In the last several days we have seen the Republican Party get closer to the breaking point. Trumpism in the form of Marjorie Greene and her enablers is pitted in a war for control of the party against the likes of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Mitch McConnell.
Meanwhile the nation mourns the unnecessary death of Brian Sicknick, the U.S. Capitol police officer killed in the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
We are less than a week away from Trump’s second impeachment trial and we now have a good idea how the Democrats will prosecute their case against the former president. Whether or not Trump specifically incited the riot during his speech on January 6, it is fair to say that the riot happened because Americans elected him president in 2016. If Donald Trump was not president of the United States, and did not spend four years fanning the flames of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and conspiracy theories, Brian Sicknick would still be alive. (So would tens of thousands of other Americans who died of COVID-19).
What have Trump’s most diehard Christian supporters said over the course of the last few days? These lost cause evangelicals are complaining about the 2020 election, impeachment, free speech, and religious liberty. They are trying to sell books. They are finding “cancel culture” and conspiracy theories in the Bible. They are worried about their “Christian nation” under the Biden administration. Let’s check in on them:
Franklin Graham continues to foment division. For all his talk of unity and coming together, he is still driving the wedge.
Who is James Robison talking about here? Marjorie Greene? Andrew McCarthy? Lindsey Graham?
Tony Perkins found a new way to interpret the Old Testament prophetic books. In a recent video he used Jeremiah 11 to give his followers a lecture on “cancel culture.” Perkins says that “Jeremiah revealed the conspiracy and they responded by wanting to silence him.” Translation: “Tony Perkins revealed Democratic voter fraud and the Left wants to silence him.”
It looks like YouTube let Eric Metaxas back on its platform. In this clip from his show, he talks about the book launch of his memoir, Fish Out of Water. He tells people to write positive reviews on Amazon (because “the haters” will write negative reviews without reading the book). He then urges people to buy the book this week because “it makes a big, big difference.” (Translation: He wants it to be on best-seller lists). Metaxas suggests that his book simply chronicles “what happened” in his life. I am sure it will be completely objective with no interpretation or spin whatsoever. 🙂 This entire fifteen minute video is a combination of self-promotion (buy my book!) and victimization (social media and the “anti-American Left” are after me so please, please buy my book before it gets canceled).
In this video, Metaxas’s producer interviews him about his memoir.
In this video, Dinesh D’Souza interviews Metaxas. Notice how Metaxas seamlessly connects his own autobiography to his evangelical Trumpism.
Last night Metaxas did a Q&A as part of his book launch. If you paid $99.00 you could ask Metaxas a question. Watch it here. During this session Metaxas continues to spread the “big lie” about election fraud. He refuses to admit that Biden won the election and calls the GOP a “sham” for not defending the former president with greater vigor. As he has done several times in the past, Metaxas compares himself to Bonhoeffer: “God is telling us we need to fight.” He adds: “God put the Bonhoeffer’s story in my life” for “such a time as this.” He also compares advocates of critical race theory and systemic racism to the Nazis. He knows that CRT and systemic racism are errors because his Black friends tell him so and he once wrote a book about William Wilberforce. Finally, Metaxas tells people that they need to “raise hell” against the Left.
“Raise hell.”
Metaxas seems to believe that God has been preparing him his entire life–through his book on Bonhoeffer, his Greek-American upbringing, and his media platforms– for the moment when he would enlist as an officer in Trump’s populist army.
Again, let’s get the facts straight. Multiple courts, including the Supreme Court and Donald Trump’s attorney general. said that there was no election fraud. The Democrats did not steal the 2020 presidential election. Metaxas is a conspiracy theorist and may even be delusional. Every now and then he suggests that God told him (or God told one of Metaxas’s favorite charismatic prophets, such as Dutch Sheets) that the Democrats stole the election. If this is true, then Metaxas is a perfect illustration of why the founding fathers built this nation on the Enlightenment, not Christianity. The Enlightenment requires citizens to base their public proclamations and engagement in the political arena on reason, evidence, and verifiable truth rather than on direct, extra-biblical revelation or prophecy. In America one cannot argue that an election was fraudulent because so-called “prophets” said that it was fraudulent. This is why we have the separation of church and state.
Let’s move on:
Charlie Kirk believes churches who defy COVID-19 restrictions are heroes for Christ:
Lance Wallnau retweets Marco Rubio:
Here’s a question for the Falkirk Center at Liberty University: Where does it say in the Bible that we have the “right to bear arms?”
Let’s make sure we protect our freedoms, like the right to be on Twitter and other social media platforms:
I am not sure what this means: