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December 24, 2019
The Left, The Right and The Wrong -- Transactional Christians Exposed by Christianity Today
By Anthony Wade
The kerfuffle over at CT reveals the split between the apostate church and bible believing Christians...
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Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. -- Philippians 3:19-21 (ESV
American Christianity has been infiltrated and slowly poisoned over the past few decades by the New Apostolic Reformation theology known as dominionism. The original model of dominionism stated that Jesus could not return until the church conquered seven cultural mountains, the biggest of which was government. As the movement gained national traction, slicker apostates realized this painted our Savior as needing us in order to do something and they quickly moonwalked away from that notion to just wanting to conquer these mountains as a Christian imperative. Instead of preaching the Gospel, many leaders simply preached politics and still do to this day. Make no mistake about it beloved, this is because of a love for this world and the excess it allows. The leaders in the NAR wield a tremendous amount of power and generate a tremendous amount of money for themselves. Even someone as silly and transparently false as Paula White is sitting on a net worth of over five million dollars and now works for the White House.
Wait a minute preacher! Are you suggesting that the church should not try and influence culture? Of course that is what I am saying because that is what the bible teaches. Jesus was entirely apolitical. He made it known to even His secular opponents that His kingdom was not of this earth. The apostles all wanted Him to be political. They wanted Him to deliver them from the oppression of Rome. The Gospel however does not bother with such inconsequential matters. It is solely concerned about delivering us from the oppression of Satan and of sin. Nothing has changed since then. The Gospel is still solely focused on the deliverance of the oppressed lost from their sin master. It does not care who is in the White House. God will use all for His glory and His purpose. Like the Pharisees of old however, the NAR leadership does not want to relinquish the power, fame and money they enjoy in this world. So suddenly, God is incapable of surviving a Hillary Clinton presidency. Please. All one has to do is look back to the 2012 election to see the ridiculously unbiblical lengths the NAR will stoop to. We had a choice between an uber-liberal Christian in Barack Obama and a member of the Mormon Satanic cult in Mitt Romney. The church overwhelmingly chose the Satanic cult member. They openly bragged about it. Even the Billy Graham Association removed Mormonism from their lists of cults in the run up to the election. I can hear the whataboutism arguments forming already. Because this country is so divided down two distinct paths we fall into the trap of thinking that denouncing one side automatically means tacitly supporting the other. I refuse that distinction. We are not children incapable of three-dimensional thought. My insistence that Christians should not vote for Satanic cult members is not a defacto endorsement of anyone else. It is a cheap argument to say otherwise. I say this as a backdrop to the recent kerfuffle over at Christianity Today, who dared cross the apostate church's line and called for the impeachment of Donald Trump. I say apostate quite intentionally because it is high time that people start looking at who is siding with their arguments.
Yesterday, nearly 200 self-appointed "faith leaders" wrote to Christianity Today demanding that the Editor in Chief be fired over his temerity to have a different opinion and oppose them. Before you get too excited, here is just a partial list of the people you may not realize are standing with you -- Paula White, Jentzen Franklin, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Jack Graham, Shane Idleman, Greg Laurie, Cindy Jacobs, Joseph Mattera, Robert Jeffress, Jurgen Matthessius, Robert Morris, Rod Parsley, Eric Metaxas, Tony Perkins, Ralph Reed, George Wood, Lance Wallnau, and Kris Vallotton. This short list runs the gamut within the apostate church. Straight up NAR political hacks such as Dobson, Perkins and Reed to flat out heretics such as Parsley, Wallnau, and Vallotton. Dismiss this point at your peril. These are not people you should want to be even vaguely associated with. From this letter:
"Of course, it's up to your publication to decide whether or not your magazine intends to be a voice of evangelicals like those represented by the signatories below, and it is up to us and those Evangelicals like us to decide if we should subscribe to, advertise in and read your publication online and in print, but historically, we have been your readers. We are, in fact, not "far-right" evangelicals as characterized by the author." -- NAR "Faith Leaders"
Please. There is no one farther right than this group. However, perhaps the heretics have a point. You see the true right wing of this country used to believe in morality. They believed in siding with our allies and against our enemies. They believed in not standing with racists and xenophobes. They never would have tolerated caged children in their name. They believed in lesser government as the counterbalance to the left's belief of expanded government. This bastardized version of the Republican Party is not the far right. They are not even the right. They are simply the wrong.
Christianity Today does have to decide now if they will cower to this threat or correctly decide that they should want as little to do with the signatories as possible. Make no mistake about it. The NAR Purpose Driven Industrial Complex will lead the march to a one world religion that the bible warns us about. They are already in bed with the state and only seek to further that adulterous relationship. As for the aforementioned Dobson, he had a separate public statement:
'"I have read a new editorial published by Christianity Today that promotes impeachment of President Donald Trump. The editors didn't tell us who should take his place in the aftermath. Maybe the magazine would prefer a president who is passionately pro-abortion, anti-family, hostile to the military, dispassionate toward Israel, supports a socialist form of government, promotes confiscatory taxation, opposes school choice, favors men in women's sports and boys in girl's locker rooms, promotes the entire LGBTQ agenda, opposes parental rights, and distrusts evangelicals and anyone who is not politically correct. By the way, after Christianity Today has helped vacate the Oval Office, I hope they will tell us if their candidate to replace Mr. Trump will fight for religious liberty and the Bill of Rights? Give your readers a little more clarity on why President Trump should be turned out of office after being duly elected by 63 million voters? Is it really because he made a phone call that displeased you? There must be more to your argument than that. While Christianity Today is making its case for impeachment, I hope the editors will now tell us who they support for president among the Democrat field. That should tell us the rest of the story."' -- James Dobson
This is really quite stupid. Let us deal with it on three levels. First is the absurd notion that Christianity Today must be advocating for a Democratic candidate since they have correctly dismissed Trump as not being worthy of our Christian vote. Let me explain how impeachment works. If Mr. Trump was convicted in the Senate, which will never happen, then the Vice-President becomes president. You remember Mike Pence don't you? The actual Evangelical on the ticket? The man who will not go anywhere without his wife to avoid the mere appearance of impropriety? The second level to examine here is the sheer duplicity. To state that the president is being impeached for a phone call we might disagree with is like saying the Titanic was sunk because it hit an ice cube. Thirdly is the conflation of pure NAR garbage with what might be legitimate concerns. The wielding of socialism like a boogeyman is ridiculous. The inference that God prefers one form of taxation over the next or that He would be in favor of school choice is ludicrous. The inference that the current president is pro-family is laughable on its face. James Dobson has always been a political hack disguised as a Christian and should be dismissed as such. At least however he is not financially compromised like Franklin Graham, who also wrote his disagreement publicly with Christianity Today.
"Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be removed from office--and they invoked my father's name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements), so I feel it is important for me to respond. Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed. I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation. -- Franklin Graham
Strange because other family members stridently disagreed with Franklin's assessment and pointed out that the then 98-year-old Billy was barely ambulatory, let alone driving down to the local polling station. In fact, just days before the election Franklin was quoted as follows regarding his father:
"He's real quiet. Doesn't say much... Can't see. His mind is clear. ... But he speaks in sentences of one word... It's a party every Sunday when I go see him because he's made it through another week... At 98, you count the days and weeks." -- Franklin Graham
Billy Graham once lamented his greatest regret was ever becoming political in this world. So why would Franklin Graham lie about his own father? The same reason he has lied about this president for years now. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the donations Trump has made to both of the charities Franklin runs and gets paid over $800,000 per year from. Perhaps however it is simply transactional. That is why the 170 apostates who sent the letter side with someone they would normally rebuke and cry repent to. What are the thirty pieces of political silver they have been promised by the thrice married, twice divorced, genital grabbing, bastion of faith? Let Franklin answer that one as well:
"Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time. The economy of our nation is the strongest it has been in 50 years, ISIS & the caliphate have been defeated, and the President has renegotiated trade deals to benefit all Americans. The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important--and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that, to say it doesn't count? The President has been a staunch defender of religious freedom at home and around the world--and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Also the President has appointed conservative judges in record number--and Christianity today wants us to ignore that? Christianity Today feels he should be removed from office because of false accusations that the President emphatically denies." -- Franklin Graham
First of all, some of these stated facts are anything but. The trade deals have devastated our farmers. Foreign policy experts all agree Isis is not defeated. Either way, what is the cost of these perceived accomplishments? What do you have to sell out? You see the question Graham asks is wrong. It is not that Christianity Today wants us to ignore perceived strengths but to weigh them against our Christian witness and ask what is worth more? Many in the NAR and the apostate church will undoubtedly scream that the judges are worth more and therein lies the transactional rub. If your witness can be sold for some judges that may or may not do what you think they will, then I would fear for your salvation entirely. Do we have so little hope that one day we can nominate a candidate that shares our social issue stands without tweeting like a psychotic, telling grieving widowers that their deceased is looking up at them from hell, insult family members of fallen soldiers, cage children at the border, and disparage former prisoner of war heroes?
It is time to stop allowing the false narrative that disagreement with the apostate church must mean alignment with the perceived far left. If you spew that Christianity Today is a far-left magazine then you are too compromised to be in this discussion. They are not left; they simply were tired of being wrong. As for the continued dissembling by Graham, Dobson and the rest of the apostates regarding the actual impeachment charges I have a simple equation. If it was a President Hillary who had made the call to the Ukraine after holding up congressionally approved money to extort political favors from him, who doubts for a second that Franklin Graham would not be leading the "lock her up" chants? If President Hillary was disparaging our NATO allies and cozying up to our enemies, who honestly believes that the same 170 signatories from the apostate church would not be screaming in streets for her impeachment? This hypocrisy is not lost on the fallen world. That was the point Christianity Today was trying to make. Who we are as Christians must trump who we are as political actors in this carnal world.
There are no whataboutism arguments to be tolerated. This is not an endorsement of anyone. On Election Day, we can chose to write in any candidate we wish. We can also vote locally and protest by not voting in the presidential election. We can also choose to skip it entirely. We are pilgrims and sojourners in this land and as the key verse teaches, our citizenship is solely in heaven. There is no dual citizenship. Are we focused on the things of this world or the eternal promise of the Gospel? I recently saw a local pastor post on Facebook that if you even thought about voting for a Democrat then you could not possibly be a Christian. A pastor. That is nothing short of spiritual abuse. It is not left or right -- it is just wrong.
If you think you can keep mixing your faith with your politics do not be surprised when you find yourself standing next to people who are using one for the other. I would be real concerned if I woke up one day on the same stage as Paula White, Jentzen Franklin, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Jack Graham, Shane Idleman, Greg Laurie, Cindy Jacobs, Joseph Mattera, Robert Jeffress, Jurgen Matthessius, Robert Morris, Rod Parsley, Eric Metaxas, Tony Perkins, Ralph Reed, George Wood, Lance Wallnau, and Kris Vallotton. Come back to the Gospel. Stop chasing those seven mountains and selling your witness for your social wedge issues and a handful of political silver.
Reverend Anthony Wade -- December 24, 2019