The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day (by David French)

Fair enough. I agree then. But the churches holding our noses (as i once did) are supporting the antithesis of Christ.

 

I think your analysis is off here in one respect. People who call Trump a wolf in sheep's clothing or someone disguised as an angel of light act as if Christians that vote for him are deceived about his character. There are some who might deny Trump has any character flaws whatsoever, but those people are few and far between. Most Christians I know who vote for him acknowledge his egregious moral failures as a human being. We may not have the exact same list of failures because many people have varying degrees of trust in the MSM and the DNC when it comes to telling the truth about Trump. Most people I know who vote for Trump, though, have separated the actions of the office from the person in office. I think the strongest argument that exists for a Christian in voting for Trump is that they are voting for the actions he will take from the office. They are voting for the platform and not the person. They would say Trump's personal sins are between him and the God who will judge him, and they are voting on the basis of how they project each candidate to use the powers of the office. They deny the dogmatic claim that voting for a person implicates every person who votes for that person in all of their sins. In a two party system where the options are limited, and the building of a coalition is necessary to win an election, you do not get to elect a designer President who possesses all of the attributes you ideally wish they had. You get to choose between the tradeoffs of several flawed candidates.

Most people I know who vote this way do not build a fundamentalist fort where anyone who disagrees with them is a bad sinful person. They leave room for conscience because they rightfully acknowledge that scripture is silent on voting philosophy in a secular democracy. It does not say that picking the lesser evil is wrong, and it also does not say that holding out and voting 3rd party is wrong either. These decisions where we are evaluating tradeoffs are very complex as well. What scripture is not silent on, though, is God's motivations in biblical history for ordering the destruction of a nation from His throne in heaven. The list of nations where God has commanded their destruction is a very short list, and there is not a meaningful difference between many of those nations and the nation the DNC envisions us becoming by virtue of their political platform. There are plenty of meaningful differences between those nations and the nation envisioned by the RNC as stated in their most current party platform. That is the case right now. It is not guaranteed to be the case in the future, though, which is why I have said I am waiting to evaluate who I will vote for. The RNC party platform will be revealing as it has not been updated in almost a decade.

 

I can understand why some will support Trump, I will not be one of them.
FYI…I am one who will be returning to church. I’ve been away for some 20 years.
The libbies drove me back to organized religion.
Maybe libbies were good for me after all!

 

If true, that is bizarre.

 

This is so perfect and would fit on so many threads

 

I told you. His executive order and nomination of judges was huge.

 

How so. Many things drive us to many things. But our faith is often ignited by opposition. The history of the Christian Church is a literally paved with growth due to opposition and/or oppression. Bluke is just illustrating that to a lesser degree.

 

Literally everyone votes for something at some point that will force someone else to do what they do not want. The idea that only the left is truly voting for things that do not impact those who disagree, is false.

We ALL vote what we sincerely believe.

Don't you?

 

I conceded Abortion.

But he didnt do anything any other Republican wouldn't have done. And SCOTUS wont likely swing back this cycle, so what is he going to do foe Christ's kingdom?

Nothing.

He will continue to HARM the position of conservatives by dragging us further down the drain and driving more people away.

He will be the epitome of what i detailed above.
Hateful. Liar. Fraud. Cheat. Wolf. In. Sheeps. Clothing.

 

His policies as a whole were as conservative as we have seen from a President since Reagan.

 

Although it's satire it says it all about the mindset of the religious right in the US. They feel compelled to force their religious beliefs on the majority and those that object are intolerant. What comes to mind is the way the religious right uses the term "religious freedom" meaning the right to discriminate especially against LGBT persons.

 

Exactly. And and view that being compelled to live in a world where they have to acknowledge the equal Rights of LGBT persons as a form of oppression and discrimination against them.

 

It's not that I think Christians are deceived about his character. I agree most are doing just as you say.

I think the deception is in that Christians are being deceived into believing they are justified to vote for the person that they know him to be.
A groupthink not dissimilar the Children of Israel and King Saul accounted in scripture.


