Tag Archives: Evangelicals

Economic Justice

Evangelicals Urge Trump to Restore Aid to Christian Charities After He and Musk Slash Billions

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The mega-billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk have now shut down all aid to poor countries, effectively sentencing many Christian aid organizations to collapse. Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest person, wrote on Twitter that USAID “must die”, and he called out a Lutheran relief organization as “illegal.” Recently, he stated that Trump “agrees” that the entire agency should be dismantled—the only aid allowed to continue is military support.

Just a few years ago, xenophobic politicians had to argue that they still wanted to help the poor and vulnerable in order to justify their restrictions on refugee reception. They falsely claimed they would compensate for reduced refugee immigration with increased aid “in the local region.”

That never happened. And today’s xenophobic politicians don’t even bother with such lies—they are openly hostile to helping poor people, refusing to accept them as refugees or support them through aid.

Trump is shutting down nearly all foreign aid, hundreds of billions of dollars, while completely closing the country’s refugee intake—redirecting hundreds of billions toward mass deportations, sending people back to persecution and poverty and leaving millions of children orphaned in the US.

The entire USAID website has been shut down, along with several other government websites. Trump has ordered the removal of all websites mentioning climate change and a whole database containing evidence of the January 6th attack on the Capitol has been deleted. This is the largest case of state censorship in U.S. history, orchestrated by two criminal billionaires who ironically claim to champion “free speech.”

A majority of evangelical Christians in the U.S. voted for Trump, but now evangelical organizations and churches such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Convention are pleading with the Trump administration to restore funding for aid organizations like World Relief. Their pleas, however, are likely falling on deaf ears. Trump’s dismantling of public support for organizations helping refugees and the poor is not an accident—it is precisely what “America First” was always about.

Now, organizations are warning that HIV-positive individuals worldwide are losing access to life-saving medication, humanitarian operations are being abruptly halted, and millions of poor people are suffering even more than before.

Meanwhile, Trump has granted his billionaire friend Elon Musk access to large portions of the U.S. treasury, even though Congress—the very institution attacked by Trump supporters four years ago—is supposed to have the power of the purse. According to multiple experts, this is a clear sign of an authoritarian takeover designed to ensure Trump never loses power—something he himself has been shockingly open about.

It is encouraging, albeit somewhat late, that U.S. evangelicals are beginning to regret their support for Trump. Now, Christians in Europe must increase their efforts in missions and aid to compensate for the billions that Trump and Musk have cut from the poor. And we must pray—for the poor who are suffering and for the conversion of Trump’s and Musk’s hearts. Many lives are at stake!

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

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Politics

Trump Sold Bibles to Pay for Legal Fees to a Porn Star he Cheated With and Compared Himself to Jesus

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Yes, you read that correctly.

Last year, Donald Trump was indicted for having paid over a hundred thousand dollars to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their sexual encounter shortly after his wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to the crime, calling it a “sex scandal of biblical proportions” and admitting that it was done on Trump’s orders.

Trump also accidentally admitted to the crime in 2018, but has since denied it. He is really bad at playing innocent – he threatened “death and destruction” if he was charged, which he was. Several of his supporters call it persecution and communism that he is being charged – they do not care that Trump himself has already admitted to it.

While he was in court, Trump shared on social media an image comparing himself to Jesus Christ. As people who have read the Bible might recall, Jesus was in fact never on trial for being accused of paying hush money illegally to a porn star. Sure, Trump’s point was that he was as innocent as Jesus was when Jesus was falsely accused of blasphemy and was put to death by the Romans. But again, Trump had actually admitted that he made the payment to the porn star – thus, he was not innocent.

Lo and behold, Trump was found guilty on 34 charges and became the first former president to be a convicted felon. What happened next, you ask? Trump started to sell Bibles. The “God bless the USA Bible”, which mixed the Holy Words of Scripture with secular, political writings—almost as if the separation of church and state doesn’t mean much to him. These Bibles cost 60 dollars each and while the organization that sells them isn’t owned by Trump it has a “paid licensing agreement” with one of his companies.

As of yet, Trump has made at least 300,000 dollars from these Bibles and as he can’t use those funds for his political campaigns, it is likely that he used them to pay his mounting legal fees after his failed court case with Stormy Daniels.

And here’s the really crazy part. Hardly any evangelical leader that normally supports Donald Trump has rebuked him for any of this. Their loyalty to Trump is clearly stronger than their loyalty to Christ and the Bible. Likewise, they mostly remained silent when he said that he was the most honest human being God ever created or when he was pleased when someone compared him to the second coming of God:

When will evangelicals finally abandon this guy?

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Politics

Even a Republican Who Praises Hitler and Admits to Adultery Doesn’t Lose Much Evangelical Support

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Republicans can literally call themselves Nazis and openly admit to adultery without losing much evangelical support, apparently.

Republican Mark Robinson has been a frequent visitor to an adult website called Nude Africa where he regularly watched transgender sex and posted comments guaranteed to offend a variety of constituencies.

In comments Robinson posted on the pornography site, he praised Hitler, called himself a “black NAZI,” said he supported slavery, confessed to formerly “peeping” on women as they showered, admitted an affair with his wife’s sister; and called civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “Martin Lucifer Koon.”

Donald Trump endorsed Robinson’s current campaign to be North Carolina’s next governor, praising him as “Martin Luther King times two.” According to Raw Story, many evangelical leaders in North Carolina say they still support Robinson and that he clearly loves Jesus. The very same Jesus who said that we should judge the tree based on its fruit (Matthew 12:33-37).

Many of these evangelicals have emphasized “family values” and representing “Biblical morality” when they’ve explained how they reason when they vote. But Robinson represents the opposite of that. As does Donald Trump, obviously, who has bragged about grabbing women by their genitals, sleeping with other married women, is a legally defined sexual predator and was found guilty on 34 charges of paying hush money to a porn star after sleeping with her when Trump’s youngest son was only four months old.

Continue reading Even a Republican Who Praises Hitler and Admits to Adultery Doesn’t Lose Much Evangelical Support →
Nonviolence, Politics

Evangelicals Call Jesus “Weak” for Promoting “Liberal Talking Points”

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Russell Moore used to be one of the top officials of the Southern Baptist Convention and is currently the Editor in Chief of Christianity Today. Last year, he was interviewed by NPR and explained why he thinks American Christianity is in crisis:

Russell Moore

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”

And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.

I’m sure many want to discard this as some extreme, uncommon view among a very small minority of church goers, in spite of Moore telling us that multiple pastors has told him similar stories. However, the vital question is not how many evangelicals have a heretical view of Jesus’ words and teaching, but how this situation could even arise in the first place.

And it’s not that mysterious when you think about it, is it? Moore himself has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump and what the support for him among white evangelicals has done with their movement. With his adultery, sex with pornstars, constant lies, mocking of disabled people, hate against immigrants, disrespect for the poor and other sins, Trump is extremely unlike Jesus. Yet, he is constantly portrayed by many evangelicals as the one to save the country, sometimes in very blasphemous ways, which Trump himself makes sure to capitalize on:

And so, it’s not strange that when some evangelicals who are told over and over again that a Christian champion looks like Trump cannot recognize the true Jesus. As Russell Moore said in the very same interview:

I think if we’re going to get past the blood and soil sorts of nationalism or all of the other kinds of kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it’s going to require rethinking what the church is. And I don’t think that’s something new. I think it’s very old. I think it’s recovering a first-century understanding of what it means to be the church.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!