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David S. Cohen
Wed, June 22, 2022, 10:06 AM·6 min read

It’s that time of year again, when six conservative lawyers impose a retrograde view of the world on unsuspecting people everywhere. Yup, it’s the end of the year for the Supreme Court. And this year, the rightwing hijacking of the court is going to be more apparent than ever.

Tuesday’s decision in Carson v. Makin really sets the tone for the next two weeks. In this case, two Christian private schools challenged a program in Maine that provided tuition assistance to families in rural school districts that don’t have their own public school. Parents could use the tuition assistance to send their children to private school, but Maine prohibited parents from using the money to attend a religious school. The rationale behind that carve-out was that the First Amendment’s prohibition on establishing a religion, so the state banned its tax dollars from going to religion.

Sounds straightforward and reasonable enough, but not to this Supreme Court. This court, dominated by conservative Christians, has almost never faced a claim brought by a religious entity that it didn’t agree with. Looking for exceptions from birth control mandates, anti-discrimination law, and COVID protections? If you’re religious, this court has your back! How about forcing state and local governments to give you money, assistance, and support? Again, if you’re religious, you’re in luck once again!

So the ruling wasn’t much of a surprise, but it’s still a shock to the American system of government. The schools that asked for public tax dollar support from Maine have discriminatory admissions and hiring policies against gay and trans people as well as those who are non-Christian. No matter to this court. If Maine is funding allows tuition assistance to go to any private school, it has to allow the funding to go to religious schools as well, even ones with discriminatory policies. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for himself and the other five conservatives on the Court (Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett), explained that “a state need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

Framed this way, it sounds quite benign. However, what these Justices are doing is reading one part of the First Amendment to the exclusion of another. The First Amendment protects freedom of religion, but it also guarantees a separation between church and state. This requires a fine balance, but as Justice Breyer notes in dissent, the court is now paying almost exclusive attention to the first part while ignoring the second. Justice Sotomayor puts an even finer point on it in her own dissent, saying that rather than being a constitutional requirement, “the Court leads us to a place [today] where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.” Stated differently, with this court, what conservative Christians want, conservative Christians get. Because apparently that’s what the Constitution requires.

But this is just the beginning of the conservative wrecking ball we’re staring right into over the next 10 days or so. The court has 13 more cases to decide. It typically decides all of its cases by the end of June, though it will have to rush this year to do so. With opinion releases, the court can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants. There are no rules, so it could finish by June 30, or go into July. It’s completely up to them. The only thing we do know for sure at this point is that the next decision day is Thursday of this week.

Among the 13 remaining cases are many that are going to recast American society in the vision of the modern Republican party. Most prominent is the abortion case that is almost certain to overrule Roe v. Wade. In that case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, we’ve already seen the draft majority opinion from Justice Alito that obliterates not only Roe but also much of the court’s privacy jurisprudence. Theoretically, that could change, and the court might moderate in its ultimate decision, but most people expect the final opinion to do exactly what the draft opinion did. The result will be a country where roughly half the states ban abortion while the other states allow it with varying forms of regulation. This decision, being one of the most significant in the court’s history, is likely to come on the last day of the term (whenever that is).

In super-close second place for the most watched decision of the court’s term is the New York gun case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the court is reviewing a New York law that prohibits most people from obtaining a concealed-carry permit for self-defense. After oral argument, there was no doubt that the court was going to require New York to allow people in the state to have concealed-carry permits. In fact, the tone of the oral argument was so extreme that it seemed some Justices, concerned about dangerous subways and street corners, would even vote to require every New Yorker to carry a gun at all times. But, after Uvalde, there’s some speculation that the court will moderate its decision as a way of reading the moment. More likely, though, is that on the last or second-last day of the term we get a landmark decision from this court blessing and extending this country’s obsession with guns.

But wait, there’s more! The Justices will also decide a major First Amendment school prayer case regarding a public school football coach who was not re-hired after he prayed with students following games. It is also considering whether the Biden administration properly rescinded President Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy, which forced immigrants to go back to Mexico while their immigrations proceedings happened. And they are considering whether President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate power plant carbon emissions. If you’ve made it this far in the article, you probably know what to expect with each of these cases — the coach will win, the remain in Mexico policy will be reinstated, and the EPA will be blocked.

After all, those outcomes are consistent with the basic Republican party platform. Which means over the course of the next two weeks, the smart money is on the Supreme Court seamlessly following along.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/supreme-court-just-fused-church-140603148.html

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Revelation and the Papacy

Introductory Comment

Catholicism is firm in its application of Matt. 16:19 to itself: (And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven). It is one of the theological foundation stones upon which the papacy is cleverly established. Their arguments seems plausible and of course, sprinkled with some texts and comments by “scholars” this feat of theological gymnastics is seemingly accomplished. Already well respected across the globe, they are engaging in a sustained effort to legitimize the leadership role of the Pope in global affairs well beyond his present status and in preparation for the final crisis. How well can the current crop of Adventists in our multicultural and ecumenical environment respond to their arguments? (RG)

Does the Book of Revelation Disprove the Papacy?

The book of Revelation has Jesus holding the “key of David,” so how can Catholics argue that Peter has the keys?

By Suan Sunna 3/7/2022

Catholics have a “Peter syndrome”!

According to some, Catholics exaggerate details about Peter in order to prove the papacy. For example, Catholics cite Peter’s possession of the keys as proof of the papacy. But it’s Jesus who possesses the keys in Revelation 3:7 and not Peter! Checkmate, Catholics!

Is it that simple? Not exactly.

Let’s first look at what Revelation 3:7 says:

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens.”

It’s obvious that “the holy one” here is referring to Jesus, and Isaiah 22:22, a common prooftext for the papacy, is cited here verbatim. And Peter doesn’t have the keys here. Jesus has them. Ergo, Peter doesn’t have the keys, and the papacy is unfounded. Right?

There are at least three serious problems with this objection.

First, it’s a false dichotomy. Both Jesus and Peter can have the keys. Peter possesses them as the chief steward, much like how Eliakim did under King Hezekiah in Isaiah 22:22, whereas Jesus possesses them as the Davidic king. After all, the key of David belongs to the Davidic house or dynasty. New Testament scholar Patrick Gray notes, “In the symbolism of the keys, which become a standard element in Petrine iconography and in popular presentations of Peter standing guard at heaven’s pearly gates, many scholars discern an allusion to the ancient Israelite practice of the king granting authority to a prime minister who, as holder of ‘the key of the house of David,’ is deputized to make binding decisions on his behalf (Isa. 22:20-23).”

Notice that the key belongs to the Israelite king, and it is therefore his to bestow upon a chief steward or prime minister. Nonetheless, the king can also use his key (or keys) at will since it belongs to him. This is the case with Jesus and Peter.

Second, the objection fails to appreciate how metaphors are used flexibly in Scripture. Regarding Matthew 16:18-19, D.A. Carson observes,

Here Jesus builds his church; in 1 Corinthians 3:10, Paul is ‘an expert builder.’ In 1 Corinthians 3:11, Jesus is the church’s foundation; in Ephesians 2:19-20, the apostles and prophets are the foundation (cf. Rev. 21:14), and Jesus is the ‘cornerstone.’ Here Peter has the keys; in Revelation 1:18; 3:7, Jesus has the keys. In John 9:5, Jesus is the ‘light of the world’; in Matthew 5:14, his disciples are. None of these pairs threatens Jesus’ uniqueness. They simply show how metaphors must be interpreted primarily with reference to their immediate contexts. If the Bible is flexible with its metaphors, then we should follow its lead. The keys are possessed not by either Peter or Jesus, but by both.

This now gets us to how Revelation 3:7 actually strengthens the case for the papacy! Although Jesus shares the keys with Peter in Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7 reminds us that the authority given to Peter is ultimately Jesus’ authority. This would make Peter the vicar or chief representative of Christ, especially if he is being appointed chief steward like Eliakim in Isaiah!

Now, someone might concede that Peter had the keys during his life but insist that the keys are owned solely by Jesus after Peter’s death in Rome. This is why Isaiah 22:22 is applied directly to Jesus in Revelation 3:7 and not Linus, Cletus, Clement, etc. Thus, there was no Petrine succession.

Once again, this claim exceeds the evidence. A Catholic can reasonably affirm that Petrine succession is true and that Jesus possesses the keys, just as every chief steward in Israel shared the keys with the king.

But why doesn’t Revelation mention anybody else possessing the keys? Revelation is primarily focused upon the apocalypse, so Jesus is placed front and center. This explains why John the apostle emphasizes Christ’s possession of the keys in the immediate context of Revelation.

