The left doesn’t seem to understand the Christian right AT ALL.
Nor do they want to.
The Washington Post published an article warning of the rise of “Patriot Churches” — a movement of churches that want to ensure that the United States stays true to its founding as a Chrisitan nation.
Sarah Pulliam Bailey’s bio states that she is a “religion reporter” for the Washington Post and was the online editor for Christianity Today.
You’d think that someone like that would be more friendly to Bible-believing Christian views.
But that doesn’t get you invited to the right parties, I guess.
Or perhaps “beltway” and/or “coastal” Christian churches are somehow different than those in “flyover country.”
You can almost hear the sneering condescension of the rubes in Red States “clinging to their guns and their God” throughout the article.
The new congregation is gathered in a barn in Lenoir City, Tenn., with a roof that has a 60-foot American flag painted on it. And they are praying for a Trump landslide.
Standing in a circle, the dozen or so men and women, young and old, lay their hands on their pastor, Ken Peters, as he raises their requests to God.
That sounds kind of awesome, actually!
Not to Sarah Pulliam Bailey, the author of the article.
Can’t you just hear the elitism dripping through those first couple of sentences?
Imagine! They meet in a barn with a flag painted on the roof — and in Tennessee, no less!
How unsophisticated and positively rural!
It probably smells like… *gasp* …the country!
How gauche!
Bailey also makes sure to mention that the church encourages people to go “maskless” and doesn’t follow social distancing guidelines which are the markers of morality in the “new normal” of the COVID era we are currently in.
This is a Patriot Church, part of an evolving network of nondenominational start-up congregations that say they want to take the country back for God. While most White conservative Christian churches might only touch on politics around election time and otherwise choose to keep the focus during worship on God, politics and religion are inseparable here. The Tennessee congregation is one of three Patriot Churches that formed in September. The other two are near Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and in Spokane, Wash., and Peters says he is talking with several more pastors of existing churches who want to join them.
The 50 or so people in attendance may identify as born-again or just as generic “Bible-loving” Christians. Peters’s flock is not affiliated with a specific denomination, but it does have a distinct identity. The Patriot Churches belong to what religion experts describe as a loosely organized Christian nationalist movement that has flourished under President Trump. In just four years, he has helped reshape the landscape of American Christianity by elevating Christians once considered fringe, including Messianic Jews, preachers of the prosperity gospel and self-styled prophets. At times, this made for some strange bedfellows, but the common thread among them is a sense of being under siege and a belief that America has been and should remain a Christian nation.
So… that’s not pejorative, right? It’s totally fair reporting and not at all trying to paint the “religious right” as a bunch of racist wackadoodles, correct? They’re not saying overtly that the church in Tennessee is a white supremacist organization — just kind of implying it.
An article in Esquire magazine referencing the WaPo article was much more overt by comparing the Patriot Church movement to a cult-like white supremacist organization posing as a church founded by an overt — and currently imprisoned — Neo-Nazi, Matt Hale.
There is no evidence that these churches are remotely the same as Hale’s organization, which was openly racist and demonstrably violent. But Christian nationalism, even run benignly, has little to do with being a Christian and doesn’t seem to have a clue about what this nation is supposed to stand for.
Source: esquire
Thus has it always been with the Media (D) and Christians.
Is it any surprise that the Glorious ACB was subjected to their anti-Catholic bias and Joe Biden is not? If you don’t agree with the left’s policy prescriptions — even if it means that you’re in defiance of your own church doctrine — then you’re the bigot.
The Washington Post article then goes on to explain that the term “Christian Nationalist.”
Sociologist Samuel Perry, co-author of the new book “Taking America Back for God,” says no other factor better predicts a vote for Trump than adherence to a Christian nationalist ideology. Poll data shows it is also a stronger predictor of Americans’ attitudes about race, gender, Islam, family/sexuality issues and mask-wearing than traditional political ideology. More than one-third of Americans say this country has always been and is currently a Christian nation, and 40 percent of Americans agree that God has granted the United States a special role in human history, according to the Public Religion Research Institute…
…Peters isn’t sure he likes the term “Christian nationalism” because he worries people will equate it with being a white nationalist or someone who hates Muslims and women — all things he disavows. But he concedes it fits the definition of someone who wants America to remain a Christian nation. “Some Christians are trying to shame those who love this country or love President Trump,” he said. “We’re saying, we’re not only unashamed, but we’re going to put it in the name.”
Twice in the article, the author quotes Pastor Peters saying, “Dude, this is Trump country.” Which, if I were to guess, is some sort of “dog whistle” to remind readers of the Jussie Smollett hate hoax that he still insists is true despite piles of evidence to the contrary.
Bailey then goes on to detail an evening showing of the Dinesh D’Souza movie, “Trump Card” — noting that D’Souza was unduly harassed by the Obama administration in retaliation for his movie “Obama’s America” pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making an illegal campaign contribution” — at the church and how “problematic” that was.
The churchgoers nod along and occasionally clap during the film, which includes an animated image of community organizer Saul Alinsky, who is Jewish, pulling a KKK hood over his head. D’Souza and others reject the association that is made between them and any racist or white nationalist causes, claiming Democrats are the real racists.
After the movie, Peters warns that under a President Joe Biden, the “spirit of Jezebel” could spread. “When you’re dealing with bullies, you have to fight back,” he says.
He ends the evening by praying that women and racial minorities would be freed from their deception that the Democratic Party has their best interests at heart.
“The left doesn’t love the country at its roots,” Peters says. “Freedom is the way, not the value system of the left, which is totally anti-Bible. But the Bible is the answer, and Jesus is the answer.”
Source: Washington POst via MSN News
Clearly, the problem is that journos simply don’t understand what Christians who actually read the Bible believe that it says. They have no understanding of the Christian faith and want to contort it into what they want it to be — that Jesus was a happy leftist who would agree with them on everything and call evangelicals the new Pharisees.
Many “Bible-believing Christians” — like yours truly — actually believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. It is that very Christian view that allows for inclusivity, diversity, and acceptance of all people. But also, Christian conservatives are being attacked in that very free society that they have fostered, especially in the United States. See the Sohrab Ahmari/David French debate as proof.
It seems that there is a segment of American Christians who are feeling like they are unheard — until Donald J. Trump descended that golden escalator and actually listened to them.
It’s no surprise, really.
It was Obama — that allegedly great uniter — that dismissed Christians as “bitter clingers” and, well, the fish rots from the head down.
Christianity isn’t inherently America, but America is indeed tied to Christian values. Isn’t that why the Puritans came here — to create a place where they could worship without being punished by their government?
It’s something for leftists to think about this Thanksgiving while the government regulates who, where, and how they can have their family gathering.
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