{"id":48222,"date":"2019-08-22T19:04:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T23:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=48222"},"modified":"2019-08-22T19:04:40","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T23:04:40","slug":"white-jesus-doesnt-care-about-anti-semitic-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/08\/22\/white-jesus-doesnt-care-about-anti-semitic-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"White Jesus doesn’t care about anti-Semitic lies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This report by Julie Zauzmer for The Washington Post<\/em> is really creepy and also really important: \u201cHow anti-Semitic beliefs have quietly taken hold among some evangelical Christians<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It starts at a white evangelical church in Bensalem, north of Philly, where a Vacation Bible School volunteer volunteers her opinions on Trumpism and the international conspiracy of Jewish fiends opposing his Great-Making of America:<\/p>\n

\n

Trump, she says, \u201cis surrounded by a Zionist environment with completely different values from Christians. It\u2019s kabbalist. It\u2019s Talmudic values. Not the word of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words: It\u2019s the Jews\u2019 fault.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we have pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ values, and we do not have more freedom to protect our faith? We are persecuted now,\u201d Yanko says about evangelical Christians like herself. \u201c[Jews] say, \u2018We\u2019ve got America. We control America.\u2019 That\u2019s what I know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This nonsense is taken almost word-for-word from Rick Wiles\u2019 viciously anti-Semitic \u201cChristian news\u201d broadcasts<\/a> online. It\u2019s also indistinguishable from actual Nazi propaganda spread by actual Nazis \u2014 both the original ones in 1930s Germany and the 21st-century American versions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So what does the pastor<\/em> of this suburban evangelical church think about the fact that volunteers at his church\u2019s VBS espouse actual Nazi views? He doesn\u2019t seem at all worried.<\/p>\n

\n

At Christian Life Center [AofG] \u2026 lead pastor Mark English was unruffled to hear about Yanko\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not in government. It would be like me trying to understand the insurance business,\u201d he said, when asked about Yanko\u2019s allegation that Jews control the government. \u201cThe government is so complex \u2014 I don\u2019t think that any one group controls everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He felt no need to address his congregant\u2019s anti-Semitic beliefs, either one on one or from the pulpit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So Pastor Mark personally thinks the Nazi stuff probably isn\u2019t quite true, but it doesn\u2019t strike him as a big deal. Nazi propaganda is being grafted onto his congregation\u2019s understanding of Christian discipleship? Whatevs<\/em>. Just as long as they\u2019re still following Jesus and Trump, and sharing the gospel of Jesus\/Trump with all the kids there at VBS, then everything\u2019s just fine.<\/p>\n

Pastor Mark is basically Martin\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller ca. 1924<\/a>. You know, a \u201csocially conservative\u201d nationalist pastor who imagines that being a good Christian means supporting socially conservative, nationalist politics and that there is no need to address your congregant\u2019s anti-Semitic false witness, either one on one or from the pulpit.<\/p>\n

This is irresponsible. Pastor Mark apparently agrees with me on that point, since his response makes that same claim: that he has no responsibility to address this.<\/p>\n

To be fair, it\u2019s not clear that Pastor Mark is in any way capable<\/em> of taking responsibility for this. He is not competent to do so. Nor is he equipped to do so. He is armed only with his white American version of the gospel and of the Bible and of Christian teaching, and all of those things are impotent and irrelevant when it comes to challenging the anti-Semitic lies festering in his congregation. They are all just as useless for Pastor Mark as they were for\u00a0Niem\u00f6ller because you can\u2019t fight white nationalism with white nationalism.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read a handful of posts and essays by \u201csocially conservative\u201d and nationalist white evangelical pastors lamenting that they\u2019re unable to compete with Fox News when it comes to discipling their congregations. They\u2019ve only got their flock\u2019s attention for an hour or two every Sunday. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs have them for 20 hours a week. I appreciate those pastors\u2019 concern, but their complaint would be more compelling if: 1) They ever once attempted<\/em> to preach against the venom of Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, Dobbs, et. al., or to warn against the snares of Fox News, by name, from the pulpit; and 2) They were capable of preaching a version of the gospel, the Bible, or Christian teaching that wasn\u2019t designed and distorted precisely in order to support the very same things that Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, Dobbs, etc., exist to support.<\/p>\n

When all you\u2019ve got is White Jesus, christianamerica, and the proof-texting anti-hermeneutic designed to accommodate slavery, then you may as well respond like Pastor Mark does, like a walking shrug emoji unconcerned by the wiles of Wiles and the straight-up Nazi lies embraced by your Vacation Bible School volunteers. You may as well proudly affirm your irresponsibility because you haven\u2019t got any resources with which to act responsibly.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the conclusion of Zauzmer\u2019s piece, which involves a nice after-church lunch with a very nice white evangelical couple in Florida:<\/p>\n

For Wanda and Doug Meyer, like many other evangelical Christians across the country, these YouTube channels are their primary source of news. They turn to YouTube to understand events that seem vitally important to them, like policy in Washington that will impact their religious freedom at home in Brandon, Fla.<\/p>\n

\u2026 On YouTube, they find the pastors who pray with Trump at the White House, the pastors they really trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s right there on YouTube. You don\u2019t hear it on mainstream media. We know Kenneth Copeland. We know Paula White. We know David Barton,\u201d Wanda said. \u201cDifferent ministers, that\u2019s where we get our news. People who know what\u2019s really going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

As they ate lunch after the service at their large evangelical church, the Meyers said they would like to someday visit Israel, which is religiously important to them. But they also watch a lot of videos online when they\u2019re watching those pastors\u2019 sermons. They believe, with total certainty, in what they hear, even when the information is false: that humans have nothing to do with climate change. That Muslims are trying to implement laws in U.S. states that would allow them to kill Christians with impunity. That a shadowy group, including wealthy Jews as leaders, meant to use Hillary Clinton to bring about \u201cone world government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wanda says they try to \u201cstay up to date\u201d on the \u201cspiritual battle \u2026 financed by the Illuminati and the Rothschilds.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here, again, I have to side with Niebuhr and C.S. Lewis and suggest that it is neither true nor possible that the Meyers, or anyone else, is able to \u201cbelieve, with total certainty\u201d any of these things. Self-deception does not allow for total certainty because it requires some division of the self into the part accepting the deception and the part carrying it out. And the part carrying it out is always \u2014 even after years of training in habitual reflex \u2014 will always be aware of what it is doing.<\/p>\n

The lies of Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, and David Barton are not convincing or compelling. Nor are the lies of Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, and Dobbs. They are every bit as strained and transparent and flimsy as the lies of Mike Warnke. The Meyers are not innocent dupes. Nor is Ms. Yanko in Bensalem. They have not been duped and they are not innocent. They are choosing to pretend to believe because these are the lies they wish were true.<\/p>\n

The outrageousness of those lies \u2014 Illuminati! Rothschilds!<\/em>\u00a0Satanic baby-killers!<\/em> \u2014 is not a measure of their extreme gullibility. It is a measure of the extreme gap between the humbling reality they know to be true and the fantasy universe that would have to be created for them to be able to proudly regard themselves as morally superior. It\u2019s not stupidity or misinformation or naivete or a lack of media literacy. It\u2019s the sin of pride.<\/p>\n

No fact-checking or training in media literacy will be able to dissuade these folks from the choice they are choosing to make until or unless it first deals with that self-righteous pride. As the great theologian said, \u201cIt is not light that is needed, but fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor Mark is basically Martin Niemoller circa 1924. He has no gospel, no Bible, no truth that requires him to challenge Nazism, so he doesn’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[92,130,107,28,29],"class_list":["post-48222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-church","tag-david-barton","tag-mike-warnke","tag-religious-right","tag-satanic-baby-killers"],"yoast_head":"\nWhite Jesus doesn't care about anti-Semitic lies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pastor Mark is basically Martin Niemoller circa 1924. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"White Jesus doesn't care about anti-Semitic lies","description":"Pastor Mark is basically Martin Niemoller circa 1924. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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