If You Believe In The Justice Of God And The U.S….

There is an insidious cancer seeping quietly into everyday American life.  It is the constant and relentless attack on Constitutional freedoms by radical and evil Christo-Fascists who would burn down the country and the world to prove a 2000-year-old failed prophecy.

What does the “Justice of God” have to do with the U.S. in 2024?

The God of Christianity and Judaism is most often described by two abstract, related concepts or states: mercy and justice.

The priests and scribes who wrote the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Gospel writers and New Testament letter writers focused on both.

While there has always been disagreement and conflict over the interpretation of scripture, the degree to which these disagreements have, at times in history, caused military conflict and horrible suffering for the regular people affected has risen and fallen.

At this writing, September, 2024, in the U.S., the rhetoric of religious posturing and public statements of proposed dogma has reached a critical and dangerous level.

Usurping YHWH:  “Justice is Mine!”

There are Christians in the U.S. who would usurp YHWH and take these matters into the hands of the church and of the state.

A powerful fringe Christian movement behind the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attacks believes former President Donald Trump will help them take over the world, a theologian reveals in his soon-to-be published book.

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte spoke with Dr. Matthew Taylor about the dark implications of “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy” about the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation, a group even evangelicals find extreme.

“There’s real peril that some of our fellow Christians are posing to our democracy,” Taylor told Marcotte. “The consequences are so dire.”

The New Apostolic Reformation is a leadership network created by C. Peter Wagner, a charismatic seminary professor who, convinced he was an apostle, surrounded himself with would-be prophets obsessed with taking over society, Taylor told Marcotte. (emphasis mine)

What do these Christians want?

Again, we consult Dr. Matthew Taylor:

“They embrace Christian supremacy, this idea that Christians are supposed to be in charge of society and are mandated by God to take over societies and transform them into conservative Christian utopias,” he said.

“They want to create a new vanguard of Christian leadership that will take over every nation in the world. And they’ve especially targeted the United States right now.”

These groups are often tied to political activist groups and ideologies.

As we will see, these groups are using the tools available to them to spread their Gospel of Fear, Greed and Selfishness.

They seem especially to be denigrating and marginalizing specific groups:

• Women, especially running for office
• Ethnic minorities
• Immigrants
• Muslims
• Jews

How are groups like this harming the country?

There are a number of ways in which these groups operate:

• Attacking women running for office, claiming them to be unqualified or somehow untrustworthy.  It worked against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and it is being used against Kamala Harris, Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey today.
• Claiming that women are “less than” and should be excluded from leadership roles in a church or congregation.
• Making laws and rules to exclude specific groups from voting and taking part in democracy.
• Targeting immigrants.

The number of anti-immigrant groups grew by 1 to 18 groups in 2023. This number, however, was reached by various groups dropping or re-emerging based on activity. 2023 saw activity from dormant groups including Floridians for Immigration Enforcement and Help Save Maryland. American Border Patrol was removed due to inactivity following the death of its founder and leader, Glenn Spencer. Border Network News, once listed as antigovernment extremist, was re-categorized to anti-immigrant hate after a review of the group’s activities and rhetoric.

The anti-immigrant movement spent much of the year directing its ire toward the Biden administration, particularly Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Anti-immigrant groups and hard-liners in Congress joined together in calling for Mayorkas to be impeached, alleging the southern border to be – by his and President Biden’s design – chaotic and unsecured. Anti-immigrant groups based their rhetorical attacks largely on the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, popular among both anti-immigrant and white supremacist groups, which falsely claims immigrants are a threat to white American culture. The hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) wrote on its website that it “will work closely with the Homeland Security Committee to uncover the facts and help document the evidence in support of impeachment.”

• Targeting Muslims.  Donald Trump has doubled down on his proposed  Muslim travel ban.
• Targeting Jews.  Somehow, this seems to be something of an oxymoron for Christians.  Christianity is a direct, linear descendant of Judaism.  For Christians to treat Jewish people with anything other than sincere gratitude is the most hypocritical thing I could imagine. Without Judaism, there would be no Christianity, yet some Evangelical groups see Judaism as only a means or a link to apocalypse or tribulation, which they seem to want to see as soon as tomorrow.

Are these attitudes supported by the Bible?

Attitudes toward women in the Bible must be understood within the broader social and political/religious ancient world.  In the centuries in which the Bible was written (8th century BCE to 1st century CE), women were largely seen as the property of their fathers or husbands.  It would be easy to see that men writing in this time would have less regard for the agency of women than we do today, or that we most certainly should.

Evangelical preachers will tell you that Paul the Letter Writer was clear on this topic.  They will trot out 1 Corinthians 14:34.  They fail to include, however, that:

• Paul was writing, rightly or wrongly, to a specific church at a specific time for a specific purpose.  Generalizing Paul’s personal opinions to a wider world places far too much faith in a man and not a deity.
• Paul’s letters were written long after Yeshua’s death.  He had no opportunity to address them.
• NOWHERE in the Bible does Yeshua EVER denigrate or belittle or restrict women in any way.  In fact, in a world where women had few rights, Yeshua embraced them as equals.

The Hebrew Bible is no less ambiguous.  In that world, a “bride price” could be arrived at and a woman could become the property of her husband by being purchased from her father.

However, the Jewish Law gives certain specific rights to women and expects the men to respect them.

As to the treatment of foreigners and ethnic minorities, both the Hebrew Bible and the reported sayings of Yeshua are crystal clear.

YHWH tells the children of Israel specifically to treat foreigners as kin.

33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.

34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Yeshua repeats the commandment.