acting people will believe his lies lies lies because he can't possibly be doing it on purpose . No he is dishonest and a liar

plus he basically laid out a version of the Hand Maidens Tale when describing his plans for America

He scared me more than crazy old man trump in the debates and THAT is saying a lot.

Also these types thing think destroying the earth and having dominion over nature is God s plan yes its planned and then Jesus janitor will come clean it all up and make it all good again if Jesus wants to , or if not , time for the good folk to just ascend and leave scorched earth so Pence would not be restoring the EPA or anything climate change either way.

He may back off n Korea but may be interested in more Middle East crusades
I hope they both go . He knew about Flynn . Flynn may talk

[PoliticalPie]

41. Pence is both pure KochTea and is a political conservative Christian, the worst combination.

Remember his HIV epidemic because he didn't want to hand out needles. Remember the anti-LGBT vote that triggered a boycott and undoing he is anti-LGBT, Misogynist, and openly racist and of course anti-Muslim.

[Generic Brad]

44. I don't trust anyone who wears religion on their sleeve

You are right to have anxiety over Pence. People who are truly devout and religious do not broadcast it. The ones who do broadcast their faith seem to be overcompensating for their lack of belief and the self knowledge that they are piece of shit human beings.

[madaboutharry]

47. I think so.

I think Pence is an "End Timer"