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).
Trump and Vance have unleashed and emboldened some of America’s ugliest principalities and powers. This KKK flyer was handed out in Springfield, OH this week, after Trump and Vance spread racist lies about Haitians eating pets in Springfield:
I know there are folks saying these flyers are not real, but this was sent to me by a friend in Springfield who received one. The FBI is now involved.
May we all stand against hatred and racism, especially any of us who claim to be Christians. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and Jesus said when we welcome the stranger, we welcome Him. Hate will not win.
Let’s just make a bold statement… Christians shouldn’t be supporting the same rhetoric and polices as the Ku Klux Klan.
The racism, lies and hateful rhetoric of the KKK and Donald Trump are a direct contradiction to the Gospel of Jesus.
I don’t think that means you have to wear a Kamala shirt. But let’s all agree to stand together for love, compassion, and truth. Let’s keep Jesus and the Beatitudes front and center. Let’s stay grounded in the fruit of the Spirit. Let’s stand against all forms of hatred, false witness, and bigotry.
Some things are not about Left and Right… they are about right and wrong.
Donald Trump lost big in his debate with Kamala Harris when, among other things, he rambled about Joe Biden not being president, that everyone attending Harris’s rallies are paid actors, and that immigrants eat cats and dogs in the small town of Springfield, Ohio.
The latter was corrected by the debate moderator, who said that Springfield’s authorities have denied this, but Trump protested like a five-year-old and shouted, “I saw it on television!!”
The most bizarre part of the debate, however, was when Trump boasted that a dictator likes him. Kamala Harris had just pointed out that Trump tried to undemocratically hold onto power after he lost the 2020 election like a dictator and that even people who worked with him called him a “disgrace.” And how did Trump respond?
“Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men—they call him a ‘strongman’—he’s a tough person, smart… He said: You need Trump back as president.”
For normal people, it’s not a good sign when a racist dictator who persecutes journalists and condemns “mixed-race nations” endorses you, but Trump is incredibly impressed by dictators and wants to be like them. Kamala Harris pointed out: “These dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again… You adore strongmen instead of caring about democracy.”
This is far from the first time Trump has praised a dictator and expressed himself in an anti-democratic way:
Trump praised President Xi in China for consolidating power in order to become president for life, saying he wanted to try the same thing.[1]
Trump has repeatedly “joked” about serving longer than the legal limit of two terms.[2]
Trump has repeatedly praised authoritarian leaders, including Putin, Duterte, Erdogan, el-Sisi, and Orbán.[3]
Trump praised the brutal dictator Kim Jong Un, calling him “strong, funny, and smart.”[4]
At a G7 summit, President Trump loudly asked, “Where’s my favorite dictator?” while waiting for the Egyptian dictator.[5]
Trump has defended those who stormed the Capitol to prevent Joe Biden from being democratically elected and said he would pardon them if he becomes president again.[6]
Trump has looked up to the sky and declared that he is “the chosen one.”[7]
Trump shared a tweet in which he was called the King of Israel and the Second Coming of God, and he thanked them for the compliment.[8]
Trump has explicitly written that the U.S. Constitution should be suspended to prevent him from losing elections.[9]
Trump told his supporters that they wouldn’t need to vote again after this election.[10]
Recently, Trump has repeatedly said that he would “only” be a dictator on day one if he’s re-elected and would use presidential power dictatorially to get revenge on his political enemies.[11]
He also recently claimed that all his political enemies will be arrested when he comes to power.[12]
Trump is the greatest threat to U.S. democracy we have ever seen. Let us pray and act so that he loses big in November!
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.
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!
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.
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!
More and more of those who previously worked for Trump are now warning about him, stating that he lacks a moral backbone and lies constantly—which most of us had figured out already, but now even those who were once his supporters are starting to realize the truth. Not a moment too soon!
Stephanie Grisham, on the right in the picture below, worked for Trump when he was president, called herself a “true Trump believer,” and was, among other things, his press secretary. She recently urged Republicans to vote for Democrat Kamala Harris instead and revealed what Trump says when he thinks no one is listening.
“When people were dying in intensive care units, he was mad that the cameras weren’t filming him,” Grisham said. “He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth. He used to tell me: ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough, and people will believe you.'”
Trump’s campaign responded to this in a very calm, professional, and nuanced manner. No, of course not.
The question that arises, of course, is whether that doesn’t make Trump an even bigger “dummy with mental issues” since he hired her to be responsible for his communication with the outside world. The claim that it’s Grisham who is lying and not Trump is bizarre, given that he has been caught lying over and over again.
Grisham’s account of how Trump was annoyed that TV cameras were filming intensive care patients instead of him is also confirmed by another of his former employees, Olivia Troye, who also urges Republicans to put democracy above party and vote for Harris instead of Trump.
Other former Trump employees who are warning about him include his former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, who has called him a “threat to democracy,” and his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who has said that he is “unfit to be president.”
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.
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!
Donald Trump’s plan to deport 15 million people is both dangerous and inhumane. This plan would require enormous resources, cause humanitarian disasters, and lead to economic and social instability in the United States.
The former president Trump has promised, if he’s elected again despite now being a convicted felon, to deport more people than there are undocumented immigrants in the country, meaning even legal residents and citizens could be at risk. Such an operation would demand a massive amount of resources and personnel, making it extremely costly and logistically complicated—perhaps even impossible. The deportation process would cost over $210 billion and require a workforce larger than the U.S. Army.
Trump often claims that millions of undocumented immigrants to the US come from prisons and mental institutions, but that is simply false and has been described as “laughable” by experts. In reality, immigrants are just like other people: some are bad, most are good.
The humanitarian consequences of Trump’s plan would be devastating. Mass deportations on this scale would result in the separation of millions of families and leave approximately 4.5 million American children without one or both parents. This would place a massive burden on social systems and likely lead to a humanitarian crisis. If the children are not deported themselves, they would need state care, which would cost an additional $118 billion. Most of these children would belong to Christian families.
Socially and politically, Trump’s plan involves state National Guards and other security forces conducting mass arrests in cities and communities across the country. This would create a situation where residents live in constant fear of arbitrary and violent interventions. There is also a risk that this would lead to violent confrontations between federal forces and local authorities or residents trying to protect their neighbors.
The motivations behind Trump’s plan are also troubling. Stephen Miller, who has a history of racist, white nationalist, and xenophobic views, sees the deportation of non-white immigrants as a personal mission and has been appointed by Trump to oversee this monstrous project. The plan is not just a political proposal but part of a broader agenda to change the demographic composition of the U.S. Which is in line with Trump’s ambition to remain in power at any cost, even if it requires terminating the Constitution.
Legally and constitutionally, Trump’s plan raises significant issues. The proposal to revoke birthright citizenship violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and bypassing legal processes to carry out mass deportations would contravene fundamental legal principles. This would undermine the rule of law and set a precedent for future authoritarian measures.
Overall, Trump’s plan to deport 15 million people is both dangerous and inhumane. It would cause significant humanitarian and economic damage, create social and political instability, and undermine the rule of law. We must take this threat seriously and work to prevent Trump’s plans from being realized, as the consequences would be devastating for both individuals and society as a whole.
Jesus said: “When I was a stranger, you welcomed me… Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.” (Matthew 25:35, 40). Deporting millions of people from the richest country on earth while making millions of children of children orphans is the opposite of that.
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.
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!
Donald Trump has now been found liable by a jury for sexual assault and must pay over five million dollars for assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a clothing store in 1996. However, she is far from the only one who has testified that Trump has committed assaults:
Jessica Leeds has recounted that Trump touched her breasts and ran his hand up under her skirt in the early 1980s.
Kristin Anderson has said that Trump reached under her skirt and touched her genitals in the early 1990s.
Jill Harth told how Trump repeatedly sexually harassed her and groped her under a table in 1993.
Temple Taggart McDowell, former Miss Utah, said that Trump kissed her directly on the lips the first time she met him in 1997.
Cathy Heller said Trump grabbed her and tried to kiss her at Trump’s luxury resort Mar-a-Lago in 1997.
Karena Virginia recounted that Trump groped her during the US Open golf tournament in 1998.
Mindy McGillivray said Trump groped her while she was at a concert at Mar-a-Lago in 2003.
Rachel Crooks said she was assaulted by Trump in an elevator at Trump Tower in 2005.
Natasha Stoynoff recounted that Trump pushed her against a wall and stuck his tongue far down her throat at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.
Jennifer Murphy, a participant in Trump’s TV show The Apprentice, said Trump kissed her on the lips after a job interview in 2005.
Ninni Laaksonen, former Miss Finland, told how “Trump was standing right next to me and suddenly squeezed my buttocks” in July 2006 when they were backstage to appear on The Late Show.
Jessica Drake told how Trump grabbed her and kissed her without consent, and then offered her $10,000 for sex in 2006.
Summer Zervos, another participant in The Apprentice, told how Trump started kissing her, touched her breasts, and pressed his groin against her in 2007.
Cassandra Searles, a model who participated in Miss USA, which Trump owned, told how he grabbed her buttocks and invited her to his hotel room in 2013.
Last but not least:
Donald Trump himself boasted in 2005 to his friend Billy Bush about how he usually assaults women by “grabbing them by the pussy” and getting away with it because he is so famous, and how he, for the same reason, usually has sex with married women.
…
Isn’t Trump innocent until proven guilty? Legally, absolutely – he cannot be punished solely based on accusations – but that is not the same as saying that all these women are liars until proven otherwise. Especially not when Trump is a proven liar with this verdict (and according to his own words when he thought no one but Billy Bush could hear him).
The fact that many Americans, including many Christians, now openly express their continued support and defense for the sex offender Trump after the guilty verdict is sheer madness.
It was only 25 years ago when the Souther Baptist Convention passed their “Resolution on Moral Character of Public Officials”, which states: “Some journalists report that many Americans are willing to excuse or overlook immoral or illegal conduct by unrepentant public officials so long as economic prosperity prevails. […] Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”
If white evangelicals in the US want to be viewed as anything else than immoral, misogynistic hypocrites, they need to abandon the Trump train immediately. The fact that they’ve been on it for seven years is disastrous in and of itself, but to save whatever integrity they have left, now is the time to repent.
Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.
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!
Yesterday, 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.
The millions of (white) evangelical Christians who still support Trump also do not seem to care about his infidelity with porn stars and other women. In fact, after the infamous video where Trump boasted about committing sexual assault (“grab them by the pussy”) and sleeping with married women was released, he became more popular among white evangelicals.
This is largely due to the fact that many white evangelicals value traditional patriarchal masculinity, as historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez shows in her book Jesus and John Wayne. While they verbally condemn sexual assault and infidelity, it is something many evangelical men engage in themselves and are quite impressed by, and women are taught to accept sexual assault and rape in popular evangelical books about marriage and relationships. The book The Great Sex Rescue goes through this in detail and shows that evangelicals who have a so-called “complementarian” view of women and men have significantly worse marriages that often lead to divorce.
These statistics show beyond any reasonable doubt that the white evangelical endorsement of Trump has radically changed their values. In 2011, over 60 percent of them said that an elected official who commits an immoral act in their private life cannot behave ethically in their public life. In the Trump era, this conviction remains among less than 20 percent. Falwell Jr. and other evangelical leaders have convinced millions of Christians that a good character simply isn’t relevant when it comes to leadership, despite there being hundreds of verses in the Scriptures that suggest otherwise.
The prosperity preaching televangelist and multimillionaire Kenneth Copeland has stirred a lot of controversy lately. He tried to blow away the coronavirus, was one of the first pastors to deny that Joe Biden won the election (in an extremely bizarre way) and now he is begging people who are millions of dollars poorer than him for a new private jet.
Now, if you’re familiar with Copeland you know that he already has a private jet. In fact, he has three. He stores them at an airport called Kenneth Copeland Airport, right next to his million-dollar mansion in Texas.
The motivation he recently gave at the extremist Christian show Flashpoint is that he can’t fly commercial because he refuses to get vaccinated for Covid and many airlines require vaccination these days. “That’s the mark of the Beast”, he said.
This is clearly not the real reason Kenny is begging for your money, as there are several airlines in the US that does not require vaccination (even though it definitely can be argued that they should), and we know that Copeland argued against flying commercial long before the pandemic in order to motivate his love for private jets. Then, the reason was that that commercial planes are “tubes full of demons“.
The real reason Copeland is acting like this is, I think, that his self-worth is in those jets, they communicate success to himself and to a huge part of his audience. Practically, he doesn’t need four private planes any more than you and me, but on an existential and spiritual level he they are like oxygen to him. He is terrified of the thought of not being able to buy luxuries and status objects with other people’s money, since he himself has been preaching for decades that such a lifestyle is the ultimate evidence that God is with you.
It is just as the apostle Paul expressed it thousands of years ago:
“Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this!” – 1 Timothy 6: 9-11
Kenneth Copeland is stuck in this trap of wealth, and it is consuming him. Like most other preachers, he has likely lost a lot of income during the pandemic—he warned his audience early on that even if they lose their jobs, they should continue tithing.
I’m guessing most of them didn’t.
And as Kenny has become one of the primary laughing stocks on the internet due to his bizarre statements and performances, he has a hard time attracting a younger audience. His empire is crumbling, and it destroys his self-worth.
