May 13 2017
THE AMERICAN RELIGION AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Gnosticism.
My NIV Study Bible, in the introduction to the three letters of John, warns us for GNOSTICISM, calling it ”One of the most dangerous heresies.”
Its central teaching is that spirit is entirely good and matter is entirely evil. From this unbiblical dualism flow five important errors:
1. the human body, being matter, is evil. God who is spirit is wholly good.
2. Salvation is an escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ, but by special knowledge – gnosis in Greek, hence GNOSTICISM.
3. Christ’s true humanity is denied.
4. The body is evil and thus can be treated harshly.
5. Since matter is considered evil, creation is there to exploit and breaking of the law has no moral consequence.
These 5 rules explain a lot. Jesus is not seen as ‘the door’ to God. John 14: 6 says of Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Salvation is seen as escape, hence the RAPTURE error, and THE LEFT BEHIND lies.
The rejection of Obama Care, ensuring the health of the poor millions to be paid by taxing the rich, is contrary to Gnosticism, thus to be rejected. After all the body is evil and can be treated harshly. This really can be seen in the people in the South of the USA where this heresy is being played out in obesity and diabetes. Also breaking the law is no big deal and thus killing doctors who do abortions is condoned.
Enter Prof. Dr. Harold Bloom, America’s foremost literary critic. Here’s what he writes in his unique book with the telling title of THE AMERICAN RELIGION.
Last week I wrote on EVANGELISM, a word derived from Eu-good- and Angelos- message. Bloom in his The AMERICAN RELIGION calls it not Good News but KAKANGELISM, from the Greek Kakas = bad. On page 32 Bloom writes that, “I argue in this book that the American Religion, which is so prevalent among us, masks itself as Protestant Christianity, yet has ceased to be Christian.” He calls the USA “a dangerously religion-soaked, even religious-mad, society.”
Bloom’s central point –page 38 – is “that we all are affected by the consequence of our national – gnostic – faith.”
Gnosticism has as its root the Greek word “gnosis’, which means ‘knowledge’. Knowing it all means that we don’t have to learn anything, which is at the root of (page 43) “Anti-intellectualism (which) pervades American political, social and moral life.”
The ‘HEAVEN HERESY’ is purely Gnostic. It pervades the totality of North American church life, even of what is commonly known as THE REFORMED FAITH, as expressed in Presbyterian and Reformed churches.
The American Religion, now so agitating against Islam, says Bloom, actually resembles the Muslim religion. “Inerrancy for both Islam in the Koran, and for the American Religion in the Bible, is an unconscious metaphor for the repression of all individuality: it is a conversion of the Bible ‘into a statue or an icon’.”
Enough of Harold Bloom, and back to the reality of CHRISTIAN politics in the USA.
Yes, there is something like THE AMERICAN RELIGION, a strange mixture of GNOSTICISM and GODDINESS, a word not to be confused with godliness. GODDINESS is a word I coined to portray the emphasis in THE AMERICAN RELIGION on God rather than on Christ. It also implies that it prefers the Old Testament over the New Testament out of which CHRISTIANITY was born.
Its leaders, Franklin Graham, son of Billy, and Jerry Falwell Jr, son of Jerry Falwell Sr. the founder of Liberty University in Lynchburgh, Virginia, proclaim a gospel that is far removed from the teachings of Jesus. For them, it seems, Jesus does not exist. The God they worship so fanatically reflects more accurately the Old Testament mentality evident in such lines as “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” (Psalm 137: 9). Such cruelty is not found in the New Testament, but this sort of attitude is quite plain in the Republican stance on healthcare. The health plan the (Christian) Republicans want to enact, condemns the poor to premature death, makes pregnancy for them impossible to pay and, in essence, has the same outcome as dashing babies to death against the rocks.
A religion of anger.
These people, full of ‘goddiness’, obsessed with furious Old Testament wrath, are a far cry from Jesus who – Luke 18: 16 – said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” American Religion has no clue about the Kingdom and there’s no ‘Jesus sentiment’ in their make-up. On the contrary, the National Rifle Association finds a welcome there, in total contrast with the words of Jesus: (Matthew 26: 52) “For all who draw the sword (carry a gun) will die by the sword (be killed by a bullet.)
Two weeks ago, in the Rose Garden, after being introduced by “Christian” Vice President Mike Pence, Trump addressed a crowd of prominent church leaders, flanked by his “spiritual adviser,” the televangelist Paula White, who sells “resurrection seeds” for the low, low price of $1,144.
This longtime televangelist and senior Pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Florida, Paula White offered her followers an Easter Sunday deliverance from a spiritual death sentence for a $1,144 “resurrection seed”, a fee, she says, was set by God.
The amount of $1,144 is based on John 11 verse 44, and refers to Jesus resurrecting Lazarus.
