Definition of Christian

[Chip]

Sounds like a gated suburb.

Would you say Trump is a Christian?

How about Clarence Thomas?

[Chuck Naill]

No idea, Chip.

If they are not, the Kingdom of God is as close as their fingers.

I was frustrated for a decade at Evangelicals for they way they had become politicized and how they treated people. This was in obvious contrast to what Jesus said and did.

My frustration was misplaced. Last Winter I realized many or most are not disciples of Jesus just like I wasn’t before I learned about it. I was discipled in order to serve in the church and in the community. I now realize that a disciple is one who learns to live their lives as Jesus would if he were them. This what Dallas Willard refers to as a Spirit led process where by our hearts are transformed.

So, if Jesus were here today there would be all sorts of people flocking to and following him. Over time, they would learn from him how to live their lives. This would include LGBQ folks, drug abusers, drag queens, rich white people, men who are addicted to porn, prostitutes, preachers, professional athletes, drunk drivers, atheists , mass shooters, and all others.

By simply learning not to hate, be dishonest, covet others stuff, and not be forgiving, their physical health would improve overnight.

[Chuck Naill]

Consideration for the scriptures and why they exist is fully explained by a non Jewish source written circa 60 AD.

Luke 1:1-4 NIV:
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word (Logos). With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."

John also refers to Jesus as the Greek definition of Logos.

[Chip]

Will God sort them out in the end?

Pro-Trump pastors rebuked for ‘overt embrace of white Christian nationalism’

Mainstream Christian leaders criticize Pastors for Trump for distorting religious teachings and endangering democracy

Peter Stone in Washington
1 May 2023

A far-right religious group with ties to Donald Trump loyalists Roger Stone and retired Army Lt Gen Michael Flynn is planning events with pastors in swing-state churches in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to spur more evangelical backing for the former US president’s 2024 campaign. But the group, Pastors for Trump, is drawing sharp rebukes from mainstream Christian leaders for being extremist, distorting Christian teachings and endangering American democracy by fueling the spread of Christian nationalism.

The Oklahoma-based evangelical pastor and businessman Jackson Lahmeyer leads the fledgling Pastors for Trump organization. Lahmeyer told the Guardian it boasts over 7,000 pastors as members and that he will unveil details about its plans on 11 May at the Trump National Doral in Miami, an event Trump will be invited to attend.

Stone, a self-styled “dirty trickster” whom Trump pardoned after he was convicted of lying to Congress, is slated to join Lahmeyer in speaking on 11 May, according to the pastor. Lahmeyer added he will talk more about his pro Trump group at a ReAwaken America evangelical gathering on 12 and 13 May at the Doral. Lahmeyer said the pastors group intends to sponsor a “freedom tour” with evening church meetings in key swing states this summer, an effort that could help Trump win more backing from this key Republican voting bloc, which could prove crucial to his winning the GOP nomination again.

Lahmeyer described the genesis of Pastors for Trump in dark and apocalyptic rhetoric that has echoes of Trump’s own bombast. “We’re going down a very evil path in this country,” he said. “Our economy is being destroyed. It’s China, the deep state and globalists. China interfered in our 2020 elections,” he added. “This is biblical, what’s happening. This is a spiritual battle.’

But those ominous beliefs have drawn sharp criticism.

“This kind of overt embrace of white Christian nationalism continues to pose a growing threat to the witness of the church and the health of our democracy,” said Adam Russell Taylor, the president of the Christian social justice group Sojourners. “This pastor and this effort are trying to impose a Christian theocracy. It’s imperative that Christian leaders of all backgrounds, including conservative ones, speak out about this effort as a threat to our democracy and to the church.”

Other religious leaders warn of the dangers that Pastors for Trump poses by marrying Christian nationalism with political vitriol and election lies.

“For years, Trump has tried to co-opt religious leaders to serve his campaign, even attempting to change long-standing tax law to allow dark money to flow through houses of worship,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “Tragically, far too many pastors have confused political power with religious authority, and have thrown their lot in with Trump, no matter the cost to their ministry. Pastors for Trump is the next step in this unholy alliance, mixing Christian nationalism, election lies and vitriolic language in a gross distortion of Christianity.”

There is ample evidence Lahmeyer has embraced religious and political views replete with extremist positions. Lahmeyer has previously attacked former House speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “demon”, and former Covid adviser Anthony Fauci “a mass-murdering Luciferian”. To Lahmeyer, the attack on the Capitol on January 6 by a mob of pro-Trump supporters was an “FBI inside job”.

Besides his apocalyptic rhetoric, Lahmeyer’s effort has echoes of the two-year-old ReAwaken America tour, which has combined election denialism with Christian nationalism and regularly featured Flynn at its two-day revival-style meetings. In 2021, Flynn provided strong and early backing for Lahmeyer in an abortive primary campaign by the pastor to gain the Republican nomination for a Senate seat from Oklahoma.

Flynn, who worked to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden by pushing bogus claims of election fraud, and who Trump pardoned after he pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about contacts he had with Russians before briefly serving as Trump’s national security adviser, is a real hero in Lahmeyer’s eyes. “Flynn is a leader and general,” Lahmeyer told the Guardian. “I trust him, and I have come to love him. He’s been like a father to me.” Those bonds were reinforced in early 2021 when Lahmeyer introduced Flynn to Clay Clark, an Oklahoma entrepreneur and a member of his church, who teamed up with Flynn to host20 ReAwaken revival-like gatherings over the last two years nationwide, all of which Lahmeyer said he’s attended.

Late last year, Lahmeyer unveiled Pastors for Trump on Stone’s eponymous Stone Zone podcast, a relationship that was forged in 2021 when Stone served as a key paid consultant to Lahmeyer’s primary campaign.

Pastors for Trump is “interwoven” with the Trump campaign, “but we’re a separate grassroots group”, Lahmeyer said, indicating it is a 501(c)(4) non-profit social welfare, which is awaiting IRS tax status approval. To date, the pastors group has created a two person board that includes South Carolina pastor Mark Burns, a key Trump campaign religious adviser who backed Trump’s 2016 run and who told the Guardian he is a “spiritual adviser” to Trump.

Lahmeyer said his group hopes to arrange an event in Las Vegas in August to coincide with a ReAwaken America gathering that is scheduled there, and that he expects to start fundraising to increase his group’s membership and activism.

Asked if Stone and Flynn may participate in the various swing state church gatherings, Lahmeyer said: “I’d be dumb not to ask them. Stone and General Flynn are huge supporters.” To push the group’s pro-Trump messages, Lahmeyer has arranged prayer calls in recent months that have included Stone, Flynn and ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, all of whom promoted bogus claims of election fraud in 2020 and tried to help Trump overturn his loss to Joe Biden.

One call that included a segment with Trump in late March, which Lahmeyer hosted and that Stone and Flynn participated in, went badly awry when the sound quality was interrupted for several minutes with Trump on the line. Lahmeyer told the Stone Zone the next day that trolls had infiltrated the “back stage” of the platform they were using, while Trump fingered the “radical left” for hacking his phone when he tried to join the call.

The launch of Pastors for Trump came not long after a rise in public criticism of Trump from some evangelical leaders that suggested waning support among evangelicals. Dr Everett Piper, the ex-president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, a Christian university, in November wrote an op-ed entitled “It’s time for the GOP to say it: Donald Trump is hurting us, not helping us.” Piper wrote that in the 2022 midterms Trump “hindered rather than helped the much-anticipated ‘red wave’”.

Likewise, Bob Vander Plaats, the Iowa-based president and chief executive of the Family Leader, a conservative social group, has tweeted about Trump: “It’s time to turn the page. America must move on. Walk off the stage with class.”

Little wonder that in January Trump condemned evangelical leaders who publicly criticized his new campaign for their “disloyalty”. Some scholars and recent polls, however, suggest Trump still has significant support in the evangelical circles, and that he should garner hefty support again from evangelical voters in the primaries if he is to be the nominee. “Trump’s enduring appeal to evangelicals is the greatest single triumph of identity politics in modern American history,” David Hollinger, an emeritus history professor at Berkeley and the author of Christianity’s American Fate, told the Guardian. “The evangelicals who flocked to Trump have good reason to stay with him.”

Still, Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee is alarmed at the Pastors for Trump campaign. “Most clergy avoid endorsing political candidates, even in their personal capacity, because they know the polarizing impact it would have on their congregations and the distractions it would cause from their calling and the mission of the church.”

Similarly, Taylor of Sojourners says Pastors for Trump is particularly worrisome. “This is further evidence that the threat of muscular white Christian nationalism is real and needs to be counteracted.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

Such a bizarro marriage of power interests.

[Chuck Naill]

These alliances are as old as history itself. There were Jewish Zealots whose idea was that Messiah would end Roman rule. One of the Zealots became one of the 12.

I finally heard a pastor say that American was not formed to be a Christian nation. These people probably know this, but they have pastored people, but have not taught them to study for themselves, in other words, they pastor, but don't produce disciples for which Jesus tells them to do. Who these men and women are have nothing to do with what Jesus taught his disciples to be. Their religion is "go to heaven when you die". If I were in the room and said this, I would be in danger of my life. What would really get me dead is saying tithing was invented into American churches in the 1870's.

Many of the writings of the Apostles were to attempt to get the new apprentices back on track after preachers came into town and sowed confusion and introduced works of the Jewish Law. Contrary to what many think, the Apostles were writing to disciples, not to those who were not interested in becoming followers of Jesus.

When these things happen, they produce a practical way to distinguish what they say from what Jesus said. Then, others can choose who has the best message. Jesus said he came for the very reason so that his apprentices would have life and have it abundantly. What these folks are producing doesn't sound like life. It sounds like seeds of turmoil and confusion.

The three-fold message of Jesus is

Take a break from the way you think, the Kingdom is here!
You'll receive forgiveness of your sin, but much more.
You'll gain an immediate but developing transformation of character and personality.
You will gain access to superhuman power to live the Kingdom Life and be engulfed with the Trinitarian Community.
You will have an abundant life that never ends.

Compare this with partnering with Donald Trump to make American a Christian nation.

[Chuck Naill]

I came across this Apostolic encounter,
"When Simon saw that the apostles by merely laying on hands conferred the Spirit, he pulled out his money, excited, and said, “Sell me your secret! Show me how you did that! How much do you want? Name your price!”

Peter said, “To hell with your money! And you along with it. Why, that’s unthinkable trying to buy God’s gift! You’ll never be part of what God is doing by striking bargains and offering bribes. Change your ways—and now! Ask the Master to forgive you for trying to use God to make money. I can see this is an old habit with you; you reek with money-lust.”

[Chuck Naill]

I am being made aware of the disciplines practiced by Jesus such as solitude, silence, and fasting. These relate to our physical being. We may want to do the right things but are led along by our bodies in a different direction. I never could understand fasting until now, even though I once did a 40 day fast. It had no effect because I performed it just for the experience.

Dr. Willard relates the discipline to Paul's writings about an athlete training for a race as well as a musician practicing where they don't do other things so they might become an accomplished musician. This is the same as a person would take time for silence and solitude in order to become better equipped for Kingdom living. Willard continues, actions are not opposed to grace, but opposed to earning.

Yesterday an evangelist was inviting people to ask if they knew they would go to heaven when they died. It has been said that Christians have invented a religion and then have to live with it. It is much more radical to think of discipleship rather than just going to heaven when you die. Dr. Willard says not to try and change the church, just become an apprentice yourself.

These and other thoughts are behind some of my recent comments about human sexuality. I don't want to have anything physical dominate my life. The body must come into subjection to my spirit.

[Chip]

I don't want to have anything physical dominate my life. The body must come into subjection to my spirit.

How about eating? Breathing? Gravity?

[Chuck Naill]

I don't want to have anything physical dominate my life. The body must come into subjection to my spirit.

How about eating? Breathing? Gravity?

I don’t have say over breathing and gravity. I do over eating.

[Chuck Naill]

Spiritual disciplines are well known in other institutions of human spirituality. It’s less know for Christians.

As Chip knows, learning to navigate white water requires a knowledge of how waters and rocks interact. There is also the necessary skills to address those interactions. Disciplines are necessary and especially so for the solo boater. When I say the don’t want anything physical dominating, I’m focused on skills development.

[Chip]

Besides decades of whitewater boating, I earned an MA in Fluvial Geomorphology (the branch of hydrology that studies how flowing water creates landforms).

Given that disciplined focus on reality, your vague preaching doesn't make sense to me.

If it makes you happy, that's fine.

[dneal]

An MA? Curious that you would be awarded an Arts degree for a science discipline.

[RobJohnson]

An MA? Curious that you would be awarded an Arts degree for a science discipline.

It does happen.

I don't know where Chip attended but for example Oxford and Cambridge issue Arts degrees only even for Science subjects.

The justification is that the rest of the world separated science from other subjects and that the Oxbridge MA/BA represented a degree standard of study and learning as opposed to the subject being studied.

[Chuck Naill]

Besides decades of whitewater boating, I earned an MA in Fluvial Geomorphology (the branch of hydrology that studies how flowing water creates landforms).

Given that disciplined focus on reality, your vague preaching doesn't make sense to me.

If it makes you happy, that's fine.

I am not vague, really sir. This is a topic for which you have not shown much interest or knowledge but chose to act more as a troll or to seek attention, I suspect the latter. And like you, if that makes you happy, so be it.

I was responding to not wanting to be ruled by my body and introduced disciplines as a way to mortify my physical self. You mentioned gravity for which I could never control. I can control how often and with whom I engage in sex, how much I eat or drink, what activities I want to participate, what I read, who I listen to, how fast I drive my car, etc. As Pete Rose said, I work on the things I don't do well. This is the point of discipline.

[dneal]

An MA? Curious that you would be awarded an Arts degree for a science discipline.

It does happen.

I don't know where Chip attended but for example Oxford and Cambridge issue Arts degrees only even for Science subjects.

The justification is that the rest of the world separated science from other subjects and that the Oxbridge MA/BA represented a degree standard of study and learning as opposed to the subject being studied.

Interesting, although it sounds like they award an arts degree because they don't focus on the subject being studied (in favor of a broader standard of study and learning). I'm not sure that's something to advocate. It seems analogous to us still using imperial measurements and trying to justify it, instead of moving on like the rest of the world.

[RobJohnson]

An MA? Curious that you would be awarded an Arts degree for a science discipline.

It does happen.

I don't know where Chip attended but for example Oxford and Cambridge issue Arts degrees only even for Science subjects.

The justification is that the rest of the world separated science from other subjects and that the Oxbridge MA/BA represented a degree standard of study and learning as opposed to the subject being studied.

Interesting, although it sounds like they award an arts degree because they don't focus on the subject being studied (in favor of a broader standard of study and learning). I'm not sure that's something to advocate. It seems analogous to us still using imperial measurements and trying to justify it, instead of moving on like the rest of the world.

It has been their practice since 1096, I suspect that they take the view that the rest of the world has got it wrong.

[dneal]

Yes, that's how many in the US feel about the metric system - hence the analogy.

Still not a very persuasive argument.

[Chip]

You don't think I know what degree I earned?

Your obsessive/compulsive disagreements seem more and more like a symptom.

FYI (as if you really care) my degree was awarded by the Dept. of Geography/Water Resources, which is part of the College of Arts and Sciences. There's another sort of hydrology degree from the Dept. of Civil Engineering, which concentrates on mathematics and structural applications.

And now, back to the Definition of Christian.

[TSherbs]

Chuck, Jesus never said to mortify the flesh, did he?