Somehow or other we came to live in a theocracy, apparently, because so called men and women of God have seen fit to abandon scripture, as we understand that term, and preach the new gospel of Donald Jesus Trump. It has only slight parallels to the original story of Jesus, insofar as Jesus was a real martyr and Trump is a self pitying slug who would have you believe he lost something that was rightfully his, but in truth there’s very little resemblance between the historical Jesus and the reality TV malfeasor.
Be that as it may, in this brave new faux Christian world, the reinstatement of Donald Trump somehow resonates with the resurrection and/or second coming of Christ and the wingnuts just can’t let it go.
Enter one oddly named pastor, Kent Christmas, with his sermon on the subject. At about 0:50 he starts to allude to something miraculous about to take place so that Trump can be restored to power by “supernatural” means. You can see his congregation rising to their feet. Oh, they’re eating this up.
Right-wing pastor Kent Christmas used his Sunday sermon to claim that "Joe Biden stole the office" and pose a simple question to all those who can't see that obvious fact: "What planet do you live on?" pic.twitter.com/yunfFkQLXs
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) August 13, 2021
If you listened carefully to that rant, you heard that he said “24 hours.” If this was last Sunday’s sermon, no miracle happened on Monday. And we damn sure know that no miracle happened in South Dakota on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. And if there were any plagues of locusts, parting of seas, or rain of frogs today, it hasn’t reached the news services yet and Trump is still in Bedminster.
But I have no doubt that despite all this, that Pastor Christmas’, Father Christmas’ (I wonder if his wife’s name is Mary?) flock will be in their pews this Sunday and many Sundays to come. What’s sad about that fact is that they would rather gather together for the gospel of the Big Lie than move on and live in the real world. That is tragic. Any grief counselor will tell you that the first step to moving on is acceptance. Without that, you’re a fly stuck in amber.
This Cult of Trump is strange. I don’t know how a sect of Christianity got so bastardized as to embrace prosperity gospel in the first place, but once it did, it then bowed its head to the Biggest Grifter Of Them All. That’s their Orange Oracle, their Dreamsickle Deity.
But none of this is surprising because we live in a world where conspiracy theories are promulgated by the highest levels of power in this country, our elected officials.
And these so called pastors are preaching QAnon. That’s all that this is. The right-wing fringe preachers have co-opted QAnon and prosperity gospel and somehow they infuse it with a bastardization of revivalism and evangelicalism and this is what you hear.
You haven’t heard the end of the reinstatement myth because the broad brush strokes of QAnon dogma teaches that the Satanic Cabal is now in power in the land and only savior Trump can set things right. Things will get nuttier before they get saner, on that you may depend.
This “sermon” should be more than enough to get the IRS to revoke whatever tax-exempt status this “church” might have.
Then again, the fact that a “man of God” could stand in the pulpit and BRAZENLY LIE about President Biden without being struck dead (preferably by a nice bolt of lightning) should be ample proof that God either does not exist or does not give a rat’s ass about politics (American or otherwise).
This kind of thing may be half of why the GOP has been defunding the IRS. (The other half is so that tax cheats can’t be forced to pay up.)
We are never going to infuse sanity into the tax code until and unless we can get a substantial Democratic majority into both Houses of Congress – and by substantial, I mean large enough that we do’t need to worry about getting sabotaged by DINOs.
And I might add that the concept “If churches engage in politics, they should be taxed” is not really tenable. Attempting to enforce that fairly would lead to insurrection-level mobs forming daily. The only achievable alternative to “No churches should be taxed” is “All churches should be taxed.” And even if we are able to pass and enforce “All churches should be taxed,” there will be a ot of pushback. That’s not to say I am not for taxing churches – I am. I just don’t see it happening in my lifetime.
True, but we’re unlikely to get those majorities what with the G.Q.P. majorities in state legislatures fixing to re-draw districting lines. Between that and the laws tailor-made to disenfranchise predominately democratic voters as well as the theocracy on the S.C., we won’t have this idiot’s nirvana but it will be damned close. So long as the RWNJ’s have their party in power, they could give a sh*t less how “godly” this country is. It was all just lip service anyway.
Yeah, something happened they didn’t expect. Joe Biden is still president??