For those unfamiliar here is a small synopsis of the account. Israel wanted an earthly king rather than to simply serve God. So Samuel prays and God delivers a message as follows:
1 Samuel 8:7: “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

Like God had instructed, Samuel informs the people of Israel on how things are going to change under this new leadership style. He will take their children and use them for his own means to fulfill economic, political, and even war purposes. He will take the best of everything in the land for those most loyal to him and enslave the people under his rule. Lastly, when the people realize they have made a mistake, God will not save them from the collateral consequences of their collective choice.

As time went on, Saul quickly went from a promising first king to a tyrant that threw out all of the traditions of his own people for personal gain. He made promises before God and others, but broke them with little remorse. He cast out anyone that questioned or threatened his power. He even hunted the man God chose to replace him which was David and his own son Jonathan who chose to obey God, rather than his unruly father.

History now knows that Saul was the king of compromise. Saul was a people-pleaser, but God was never pleased with him. David did become king of Israel and gave God the glory, yet Saul was always wondering who would give glory to him.

In the end, Saul had no faith in God and his lies only led to loss. Our response to conflict reveals our character and Saul will forever be known as a coward. The promising king was now just a man whose promises meant nothing.

Trump Is King Saul
--------------------------------------------

God is being rejected when we think HE is not powerful enough to handle us not supporting an evil man. HE doesnt need us to select an evil person to fulfil his will...but He will allow us to. And there will be consequences...and they will be damaging...and HE will not be obligated to bail us out.

As Christians we have seen this script before.
So why are we redoing the same movie again?

 

Reagan was the biggest gov prez of our lives in size & scope

 

Curious what metric this is based on.
I'm not suggesting that conservatives are not big gov when it suits them, but just curious.

 

ALL OF THE METRICS: But, if'n yer into brevity, I will use the big one. Surely you know this. RR increased the debt by 161%. Next closest in our lives GW Bush at a measly 72.6%

Taxes:
_1981 the year of the Reagan "tax cut" resulted in the avg American paying a HIGHER % of their income in taxes even though the official rate went down. This was due to unaddressed bracket creep & a massive increase to SS which RR didn't call a tax
_1982 he gave us the LARGEST SINGLE TAX INCRAESE IN AMERICAN HISTORY! the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. TEFRA—the largest tax increase in American history—was designed to raise $214.1 billion over five years
_Loophole closing in the perversely named Tax Reform Act of 1986 RAISED taxes
_The facts are that federal tax receipts were $517 billion in the last Carter year of 1980. In 1986, revenues totaled $769 billion, an increase of 49%
_ in all Reagan passed 11 tax increases & his "tax cut" while lowering marg rates in high brackets INCREASED the avg tax payers' taxes.
_Taxes by the end of the Reagan era were 19.4%, the so-called historic average is 18.3%.

Spending:
_first & foremost, he increased spending AS A % of GNP
_1980, the last year of free-spending Jimmy Carter the federal government spent $591 billion. In 1986, the last recorded year of the Reagan administration, the federal government spent $990 billion, an increase of 68%
_federal spending as percent of GNP in 1980 was 21.6%, and after six years of Reagan, 24.3%.
_ A better comparison would be percentage of federal spending to net private product, that is, production of the private sector. That percentage was 31.1% in 1980, and a shocking 34.3% in 1986
_Carter’s last year as president, the federal government spent a whopping 27.9% of “national income” (an obnoxious term for the private wealth produced by the American people). Reagan assaulted the free-spending Carter administration throughout his campaign in 1980. So how did the Reagan administration do? At the end of the first quarter of 1988, federal spending accounted for 28.7% of “national income.”
_Ford and Carter did a better job at cutting government. Their combined presidential terms account for an increase of 1.4%—compared with Reagan’s 3%
_The budget for the Department of Education, which candidate Reagan promised to abolish along with the Department of Energy, has more than doubled to $22.7 billion
_The price of farm programs went from $21.4 billion in 1981 to $51.4 billion in 1987, a 140% increase.
_Federal entitlements cost $197.1 billion in 1981—and $477 billion in 1987.


