Let me preface this by saying I do not watch Tucker Carlson or FOX News. I don’t watch ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, or FOX News. Nor any national broadcast so-called news outlet. I do watch probably about four to five times a week various BBC news programs, which I know full well going in are biased and skewed, censored and massaged to air a certain viewpoint. But not as blatant at times than any of the aforementioned so-called news outlets. All of which have agendas so ripe and stinky they reek like Stilton left out on a counter over an entire summer.
I’m not a Tucker Carlson fan nor a fan or viewer of any person or broadcast network’s so-called news.
I garner my world event information by reading. I’ve learned the hard way over time and experience that if an individual wants to learn what is going on television news is not the way to go. That’s all. I don’t appreciate listening to heavily censored and massaged content and being controlled like a cat at the mercy of a sadistic person with a laser light. Which is the best example of a person watching so-called TV news I can come up with. And I gather more viable in-depth information to filter through in reading many different sources, many outside of America, than I could by watching every so-called newscast broadcast from every outlet, were that humanely possible. Broacast so-called news is a sure way to malnourish oneself of useable and accurate information. It’s akin to subsisting entirely on marshmallows and nothing else.
There are two articles here. Reflecting the real present state of the majority in America professing to be Christians. Neither side are Christian. Not based on what I say or write. According to the Word of God and what it means to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, a true child of God.
Be those that are categorized as “Progressive Christians,” such as those mentioned in the first article, Faithful America, nor anyone possessed in being categorized as a Christian Nationalist a true Christian.
For Christ is sufficient. Nothing added; nothing removed. And neither the political activists on either the left side or the right side of the political spectrum placing America and politics uppermost in their lives, in their focus, in their vocalizations, and the fruit they bear demonstrate an understanding of God’s Word, of what it truly means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what happens when there is no true conversion, no true transformation of the heart and mind from within and a person simply aligns themselves as Christian more for something to do and identify with rather than have a true understanding of what it means to know and practice that which they claim to be.
Like someone buying a violin and never understanding music, or that instrument and claiming to be a musician. Or buying a blank canvas and some paints and claiming to be an artist not having a clue as to what is required to create the music, bring life to the canvas.
What comprises the majority of the professed American church are political organizations. Worldly organizations comprised of lost worldly individuals. Consumed in temporal political ideologies and their love and idolization of certain human individuals, specific human ideologies and beliefs which always take precedence over what is contained in the whole inerrant infallible living Word of God.
I had a friend a while ago, some years back now, we no longer are communicating — and she wrote to me a few times telling me, in essence, “You don’t need to write the inerrant or infallible Word of God, people know that.”
No, it is clear they don’t. Especially the overwhelming majority of folks in America, specifically, claiming to be Christian. Because they serve the world, they serve Satan much more than they are humbled, contrite, obedient, and faithfully serving the Lord Jesus Christ and God as their Father, the Holy Spirit as their Comforter and Helper, or the Word of God as their source.
No, the overwhelming majority are not truly Christian.
The majority in America use the word Christian and Christianity without knowledge of what those words and living accordingly mean. In America, Christian and Christianity have become political terms. Not words to define a changed heart by faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. On the contrary. Today’s professed Christian demonstrates no humility. No submission. No peace. No understanding of God’s Word. No fluency in the Holy Bible. They boast of everything EXCEPT the Lord Jesus Christ.
When Jesus was betrayed by one of His own who had served as His disciple for the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the betrayer — a disciple of Jesus — along with the religious authorities and their staff, the political figures, and the strong militaristic side of society in Jerusalem all conspired to confront and attempt to seize God on earth. To murder Him. One of His own disciples, the religious leaders and people of the time, as well as the government officials and the armed soldiers of the Jewish leaders and the Romans.
And what did Jesus say and do? What did His true disciples do?
“My Kingdom Is Not of This World”
So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.
John 18:33-40
The majority of those professing to be Christian in present-day America, either those wrapping themselves in the banner of progressive Christianity, or Christian nationalism are both refusing the Head, disobeying the Head, and attempting to let the body rule. Attempting to have a diseased body rule imagining any part of the body can replace the Head! Attempting to create the kingdom of God, Christ’s kingdom here on earth according to their will. Not God’s will which they blatantly ignore and dishonour.
Instead of crying for Barabbas, America’s professed Christians are crying for Trump or transgenderism, homosexuality, or myriad abominations, people, or idols, turning to paganism, and other faiths rather than humbling oneself, being peaceful, prayerful — not amiss — faithful according to the Word of God not faithful to any political platform or politician or earthly philosophy.
Anything in a Christian’s life as if Christ is not enough, not sufficient is not living in accord with the Word of God as to the path a true Christian ought to be walking. Every day.
