McChurch: Haven for “Christian Dupes?”

Stop sending money to these
charlatans.  Stop listening to their

ranting and solicitations.   Condemn them from the pulpits.  Clean up the church before God spews it out
of His mouth (if He hasn't already). 
Reject any politician who claims to be a born-again Christian while
reaching for power and glory.  The two
are inconsistent.

<blockquote>I will tell you what is going on: countless millions of Christians
have elevated certain politicians and their mouthpieces in the Religious Right
into a church-sphere or even into a God-sphere. In other words, because a
politician or conservative celebrity claims to be a Christian, they are
presumed to be untouchable. Such people must not be criticized or challenged,
no matter how unconstitutional or stupid their actions might be, because doing
so makes one guilty of some kind of spiritual law against speaking ill of
Christian brothers.</blockquote>

Chuck Baldwin has summarized the
sentiments of thinking American Christians very well in the above quote from
his April 13, 2007, article in American Daily, "Have Christians
Become Dupes?"

Baldwin begins with the bold statement that
there has been a "distinct philosophical shift" in the reasoning of professing
Christians.  "Somewhere along the way,
politicians seem to have been granted a kind of spiritual status.  This trend is very troubling and portends
great problems for our country."

I suspect that Baldwin is being very politically correct in his broad brush
approach, but those of us who have faced the music and been accused of being
heretics because we stand firm for human rights know better.  The target is very simply the Christian Right
segment of the evangelical wing of the Christian Church in America.

This is said to represent around 10% of the population and one-third of
Evangelicals.  Yet, these Old Testament
Christians have seized the money and the bully pulpit on the good graces of
religious tolerance and rights.  We
Evangelicals, in fact, are guilty of permitting this anti-Christian display.

Simply put, this is a theocratic movement that prefers the Bible, as
interpreted by such luminaries as the Rev's Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, to
the Constitution of the United
States. 
As a result, our First Amendment rights are in jeopardy.

Baldwin points to a more insidious problem,
however.  In the spirit of the "Grand
Inquisitor," people of faith who fail the litmus test of evangelical idiom (by
insisting that Jesus, instead of George Bush, is Lord, for example), are under
attack as false prophets.  The mandate not
to speak ill of Christian brothers and sisters is reserved only for those who
pass the test of promoting the conservative agenda of nationalism.

All others are fair game because they are not "real Christians."

The latest exercise in nationalism is to insert the teachings of
Premillennial Dispensationalism into foreign policy.  This is known as Christian Zionism, the goals
of which are to rebuild the temple on the site of the Moslem Dome of the Rock,
herd all the Jews into Israel and unleash the Battle of Armageddon so that
everyone who fails to convert to Christianity is wiped out. 

We must do this, they tell us, in order to trigger the Second Coming of
Christ.

Is the Democratic Party standing up to these whackos?  Apparently not.  The spectacle of Hillary Clinton preaching in
a southern accent at McChurch was disquieting at best.  Others are stepping all over themselves to
cater to this dangerous element.  Rudy, a
Republican, is the exception. 

Baldwin likens this phenomenon to the blind loyalty to the bloody butcher of
the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin: "Because a
politician or political personality claims to be a Christian or a conservative,
countless millions of unsuspecting and gullible believers become sheep, without
the discernment or the ability to hold leaders accountable." 

… it should not matter one whit
whether the political leader identifies himself as a Christian or as a
conservative or as a church member. What should matter is whether he obeys his
oath to the Constitution (and to God) and
whether he faithfully follows the historic principles of freedom laid down in
the Declaration of Independence
and Bill of Rights. Everything else
is smoke and mirrors.

This exercise in anarchy, if permitted to go unchecked, will lead to our
destruction as a nation.  Baldwin quotes
Daniel Webster as warning that the overthrow of America will not come from
outside our borders but "…from the inattention of the people to the concerns of
their government; from their carelessness and negligence…I fear that they may place
too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to
scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of
designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing."

I will go further yet.  Evangelicals have set up as their leaders a
group of charlatans who are in protection of multi-million dollar pop-Christian
industries.  It is easier, no doubt, to
follow these snake oil salesmen than it is to "work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling." 

It is time for Evangelicals to rise
up and condemn these Christian CEO's. 
What other nation in the world would tolerate the likes of Jerry
Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee? 
The abuse of religious liberty has elevated these icons of worship of
the American Dream to rock star status, in contradistinction to the Christ of
Calvary, who had no place to lay His head and who died alone for His rejection
of earthly power and glory. 

Stop sending money to these
charlatans.  Stop listening to their
ranting and solicitations.   Condemn them from the pulpits.  Clean up the church before God spews it out
of His mouth (if He hasn't already). 
Reject any politician who claims to be a born-again Christian while
reaching for power and glory.  The two
are inconsistent.

Stan Moody, author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry."