Speaking of Faith: discussions on religion (broadly defined)

It’s an uphill struggle getting people to accept that Christians can be bad people.

But the even harder truth that people urgently need to grasp in this time of Christofascism is that for some understandings of Christianity, to be a GOOD Christian is to be a BAD person.

Denial makes things worse

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Most of us are not familiar, however, with the way in which the prophecies around Trump have taken a much darker turn. As I wrote in April, Jonathan Cahn, one of the most popular independent charismatic prophets in America, has been sharing his Jehu prophecy.

Jehu is an obscure and vicious ancient king of Israel whose chief claim to fame was overthrowing the house of Ahab, ordering the execution of the king’s wife, Queen Jezebel, killing King Ahab’s sons and piling their heads outside the city gates.

Cahn says that God “called Jehu to make his nation great again. Jehu came to the capital city with an agenda to drain the swamp.” The vengeance of Jehu becomes the vengeance of Trump.

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More and more it seems that modern Christians are not Christians; they follow the Old Testament rather than the new. They seem to be Jewish, without being actually Jewish. (have I set the cat among the pigeons?)

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The way I put it is: if your fundamental tenet is “What would Jesus do? I’m going to do the opposite” then you’re an anti-Christ Christian. It does seem to describe these people perfectly.

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Might as well post French’s earlier column, wherein he compares Trump to a prosperity gospel preacher

And so, when Trump’s most radical Christian followers see Trump’s ostentatious wealth, watch him seethe and rage at his enemies, observe him seeking unchecked power and peddle trinkets for personal gain, it’s all of a piece. They don’t see a despot or a tyrant or a grifter. They see a president taking the form of a pastor they love.

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OK, so in the process of reading about this…

…I came across this, though with a different headline than what appears in the onebox:

The Muslim group that worships through work and community

…and from there one could do a very deep dive learning about Islam in Senegal.

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Yeah, absolutely… I think people wanted more out of Francis on this issue, and want more out of Leo on it, so, we’ll see if he can move the needle further than Francis did. I won’t hold my breath, of course.

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Rooting out stuff like this in large institutions tends to be hard and take a surprisingly long time. And the Pope is not, in practice, an unlimited autocrat, whatever the theory might be.

But let’s hope there is progress, and justice, and both on a reasonable schedule!

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Yeah, no doubt. I think people wanted Francis to be bolder than he seemed to be on the issue. I think given that he managed to get the successor he likely wanted, he understood that it was a long term systemic project that he would not be able to finish. Perhaps Leo can move things along more.

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Scary times for the diverse religious groups in Syria.

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Peter Thiel on Whether He’s Ushering in the Antichrist: Um, Uhh, Buh, Um Uhh, th th, Uhhhh

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