They are not Christian if the Lord Jesus Christ is not sufficient, and is not preeminent. They are using Christ as their way to seek their own will, their own way. They are not abiding in the Word and having Christ be uppermost, preeminent in their lives. They are of the world and not of Christ.
On the left side of matters, on the right side of matters. Of the world. If left or right and not centered in Christ, on Christ a person is off the path, out of the Light, lost along the Way, devoid of the Truth, and in jeopardy of losing the Life.
This is not sitting in judgment of the state their immortal spirits and souls will reside for eternity — only the Lord Jesus Christ judges each individual as to where they will spend their eternity.
No, this is just from a foundation in the Word of God, believing every word within the Word and not adding to it nor omitting anything from it, having the Lord Jesus Christ preeminent in life, knowing what true regeneration, true transformation by the power of the Spirit of God means. What being renewed of mind and spirit truly means.
I don’t wear a shiny cross around my neck.
I wear the blood of the cross and the empty tomb and the risen Lord in my heart.
Not a flag, not a political ideology, not a human philosophy, not a politician, a human organization, not even in a manmade denomination identifying more in that as so many have and do, nor a fleeting nation that will pass away and be forever forgotten when either eternity each finds themselves in one place or the other.
There is no place for the accommodation of sin in a Christian’s life. Oh, yes, we were sinners, and WE STILL ARE SINNERS DAILY while still in the flesh and not truly perfected yet, and whether aligning with being progressive — vainly, ignorantly professing that to be compassionate, loving, and tolerant lying and deceived, perverting the Word, perverting Christ with regard to the compassion and love as written and defined in God’s Word, or aligning with being conservative, vainly, ignorantly perverting the Word and using the Holy Bible as a political weapon rather than submitting to the Word — but then, when not Bible literate, not Scripturally fluent, when led greater by Satan, self, the things of this world, the love of this world and neither understanding, seeing nor having the Lord Jesus Christ preeminent in their lives we have what passes for the Church, for Christianity in America.
Neither side has any semblance nor resemblance of imitating Christ, of being a light unto the world, the salt of the earth. Wherein when viewed from the outside by others the light of God is seen in them and the outsider sees the light of the Father in that person. Is that what today’s politically driven leftist progressive Christian, politically driven right-wing conservative Christians are seen as?
None of it can be reconciled with Christ, with God, with the Holy Spirit, with the Holy Bible.
None of it. From either side.
We’re either Christ’s or the world’s. Period. Any attachment of another word, another thing added merely takes away. There can be no addition through subtraction.
For all it has become is a political war that has erupted in the escalating spiritual war and both sides in truth fighting for and serving Satan and not the God they profess to have uppermost in their lives as a nation, a political ideology, the things of this world, and their will be done on earth is what matters most.
And that’s the truth. The facts. Not because I said so. Just look around. Pay attention. Listen. Inhale. And do so immersed in the Word of God while keeping a clear eye, a sound ear out for what is said and written — being ever so vigilant to see, hear, and understand what is truly going on here.
And it isn’t Christianity at work.
And if it isn’t Christianity, isn’t of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, of the Holy Bible what then is its source and fuel?
Hmmm…
Seek out, find, listen to, and watch American Gospel. Along with the advances of evil daily. While immersing yourself in the Word of God praying to the Holy Spirit, faithfully asking for increased spiritual wisdom and understanding according to God — not according to anything of or in this world.
Try that for a change.
It’s Christ. Only Christ. Always Christ. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ. And anything that gets in front of that or behind it or around it and it isn’t Christianity. It isn’t being a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s always something else. That replaces, that substitutes, that makes an individual feel good, justified, and as if they are doing right when it’s all wrong, it’s always all wrong.
Don’t believe this? Then get ahold of a Bible. Get your eyes, ears, heart, mind, spirit, and soul immersed in it. Get on your knees in humility asking God rather than telling Him and demanding of Him and discover that everything that happens here in the realm that passes away will matter in the eternity to come.
And you really believe America and American politics, be they of the left or of the right are what matters most?
Really?
Humm…
Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. And certainly not of America. Sorry to pop that delusion bubble.
Seek to heal what remains of the American church before attempting to heal or change the nation.
What are we to be active in? Spreading the gospel. Which is Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ.Not any political ideology, political party, a person other than Christ, or worldly agenda.
Perhaps it’s time to spend much more time immersed in the Word of God rather than in other pursuits, dear Christian.
Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Friday, April 7th, 2023
Thousands of Christians Outraged at Tucker Carlson’s Transgender ‘Lies’
Friday, April 7, 2023
By Fatma Khaled
Reprinted from Newsweek
Thousands of Christians are outraged about conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson‘s recent comments in which he accused the trans community of targeting Christians in the wake of the recent Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
In his op-ed published on March 28, Carlson made several arguments about why the trans community “seem to be mad specifically at traditional Christians” and noted that the “trans movement is the mirror image of Christianity, and therefore its natural enemy.”
