{"id":11765,"date":"2020-02-27T00:48:47","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T07:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?p=11765"},"modified":"2020-02-28T15:33:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T22:33:54","slug":"trumps-evangelical-team-is-worrisome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2020\/02\/trumps-evangelical-team-is-worrisome\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Trump’s Evangelical Team Worrisome?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>I think some aspects are. Let\u2019s look into them.<\/p>\n

It is ironic that President Donald Trump has gathered around himself as advisors several outspoken Evangelical Christians even though he himself has demonstrated throughout his life to the present time that he is anything but that even though he publicly acknowledges God. Regrettably, a sizable portion of American Evangelicals also have been outspoken in their opposition to protecting earth\u2019s environment and even human health. This has been typical of many Republicans who are professing Christians.<\/p>\n

Just hours ago, President Trump announced that he was making Vice President Mike Pence the administration\u2019s leader of the coronavirus task force. This outspoken man concerning his Evangelical faith said in 2000, \u201cDespite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn\u2019t kill.\u201d He then gave a few skewed statistics to support his claim. Rubbish! Smoking certainly does kill. It killed my dad.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been against smoking. When the PGA Tour had R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company as its chief sponsor, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, I wrote Commissioner Deane Beman two letters criticizing that lucrative business decision and exposing the obvious hypocrisy of it. The Tour made an effort to \u201cgrow the game\u201d of golf by advertising the benefit of its walking and fresh air as being good for health.<\/p>\n

Mike Pence also has stated publicly while governor of Indiana, \u201cglobal warming is a myth\u201d and Indiana is a \u201cproud pro-coal state.\u201d Trump and Pence agree. Trump is a climate denier. And he has said during political rallies, \u201cwe\u2019re gonna bring back coal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is an evangelical Presbyterian who used to teach Sunday school. Like his boss, President Trump, Pompeo has taken some serious anti-environmentalist positions. In 2009, he called President Obama\u2019s climate change plans \u201cdamaging\u201d and \u201cradical.\u201d I don\u2019t think so; rather, Obama was an excellent leader in this in contrast to climate change denier Trump. Obama supported the Paris Climate Agreement, and Trump foolishly took us out of it.<\/p>\n

In 2012, while Obama was president, House Representative Pompeo advocated eliminating federal wind power tax credits, calling them an \u201cenormous government handout.\u201d In 2015, Pompeo opposed the federal regulation of greenhouse emissions.<\/p>\n

In May, 2019, and as Secretary of State, Pompeo said, \u201cclimate change is actually good for the Arctic, since melting ice caps are \u2018opening up new shipping routes\u2019 and thus making it more economically viable to expand oil drilling in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four months ago, President Trump made Ms. Paula White his official \u201cspiritual advisor.\u201d Trump had first telephoned her in 2002 after watching her on TV. This televangelist and former co-pastor of the megachurch Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Florida, is a Pentecostal<\/a> who preaches what has generally been called \u201cthe health and wealth gospel.\u201d Since its about gaining wealth, no wonder President Trump, who sees dollar signs everywhere, chose her as his spiritual guide.<\/p>\n

All three of these advisors to President Trump\u2013Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and Paula White\u2013believe in the so-called pretribulational \u201crapture\u201d of the church seven years prior to the Second Coming of Christ. For instance, the Wikipedia article on Pompeo states, \u201cIn 2014, Pompeo told a church group that Christians needed to \u2018know that Jesus Christ as our savior is truly the only solution for our world.\u2019 In 2015 in a talk at a church, Pompeo said that \u2018politics is a never-ending struggle\u00a0. . .\u00a0<\/span>until the Rapture.\u201d<\/sup><\/p>\n