Deficits:
_Carter habitually ran deficits of $40–50 billion and, by the end, up to $74 billion; but by 1984, when Reagan had promised to achieve a balanced budget, the deficit had settled down comfortably to about $200 billion

Regulation:
_the code of federal regulations increased by 20%
_the war on drugs went into overdrive


Free Trade:
In his 1988 State of the Union address , Ronald Reagan said, “We should always remember: Protectionism is destructionism. America’s jobs, America’s growth, America’s future depend on trade — trade that is free, open, and fair.” The hypocrisy is apparent when Reagan’s policies on trade in the preceding years are examined.
_Not only did Reagan expand the New Deal-style agricultural subsidies that have persisted for nearly a century now, but he reinstated import quotas on certain crops. For a decade from 1972 to 1981, federal farm programs cost an average of $3 billion per year; in its three years in office, the Reagan administration spent $34 billion on the same programs.
_one-quarter of all imports in 1988 were restricted, a 100% increase over 1980.

• Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports;
• Tightened considerably the quotas on imported sugar;
• Negotiated to increase the restrictiveness of the Multifiber Arrangement governing trade in textiles and apparel;
• Required 18 countries, including Brazil, Spain, South
• Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, Australia, and the European Community, to accept “voluntary restraint agreements” that reduce their steel imports to the United States;
• Imposed a 45% duty on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems;
• Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles;
• Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory chips;
• Removed third-world countries on several occasions from the duty-free import program for developing nations;
• Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more American-made parts;
• Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools;
• Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings on grounds so that the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen;
• Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes;
• Extended quotas on imported clothes pins;
• Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and timber cut from federal lands;
• Redefined dumping so domestic firms can more easily charge foreign competitors with unfair trade practices;
• Beefed-up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to distorting the American economy at the expense of the American people in order to artificially promote exports of eight large corporations.

But I guess since the economy was so robust no one notice all the big gov.
_avg UE rate = 7.5%
_Inf = 4.4% in his last year
_lowest mort rate under Big Gov Ronnie = 10.19%

 

That blog notably ignores a couple of fairly important facts. The Israelites didn't ask for Saul as their king they asked for a king and GOD chose Saul to be that King. That fact, by itself, destroys his comparison unless he wants to argue that God chose Trump to be president, in which case, his argument still falls apart, for different reasons. That's just the details, though, the key point that so many people miss about that story is that Samuel's warning wasn't just about Saul. It also applied to "good" kings like David, Solomon, Josiah, Hezekiah, etc. because they're still symbolic of Israel's rejection of God. Fast forward to the New Testament and the Israelites STILL rejected God as their king(John 19:15).

I'll agree with him to the extent that the US has rejected God as our King but, imo, our nation did that long before 2016. That rejection of God goes back at least to 2008 when a sizeable portion of the American people decided to put their hope in a political candidate instead of God.

 

Yeah but beside those, you got nuthin'

 

To be clear. I get that the parallel isnt exact, but the point is that God will often give us what we wish for, and we will often hate it. Trump has many Saul like characteristics.

Also that blog was not a new theory. I have used the illustration jow for years. I just googled the concept and chose a blog that touched on it. It isnt just one persons pov by any stretch.

 

I actually thought about drawing the comparison to King Saul and Trump in my last post. I don’t think the comparison is 100% spot on because they are not exactly guilty of the same things, but both of them were prideful self-serving men. So, there is a decent parallel there.