Carlson published the op-ed after Audrey Hale, 28, fatally shot six people, including three 9-year-olds, at the private Christian elementary school on March 27. Hale, who was transgender, was shot and killed by police officers at the scene.
Carlson’s remarks sparked outrage among members of Faithful America, a large online community of progressive Christians, who launched an online petition seeking 20,000 signatures to show support for transgender people. Faithful America, according to its website, seeks to counter the “religious right [who aim] to serve a hateful political agenda.” One of its goals is to resist and challenge “Christian nationalism and white supremacy.” The group had gathered 15,399 signatures from supporters as of Friday morning.
Hale’s motive remains unknown, but police found a manifesto that detailed months-long plans to carry out the attack. The Metro Nashville Police Department said on Monday that “it is known that Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers.”
Referencing the shooting in his op-ed, Carlson wrote that Christians and trans people “can never be reconciled,” arguing that “Christianity and transgender orthodoxy are wholly incompatible theologies.
“They can never be reconciled. They are on a collision course with each other. One side is likely to draw blood before the other side. That’s what we concluded last week.”
Faithful America called his comments “hateful” and “untrue” and said that his rhetoric would incite more violence.
“That’s why today, we raise our voices to proclaim that our Christian family is better off for loving and listening to its trans people and theologies — and that we won’t let the far-right spread dangerous and unholy lies about them,” Faithful America’s petition said.
“As grassroots Christians, we reject these evil, malicious lies, and we proclaim Christ-like love and affirmation for the trans community. Trans people and pro-trans theologies aren’t just compatible with Christianity, but are at the very heart of our loving and inclusive faith.”
While Carlson argued that traditional Christians and trans people will continue to oppose each other, Faithful America listed several examples showing inclusivity, referring to churches that have ordained trans clergy and Christian organizations that promote trans affirmation, inclusion, leadership.
“Our faith is one of Christ-like inclusion, dignity, and community, not of hatred and us-vs-them politics,” Faithful America said. “We applaud the many churches and denominations that have ordained trans clergy, we celebrate the many trans-authored and pro-trans theologies and liturgies that strengthen our churches and communities, we reject anti-trans legislation in every state, and we honor the image of God in all people.”
Newsweek reached out to Faithful America and the National Center for Transgender Equality by email for comment.
The Blasphemy of Comparing Trump to Jesus Christ
Trump worship in America eclipses true discipleship and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. You may not like that, you may disagree, but at this juncture in America’s history, as America is on a great decline and heading towards its demise — due to abandoning God and serving Satan and his lies, being seduced and deluded by the lies of the father of lies — only 4% of Americans possess a Biblical worldview. The overwhelming majority of those professing to be Christians are so in lip service at best. Not knowing what true discipleship and true Christianity are.
In Trump they trust. Not in God. Not in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not in the Holy Spirit. Not in the infallible inerrant whole living and active Word of God.
This is denied. But the proof is in actions. And words.
Idol worship, abandoning God, perverting the Word of God to suit the times, the heresies, the false teachers and their false teachings for all the itching ears, the strong delusion are all present and accounted for in eroding and rotting America.
And the rot is squarely within the professed church. Turning to unsound doctrines and abandoning the fath. Placing faith in a man, a nation, a manmade document over the God-breathed Word of God, rather than placing faith in God, in Jesus as Lord, in the Holy Spirit.
Blasphemy? Yes, blasphemy and beyond as the delusions increase by the day their god Trump is their savior.
Thus, revealing they have never truly been renewed of mind and spirit, truly transformed by the Supernatural power of God, and have been merely going through the motions and vainly imagining that shiny cross around their necks validates them in the sight of God.
A Tree and Its Fruit
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
I Never Knew You
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Build Your House on the Rock
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Matthew 7:15-27
Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Friday, April 7th, 2023
The Blasphemy of Comparing Trump to Jesus Christ
April 6, 2023
By Reverend Nathan Empsall
Reprinted from Time
Before and after Donald Trump’s historic indictment and arraignment, countless MAGA Republican provocateurs have been noting the Holy Week timing and blasphemously comparing Trump to Jesus.
“As Christ was crucified, and then rose again on the 3rd day, so too will Donald Trump,” tweeted one right-wing lawyer known for representing Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Other influencers making the comparison include Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, TPUSA Faith founder Charlie Kirk, and even Trump’s own attorney. Trump, himself, framed his arrest as an attack on Christians in an “emergency prayer call” on Tuesday, April 4, with televangelist and longtime aide Paula White-Cain, attorney Rudy Giuliani, and MAGA worship leader Sean Feucht.