Christians who believe in the pretribulational \u201cRapture\u201d believe that Jesus literally will leave heaven someday and return to earth\u2019s atmosphere, the dead \u201cin Christ\u201d will be resurrected and ascend to meet Jesus in the air, the living believers will have their bodies transformed like those of the resurrected ones and join them in the air, and Jesus will take them all to heaven where Jesus and these, his people, will remain for the next seven years of \u201ctribulation\u201d on earth. At the end of this seven years, these people will accompany Jesus as he literally returns all the way down to earth, called his Second Coming, to establish his worldwide kingdom.<\/p>\n

I used to believe this because I was taught it. But in 1971-72 I did a study of this subject in the Bible and read many scholarly books about it, both pro and con, and changed to believing that Jesus literally will return in the future one time, not two with seven years in between. Both positions are within the futuristic camp of premillenialism. I changed from being a \u201cDispensational premillennialist\u201d to a \u201chistoric premillenialist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The person who first taught this pretribulational rapture was John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren sect. He formulated a theological system called Dispensationalism which a huge number of Evangelicals adopted during the twentieth century. That is how Evangelicals came to believe in a pretribulational Rapture instead of the one Second Coming which early church fathers had taught, called chiliasm (millennialism).<\/p>\n

The disturbing thing about belief in the pretribulational Rapture is that most of its adherents believe that the Rapture is imminent, meaning it could happen at any moment. Furthermore, polls reveal that more than half of these Rapture believers expect it will happen in their lifetime. The result of this belief is that these people often are opposed to taking protective measures of earth\u2019s environment because they deem it a waste of time and resources since they expect that Jesus will return at the Rapture \u201csoon.\u201d Their faulty thinking is that it is a waste to save the planet since it will be destroyed any moment at the Rapture.<\/p>\n

This any-moment Rapture belief is further supported by some leading English versions of the Bible. For example, the NIV, NRSV, and ESV have the heavenly Jesus saying in Revelation 22.7, 12, and 20, \u201cI am coming soon.\u201d But the KJV has, \u201cI come quickly,\u201d and the NASB has, \u201cI am coming quickly.\u201d The Greek is erchomai tachy<\/em>.\u201d The word tachy\u00a0<\/em>can be translated \u201csoon,\u201d \u201cquickly,\u201d or \u201cswiftly.\u201d There is a big difference between \u201csoon\u201d and these other two words. I believe tachy<\/em> should be translated, here, either \u201cquickly\u201d or \u201cswiftly.\u201d Why?<\/p>\n

In biblical cases like this, wherein a foreign word can be translated with a multiple of English words that have differing meanings, the Bible interpreter should look at the whole of scripture for help. But in this case, we can narrow that down to the entirety of the New Testament (NT) sayings of Jesus.<\/p>\n

In Jesus\u2019 Olivet Discourse\u2013delivered privately to his apostles shortly before his arrest and execution\u2013he spoke more about his return than anywhere else in his NT sayings. He said of that time, referring to himself as the Son of Man, \u201cFor as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man . . . they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory\u201d (Matthew 24.27, 30 NRSV).<\/p>\n

I believe that what Jesus said in Matthew 24.27 is the proper meaning of Revelation 22.7, 12, and 20. That is, Jesus\u2019 return itself will happen very quickly, meaning his journey from far-away heaven to earth will not take long. Thus, these Revelation texts do not say anything about how much time will elapse between when the heavenly Jesus said these words, during the first century, and when he will return.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think some aspects are. Let\u2019s look into them. It is ironic that President Donald Trump has gathered around himself as advisors several outspoken Evangelical Christians even though he himself has demonstrated throughout his life to the present time that he is anything but that even though he publicly acknowledges God. Regrettably, a sizable portion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1477,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5013,341,5016,69],"class_list":["post-11765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eschatology","tag-dispensationalism","tag-evangelicalism","tag-rapture","tag-second-coming"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Trump's Evangelical Team Worrisome?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some of President Trump's advisors are outspoken Evangelical Christians who hold some disturbing views about wealth, the environment, and even human health.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2020\/02\/trumps-evangelical-team-is-worrisome\/\" \/>\n<meta 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