My correspondence about the nature of some recent political campaign material has been an eye-opener.
In response to what I’ve written I’ve been told by various people that I’m obtuse, obsessive and I’m splitting hairs; and I’ve been accused of playing silly games, of wilful stupidity and of defending the killing of babies.
How discouraging it could be to see how truth can be treated with so much disdain by professing Christians if Jesus hadn’t warned that such falsehoods would become prominent in the latter days.
If this ongoing matter was merely about different political opinions I’d have no problem stepping back and agreeing to disagree – but politics isn’t at the heart of it, at least not on my part.
But I’m not so sure whether that is the case on all sides, considering the kind of things Christians have been willing to accept and promote to advance a particular political outcome.
Personally I was never in favour of either of the presidential candidates.
On the one hand I saw that Clinton would continue a “more of the same” path with little immediate upheaval in the US and around the world, but she probably wouldn’t address things that seriously needed change.
A Clinton win would also probably mean a continuation of the “evangelical” hostility shown to Obama as well as the continuing stalemate enforced by a republican congress that made it difficult for Obama to get anything to be done in the US during his presidency.
On the other hand Trump seemed likely to shake everything up but not necessarily in the beneficial way his supporters expected. A Trump win would give “evangelicals” the kind of leader their behaviour showed they wanted after their 8 years of hostility and lies directed at Obama. I see their favoured leader perfectly mirrors that “evangelical” behaviour towards the outgoing president.
I can see that a Trump presidency could be God’s way of shaking American evangelicals, opening their eyes and giving them the opportunity to repent of their trust in their Nation and its secular political system.
However, the opening of eyes requires a willingness to see and recognise the truth. Sadly, my recent experiences and observations don’t make me optimistic about the likelihood of many of those Christians/evangelicals being able and willing to take advantage of that opportunity.
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In the latest email I’ve received from Bill Randles he said: “The issue is not the video, but the words of Hillary telling us that we would have to alter our religious beliefs”
However, the issue IS the video, which projects extremist meaning onto “the words of Hillary” to proclaim that she’s demanding things like: “Kneel and deny your Christian faith”. (I’ve already addressed Clinton’s actual words elsewhere).
I’m sure someone with ill intent could easily trawl through Bills recorded sermons and find something that could be twisted to give it an unintended sinister meaning, and could do so successfully if it was presented in the unscrupulous manner of that video to an audience as undiscerning and hostile as those who find the anti-Clinton video to be truthful.
[If anyone reading this doesn’t usually refer to the comments section of a post, I recommend that you do so this time. I think there are some important additions to the ongoing issues mentioned above]