Any comparison between Trump and Christ is clearly heretical and inappropriate. However, these extremist voices are right about one thing: There is, indeed, a parallel between Donald Trump’s arrest and Holy Week. But it’s not between Trump and Jesus—it’s between MAGA leaders and Pontius Pilate, the brutal Roman governor who ordered Christ’s crucifixion.
Not only would Jesus never pay anyone hush money to change the outcome of an election, he wasn’t even a politician. When the devil tempted Christ with earthly authority, he flatly refused to take it. Neither did Jesus support political violence the way Trump delights in playing Jan. 6 footage at his rallies. In fact, when the disciples drew weapons to prevent Jesus’s arrest, he told them, “All who take the sword will die by the sword.”
Pontius Pilate, on the other hand, was a regional Roman dictator known not only for his cruelty, but also for his alliance with local religious leaders. The high priests were eager to collude with the governor, including to crucify Jesus, because it allowed them to keep their status and personal freedom. In turn, Pilate benefited by having allies who could keep his subjects in line and thus keep him in power. It was a great deal for everyone—everyone but the people.
Two millennia later, a nearly identical bond has been forged between conservative American Christians and MAGA Republican politicians like Trump, Greene, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Under the blessing of conspiracy-theory preachers like Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee, and Paula White-Cain, these politicians use and abuse religious imagery to create a culture where disagreeing with them is no longer seen as civic discourse, but as an act of blasphemy. To them, indicting a corrupt Republican politician like Trump isn’t an example of a healthy democracy, but a demonic attack on a holy figure anointed by God.
This is part of what academic scholars and Christian activists alike mean by the term “Christian nationalism:” The heretical merging of American and far-right Christian identities to proclaim that only conservative Christians count as “true Americans,” and that only right-wing Republicans can be considered true Christians. This is an authoritarian political ideology that seeks to rewrite colonial history, erase the separation of church and state, and declare America to be a theocratic “Christian nation” where only conservative Christians hold power and other communities lose their legal rights.
In such a system, supporting Trump’s indictment equals opposing God. One recent example of this melding of religion and “us-vs-them” political fascism was Trump’s March campaign rally in Waco, which was punctuated by a hymn-like treatment of the National Anthem sung by the so-called J6 Choir, blessings from Christian-nationalist pastor and court evangelical Robert Jeffress, and Trump’s own angry insistence that Christians are being persecuted by the FBI.
Co-opting religion for power isn’t just blasphemous; it’s also dangerous, repeatedly leading to real-world violence. The most obvious such moment is, of course, the use of religious language and symbols before and during the failed Jan. 6 insurrection. Last year, MAGA adherents—operating in the same echo chambers—again took aim at the FBI, IRS, and even the National Archives. Trump himself has all but called for people to take up arms in response to his indictment, repeatedly telling his supporters “They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.”
Unfortunately, leaders on Capitol Hill have been reluctant to call out Christian nationalism, all but omitting it from last year’s Jan. 6 committee report despite clear evidence that the insurrection was largely fueled by the dangerous political ideology. Perhaps the committee was afraid of being seen as anti-Christian—but the truth is that Christian nationalism’s biggest critics are in fact Christian leaders like Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Lutheran Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, as well as Christian organizations like Faithful America, Red Letter Christians, Vote Common Good, Sojourners, and the aptly named Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
Similarly, far too many moderate, progressive, and apolitical pastors decline to acknowledge or speak out against the merger of MAGA and religion, whether it is because they misunderstand the separation of church and state, or because they are afraid of losing church members. But for all their attempts to stay out of the fray, these pastors are sending an unintended yet devastatingly dangerous message. When prominent far-right televangelists and pastors invoke Jesus’s name to support Trump’s authoritarianism or to oppose bringing him to justice—and when Donald Trump uses prayer calls to falsely tell Christians that the U.S. is under attack and he is our only defender—the silence from the rest of our complicit pulpits can lead Americans to believe the Church takes the same position. Silence is acceptance.
It is time to not just raise but sustain a loud prophetic voice. This Holy Week, let us take up our crosses and love our neighbors by standing up to those brutal strongmen who would destroy both democracy and the church in Jesus’ name.
Where Christian nationalism calls for violence, let Christians call for peace. Where QAnon quotes Jesus to platform misinformation, let us remind them Jesus said the truth shall set you free. When we are told that a Christo-fascist politician automatically becomes our savior if they’re coincidentally arrested during Holy Week, let us, instead, insist that equality and justice demand that no one is above the law. And where Trump bellows for anger and discrimination, let us work to love our neighbors, no exceptions.
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