{"id":8369,"date":"2022-03-01T10:37:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T14:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shanephipps\/?p=8369"},"modified":"2022-03-01T10:49:16","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T14:49:16","slug":"conservative-christians-do-you-stand-with-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shanephipps\/2022\/03\/01\/conservative-christians-do-you-stand-with-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Christians, Do You Stand with Ukraine?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

As events unfold in Ukraine and world-tensions continue to grow, my mind is once again drawn toward my staunchly Republican Christian friends. I know you aren\u2019t happy with President Biden. I\u2019ve watched you have your fun with the \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d catch phrase. It would appear that a lot of loving Christians are tickled to death to use a phrase that means F**k Joe Biden<\/em>. The humorous bowdlerizing of such an offensive phrase seems to delight some Christians, as if they received a free coupon to use vulgar, hateful language with impunity. That\u2019s all par for the course in our divided nation now, I suppose, but with the unthinkably ominous cloud of a nuclear world war looming over us, I want to once again try to probe the psyches of my right-wing Christian friends. A few years ago, I wrote a piece for this platform<\/a> that attempted to get conservative Christians to realize that, even if they weren\u2019t bigoted, racists, homophobes personally, they were indeed teammates with the worst of them when it came to politics. That article generated a great deal of conversation. It struck a chord with some and also stepped on many toes. What it didn\u2019t do, likely, was change or open many minds. I know this because of all of the support I still see from conservative Christian friends for Donald Trump. That absolutely boggles my mind\u2014particularly amid this travesty being carried out by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. In this light, I\u2019d like to ask my right-wing Christian friends a few questions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do you not want Ukraine to be a westernized democratic society?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It seems like every time I turn around, I see social media posts calling people on the Left Communists and Socialists. I have certainly been called that dozens of times by conservative Christians for things I\u2019ve written right here on this platform. Yet, many of you are still champing at the bit to vote for Donald Trump in 2024. I see your Trump \u201924 flags flying proudly from your flagpoles right below Old Glory and your \u201cF**k Joe Biden\u201d flags. Every time I drive by those I think, there lives a conservative Christian<\/em>. Isn\u2019t that awful? Do you know that\u2019s the message you are sending about your faith? That man you still support was guilty of a crime in 2019 for withholding $400 million in military aid<\/a> from Ukraine as a bribe to attempt to get them to investigate then presidential candidate Joe Biden\u2019s son, Hunter. That man you still support used Vladimir Putin for personal gain. That man you still support has been out praising Putin in recent days for his strength and intelligence, even as Putin is actively trying to put the pieces of the \u201cevil empire\u201d of Soviet Union back together (evil empire was a phrase coined by another of your favorite leaders, Ronald Reagan, remember him?).<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Do you still think that Fox News is God\u2019s network?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Conservative Christian friends, I\u2019ve seen you time and time again claim that Fox News is one of the only reliable sources of news that care about Christianity. I\u2019ve even seen that sentiment implied from church pulpits. Yet, in this time of crisis caused by the unprovoked actions of an increasingly unstable Vladimir Putin, your chosen network continues to put out content that falls far short of condemning Putin\u2019s actions. Tucker Carlson has gone on air and publicly suggested that American Democrats are more dangerous than Putin. Carlson has gone on the Fox News airways and asked questions about why he should hate Putin<\/a>. He suggested that Putin had never promoted \u201cracial discrimination\u201d in schools or attempted \u201cto snuff out Christianity.\u201d These are clearly (unjustified) jabs at Democrats, but the overall impression left is that Carlson comes off as supporting a war criminal.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Are you comfortable with the man you still support praising Putin and trashing America?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Far right Christian friends, did you know that the man you can\u2019t wait to vote for in 2024 has been out praising Vladimir Putin\u2019s Ukrainian strategy and calling America dumb? You might not know it if you watch Fox News\u2014I highly doubt they are running that story in a regular rotation\u2014but it\u2019s happening. This little excerpt<\/a> is from the New York Times.<\/p>\n

        \u00a0<\/p>\n

        \u201cYesterday, I was asked by reporters if I thought President Putin was smart. I said, \u2018of course he\u2019s smart,'\u201d Trump told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

        \u201cThe problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he is smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb,\u201d Trump said.<\/em><\/p>\n

        Trump has long expressed admiration for Putin, and this week described his war strategy in Ukraine as \u201cwonderful\u201d and \u201cgenius.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

        Ask yourself this question and answer it HONESTLY\u2026what would you have thought if President Obama had made those statements?<\/p>\n

        Here is what your favorite God-fearing news network had to say about Obama in comparison to Vladimir Putin one time. Remember this awful scandal?<\/p>\n

        Obama\u2019s Bike Helmet The Worst Scandal in Presidential History The Daily Show<\/a><\/p>\n

        So, conservative Christian friends, I ask you one more time, are you happy with the people you\u2019ve chosen to throw your support behind?<\/p>\n

        Are you satisfied with your teammates?<\/p>\n

        Or, maybe, just maybe, are you secretly pulling for a good old fashioned Armageddon?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        As events unfold in Ukraine and world-tensions continue to grow, my mind is once again drawn toward my staunchly Republican Christian friends. I know you aren\u2019t happy with President Biden. I\u2019ve watched you have your fun with the \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d catch phrase. It would appear that a lot of loving Christians are tickled to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3002,"featured_media":8373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,18,767,463,80,85],"tags":[1491,820,1839,1488,1845,1842],"class_list":["post-8369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-controversial","category-exvangelical","category-faith","category-social-commentary","category-trump","tag-biden","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-world-war-three","tag-wwiii"],"yoast_head":"\nConservative Christians, Do You Stand with Ukraine?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As events unfold in Ukraine and world-tensions continue to grow, my mind is once again drawn toward my staunchly Republican Christian friends. 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