A huge difference, though, needs to be drawn between the US and its decision and Israel and its decision. The actual office of King in Israel was held by God, as your link rightfully recognizes. Your link goes a step too far in its attempt to spiritualize this and apply it to the US in the modern context, ignoring the historical context, and then equivocate participation in the electoral process to vote for Trump with rejecting God as King. I’m going to throw a yellow flag on that one, for creating a false equivalence. Israel rejected God from the office of King, the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt and delivered them from slavery, and they were clamoring to be like the pagan nations who had sinful mortal men as their kings. They were asking Samuel to give the kingship of God to a sinful mortal man. There is no direct parallel between that decision and what is happening in the US in 2016-2024. God has never held the executive office of King in the US like he held the executive office of King in the theocracy of Israel. If you want to draw a parallel, then you have to draw a parallel between that event and September 17th, 1787 when the Constitution was signed. That is when the founders of our country much like Israel agreed that we would be governed by sinful men and not by God. In 1787 the founders of our country rejected the founding of a theocracy, and instead chose to be governed by sinful democracy. I don’t think it was sinful to sign that document, as all governments who are governed by men and not by God are sinful, but that is the moment in US history that is most comparable to the moment Israel chose to be governed by a sinful man rather than a Holy God. Saul as King has been the status of the US ever since its inception with the signing of the Constitution.

I would need further clarification on what your position is, but anyone who would argue that the arrangement between Israel and God that existed prior to Saul’s Kingship has ever existed in the United States would deserve to have accusations of Christian Nationalism hurled in their direction. That is Christian Nationalism. If such a Christian Nationalism exists, then it would serve to show that there is more than one species of Christian Nationalism each with its own unique philosophy and political goals.

Since I think it is fair to compare September 17th, 1787 to the moment that Israel rejected Saul as King, I think it is fair to compare the downward spiral of Israel from that moment to the downward spiral of the United States from that moment. Even in the early days of the US government we had slavery. So, American democracy has been Saul-like in its governance even from the beginning. Samuel also said Saul would raise taxes to 10%, and this would be unjust, we've blown that out of the water, showing that hundreds of years later it is still Saul-like in its characteristics.

It is important to note that Saul was far from the worst King of the era where Israel was ruled by sinful mortal men as their kings rather than God as their King. Saul was just the beginning of the sinful spiral Israel would go down as they exchanged sinful King for sinful King.

And this kind of brings me to the fundamental disagreement I have with the type of reasoning and argumentation you are putting forth here. God is not the President in the United States, who is being dethroned for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. God is ultimately sovereign over who wins the election to that office. He is ultimately sovereign over everything that person will do from the office they are elected to. And to a certain extent God judges our sins by allowing sinful men to rule in sinful ways from their government offices.

Just like some kings in Israel were more sinful than other kings, not all sinful Presidents are equal. We can't elect God as President. That is not an option on the ballot, but someone sinful will possess that office and we have been given a small stewardship to determine which sinful man will possess that office whether that is someone like Saul, Solomon, Ahab, Jezebel, Manasseh, Josiah, Hezekiah, etc. That is what we are voting for. Saul and Jezebel could be on the ballot, and you can abstain from voting in that instance because of reasons of conscience. Another person might look at the differences between Saul and Jezebel, and say, "I trust God. My hope is in Him. I don't trust men, but I am going to steward the vote God has given me to prevent Jezebel from coming to power, fully knowing Saul being king is nothing to celebrate. He will likely fail us, but at least he's not the greater judgment on the nation that Jezebel represents." To condemn such a person voting with this kind of mindset as rejecting God as King...I think you need to take a long look in the mirror there and examine that. That attitude clearly crosses over the threshold of the type of thing that is forbidden by the 9th commandment. "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart." I am of the mind that it is not the vote that is sinful. It is the heart behind the vote that is sinful. This idea that all votes cast for Trump are the same is fiction. One person can cast the same vote as someone else, but with completely different frame of mind and faith in God. One of those two people could be in sin and the other could be blameless and they voted the exact same way. So, your critique is not to be completely dismissed out of hand. It is worthwhile for people to consider where is their heart? Who are they trusting? Is their faith in God or is it in man? But to say every person who votes for Trump is trusting man and not God...that is a step too far. It is an unnecessary accusing of the brethren.