Christian nationalism and its false Biblical narrative becoming a factor in Israeli-Hamas conflict

[lees1975]

Last edited Mon May 6, 2024, 09:40 PM - Edit history (1)

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/05/dragging-christian-nationalist-views.html

The addition of perspectives on a foreign war, the conflict between Israel and Gaza, have added a whole new element of concern to the potential loss of freedom we are facing. The linked article from Baptist News Global, reporting on the exchange, in a congressional hearing, between Representative Rick Allen, a Georgia Republican, whose spewed out ignorance should come as no surprise, and Columbia University President Dr. Minouche Shafik, is an egregious example of exactly what we may be facing if the ignorance and misinterpretation of the Bible that leads to Christian nationalism is ever elevated to the point where it has the favor of the political power of the Presidency.

Though my purpose in writing here is to point out to those Christians who do read this blog, and who do, from time to time, express doubts and reservations about conservative, white Evangelical support for a politician whose lifestyle exhibits the exact opposite of the characteristics of Evangelical Christian theology and practice, it is also to affirm, for those Americans who are either outside the church altogether, or who are in Christian traditions that aren't going down the heretical path created by the blending of far right wing politics with fundamentalist, conservative, Evangelicalism, that the latter is a false representation of Christian faith and practice. That includes the idea that the founding fathers intended for the United States to be a Christian nation in the same way Israel was a theocracy in the Old Testament, and that the modern state of Israel is a restoration of that theocracy, which justifies what it is doing to Gaza.

There's also the idea, as Representative Allen asserts, that because of modern Israel's special status, the United States is motivated to protect Israel, and to provide it with all the weaponry it needs to blow Gaza to smithereens and scatter its civilian population because God will withdraw his blessing from the United States if it doesn't support Israel. Even though that completely and totally contradicts just about everything Jesus taught as his gospel, which is all the substance of what the United States should be, when it comes to Israel, no doctrine or theology applies to them. They are, according to some conservative Christian eschatology, part of another "dispensation" which will bring them salvation by a different means than the Christian church teaches applies to the rest of us.

[Escaped Floridian]

1. This could be the moment when Israel loses the West

Boycott, Divest, Sanction. Now!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. America was NOT founded as a christian nation

The founders signed a treaty affirming that the US was NOT founded as a christian nation

Link to tweet

[lees1975]

3. The best evidence for asserting this point is found in the writing and commentary of both Madison and Jefferson

They had different perspectives of the freedom of conscience, leading to church-state separation, but it was clear, from both of these founders, that they did not envision a nation governed only by Christians or ideologically and politically influenced by Christianity. There's a mountain of that kind of evidence.