I hear a lot of people blaming Christianity for the election of drumpf/trump-pence. It was not Christianity, it was Christians who chose not to pay attention to the teachings of Jesus Christ when they voted. They are Christians who have embraced the gospel of greed that is all the rage in America, and once one accepts the perversion that Christianity endorses greed it is easy to also accept racism, misogyny, xenophobia, sexual assault, homophobia, and authoritarianism are basic tenants of the faith. Here are two articles from Patheos, both from +benjaminlcorey. I do disagree with Mr Corey about Hell. I do believe in it, don't want anyone to go there, and I can not share his condemnation of franklin graham to Hell. He is right about franklin graham deliberately lying to America and perverting the teachings of Christianity to the extent that his version, his vision of our faith holds more in common with daesh / isis than Jesus Christ. I will leave the judging to God.....
What I Wish My White Friends & Family Understood About Our Election Grief
November 10, 2016 by
It’s day 2, and I’m still grieving and feeling physically sick over the election– especially as I read story after story of how the Trump win has already emboldened racist bullying, threats, intimidation, and sexual assaults— in just the first day.
As I process, I’m realizing there’s a lot of things I wish my white friends and family knew and understood about our post-election grieving.
I wish they understood that this isn’t an issue of Republican or Democrat, but that this is an issue of life and death.
I wish they understood that we’re not grieving because we didn’t get our own way, but are grieving because the nation instantly became less safe for so many– particularly for our kids.
I wish they knew what it was like to send my daughter to school after the election, wanting to vomit with fear over what hateful things might be said to her.
I wish they knew what she sounds like when she cries because kids at school told her that she doesn’t belong in this country and should go back to wherever she came from.
I wish they knew how tightly she clings to me over and over, asking “Daddy, are you sure Trump can’t send me back? How do you really know for sure?”
I wish they knew the agony of knowing that for at least the next four years, the world is a far more dangerous place for her, simply because she’s not white.
I wish they knew the twisted joy I experienced over realizing that her language disabilities might be an asset to her for these next few years, because maybe, just maybe, she won’t understand some of the words that people will say to her.
I wish they knew the panic of realizing she’ll be dating soon, and that this era of her life will exist under a president who has normalized sexual assault, and where Christian leaders she should be able to trust for guidance, dismissed and explained away this behavior in order to grasp political power.
I wish they knew the burn in my stomach that feels like I swallowed battery acid when I read white supremacists and KKK leaders say the election of Trump was the “greatest night of their life,” because that means the election of Trump was one of the worst nights of hers.
I wish they knew what it felt like to read the many horrific testimonies coming out of America in the past 24 hours. I wish they knew the feeling I get as I read each story of people of color being harassed and threatened while pumping gas, while walking down the street, or just minding their own business, and realize that these people– now emboldened by Trump– will now feel far more permission to harm my child.
I wish they knew the stress and torment of knowing that I can only protect her so much, that my white privilege doesn’t extend to her, and that there will come a day when I’m not going to be there to protect her from the racism and xenophobia that was normalized and endorsed with a Trump vote. I’m just praying that when it does happen to her again, it will be with words and not physical violence.
I know that day is a matter of when, not if, and I wish they knew what it feels like to preemptively beg God to have mercy.
I wish they knew the devastation of realizing that the very nation I sacrificed for and gave a decade of my life to, is not the nation I thought it was.
I wish they knew the disappointment, heartbreak, and feeling like you gave so much in order to make the country better, only to experience the betrayal of living in a country that’s not safe for my own child to live in.
I wish they knew the dilemma of having your child ask you which family members support Trump, because she wants to know exactly who is betraying her– because she wants to know which family members stood up for her, and which ones did not.
I wish they knew what it felt like to play dumb in that moment so she’d never know for sure.
And most of all, I wish they knew that if my daughter were white, my list of fears would be infinitely less– because the election of Donald Trump didn’t make the world a more dangerous place for white kids.
We have post-election grief, because the election of Donald Trump made our worlds less safe in a way that you will never understand or experience.
We are in the days of Trump’s America, and my white family and friends will probably never get it.
I probably never would have gotten it either. But as I sit here and look at the world around me through the eyes of my wonderful child, I do.
And I’m grieved in the deepest parts of my spirit that this has come to pass, and that so many around me contributed to it.
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Why Franklin Graham Had Better Hope That Progressive Christians Were Right About Hell
November 10, 2016 by
Matt Johnson, Flickr Creative Commons
Is Franklin Graham headed to hell when he dies?
