A certain voting bloc in the USA has allegedly been linked to Christianity. Yet, what the voting bloc is doing has nothing to do with Christianity.

The American media call that voting bloc Evangelicals. Doing so eliminates the original meaning of the word evangelical.

Originally, the word was used to identify a person bearing the good news of what Messiah Jesus has done for humanity. Even if one didn’t believe the message of an evangelical, one understood that the message had nothing to do with politics.

Today, the messages of political evangelicals have nothing to do with the message that the evangelicals of antiquity presented.

Of course, such a phenomenon is nothing new. Ever since the Apostolic Era ended*, people have been abusing the name of Christianity by saying and doing things that contradict the teachings of the New Testament. As a result, mockers of Christianity keep getting the dirty bath water confused with the baby.

Political evangelicals may believe that they are presenting the water of life, but what they are really presenting is dirty bath water.

So, who are these political evangelicals?

Baylor University professor Thomas Kidd gives one description:

“In Donald Trump’s America, evangelicals have become the nation’s most controversial and reviled religious movement. But how much does the sound and fury about evangelicals actually signify? Non-evangelical people who follow the news may have a variety of impressions about what the term evangelical means, but one certain association people make with the word is Republican.

Another likely association is white. Many may recall that around 81 percent of self-described white evangelical voters backed Donald Trump. Polls and stories about evangelical political behavior almost always assume the evangelicals in question are white. Some polls don’t account for any other kind of evangelical.”

I have news for political evangelicals. They don’t have a monopoly on the Christian faith, and they aren’t the final authority on what the Bible teaches.

Political evangelicals aren’t promoting the Christian faith. Instead, they are promoting a hybrid of their Western political beliefs and their Western ethnocentric interpretation of the Bible. They are simply reading into the Bible things that aren’t there while ignoring things that are there.

Among the things that are there is this statement from the Tanakh book of Micah:

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8, NIV)

Are political evangelicals displaying justice, mercy and humility? No, not that I have seen. Then again, that isn’t their goal. Instead, their goal is to force the U.S. government to turn their religious beliefs into civil and criminal law. Not only is what they want unconstitutional, it also isn’t required by the New Testament.

For the record, I know plenty of Christians who are in the category of political evangelicals. Their faith in Messiah Jesus is sincere. Still, they don’t realize that they are marching lock-step in political groupthink. If you dare to disagree with their political goals, then they will accuse you of contradicting the Bible.

As a believer in Messiah Jesus, I have to love these people with the love of Jesus. I join them in worshiping Messiah Jesus and in acting like the sheep in the Messiah’s parable of the sheep and goats. Yet, I steer clear of them when it comes to politics.

One can be a fully devoted follower of Messiah Jesus without being a political evangelical. Indeed, one can be a Democrat without compromising the Christian faith. One can side with the Democratic Party without compromising the teachings of the Bible.

In short, one is not sinning by being a Democrat or by voting for Democrats.

Also, Christianity does not require one to support Republicans in general or Donald Trump in particular.

If fully devoted followers of Messiah Jesus want to present the water of life to the world, then it would behoove them to promote the Cross, not a religion-politics hybrid.

Otherwise, they will be adding to the dirty bath water, thus giving more ammunition to the mockers of Christianity. Then the only water of life given would be the version created by the people of Scotland. The Gaelic word meaning water of life is pronounced whisky**.

Come to think of it, political evangelicals often make me want to have what Kermit the Frog is having.

Notes:

*No modern-day Apostles exist within Christianity.

**Yes, I spelled whisky correctly. The Scots invented the stuff. So, they determine the proper way to spell its name. For example . . .

Why the name of the stuff is spelled differently in the USA I do not know.

David Robertson

The “Wanted” posters say the following about David: “Wanted: A refugee from planet Melmac masquerading as a human. Loves cats. If seen, contact the Alien Task Force.”

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