Shakespeare was right in the “The Merchant of Venice.”
In a Hitler-like rally in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, the site of the 2018 World Cup final, Russian president Vladimir Putin told a gathered crowd of reportedly 200,000 (according to Moscow Police) that “we will implement our plans” to “save” the Ukrainian people “from suffering and genocide.” In one part of the speech he paraphrased the Gospel of John, chapter 15 and verse 13: “And this is where the words from the Scriptures come to my mind: ‘There is no greater love than if someone gives his soul for his friends.'” Just before he quoted Jesus, Putin said that “we have not had unity like this for a long time.”
Watch:
Two quick thoughts:
- Putin’s use of Jesus’s words to promote national unity around war is blasphemous. I wonder what Putin thinks of Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt. 5:9).
- Russia is hardly unified around this war. Yet Putin wants his people to believe otherwise. Trump used to do this all the time. He would quote the Bible and talk about national unity when, in reality, the country was deeply divided over his presidency. Remember when Trump called Americans to unify around the Good Book to put down Black Lives Matter protesters? Remember when his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, quoted Romans 13 to try to unify Americans around Trump’s draconian immigration policies? Remember the rallies, filled with lies and propaganda? Remember Mike Pence’s manipulation of multiple Bible verses?
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