That’s a tricky question, but one he’d do well to wrestle with.
The answer to that is found in how one views the Bible– is it the inerrant, inspired Word of God? Is the Bible true? Is it authoritative?
If one were to answer yes to those questions, which Franklin Graham does, the Bible itself pronounces condemnation for him on multiple counts. Mainly, he stands condemned as an unrepentant liar and hypocrite– both offenses that his Bible declares as actions that exclude one from God’s Kingdom (Matthew 23:13-15, Rev 21:8).
While the examples of his lying and hypocrisy are endless, let’s take a few recent examples. This is what Graham said on Facebook today in response to the election of unregistered sex-offender, Donald Trump:
“Did God show up? In watching the news after the election, the secular media keep asking “How did this happen?” “What went wrong?” “How did we miss this?” Some are in shock. Political pundits are stunned. Many thought the Trump/Pence ticket didn’t have a chance. None of them understand the God-factor.Hundreds of thousands of Christians from across the United States have been praying. This year they came out to every state capitol to pray for this election and for the futureof America. Prayer groups were started. Families prayed. Churches prayed. Then Christians went to the polls, and God showed up.While the media scratches their heads and tries to understand how this happened, I believe that God’s hand intervened Tuesday night to stop the godless, atheistic progressive agenda from taking control of our country.President-elect Donald J. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence are going to need a lot of help and they will continue to need a lot of prayer. I pray that President-elect Trump will surround himself with godly men and women to help advise and counsel him as he leads the nation. My prayer is that God will bless America again!”
Graham is clearly rejoicing that his candidate won the election, even going as far as saying God did it! But here’s the thing: Graham has spent the last six months claiming he left the Republican party, that he wasn’t endorsing a candidate, and traveled to all 50 states asking Christians to pray and “vote their conscience.” He didn’t fool any of us, but he portrayed himself as a simple Christian standing in the gap with no dog in the fight, and we all know that was a blatant lie.
While Graham portrayed his 50 state rally effort as being a nonpartisan religious event, let’s call it like it was: Franklin Graham traveled to all 50 states to campaign for Donald Trump. He knew he was doing it, and we knew he was doing it– but he had to clothe it as something that it wasn’t in order to appear he was a non-biased Christian (and he also likely had to disguise his Trump rallies to steer clear of IRS regulations).
It was deceitful, and we all knew it.
Furthermore, during the campaign Graham criticized “media bias” as if he were clean and pure, all the while being guilty of the very thing he claimed he opposed (the very definition of a hypocrite). For example, after the Vice Presidential debates he praised Mike Pence for discussing his faith openly during the debate, but made no mention to the fact that Time Kane also discussed his faith openly, because he was a Christian, too.
It was dishonest and hypocritical, and we all knew it.
And then there’s the consistent trope he claimed again today— that progressivism is “atheistic” and “godless.” This claim is as blatantly dishonest as one can get, as most progressives are Christians, and both of the candidates who ran on the democratic ticket were Christians too. Of course, Graham knows this, because you’d have to be stupid not to. Which means once again, he’s lying in order to discredit and malign and entire group of people.
He’s done the same thing with the lies he tells about LGBTQ people, claiming they are godless and anti-Christian when in fact, half of them are Christians.
With today’s celebration, Franklin Graham is finally openly and honestly showing his true colors. While he was pretending to be someone fed up with politics who left the Republican party, he spent months traveling the country campaigning for Donald Trump on the tax-free donations given to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He daily spewed bias and hate on social media, all while claiming it was everyone else behaving with bias. And now, he continues his lies of claiming that progressives hate God and are atheists, when that is absurdly untrue.
So, is Franklin Graham going to hell? Does he stand condemned?
I don’t believe in hell, and even if I did, I don’t believe we know who is in and who is out.
BUT…
The irony is that if he is right about the Bible being the authoritative, inerrant Word of God, if what Franklin Graham himself teaches is true, if it’s true that “all liars will have their place in the lake of fire,” and if it’s true that hypocrites are sons of hell who will be excluded from God’s Kingdom, Graham is on the list of people the Bible says will go there.
In fact, it seems clear that by Franklin’s own standards, he condemns himself.
Unless Graham repents and turns to Jesus, he’d better hope he’s wrong about the Bible– and that progressive Christians were right all along to dismiss the idea of hell.
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