Furthermore, the historical witness of those within living memory (that is, those who knew the apostles or knew those who knew the apostles) is unanimous that Peter had successors in Rome. Oxford professor Markus Bockmuehl, though disputing papal supremacy, admits in his book Simon Peter in Scripture and Living Memory, “Nevertheless, it is also the case that the remembered Peter’s profile in the second century and subsequent centuries includes a recognition that his ministry was entrusted to a continuing succession of ecclesial shepherds in various places of his activity (including Antioch) but above all in Rome.” Living memory matters not only because it is generally reliable, but because it is the same kind of memory that eventually materialized into the Gospels.

To top it all off, I’ve also argued from Isaiah 22:22 that Peter would naturally have successors, given the nature of the chief steward’s office. In light of my previous point, we see that history confirms what Scripture anticipates.

Thus, the problem is not that Catholics have “Peter syndrome.” The issue is that objections like the ones we tackled above actually undersell Peter, create false dichotomies, and fail to appreciate the Biblical context. They in fact beg the question by assuming that if something is said of Jesus, then it be said only of Jesus. But a deeper study of Scripture shows that Jesus shared his life and authority with his apostles . . . and, above all, Peter.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-the-book-of-revelation-disprove-the-papacy

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Introductory Comments
(Evangelical America are chipping away at that dreaded “Wall,” already described as a metaphor by a former Chief Justice. The mentality is very present among their congregations but the apparatus to complete the process is not yet in place. Nevertheless, the make-up of the Supreme Court, as well as lower courts point to the inevitability of the bricks coming down gradually and cleverly. The scenario described in Rev. 13 and endorsed in the Great Controversy will be upon us, perhaps with the next national crisis.) RJG

How some churches' ties to Trump-based politics are fueling an exodus of young evangelicals 

Patrick Smith Tue, April 19, 2022, 2:24 AM ABERDEEN, Scotland — Jared Stacy had made the decision to leave his job as youth pastor at Spotswood Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, just a week before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Disillusioned with his church and the increasingly conservative and nationalist nature of the broader evangelical Christian community to which he had dedicated his life, he was prepared to move with his wife and three children 3,500 miles away to the weather-beaten northeast of Scotland for a new start. With their bags packed, Stacy watched the riot unfold, recognizing some of the Christian and evangelical language and imagery wielded by some protesters. He said he saw it as

further proof that then-President Donald Trump had taken on a saintly status among some evangelicals. “When your God loses, you have to find a way to get him back on top,” he said. “The whole idea was his man was supposed to be in the White House. What do you do when your God loses?” Stacy, 31, is one of a small but growing number of younger evangelical Christians who have left what they see as a religious community led astray from its faith by a fervent strain of Trump-based politics. He and other former evangelicals warn that in a post-Jan. 6 world, the movement faces a challenge in attracting and keeping young, progressive Christians alienated by its relationship with conservative politics. A 2020 study of religion in the U.S. found 14 percent of people identified as white evangelical, a sharp drop from 23 percent in 2006. As few as 8 percent of white millennials identify as evangelical, according to a 2018 study, compared to 26 percent of white people older than 65. As the theologian Russell Moore, a key figure in modern evangelicalism, wrote in October: “Many of us have observed, anecdotally, a hemorrhaging of younger evangelicals from churches and institutions in recent years.” The problem, he said, is “many have come to believe that the religion itself is a vehicle for the politics and cultural grievances, not the other way around.” While not every white evangelical Christian supports Trump or a conservative agenda, the movement has long been associated with Republicanism and conservative values — not least through the shared emphasis on family and opposition to abortion rights. About three-quarters of white evangelicals supported Trump in the 2020 election.
“There are people who say evangelical support for Trump is inevitable based on who we’ve been in our history,” Stacy said, sitting in his small one-story apartment in Aberdeen, a Scottish port city closer to Norway than to London. “The question that stuck in my shoe was ‘Is it really inevitable?’” It may not be inevitable, but people who have studied evangelical communities say the prospect of a church separated from politics is dwindling. Kristin Du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” said that while churches themselves may claim to be simply spreading the gospel, what many do is deeply political. “I’ve been told many times from people who attend highly politicized churches that nothing political happens inside those spaces,” she said. “They say, ‘We come, we worship.’ But then I attend and I hear prayers against the evils of big government.” Stacy, who is originally from the Tampa Bay area of Florida, spent four years as a youth pastor at Spotswood. The church, in keeping with the wider evangelical movement, believes the Bible to be the literal word of God. He worked at Spotswood as its interim communications director in 2012, then spent three years studying for a master’s degree in theology and working as a campus pastor in New Orleans. He returned to Spotswood as a youth pastor in 2016. He said he was well aware of the politics of the area and the church, saying he had conversations with church members who espoused opinions and viewpoints that were not uncommon among conservatives, such as that the Civil War was about states’ rights.
But in the years that would follow, he said, he became more uncomfortable with what he saw as a politicized, conspiratorial mindset. Church members began to float QAnon-style conspiracy theories or claim that events like the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a 90-minute drive from Fredericksburg, were the fault of the left. “Someone would say ‘You know antifa was at the rally, right?’ or ‘Why are we having this conversation about racial justice when there is sex trafficking going all around us?’” Stacy recounted. “What concerns me is QAnon may go away, it may go out of style, but the apocalyptic paranoia that seized control — that’s not going anywhere. “What made it urgent to me was if I have to go buy into this politicization and conspiratorial mind in order to follow this peasant from Nazareth, I don’t want anything to do with that,” Stacy said. Chris Sosa, 32, grew up in Virginia and attended Spotswood up to five times a week until he moved away for college. He said the church was not shy about mixing politics and religion, even though its website, in a section outlining its beliefs, says, “Church and state should be separate.” “I was taught that anyone who said they were separate just hated America,” he said. Spotswood declined to address criticisms raised by Stacy and Sosa in detail. Instead, Drew Landry, a senior pastor, referred in an emailed response to the church’s mission: “We exist to be a community of light by making disciples who love God and love their neighbor through vertical worship, transformational teaching, biblical community and missional living.”
“As for our church doctrine and practice, we affirm The Baptist Faith and Message 2000,” he added, referring to a statement of faith that summarizes key Southern Baptist thought. Stacy, who is studying for a doctorate in theology, said he views the Jan. 6 riot as a turning point. More than 100 prominent evangelical Christians attacked the “perversion” of rioters’ using Christianity to justify the violence of Jan. 6 in an open letter published six weeks later. But Du Mez said she worries that much of the evangelical community is unwilling to listen to outside criticism. Many evangelicals get their news from and form opinions based on a narrow set of media outlets, she said, including Christian talk radio and Fox News — because of a long-standing distrust of mainstream media. “So their reality is just so different, and the conclusions they draw are so different. That’s where we see the popularity of ‘Stop the Steal’ in evangelical spaces, the idea that Biden is not a legitimate president — that’s a fairly widespread view,” Du Mez said. As for the future, Stacy cautions that the forces that pushed him away from the church and from America are still just as strong. “Just because people are being put in prison and there’s a [congressional Jan. 6] committee doesn’t mean anyone is watching for the ripple effects in the church. This isn’t going away.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-one-evangelical-pastor-left-093340569.html

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Scholars, activists brief lawmakers on role of Christian nationalism at insurrection
The meeting, which included Rep. Jamie Raskin, was a rare instance of lawmakers openly discussing the prominence of religious expression during the attack.

March 18, 2022
By Jack Jenkins

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus met with a group of scholars and activists on Thursday evening (March 17) to review a new report detailing the role Christian nationalism played in the insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The meeting was a rare instance of lawmakers openly addressing the prominence of religious expression during the attack, which was evident on Jan. 6 but has not been a central focus of public discussions on Capitol Hill.

California Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman, who said he first discussed the role of Christian nationalism and the insurrection with some of the panelists last summer, hosted the meeting for a slate of lawmakers that included Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a co-founder of the Freethought Caucus who also serves on the House Select Committee investigating the attack.

Raskin opened the virtual briefing by noting that while a variety of ideologies were represented among insurrectionists, Christian nationalism “clearly figured highly in the events of the day,” and was “a unifying theme for many of the factions that assembled on January 6.”

His words were echoed by an array of panelists who presented findings from a recent report they helped author with backing from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Among other things, the 66-page study documents in painstaking detail the prevalence of Christian nationalist symbols and rhetoric at the insurrection and a series of events that led up to the storming of the Capitol.

Amanda Tyler, head of the BJC, told lawmakers the report faced “defensive pushback” from some conservative Christians after it was unveiled last month but has been embraced by Christians who see opposing Christian nationalism as a religious call.

Let’s be clear: Christianity does not and cannot unite Americans under a national identity,” Tyler said, adding that Christian nationalism “debases Christianity.” Samuel Perry, a University of Oklahoma sociologist and co-author of “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” told lawmakers he and others who study the ideology often use the more specific term “white Christian nationalism,” because data indicates Christian nationalist sentiments appear to “perform differently when white Americans affirm them as opposed to non-white Americans.”

He was followed by Jemar Tisby, a historian and head of Black Christian collective The Witness, who contrasted white Christian nationalism with fusions of faith and activism among Black Christians.

“In contrast to white Christian nationalism, Black Christians have historically tended to embrace a kind of patriotism that leads to an expansion of democratic processes, the inclusion of marginalized people and a call for the nation to live up to its foundational ideas,” he said.

Andrew L. Seidel of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a chief author of the report, closed out the briefing presentations by outlining the way Christian nationalism operated as a “permission structure” for activists, arguing it gave them “the moral and mental license they needed” to participate in events such as the Million MAGA March and the Jericho Marches in the months prior to the insurrection, as well as to attack the Capitol.

“(There were) other motivations and drivers of this attack, but this Christian nationalist permission structure — doing God’s will, fighting for God’s law, returning the country to its Christian roots — pervaded a lot of those other obvious drivers of this attack.” Lawmakers appeared largely convinced by the report, peppering the panelists with questions over the course of the hour-long briefing.

“I think the proof points about just how central Christian nationalism — we should call it white Christian nationalism — was to the planning and the execution of the insurrection is really undeniable,” Huffman told Religion News Service in an interview. Asked by Rep. Jerry McNerney, a California Democrat, to define the “fundamental core” that unites Christian nationalists (“I don’t think it’s belief in Jesus,” McNerney quipped), Perry argued it was an “ethno-culture.”

“This blends the idea of kind of an ethnic identity — this is the white part of it, but also ethnic implies a part of culture,” Perry said. “Religion is a part of this, but also an understanding of white — not necessarily white race, but whiteness. This combination of perceptions (that) the nation rightfully belongs to ‘people like us’ — and by people
like us I mean, the ethno-culture, the white Christian conservative, traditionalist, almost certainly native born.”

Multiple lawmakers, such as Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, expressed concern about the role of Christian nationalism in ongoing fights with school boards across the country. School board meetings have become a staging ground for heated disputes over COVID-19 restrictions and supposed use of critical race theory, featuring many activists who have invoked religion. Several candidates currently running for school board seats across the country, Pocan said, appear to be tied to Christian nationalism. Raskin also mentioned Christian nationalism’s pervasive role in ongoing political disputes.

“More than a year later, Christian nationalists continue to join forces to try to challenge our democratic institutions and values — whether it’s in the suppression of voting rights or the promotion of various culture, more battles, including to my mind the utterly fraudulent attack on critical race theory,” he said.

Seidel agreed, noting he planned to send testimony to the Jan. 6 selection committee on the subject. He argued that while there was a “moment of shame” among Christian nationalists immediately following the insurrection, many have since “adopted the insurrection and seem emboldened by it.”

He pointed to data showcased by Perry during his presentation that showed shifting views of the insurrection among Christian nationalists over the past year. In February 2021, immediately after the insurrection, 75% of white Americans who scored highest on Perry’s Christian nationalism index — a series of questions that gauge Christian nationalism — said those who attacked the Capitol should be caught and prosecuted.

By August of that same year, the number dropped to only 54%.

By contrast, those who scored the lowest on the Christian nationalism index barely budged in that same timeframe, with around 95% saying both times they were asked that the insurrectionists should be caught and put on trial.

Similarly, slightly less than 15% of hardline Christian nationalists in February 2021 agreed with the statement “I stand with the protesters who stormed the Capitol.” Come August, that number went up to 26%.

Raskin also asked whether panelists believed Christian nationalism played any role in inspiring what he described as “the medieval violence” of Jan. 6.

Seidel responded by arguing that prominent Christian nationalists used “very militant” language in the lead up to Jan. 6, often couched in the rhetoric of “spiritual warfare.” Among the incidents chronicled in the report is a speech by Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the militant group Oath Keepers, who is currently facing sedition charges for his alleged role in the insurrection. Delivered at a faith-themed “Jericho March” event in Washington, D.C., on December 12, 2020, Rhodes threatened a “bloody war” if the 2020 election results weren’t overturned.

When he finished, the event’s emcee, conservative Christian commentator Eric Metaxas, responded: “Oh, God bless you. This guy’s keepin’ it real, folks.”

Similarly, the night before the insurrection, Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke stood before a crowd in Washington and prayed for Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the militant group Proud Boys who now also faces charges related to the insurrection. Locke said:

“We just thank God that we can lock shields, and we can come shoulder-to-shoulder with people that still stand up for this nation … God, help us to live, help us to fight, and if need be, lay down our life for this nation.”

Tisby added that historical efforts to “enforce this vision of a white Christian nationalist America” — particularly those used to further racist goals — often didn’t have to use explicit calls to violence. He pointed to the example of onetime Mississippi senator and Ku Klux Klan member Theodore G. Bilbo, who declared in 1946 that the best time to stop Black people from voting is “the night before.”

Huffman closed out the meeting by asking panelists how best to combat Christian nationalism. The panel advocated for an embrace of the separation of church and state, the building of a “coalition of the religious willing” to combat Christian nationalism and the marginalization of the ideology.

Huffman echoed the panelists after the event, saying the “antidote” to Christian nationalism is “defending the line of separation between church and state.” The Freethought Caucus, he said, will continue to stay engaged with dialogue around Christian nationalism in the future.

In the meantime, questions remain as to how to broach the topic of Christian nationalism among his colleagues on Capitol Hill. Asked after the event whether he saw Christian nationalism among members of Congress ahead of the insurrection, Huffman laughed, replying: “Is that a rhetorical question? Of course.”

“We had colleagues at the ellipse for the pep rally that launched the insurrection,” he said, referring to the rally in support for former President Donald Trump that immediately preceded the Capitol attack. “If you look at their talking points, they just check every box on the white Christian nationalist agenda.”

https://religionnews.com/2022/03/18/scholars-activists-brief-lawmakers-on-role-of-christian-nationalism-at-insurrection

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CP VOICES | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 06, 2022
By Wallace B. Henley, Exclusive Columnist

In an age when chaos rages in society, churches should be houses of refuge with biblically-based governing structures. When the Church is unstable, it is reflecting the upheaval of its culture and cannot minister to people whose lives have been turned upside down.

How can people discover the peace of the Kingdom of Heaven when churches — the agencies of the Kingdom — are themselves shattered by the instabilities of the cultures in which they exist?

These issues were brought to my mind as I read a Christian Post report by Barry Bowen, “The Dangerous Legal Structures of Hillsong Church.”

There Bowen discussed a practice in Hillsong and other megachurches and ministries that include a “no members” clause in their founding documents. Bowen showed in his report how such foundational documents were like building “on a foundation of sand.”

In 1986 I was called as senior pastor of a small church in Houston. The pulpit committee chairman told me I could install any kind of church governance style that I desired.

I had just completed two terms as president of The Alabama Baptist Convention, consisting of 3,000 congregations, two universities, a college, and other institutions.

However, during my tenure from 1983-1985, I had become very concerned because of the number of church splits and pastor firings. I began to study causes and interviewed many church leaders in my travels around the state.

Almost invariably the problem was in the governance structures in the local congregations.

Southern Baptists, along with other evangelical groups, had embraced a “deacon-led” concept for which I could find no support in Scripture. In that model, the pastor was largely regarded as a hireling who worked under the favor and wishes of the diaconate.

In one of the churches I served, we experienced a period of rapid growth that was troubling to the deacon chairman. He told me that years before the deacons had determined that the church would limit itself to 800 members.

Needless to say, tension and discord stirred the stormy climate in almost every deacon meeting.

In 1983, as president of the state Southern Baptist body, I began to probe the reason so many pastors were fired. Non-biblical church governance was almost always a major cause.

So, in 1986, I turned down the call of a much larger church to move to Houston, where I could shape a biblically-based governance structure.

As I studied non-biblical church governance patterns, I could see there were three major styles: majority, oligarchy, and monarchy.

The “majority” approach prevailed in many evangelical churches, including those under the deacon-led model. Essentially it operated through politics, with meetings conducted in smoke-filled rooms without the smoke. There were secret interactions, deal-making, and all kinds of behaviors I had observed through my years in secular politics and on the White House staff.

I also noted that the “deacons” in the early New Testament church were servants (the Greek word even can mean, a “table waiter”). A deacon-led church, therefore, had placed the servants in the role of masters.

The “majority model” of church governance also seemed at variance with the Bible. It is an authoritarian style that has brought disaster to many churches and ministries

The “oligarchy” model of church governance put the power in the hands of a few dominant people. They were usually part of the church’s founding group, wealthy, or leaders in the community organizations.

I could find no biblical support for such a governing structure. In fact, the Apostle James had been starkly clear about how possible oligarchs should be treated,

The third type of church governance, the “monarchy” style is the approach that would put “no members” in the incorporation papers of a church or ministry. In this style, the senior pastor or ministry leader is authoritarian, and there is little or no sharing of authority. This mode is indeed “dangerous” as Bowen described problems in Hillsong and other highly visible churches.

So, in 1986 in Houston, I wanted to avoid designing our church governance type around any of those non-biblical, failed models.

The abuse of power I had observed as a young aide in the Nixon White House can extend to every level of human structure and organization. Churches are not immune to “Watergates” (the scandal that caused Nixon to be the first president to resign). Thus, I wanted the governing structure of our church to be solidly built on the strong foundation of Scripture.

That led me to set in place (in consultation with leaders in our church whom I had come to know as biblically informed, living model lives in Christ, and trustworthy by all the church) to develop the biblical eldership model.

Relationship is vital in the lifestyle to which Christ calls us. I began to pray and spend time with men who might be considered as elders. Since I was the pastor, I was “apostolic” –Greek: “sent one”) in that the congregation had called me to come as “one sent” with a broad vision). But to balance this I wanted leaders around me who manifested other ministry giftings as listed in Ephesians 4 — prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, as well as challenge me if I drifted from scriptural authority.

The process took an entire year. In the end, I asked the congregation, after watching these candidates, to bear witness with me that these were the leaders who should be our elders. That church grew rapidly, and many years later, is still ministering dynamically in Houston — though I have been gone more than 20 years.

The Church in contemporary society should be a stabilizing force, not “tossed about.” (Ephesians 4:4) Such a church must be stable not only in doctrine but also in structure.

Wallace Henley is a former White House and Congressional aide. He is now a teaching pastor at Grace Church, The Woodlands, Texas. Wallace is author of more than 20 books, including God and Churchill, and his newest, Who Will Rule the Coming 'gods: The Looming Spiritual Crisis of Artificial Intelligence.

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-urgent-need-for-biblical-governance.html

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Introductory Comments… and Article

How would an Adventist Christian respond to the arguments in defense of the Papacy, if obliged to do so? Catholic Answers, “the world’s largest database of answers about the beliefs and practices of the Catholic faith” shared these points on the Papacy on the occasion of the Pope's visit to the World Congress of Families in Pennsylvania in 2015. The writer identified what he perceived to be the five (5) arguments against the papacy and proceeded to weave a clever theological web around each of his points.

Of course, Seventh Day Adventism is specifically mentioned in connection with argument number five- the anti-christ and the beast of Revelation. Today, many Adventists ministers and laymen are skeptical, even in denial concerning the biblical identity of the papacy. Some merely avoid the topic while others are like "dumb dogs that will not bark." (Isa. 56:10). Most will not take the time and effort to examine the evidence recently made available by historian and researcher Edwin de Kock (874 pages), or even a much smaller work by Steve Wohlberg of White Horse Ministries. It is no wonder that Catholicism continues to openly bolster its case for the papacy, further popularizing an institution that is more than 1500 years old and a global phenomenon.

Perhaps it is because the scriptural identity of the Papacy that emerged from the Protestant Reformation, of which Seventh day Adventism is the only true and faithful heir, have been made abundantly explicit with copious documented evidence. Can we meet the challenge that this writer poses in support of the Papacy? (RJG)

Defending the Papacy

TRENT HORN • 9/1/2015

As Pope Francis travels through the United States during his visit to the World Congress of Families in Pennsylvania, expect Protestant Fundamentalists to be denouncing him both online at in anti-papal tracts distributed at his events. In response to these efforts, let’s examine the top five arguments such critics typically make against the papacy:

1. The papacy is not found in the Bible.

It’s true the word papacy is not in the Bible, but neither are the words Trinity or Bible found there. This argument assumes that all Christian doctrine is explicitly described in the Bible, even though this teaching itself is not found in Scripture. Catholics believe, on the other hand, that divine revelation comes from God’s word given to us in written form (Sacred Scripture) and oral form (Sacred Tradition), both of which testify to the existence of the papacy.

According to Scripture, Christ founded a visible Church that would never go out of existence and had authority to teach and discipline believers (see Matt. 16:18-19, 18:17). St. Paul tells us this Church is “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15) and it was built on “the foundation of the apostles” (Eph. 2:20). Paul also tells us the Church would have a hierarchy composed of deacons (1 Tim. 2:8-13); presbyters, from where we get the English word priest (1 Tim. 5:17); and bishops (1 Tim. 3:1-7).

Paul even instructed one of these bishops, Titus, to appoint priests on the island of Crete (Titus 1:5). In A.D. 110, St. Ignatius of Antioch told his readers, “Follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop.”

Unlike the apostles, Christ’s Church would exist for all ages, so the apostle’s passed on to their successors the authority to bind and loose doctrine (see Matt. 18:18), forgive sins (see John 20:23), and speak on behalf of Christ (see Luke 10:16). Acts 1:20, for example, records how after Judas’s death Peter proclaimed that Judas’s office (or, in Greek, his bishoporic) would be transferred to a worthy successor. In 1 Timothy 5:22, Paul warned Timothy to “not be hasty in the laying on of hands” when he appointed new leaders in the church.

At the end of the first century, Clement of Rome, who according to ancient tradition was ordained by Peter himself, wrote, “Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop . . . [so they made preparations that] . . . if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry” (Letter to the Corinthians 44:1–3).

Just as the apostles’ authority was passed on their successors, Peter’s authority as the leader of the apostles was passed on to his successor. This man inherited the keys to the kingdom of heaven (see Matt. 16:18-19) and Peter’s duty to shepherd Christ’s flock (see John 21:15-17). Peter’s successor was the pastor of Christ’s church and a spiritual father to the Lord’s children (1 Cor. 4:15), thus explaining his offices future title pope, which comes from papa, the Latin word for father.

2. Peter was important, but he had no special authority.

Peter’s role as “chief apostle” is evident in the fact that he is mentioned more than any other apostle, often speaks for the whole group, and is placed first in every list of the apostles. Since Judas is always listed last, we can deduce that these lists were made in order of importance. Moreover, Christ made Peter alone the shepherd over his whole flock (see John 21:15-17), and the book of Acts describes Peter’s unparalleled leadership in the early Church. This includes his authority to make a binding, dogmatic declaration at the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15). As the Anglican scholar J.N.D Kelly puts it, “Peter was the undisputed leader of the youthful church” (Oxford Dictionary of the Popes, 1).

Finally, in Matthew 16:18-19, Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, which means rock, and said, “You are Peter [rock], and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

This passage is an allusion to Isaiah 22:22, which tells of how Israel’s wicked chief steward Shebna was replaced with the righteous Eli’akim. Isaiah 22:22 said Eli’akim would have “the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.” Just as King Hezekiah gave Eli’akim authority to oversee the kingdom of Israel, Christ gave Peter authority to oversee his Church (i.e., the “keys to the kingdom”), which included the authority to “bind and loose”—in other words, to determine official doctrine and practice.

In response to these verses, some Protestants claim Peter is not the rock upon whom the Church was built, because 1 Corinthians 10:4 says “the rock was Christ.” Others say the Greek text of Matthew 16:18 shows that while Simon was called petros, the rock the Church will be built on was called petras, thus showing that the Church is not built on Peter. But in first Corinthians, Paul is talking about Christ shepherding ancient Israel, not the Church, and in Matthew 16, petros and petras both refer to Peter.

According to John 1:42, Jesus gave Simon the Aramaic name Kepha, which means simply “rock.” But unlike in Aramaic, in Greek the word rock is a feminine noun, so Matthew used the masculine version of rock, or petros, since calling Peter petras would have been on par with calling him Patricia! As Lutheran theologian Oscar Cullman puts it, “petra=Kepha=petros” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 98). Even the Protestant Reformer John Calvin said, “There is no difference of meaning, I acknowledge, between the two Greek words petros and petra” (Commentary on Matthew Mark, and Luke, vol. 2).

Finally, if Peter is not the rock upon whom the Church is built, then why did Jesus bother to change Simon’s name in the first place? As Protestant scholar Craig Keener writes in his commentary on Matthew, “[Jesus] plays on Simon’s nickname, ‘Peter,’ which is roughly the English ‘Rocky’: Peter is ‘rocky,’ and on this rock Jesus would build his Church” (426).

But didn’t Peter refer to himself as a “fellow elder” and not as “pope” in 1 Peter 5:1? Yes, but in this passage Peter is demonstrating humility that he is encouraging other priests to practice. He wrote, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another” (5:5), so exalting his status would have contradicted his message. Besides, St. Paul often referred to himself as a mere deacon (see 1 Cor. 3:5, 2 Cor. 11:23) and even said he was “the very least of all the saints” (Eph. 3:8)—but that did not take away from his authority as an apostle. Likewise, Peter’s description of himself as an elder does not take away from his authority as being “first” among the apostles (Matt 10:2).

3. The Bishop of Rome had no special authority in the early Church. Peter was never even in Rome!

Both the New Testament and the early Church Fathers testify to Peter being in Rome. At the end of his first letter, Peter says he is writing from “Babylon” (5:13), which was a common code word for Rome, because both empires were lavish persecutors of God’s people (see Rev. 17-18; Oxford Dictionary of the Popes, 6).

In the words of Protestant scholar D.A. Carson, Peter was “in Rome about 63 (the probable date of 1 Peter). Eusebius implies that Peter was in Rome during the reign of Claudius, who died in 54 (H.E. 2.14.6)” (An Introduction to the New Testament, 180). Peter may not have always been present in Rome (which would explain why Paul does not address him in his epistle to the Romans), but there is a solid tradition that Peter founded the Church in Rome and later died there.

For example, Paul says the Roman Church was founded by “another man” (Rom. 15:21), and St. Ignatius of Antioch told the Christians in Rome he would not command them in the same way Peter had previously commanded them. At the end of the second century, St. Irenaeus wrote, “The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and built up the church [of Rome], they handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus” (Against Heresies 3:3:3).

A priest named Gaius who lived during Irenaeus’s time even told a heretic named Proclus that “the trophies of the apostles” (i.e., their remains) were buried at Vatican Hill (Eusebius, Church History 2:25:5). Indeed, archaeological evidence unearthed in the twentieth century revealed a tomb attributed to Peter underneath St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, “it is probable that the tomb is authentic. It is also significant that Rome is the only city that ever claimed to be Peter’s place of death” (353).

In regard to the authority of the Bishop of Rome as Peter’s successor, in the first century Clement of Rome (the fourth pope) intervened in a dispute in the Church of Corinth. He warned those who disobeyed him that they would “involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger,” thus demonstrating his authority over non-Roman Christians. St. Ignatius of Antioch referred to the Roman Church as the one that teaches other churches and “presides in love” over them. In fact, the writings of Pope Clement (A.D. 92-99) and Pope Soter (A.D. 167-174) were so popular that they were read in the Church alongside Scripture (Eusebius, Church History 4:23:9).

In A.D. 190, Pope St. Victor I excommunicated an entire region of churches for refusing to celebrate Easter on its proper date. While St. Irenaeus thought this was not prudent, neither he nor anyone else denied that Victor had the authority to do this. Indeed, Irenaeus said, “it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church [Rome] on account of its preeminent authority” (Against Heresies, 3.3.2). Keep in mind that all of this evidence dates a hundred to two hundred years before Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire, thus deflating the Fundamentalist theory that the papacy was created by the Roman emperor in the fourth century.

Some people object that if Peter and his successors had special authority, why didn’t Christ say so when the apostles argued about “who was the greatest” (Luke 22:24)? The reason is that Christ did not want to contribute to their misunderstanding that one of them would be a privileged king. Jesus did say, however, that among the apostles there would be a “greatest” who would rule as a humble servant (Luke 22:26). That’s why since the sixth century popes have called themselves servus servorum Dei, or “servant of the servants of God.”

Pope Gregory I used the title in his dispute with the Patriarch of Constantinople John the Faster, who called himself the “Universal Bishop.” Gregory didn’t deny that one bishop had primacy over all the others, since in his twelfth epistle Gregory explicitly says Constantinople was subject to the authority of the pope. Instead, he denied that the pope was the bishop of every individual territory, since this would rob his brother bishops of their legitimate authority, even though they were still subject to him as Peter’s successor.

4. The Bible never says Peter was infallible, and history proves that Peter and many other alleged popes were very fallible.

The doctrine of papal infallibility teaches that the pope has a special grace from Christ that protects him from leading the Church into error. That grace won’t keep him from sinning (even gravely), nor will it give him the right answer to every issue facing the Church. Instead, it will protect the pope from officially leading the Church into heresy. As a private theologian, the pope might speculate, even incorrectly, about the Faith, but he will never issue a false teaching related to faith or morality that claims to be binding and infallible (or an erroneous ex cathedra teaching).

But why believe the pope is infallible? Matthew 16:18 says the “gates of Hell” will never prevail against the Church, so it makes sense that the pastor of Christ’s Church will never steer it into hell by teaching heresy. Luke 22:31-32 records Jesus telling Peter, “Satan has demanded to sift you all like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.” The original Greek in the passage shows that Satan demanded to sift “you all,” or all the apostles, but Jesus prayed only for Peter and his faith not to fail.

Now, it’s true that Christ once called Peter “Satan” for trying to stop the crucifixion (Matt. 16:23), and he knew Peter would later deny him at his trial. But God doesn’t call the perfect—he perfects the called. Christ prayed that once Peter had “turned again” from his sins, he would lead and strengthen the apostles. Jesus even appeared to Peter first after his Resurrection (1 Cor. 15:5).

Most Protestants would have to admit that Peter was infallible when he wrote 1 and 2 Peter, or at least that those epistles have no errors. Catholics simply take this reasoning to the logical conclusion that Peter never led the Church into error, nor did any of his successors. Some argue that Peter was fallible because St. Paul opposed him in Antioch and said Peter was wrong or “stood condemned” (Gal. 2:11-14). But in this situation Peter, at most, made an error in behavior, not teaching.

Peter feared antagonism from Christians who thought circumcision was necessary for salvation. So, while he was in their presence, Peter declined to eat with the uncircumcised. Paul criticized Peter for doing this, but Paul himself accommodated this same group when he had his disciple Timothy circumcised. Paul did this to make it easier to preach to the Jews (Acts 16:1-3), but Paul called circumcision a grave sin in Galatians 5:2. Therefore, if prudentially yielding to critics doesn’t invalidate St. Paul’s authority, then neither does it invalidate St. Peter’s.

No one denies that some popes engaged in serous sins, like fornication, but infallibility means only that the pope won’t teach error, not that he will be sinless. Indeed, some Church Fathers, such as St. Cyprian of Carthage, criticized the pope’s decisions; but even Cyprian believed the pope could not lead the Church astray. He writes in A.D. 256 of heretics who dare approach “the throne of Peter . . . to whom faithlessness could have no access” (Epistle 54.14), or, as other translations put it, “from whom no error can flow.”

Ironically, when well-read Protestants claim certain popes taught error, they pass over the tabloid-worthy medieval popes. They agree that even though a few of them engaged in debauchery, none of them took part in heresy. However, the examples they cite typically involve a pope cowardly tolerating heresy and not one officially teaching it. For example, it’s true that the Third Council of Constantinople (680) said Pope Honorius I (625-638) was a heretic, but only in the sense that Honorius failed to curb the Monothelete heresy, not that he endorsed it.

This heresy taught that Christ had only a divine will and not a corresponding human will. But even Jaroslav Pelikan, a renowned non-Catholic scholar of Church history, admits that Honorius’s opposition to the idea that Christ had two wills “was based on the interpretation of ‘two wills’ as ‘two contrary wills.’ He did not mean that Christ was an incomplete human being” (The Christian Tradition, vol. II, 151). Another good resource on this subject is Patrick Madrid’s book Pope Fiction, which contains a good overview of Honorius and other popes who are accused of being heretics.

5. The Pope is the beast from the book of Revelation.

Some of the strangest and most persistent attacks on the papacy are claims that the pope is the antichrist, the beast from the book of Revelation, and the whore of Babylon. But these claims are easily rebutted. 1 John 2:22 says that the antichrist “denies that Jesus is the Christ,” but no pope is recorded as ever having done this. Likewise, Revelation 17 speaks of a beast that sits on seven mountains and persecutes the holy ones of God, but the Catholic Church doesn’t persecute Christians or sit on “seven mountains.” Vatican City rests on Vatican Hill, which lies across the river from the seven hills of Old Rome where Christians were crucified and fed to the lions.

The beast in the book of Revelation does have a name that is numbered 666 (Rev. 13:18), which Seventh-day Adventists say corresponds to the numerical value of the Latin rendering of the Pope’s title, Vicarius Filii Dei (Vicar of the Son of God). The problem with this claim is that this is not one of the pope’s titles; he’s known as the Vicar of Christ. Ironically, the numerical value of the Latin rendering of the name of Ellen Gould White, founder of the Seventh-day Adventists, is 666! This shows that many names can correspond to this number, though many scholars agree that it probably refers to a Roman emperor like Nero, or the Roman Empire as a whole because of its violent persecution of the Church during the first century.

God’s gift to the Church

While some Fundamentalists might say it is the “spawn of Satan,” the papacy is actually God’s gift to the Church. It ensures the Church will be united in one faith, one baptism, and the worship of one God who entrusted his Church to the successors of the apostles under the leadership of Peter’s successor, whom we call the pope.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/defending-the-papacy

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David Rhee March/April 2021

The President Trump era was a bountiful period for the political fortunes of Evangelical Christians in America. That is because the forty-fifth president of the United States checked off virtually every box on the Evangelical wish list. Trump gave Evangelicals everything they could have wished for. He relocated the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. He advocated for policies that sought to restrict access to abortions. Trump also signed an executive order that created the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. This decree sought to remove barriers that had unfairly prevented faith-based organizations from receiving federal funding. Overall, Trump made the federal government much more open and responsive to the concerns and desires of Evangelicals.

Therefore, it is no surprise that many Evangelicals responded unfavorably to the news of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Some Evangelicals reacted to Trump’s defeat by expressing disappointment or sadness. Others expressed concerns for the future. There were also some Evangelicals who simply did not want to believe that it actually happened. For instance, moments after most major news networks declared Biden the winner, Franklin Graham quickly reminded everyone that the news networks had merely made a projection, and the results were not yet official. Graham and other Evangelicals were essentially holding on to the hope that the news networks were wrong, and that Trump would somehow prevail after all the votes were counted and certified.

Franklin Graham was not the only Evangelical leader disappointed with the results of the 2020 presidential election. Soon after Biden was presumed to be the winner of the election, Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, rented out space on billboards throughout Dallas to advertise his upcoming sermon on how Christians should respond to a Biden presidency. This illustrates just how much concern some Evangelicals have about a future in which Donald Trump is no longer in the White House. For some Evangelicals, Trump’s defeat is an existential threat to Evangelicals in America. They notice how the changing demographics in America are not skewing in their favor. There are far fewer people in America today who identify themselves as Christians than there were 20 years ago, and only about one in four Americans currently considers themselves to be Evangelical Christian.

Also, according to a recent AP-NORC poll, Evangelicals are more likely than other Christians to believe that their religious freedom is under attack. They see the increasing incidents of religious persecution of Christian minorities in other countries, and they fear that the same thing will happen here in the United States as Christians become a smaller part of the population. They feel a need to have a government that looks out for them during a time when they are exerting a decreasing influence on society and culture in America. That is why Evangelicals want a president who will protect their rights and interests. Donald Trump did just that. For them, President Trump was the firewall that shielded Evangelicals from a world that is becoming more hostile to Christian values.

A Long Journey

Trump’s presidency was also the fulfillment of a 40-year-long journey that Evangelicals have taken to the political promised land. Evangelical Christians began their concerted involvement in politics during the 1970s as a reaction to mandates from the federal government that they believed were contrary to the teachings of Scriptures, as well as threats to religious liberty. Their original intent was to mobilize a Christian response against the government’s increasing tendency to enact laws that impeded individuals from living in accordance with the Bible. There is one specific event that is often attributed to sparking Evangelical engagement in politics, and that was a 1978 proposal by IRS commissioner Jerome Kurtz to require Christian schools to prove they were trying to integrate in order to maintain their tax-exempt status. This new regulation prompted a significant response from Evangelicals. A total of 126,000 letters of protest were sent to the IRS, and many calls were made to Congress. As a result, the IRS quickly pulled the proposed regulation.

The IRS incident demonstrated the ability of Evangelicals to successfully mobilize and challenge government policy. This victory emboldened Evangelicals to press forward with their efforts to influence the government. In 1990 Pat Robertson told the audience at a Christian Coalition convention that his goal was to elect a pro-family Congress by 1994 and a pro-family president by 2004. The first objective was accomplished in 1994, when the Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Then in 2000, Evangelicals helped George W. Bush to win the White House. But the biggest political victory for Evangelicals took place in 2016, when Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States.

Trump actively courted Evangelical voters, and he promised to enact policies that were favorable to the beliefs and values espoused by Evangelicals. White Evangelicals in particular responded very favorably to Trump, as 81 percent of them voted for him. In response, Trump largely kept all the promises that he made to Evangelicals. Thus, it is no surprise that many Evangelicals are disappointed that there will not be a second term for President Trump.

The Next Battlegrounds

Trump’s defeat may have been a letdown to many Evangelicals; however, they had little time to sit around and mourn their loss, as the next battle in their political crusade was to take place even before Joe Biden was inaugurated. On January 5, 2021, Georgia conducted a runoff election for both of their seats in the United States Senate. Democrats won both seats, giving them control of both the House and Senate, and that will enable them to do such things as increasing funding for Planned Parenthood. Evangelicals were aware of what was at stake in the Georgia runoff elections. That is why groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition dedicated significant resources to mobilizing a high turnout of Evangelical voters.

Another upcoming battle for Evangelicals involves the rights of individuals who conscientiously object to values and lifestyle choices of the LGBTQ community. Prior to the 2020 presidential election, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, predicted that “the primary front of the religious liberty controversy is likely to be related to LGBTQ issues, and both Biden and Harris are eager to advance the sexual revolution on every front.” One look at Biden’s campaign website gives credence to what Mohler is saying. Biden posted his plan to advance LGBTQ rights on his website, and his proposals include the very things that some Evangelicals fear:

“Religious freedom is a fundamental American value. But states have inappropriately used broad exemptions to allow businesses, medical providers, social service agencies, state and local government officials, and others to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. . . . Biden will reverse Trump’s policies misusing these broad exemptions and fight so that no one is turned away from a business or refused service by a government official just because of who they are or who they love.”

Biden seems to make it clear that he will allow the rights of the LGBTQ community to take precedence over those who disagree with them because of religious convictions. Many Evangelicals object to such things as same-sex marriage because they feel it goes against the teachings of the Bible. Evangelicals want to have the freedom to refrain from participating in any activities that recognize or promote same-sex marriage. Therefore, when Biden declares his intentions to disallow
individuals and organizations from objecting to the LGBTQ lifestyle based on religious beliefs, Evangelicals are understandably concerned.

A Changed Court

Some of the issues that are most important to Evangelicals have ultimately ended up before the United States Supreme Court, and in the past the Court has delivered some devastating setbacks to the Evangelical movement. Roe v. Wade was one; another was Obergefell v. Hodges—a landmark case in which the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to gays and lesbians nationwide. However, the composition of the Supreme Court is much different today than it was prior to when Trump first took office. Trump had the opportunity to fill three vacancies on the Court, and he appointed three individuals who are highly regarded by social conservatives. Trump’s third and final appointment to the Court was sworn in just days prior to the November 3 election, and that individual, Amy Coney Barrett, now gives conservatives a majority on the Supreme Court. There are now five justices who are deemed to interpret the Constitution in a way that is favorable to Evangelicals. Therefore, the Supreme Court may now be the preferred battleground for Evangelicals. They can take their cases to the Court, expecting to now have a majority of the justices on their side.

Moving On

Joe Biden’s victory might be viewed as a setback for Evangelicals. They might no longer have a president who is as receptive to Evangelicals as Donald Trump was. Trump did a lot of good things for the Evangelical movement, and there is a possibility that Joe Biden will revoke some of the mandates that Trump enacted that were favorable to Evangelicals. However, the end of Trump’s presidency does not signal the end for Evangelicals in American politics. Joe Biden is not the nail in the coffin for the Evangelical foray into American politics. There are many ways that Evangelicals can survive through a period during which they will no longer have an advocate in the White House. Evangelicals will continue to play a public role despite the loss of Donald Trump, in large part because they see religious liberty as something that is worth defending.

The rise of evangelical sensibility in the United States cannot be seen as a bad thing in itself. This magazine has often critiqued their, at times, blunt search for political power, even as we share many of the moral sensibilities that have stirred that community. We could hope that in the aftermath of the Trump collapse, the Evangelical right will temper their efforts with true Christian charity, avoid the appearance of autocratic solutions, and continue to be a moral compass for the nation. Editor.

Article Author: David Rhee

David Rhee is an adjunct professor of theology and Bible studies at Horizon University, Los Angeles, California.

https://www.libertymagazine.org/article/evangelical-collapse

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Systematic and systemic are two words whose meanings we have learned recently in American life, at least in the area of racism. However, for Christians in China, Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states still under Russian influence, these terms relate especially to religious persecution. The oppression is systematic, involving all agencies of the ruling bodies with the approval of the official Church, in the case of Russia, and in the case of China, it is brutally systemic.

The freedom to worship we so dearly take for granted and which is gradually being stripped away, does not exist in these countries as believers are punished severely for the simplest offence. The oppression is thorough and relentless. But the perpetrators of these bold deeds run the severest risk of which they are totally, if not willfully ignorant. Inevitably, they will reap the vengeance of an all-seeing God.

“And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? Lk. 18:7 (Rev.6:10).

His comforting words to ancient Israel is still good for today:

“To me belong vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.” (Deut. 32:35)

Let us keep these believers in prayer and stand firm in preserving this God-given right of conscience (RJG)

Russian Evangelicals Fined for ‘Missionary Activity’ During Pandemic

Offenses include passing out tracts and telling people to invite friends to hear the gospel

By Daniel Silliman (Feb.2022)

During the pandemic, Russia has continued its crackdown on evangelism and unregistered church activity—which includes almost all religious practice outside of the Russian Orthodox Church. The 2016 regulations restrict people in Russia from sharing about their faith or announcing church activities, even online or at home, unless permitted through a religious organization that has registered with the Russian government. Even then, evangelism is only sanctioned to occur within those designated churches.

The regulations have targeted evangelicals along with minorities such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are banned in Russia, and Muslims. Most fines end up being 5,000 Russian rubles, which Forum 18 says is equivalent to five day’s pay (about $60).
Besides Potter’s House, another Sevastopol pastor was prosecuted last year for sharing his faith outside a movie theater. In the second-largest city in Crimea, Simferopol, the pastor of Generation of Faith Pentecostal Church was punished for at least the third time for ministry activity; Artyom Morev was fined in 2017, 2018, and again in 2021.

In the town of Saki, two Baptists were caught by anti-extremist police and fined, Forum 18 reported. Both had been sharing Christian resources and Scripture without permits.

Local authorities, at times, have partnered with Russian security officials (the FSB) to raid worship gatherings. In addition to raiding a mosque, they raided a Protestant church in Kerch in eastern Crimea.

Inspectors found that church leaders “told those gathered about faith, about god [sic], about hope for another life, read the Bible and sang songs.” They discovered that two women there had been invited to attend earlier that day. As a result of the invitation, I. Denisov of the church was fined and found guilty of sharing faith with people who were not church members—which is forbidden under the anti-evangelism law.

Though Russia regulates church activity nationwide, in Crimea this oversight takes place in an area that the international community still recognizes as part of Ukraine.

Last month, Yuriy Kulakevych, foreign affairs director of the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church, described how Pentecostals acquiesced to the new reality when Russia took over in Crimea and eventually realized as citizens how much Russian evangelicals suffer. Just last year, Russia declared Ukraine’s New Generation Pentecostal groups “undesirable,” effectively banning them from the country. (A New Generation pastor in Sevastopol, Sergei Kolomoets, had previously been charged under the anti-evangelism law.)

The other contested territory, the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, has also been controlled by pro-Russia forces. During a recent visit to Kyiv, amid the escalating tensions and predictions of war, Elijah Brown of the Baptist World Alliance noted that Baptists—the largest Protestant group in Ukraine—had suffered prosecution as a result of the occupation. They have been designated as terrorists and 40 of their Donbas churches were shut down.

“If the occupation of these territories is a foreshadow of what may come to Ukraine,” he said, “it should lead all of us to pray with greater fervor.”
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/february/crimea-russia-protestant-christians-religious-freedom.html

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Introductory Comments

The Jan.6th insurrection continues to haunt American life in general. As the investigation into this tragic event prolongs, stalled by recalcitrant members of Congress, knowledgeable ones are assessing the damage to the democratic process and predicting a rapid downturn, even civil war. The many articles and books that have since covered the event paint a very dark picture. It appears that the prime instigators and abettors may escape justice and melt away into political oblivion, yet still be able to poison the air with their foul rhetoric. The future does not bode well for life as usual in the USA. And there is a “problem-solver” waiting the call to apply his solution. It’s not Jesus.) RJG

An expert on civil wars discusses where political extremists are taking this country

KK Ottesen, Special To The Washington Post
March 8, 2022·15 min read 

Barbara F. Walter, 57, is a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego and the author of "How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them," which was released in January. She lives in San Diego with her husband.

Q: Having studied civil wars all over the world, and the conditions that give rise to them, you argue in your book, somewhat chillingly, that the United States is coming dangerously close to those conditions. Can you explain that?

A: So we actually know a lot about civil wars - how they start, how long they last, why they're so hard to resolve, how you end them. And we know a lot because since 1946, there have been over 200 major armed conflicts. And for the last 30 years, people have been collecting a lot of data, analyzing the data, looking at patterns. I've been one of those people.

We went from thinking, even as late as the 1980s, that every one of these was unique. And the way people studied it is they would be a Somalia expert, a Yugoslavia expert, a Tajikistan expert. And everybody thought their case was unique and that you could draw no parallels. Then methods and computers got better, and people like me came and could collect data and analyze it. And what we saw is that there are lots of patterns at the macro level.

In 1994, the U.S. government put together this Political Instability Task Force. They were interested in trying to predict what countries around the world were going to become unstable, potentially fall apart, experience political violence and civil war.

Q: Was that out of the State Department?

A: That was done through the CIA. And the task force was a mix of academics, experts on conflict, and data analysts. And basically what they wanted was: In all of your research, tell us what you think seems to be important. What should we be considering when we're thinking about the lead-up to civil wars?

Originally the model included over 30 different factors, like poverty, income inequality, how diverse religiously or ethnically a country was. But only two factors came out again and again as highly predictive. And it wasn't what people were expecting, even on the task force. We were surprised. The first was this variable called anocracy. There's this nonprofit based in Virginia called the Center for Systemic Peace. And every year it measures all sorts of things related to the quality of the governments around the world. How autocratic or how democratic a country is. And it has this scale that goes from negative 10 to positive 10. Negative 10 is the most authoritarian, so think about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain. Positive 10 are the most democratic. This, of course, is where you want to be. This would be Denmark, Switzerland, Canada. The U.S. was a positive 10 for many, many years. It's no longer a positive 10. And then it has this middle zone between positive 5 and negative 5, which was you had features of both. If you're a positive 5, you have more democratic features, but definitely have a few authoritarian elements. And, of course, if you're negative 5, you have more authoritarian features and a few democratic elements. The U.S. was briefly downgraded to a 5 and is now an 8.

And what scholars found was that this anocracy variable was really predictive of a risk for civil war. That full democracies almost never have civil wars. Full autocracies rarely have civil wars. All of the instability and violence is happening in this middle zone. And there's all sorts of theories why this middle zone is unstable, but one of the big ones is that these governments tend to be weaker. They're transitioning to either actually becoming more democratic, and so some of the authoritarian features are loosening up. The military is giving up control. And so it's easier to organize a challenge. Or, these are democracies that are backsliding, and there's a sense that these governments are not that legitimate, people are unhappy with these governments. There's infighting. There's jockeying for power. And so they're weak in their own ways. Anyway, that turned out to be highly predictive.

And then the second factor was whether populations in these partial democracies began to organize politically, not around ideology - so, not based on whether you're a communist or not a communist, or you're a liberal or a conservative - but where the parties themselves were based almost exclusively around identity: ethnic, religious or racial identity. The quintessential example of this is what happened in the former Yugoslavia.

Q: So for you, personally, what was the moment the ideas began to connect, and you thought: Wait a minute, I see these patterns in my country right now?

A: My dad is from Germany. He was born in 1932 and lived through the war there, and he emigrated here in 1958. He had been a Republican his whole life, you know; we had the Reagan calendar in the kitchen every year. And starting in early 2016, I would go home to visit, and my dad - he doesn't agitate easily, but he was so agitated. All he wanted to do was talk about Trump and what he was seeing happening. He was really nervous. It was almost visceral - like, he was reliving the past. Every time I'd go home, he was just, like, "Please tell me Trump's not going to win." And I would tell him, "Dad, Trump is not going to win." And he's just, like, "I don't believe you; I saw this once before. And I'm seeing it again, and the Republicans, they're just falling in lockstep behind him." He was so nervous.

I remember saying: "Dad, what's really different about America today from Germany in the 1930s is that our democracy is really strong. Our institutions are strong. So, even if you had a Trump come into power, the institutions would hold strong." Of course, then Trump won. We would have these conversations where my dad would draw all these parallels. The brownshirts and the attacks on the media and the attacks on education and on books. And he's just, like, I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it all again here. And that's really what shook me out of my complacency, that here was this man who is very well-educated and astute, and he was shaking with fear. And I was like, Am I being naive to think that we're different?

That's when I started to follow the data. And then, watching what happened to the Republican Party really was the bigger surprise - that, wow, they're doubling down on this almost white supremacist strategy. That's a losing strategy in a democracy. So why would they do that? OK, it's worked for them since the '60s and '70s, but you can't turn back demographics. And then I was like, Oh my gosh. The only way this is a winning strategy is if you begin to weaken the institutions; this is the pattern we see in other countries. And, as an American citizen I'm like, these two factors are emerging here, and people don't know.

So I gave a talk at UCSD about this - and it was a complete bomb. Not only did it fall flat, but people were hostile. You know, How dare you say this? This is not going to happen. This is fearmongering. I remember leaving just really despondent, thinking: Wow, I was so naive to think that, if it's true, and if it's based on hard evidence, people will be receptive to it. You know, how do you get the message across if people don't want to hear it? If they're not ready for it.

I didn't do a great job framing it initially, that when people think about civil war, they think about the first civil war. And in their mind, that's what a second one would look like. And, of course, that's not the case at all. So part of it was just helping people conceptualize what a 21st-century civil war against a really powerful government might look like.

After Jan. 6 of last year, people were asking me, "Aren't you horrified?" "Isn't this terrible?" "What do you think?" And, first of all, I wasn't surprised, right? People who study this, we've been seeing these groups have been around now for over 10 years. They've been growing. I know that they're training. They've been in the shadows, but we know about them. I wasn't surprised.

The biggest emotion was just relief, actually. It was just, Oh my gosh, this is a gift. Because it's bringing it out into the public eye in the most obvious way. And the result has to be that we can't deny or ignore that we have a problem. Because it's right there before us. And what has been surprising, actually, is how hard the Republican Party has worked to continue to deny it and to create this smokescreen - and in many respects, how effective that's been, at least among their supporters. Wow: Even the most public act of insurrection, probably a treasonous act that 10, 20 years ago would have just cut to the heart of every American, there are still real attempts to deny it. But it was a gift because it brought this cancer that those of us who have been studying it, have been watching it growing, it brought it out into the open.

Q: Does it make you at all nervous when you think about the percentage of people who were at, say, Jan. 6 who have some military or law enforcement connection?

A: Yes. The CIA also has a manual on insurgency. You can Google it and find it online. Most of it is not redacted. And it's absolutely fascinating to read. It's not a big manual. And it was written, I'm sure, to help the U.S. government identify very, very early stages of insurgency. So if something's happening in the Philippines, or something's happening in Indonesia. You know, what are signs that we should be looking out for?

And the manual talks about three stages. And the first stage is pre-insurgency. And that's when you start to have groups beginning to mobilize around a particular grievance. And it's oftentimes just a handful of individuals who are just deeply unhappy about something. And they begin to articulate those grievances. And they begin to try to grow their membership.

The second stage is called the incipient conflict stage. And that's when these groups begin to build a military arm. Usually a militia. And they'd start to obtain weapons, and they'd start to get training. And they'll start to recruit from the ex-military or military and from law enforcement. Or they'll actually - if there's a volunteer army, they'll have members of theirs join the military in order to get not just the training, but also to gather intelligence.

And, again, when the CIA put together this manual, it's about what they have observed in their experience in the field in other countries. And as you're reading this, it's just shocking the parallels. And the second stage, you start to have a few isolated attacks. And in the manual, it says, really the danger in this stage is that governments and citizens aren't aware that this is happening. And so when an attack occurs, it's usually just dismissed as an isolated incident, and people are not connecting the dots yet. And because they're not connecting the dots, the movement is allowed to grow until you have open insurgency, when you start to have a series of consistent attacks, and it becomes impossible to ignore.

And so, again, this is part of the process you see across the board, where the organizers of insurgencies understand that they need to gain experienced soldiers relatively quickly. And one way to do that is to recruit. Here in the United States, because we had a series of long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, and now that we've withdrawn from them, we've had more than 20 years of returning soldiers with experience. And so this creates a ready-made subset of the population that you can recruit from.

Q: What do you say to people who charge that this is all overblown, that civil war could never happen here in the United States - or that you're being inflammatory and making things worse by putting corrosive ideas out there?

A: Oh, there's so many things to say. One thing is that groups - we'll call them violence entrepreneurs, the violent extremists who want to tear everything down and want to institute their own radical vision of society - they benefit from the element of surprise, right? They want people to be confused when violence starts happening. They want people to not understand what's going on, to think that nobody's in charge. Because then they can send their goons into the streets and convince people that they're the ones in charge. Which is why when I would talk to people who lived through the start of the violence in Sarajevo or Baghdad or Kyiv, they all say that they were surprised. And they were surprised in part because they didn't know what the warning signs were.

But also because people had a vested interest in distracting them or denying it so that when an attack happened, or when you had paramilitary troops sleeping in the hills outside of Sarajevo, they would make up stories. You know, "We're just doing training missions." Or "We're just here to protect you. There's nothing going on here. Don't worry about this."

I wish it were the case that by not talking about it we could prevent anything from happening. But the reality is, if we don't talk about it, [violent extremists] are going to continue to organize, and they're going to continue to train. There are definitely lots of groups on the far right who want war. They are preparing for war. And not talking about it does not make us safer.

What we're heading toward is an insurgency, which is a form of a civil war. That is the 21st-century version of a civil war, especially in countries with powerful governments and powerful militaries, which is what the United States is. And it makes sense. An insurgency tends to be much more decentralized, often fought by multiple groups. Sometimes they're actually competing with each other. Sometimes they coordinate their behavior. They use unconventional tactics. They target infrastructure. They target civilians. They use domestic terror and guerrilla warfare. Hit-and-run raids and bombs. We've already seen this in other countries with powerful militaries, right? The IRA took on the British government. Hamas has taken on the Israeli government. These are two of the most powerful militaries in the world. And they fought for decades. And in the case of Hamas I think we could see a third intifada. And they pursue a similar strategy.

Here it's called leaderless resistance. And that method of how to defeat a powerful government like the United States is outlined in what people are calling the bible of the far right: "The Turner Diaries," which is this fictitious account of a civil war against the U.S. government. It lays out how you do this. And one of the things it says is, Do not engage the U.S. military. You know, avoid it at all costs. Go directly to targets around the country that are difficult to defend and disperse yourselves so it's hard for the government to identify you and infiltrate you and eliminate you entirely.

Q: So, like with the [Charles Dickens's] ghost of Christmas future, are these the things that will be or just that may be?

A: I can't say when it's going to happen. I think it's really important for people to understand that countries that have these two factors, who get put on this watch list, have a little bit less than a 4% annual risk of civil war. That seems really small, but it's not. It means that, every year that those two factors continue, the risk increases.

The analogy is smoking. If I started smoking today, my risk of dying of lung cancer or some smoking-related disease is very small. If I continue to smoke for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years, my risk eventually of dying of something related to smoking is going to be very high if I don't change my behavior. And so I think that's one of the actually optimistic things: We know the warning signs. And we know that if we strengthen our democracy, and if the Republican Party decides it's no longer going to be an ethnic faction that's trying to exclude everybody else, then our risk of civil war will disappear. We know that. And we have time to do it. But you have to know those warning signs in order to feel an impetus to change them.

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