Participating in a "Victorython" fundraiser for Kenneth Copeland's ministry, right-wing pastor Jesse Duplantis brags about being a multi-millionaire with his own private plane while telling viewers that they can "speed up" the return of Christ by donating. pic.twitter.com/3VE6sETWBB
That is why his friend Jesse Duplantis lied about how gifts to Copeland’s will “speed up” Jesus’ return. In their world, that’s true. Now, I’m not defending this craziness. It is unbiblical, catastrophic spiritual abuse. But my point is that these men are broken, afraid and have plunged themselves into ruin and destruction, and they’re so addicted to their wealth that they think that only more wealth can solve their problem.
We need to pray for them, for healing and repentence. But whatever you do, don’t give these millionaires more money. That’s just like handing a bag of cocaine over to a drug addict.
Micael Grenholm is editor and contributor for PCPJ.
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!
20 years ago, Al Qaida killed 3,000 civilians through terror and fire. That was a horrifying, indefensible act of violence.
In response, the USA started two wars that have killed 70,000 civilians in Afghanistan and 200,000 (!) in Iraq. Thousands of them were children.
That was also a horrifying, indefensible act of violence.
Shane Claiborne is an activist and theologian who had wise things to say concerning the violent aftermath of 9/11. From his book The Irresistible Revolution (2nd edition, pp. 185-187):
When Kingdoms Collide
Shortly after September 11th, I traveled to speak to a large congregation in the Midwest. (And no, it wasn’t Willow Creek.) Before I got up to preach, a military color guard presented the US flagat the altar. The choir filed in one-by-one, dressed in red white, and blue, with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” playing in the background. I knew I was in big trouble. The congregation pledged allegiance to the flag, and I wished it were all a dream. It wasn’t. I got up to speak, thankful I was standing behind a large podium lest anyone try to pelt me with a pew Bible. I went forward to preach the truth in love with my knees knocking and managed to make it out okay with a bunch of hugs and a few feisty letters.
This is a dramatic (though painfully true) illustration of the messy collision of Christianity and patriotism that has rippled across our land. I thought this was an exceptional and dramatic example, but l’ve had same zingers since this. I spoke at a military academy where they had a full-on procession of military vehicles and weaponry. They fired cannons and saluted the flag, and then I got up to speak. I felt compelled to speak on the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control), the things Scripture says God is like and we should hope to be more like.
I talked about how the fruit of the Spirit take training and discipline and are not always cultivated by the culture around us. Afterward, one young soldier came up to me, nearly in tears, and told me that as he heard the list of the fruit of the Spirit, it became clear to him that these were not the things he was being trained to become. We prayed together, and I think of him often. I know that young man is not alone.
I saw a banner hanging next to city hall in downtown Philadelphia that read, “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” A bumper sticker read, “God will judge evildoers, We just have to get them to him.” I saw a T-shirt on a sold’ that said, “US Air Force … we don’t die; we just go to hell to regroup.” Others were less dramatic-red, white, and blue billboards saying, “God bless our troops.” “God bless America” became a marketing strategy. One store hung an ad in their window that said, “God bless America–$1 burgers.”
Patriotism was everywhere, including in our altars and church buildings. In the aftermath of September 11th, most Christian bookstores had a section with books on the event, calendars, devotionals, buttons, all decorated in the colors of America, draped in stars and stripes, and sprinkled with golden eagles.
This burst of nationalism reveals the deep longing we all have for community, a natural thirst for intimacy that liberals and progressive Christians would have done much better to acknowledge. September 11th shattered the self-sufficient, autonomous individual, and we saw a country of broken fragile people who longed for community–for people to cry with, be angry with, to suffer with. People did not want to be alone in their sorrow, rage, and fear.
But what happened after September 11th broke my heart. Conservative Christians rallied around the drums of war. Liberal Christians took to the streets … Many Christians missed the opportunity to validate both the horror of September 11th and outrage at war as a response to September 11th.
In the aftermath of September 11th, many congregations missed the chance to bear witness of God’s concern for the victims of the attack and God’s concern for the victims of the imminent war. Many of us hunkered down into familiar camps rather than finding a more creative way of standing with all who suffer. Many of the antiwar activists would do well to visit the memorial in NYC. And many of the war hawks would do well to visit the Ameriyah shelter in West Baghdad. Every life lost is reason for grief and outrage.
The cross was smothered by the flag and trampled under the feet of angry protesters. The church community was lost, so the many hungry seekers found community in the civic religion of American patriotism. People were hurting and crying out for healing, for salvation in the best sense of the word, as in the salve with which you dress a wound.
A people longing for a savior placed their faith in the fragile hands of human logic and military strength, which have always let us down. They have always fallen short of the glory of God.
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!
PCPJ 
