There’s an old adage, you can’t legislate morality. There’s also the precept of separation between church and state, but throw all those ideas out the window. “The pulpit must take on abortion, gay marriage,” etc., declaims MAGA Mario Murrillo, who wants his flock to “mobilize” confront elected officials and then get into government themselves. This is not an outlandish stance in right-wingnuttia, not by a long shot. Pat Robertson was talking about this in the 80’s. Read a post of mine from January, 2017, Mike Pence Is A Theocrat. His Christian Supremacist Followers Seek To Take Over America and you will get to the roots of what drives Pence, Mike Pompeo, Jeff Sessions and many others, who may be in eclipse now, but who are by no means gone. They are all in favor of getting rid of democracy and instituting theocracy and that is precisely what this loon is advocating.
The Lord wants the prophetic movement to take its stand in the arena, to barge open the doors of influence and say, ‘We belong here,” he added. “Mayor, we belong here. Governor, we belong here. Congressman, we belong here. If you’re going to try to legislate immorality, we’re going to fight you with every last drop of the anointing of Almighty God.
We must organize, educate ourselves on how to terrify national Democrat leaders, how to win local elections and train our people to know why they believe what they believe and to believe it with conviction.
Right-wing evangelist Mario Murillo says that God is calling right-wing Christians to mobilize politically and "terrify national Democrat leaders." https://t.co/yYqYPf6Ok0 pic.twitter.com/fL92z9evVn
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 4, 2021
This is just what we need, a modern day version of The Crusades. And make no mistake, this is not just one person with this crazy doctrine, this is broadcast all over Xian wingnuttia. I can tell you first hand that back in 2016, an evangelical wingnut of my acquaintance told me that both the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the Christian Broadcasting Network were prophesizing that Donald Trump would be in office for eight years and then Mike Pence for eight years after him. I said, “What happens after that? There’s no more America or no more elections? Because that sounds like what the result of 16 years of that bullshit would be, the end of everything we know.” She didn’t know, because apparently the “prophecy” didn’t go that far in the future — but she was deeply offended by my disenchantment with these two great born again Christian men being in power. Just for the record, this woman was one of the stupidest people I have ever met in my life and that is precisely who the new Xian cult attracts.
Again, I default to unpleasant statistics. It’s been estimated that 30% of Americans identify as Christian evangelicals and 44% of Republicans want to make Christianity the “official” religion of America. This is not some splinter group, this is a small nation of crazies. And now they’re talking about mobilizing and terrorizing. I take this very seriously, because I know how nuts these people are, again, from first hand experience. They scare me, in any event, because the ones I’ve met can’t think. Their default position is “God says” and you can’t convince them that God isn’t that big of a jerk, but that their sicko leaders are, and they’re being played. They can’t and won’t hear that, because the sad truth is, you take away this nonsense and these people have no place in the world at all. Tragic but true — again, from what I have seen and heard with my own eyes.
The purpose of prefacing a comment with “God says” is to stifle dissent when they hold a position they know is wrong. They are counting on listeners not daring to argue with God. It is odd that when God speaks to these modern-day prophets, he says exactly what they already think. Biblically, most of the “thus sayeth the Lord” pronouncements are actually God rebuking his own people.
Odd that comic book writer John Ostrander hit the nail on the head as to their chief flaw: “Man should not presume to judge for God. More often than not, they get it wrong.”
I seem to recall that Jesus was against this kind of thing, and said so in public. “Render unto Caesar” and so on. There’s also a lot of stuff about false prophets and people whose talk comes from what 8they* want, rather than from any deity worth listening to.
If Jesus came back to Earth the even jellies would run him out of town as a left wing pinko liberal
44% of Republicans IS a splinter group, a minority of a minority. The sane ones have fled the building (with few notable exceptions like Liz Cheney), leaving only the opportunists and fanatics behind.
Terrifying ANY political leader is always a bad idea, as 9/11 should have taught them. Frightened people tend to respond with disproportionate force. Push the joke too far and you’ll wind up meeting your god a lot sooner than you planned.
44% of 29% is 12.76 %, a real minority against the other 87.24% of us.
I got as far as estimating it was around 13% – thank you for the exact percentage!
Meanwhile they keep insisting that since THEY are the majority, the rest of us had better get in line. I always turn the argument around with a link showing that WE are the majority, and by THEIR own reasoning they had better get in line.
It’s why I remain rather fond of this quote from Game of Thrones, Dana: “They can live in my new world or die in their old one.” It’s one and the same to me, either choice.
That’s some math I can believe in, Coccinity!
“What the Church has done to Jesus is what the governor of California (ronald Reagan) wants to do to the redwoods, take a wild and wonderful thing and turn it into den furniture.” Father Daniel Berrigan
This dynamic is clearly laid out in Luke 4. Jesus returns to Nazareth, his hometown. He had a reputation even this early. He goes to the temple, as was his custom, & reads from Isaiah. It’s a passage everyone enjoys as Jesus claims he is the fulfillment. Like people do, they said many praises about him. Then, he said he wasn’t going2 do any miracles there. They became furious, seized him, & took him to the cliff to throw him off. All Luke says is he slipped away. Tell them what they want to believe, ur gold. Don’t, & even being Christ, in his hometown, people will turn on you. There are many times his life was in danger or was driven out of town for healing, challenging the authorities, even helping the town out by driving out demons. Gosh. We sure are predictable.
There’s an extended section in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov that speaks to how little has been learned by the Church since.
My guess is this will turn out as well as the “race war” they are supposed to be starting. With any luck, that could be the result.
Well, I hope his “message” has been forwarded to the good folks at the IRS to determine if he and his “church” remain worthy of their non-profit status. I do have this feeling he filed for that coveted 501(c)3–and probably 501(c)4–status.