It reminds me of Martin Luther, the Reformer who, in 1517, protested the sale of indulgences giving people an entry to heaven for a fee. It gave Martin Luther the incentive to challenge the Roman Catholic Church which culminated in his affixing 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, starting the REFORMATION on October 31 1517, soon 500 years ago.
On the eve of the first National Day of Prayer of his presidency, Donald Trump invited his closest evangelical advisors to join him for a private, long-awaited dinner celebration at the White House.
For the first time since they formed last June, the members of Trump’s campaign advisory board were meeting together not in weekly phone calls but in person, having already accomplished what a year ago many thought was a long shot.
Less than four months into Trump’s presidency, their biggest hope of getting a conservative Supreme Court justice on the bench had been reached, and their supporters’ other objectives were in sight.
As they gathered in the Blue Room, news was spreading through Washington that Trump was preparing an executive order to relax prohibitions on religious organizations’ political activities, and the House of Representatives was preparing to vote on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Most of Trump’s evangelical advisory board flew in for the event. In addition to Trump’s longtime spiritual advisor Paula White, there were Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress, evangelist Franklin Graham, Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson, former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, South Carolina televangelist Mark Burns, Faith and Freedom Coalition chairman Ralph Reed, and others.
They were joined by top White House officials, including Vice President Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon.
These guests at Trump’s table asked him questions about the health care bill, and Trump indicated that he was very positive about the passage. As we now know the health matter is still in limbo.
The evening, guests say, was more a celebration of their victories so far than a discussion on future policy. Trump took photos with the guests in the Red Room, Graham kick off festivities with a prayer, and a dinner of shrimp scampi with parsley butter, red wine braised short ribs, and wild ramp gnocchi was served. White presented Trump with a gift on behalf of the group from the Museum of the Bible, a framed page of an original King James Bible from 1611 A.D., “a Bible which as you know was commissioned by a political leader in service to the church,” she said.
Evangelical musician Steven Curtis Chapman performed his songs “Be Still and Know that I am God” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, gave a benediction, and Trump then invited everyone up to the residence for a brief after party, complete with a tour of the Lincoln bedroom and the Truman balcony, before shaking hands again.
“It was a reunion more than anything,” Bachmann says. “For people of faith, there was so much trepidation about what would happen in this election. They really felt that if Mrs. Clinton had prevailed it would have spelled a diminution of the nation, the nation would have morally suffered.”
The evening reaffirmed the bond Trump has forged with evangelical and social conservative leaders who propelled him victory in November, one based on shared policy ambitions and often couched in prayer events. Jeffress, who preached a private sermon for Trump the morning of his inauguration, addressed the group briefly, reminding Trump, “Mr. President, we are going to be your most loyal friends,” and “We thank God every day that you are the president of the United States.” Trump at one point took the podium to a standing ovation, and spoke of the large numbers of evangelical voters who elected him in November. Exit polls showed 80% of white evangelicals backed Trump.
The next morning, the leaders gathered again, this time in the Rose Garden for the signing of Trump’s latest executive order. “This won’t be a token and this won’t be a bone that is thrown,” Bachmann says. “We will see the goal of preserving religious liberty fulfilled.”
The Judas comparison.
The gathering of the ‘CHRISTIAN’ leaders at the White House reminded me of Judas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, who, driven by lust for money, and the wrong concept of Jesus’ mission on earth, betrayed him.
The leaders of THE AMERICAN RELIGION are doing exactly the same thing. They totally misunderstand the meaning of the gospel, captioned in John 3: 16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son as an offering to buy back the COSMOS from the great adversary.” 1 John 5: 19 clearly outlines ‘that the whole world (cosmos) is under the control of the evil one.’
The very leaders who are charged with preaching the renewal of the earth are betraying this mission by endorsing the most powerful politician in the world who has vouched –and now is implementing – the destruction of God’s Holy Creation-Word, perfectly in line with THE AMERICAN RELIGION which has severed all ties with the Son of God, whose humanity they deny.
Jesus always calls himself THE SON OF MAN, which means that he personifies the HUMAN RACE. Colossians 1 portrays him as ‘the first-born of creation’. Only as perfect God and perfect Man could he act as The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
THE AMERICAN RELIGION denies that, and with its leaders associating themselves with the most nihilistic president ever, is certain proof that what generally is believed to be Christian, no longer deserves that label.
Bonhoeffer was correct when he wrote that God has granted American Christianity no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God.”
THE AMERICAN RELIGION sees the human body, being matter, as evil, and God who is spirit as wholly good.
It also denies Christ’s true humanity, and sees salvation as an escape from the body, because the body is evil. It also regards creation as an object of exploitation, all pure symptoms of GNOSTICISM.
This dangerous heresy explains the political climate of the USA and prepares the ground for welcoming the coming of the ANTICHRIST with open arms.
Just as the church in Jesus’ days condemned him to death, so the church of our days condemns his beloved COSMOS to death, hastening the coming of the New Earth where finally God’s laws will rule forever.