Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love. Before me there were no created things, Only eternal, and I eternal last. "All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"
~English Translation, sign above the gates of Hell, Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.
I saw this earlier. I'm not surprised by it in the least. As much as I may disagree with him religiously, I think it can be said that Russell Moore is a good and decent man.
It's not just his criticism of Trump, or his criticism of the Evangelical church or the Republican party in these times that tells me this. I've actually read a couple of this guy's books. One, years ago, actually was about the fact that Christianity (specifically of the Evangelical and Fundamentalist sort) had taken root far more deeply in the developing world...what he called the "Global South" than in Europe or North America. I agreed with his conclusions at the time, and I can certainly see why he would be standing up for Christian migrants now.
(His other book that I read was a history of the Azusa Street Revival, co-authored with another Southern Baptist theologian, Albert Mohler, a former SBC President. For the record, it was also on point.)
But of course this isn't about that. Why would it be?
This fucking guy right the fuck here.
As if making a payroll, or building an organization (and what has he built? It's his Dad's organization) were somehow holy tasks? In that case, wouldn't (for example) the Associated Press, British Petroleum, the People's Liberation Army, the United States Government, or Wal-Mart be holier than any church?
I wasn't aware that in any sect of Christianity, secular power translated into spiritual authority. Maybe then, the Pope should be God? Or Donald Trump? (I suspect that last probably hits a little too close to home on Jerry Junior, though.)
This is the Prosperity Gospel. This is temples of glass and steel and rolodexes full of politicians presented as spirituality. Fuck that. The evil shitty behavior, the Concentration Camps, that Falwell is trying to defend? That just makes it worse.
Jesus was a poor, brown-skinned Middle-Eastern Jew who was against the religious authorities of His time, who offered Salvation to sinners and tax collectors and healed the servants of Roman Centurions and who didn't give a fuck about political agendas.
Jesus associated with the poor and the downtrodden, not with the rich and powerful. Jesus sowed His Word among the poor communities of Judea, not among the wealthy of Rome. The Church began with the oppressed, not the powerful. There was a reason for that.
The doctrines of Christianity began to be written down, and the tone set, by desert monks and holy hermits rather than rich men in priestly robes.
When He was asked, Jesus said "My Kingdom is not of this world."
Jerry Falwell's kingdom doesn't exist outside of this one. Jerry Falwell's idea of heaven is privilege in this life. Jerry doesn't get to take that with him when he dies.
And when he dies, according to Jerry's own beliefs, the Judge who judges him will be Jesus, not Donald Trump.
You'd think he'd take that into account before lecturing some other theologian and transparently revealing what his real priorities are.
See, Salvation according to Jerry Falwell, Jr. is that he gets to do whatever he wants, and you don't. If him and his wife want to bone the same pool boy...well, that's acceptable because he's the big important preacher dude...but God forbid you be gay or bisexual.
You want to be that, I guess you gotta go inherit your own empire of bullshit, first.
You notice how love never seems to enter into Jerry's theology, or my analysis of it? That's on purpose. Jerry thinks it's wrong for two dudes, or two ladies, who actually love each other to get together, have a home and family and pets and all the things that go with love and happy families.
Love of family, love of neighbor, or love of one's children doesn't really figure into it either. In Jerry-land, family is somebody you inherit the grift from, that's about it.
The Preacher, the Pool Boy, and his Wife? That's cool though, because in Jerry-Heaven, who you get to fuck and how you get to enjoy yourself is merely a by-blow of how much power you have. Things are not for the purpose God or nature or your own biological desires intended them for...it's all about power and male ego.
Does any of this sound Christian to you? Does any of this sound like it might lead to Salvation or Transcendence of any sort? No?
That's because it doesn't, except for Jerry. But he doesn't get to take it with him and neither do you.
It's no wonder so many people are so lost.
Jerry managed to get himself trash-talked by Bill Kristol, which I thought was pretty impressive. Bill's got game. Who knew? He slam-dunked Jerry Junior on Twitter, but with skills like that I wouldn't count him out on the street, either.
Whatever disagreements we might have in terms of beliefs, or whatever there's one thing I can confidently say about Bill, about Russ, and about me. None of us has met our God yet. The former two have made this evident by their conduct. I know my own struggles with belief. Whatever we may believe, none of us will meet Him until we die and cross over into the afterlife.
The difference between us and Jerry is that Jerry sees his true "god" every morning, in the bathroom mirror, while he's brushing his teeth.
And ya know what that is? According to every Christian interpretation of Salvation from American Baptist to Catholic to harsh and cruel Calvinist to Independent Fundamentalist Baptist to online images promoting some loose interpretation of the "Four Spiritual Laws?"
That, my friends, is exactly how you go to hell.
And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?
And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.
And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased.
~Matthew 21:10-15
The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess,Part 4.
Part 2
Part 1
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