The tragedy of the US church is that the Bride of Christ climbed into bed with a sitting President then smoked the cigarette of hate.
Tag: church and politics
Sunday School Party Animals
My Texan Sunday School teacher was a Democrat who managed to work the Party’s platform into of every lesson to captive Baptist seminarians. Democrats ruled Texas for 100 years, voting last for Jimmy Carter in 1976. After all, “Jesus rode into Jerusalem, not on an elephant, but a donkey!” Another ancient and frequent visitor was an old geezer member of the “Temperance Movement,” spouting the evils of any alcohol. Looking back, I wish I would have listened more to the geezer but found a another Sunday class. You may say, “Jim, God could still use that teacher.” Yes, God even used the jawbone of an ass to slay the Philistines. Ergo, I know, Samson was a proto-Democrat? Don’t get me started.
I arrived in seminary in January of 1981, with the Democrats stinging from their defeat to Ronald Reagan. As I consider separation of church and state, I remember my old teacher and his taking liberty to mold young seminarians in the ideal that God was a Southern Democrat.
Republicans and Democrats need not worship together like the feuding Hatfields and the McCoys. Let us beat our political swords into bowls to catch the new rain of God’s Spirit to a thirsty world. In this we can find common ground.
-Pastor Jim
Emperor Worship
St. Peter addressed Simon Magus who attempted to convert the laying on of hands into a “for profit” (first mistyped “for prophet”, which would fit) enterprise:
20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.” – Acts 8:20-23
Three false doctrines bow before the dais of emperor worship: 1. God wants you to be wealthy, 2. The wealthy politician is truly blessed by God, 3. The politician is god. Prosperity preachers serve as priests at this altar dispensing sacraments of “dough” and the “fruit of the wallet.”
The first Beatitude of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount did not teach, “Blessed are the winners, for they shall never hang with losers.” Rather Jesus taught, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:3).
You may say, “Pastor Jim, are you a flaming Lib?” No, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. Vote your conscience. I am pro “First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me” (Ex 20:3), which includes politicians and megachurch pastors in Texas.
You may say, “Pastor Jim, are you a flaming Lib?” No, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. Vote your conscience. I am pro “First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me” (Ex 20:3), which includes politicians and megachurch pastors in Texas.
Be Blessed,
-Pastor Jim
High Standards
Would it be too much to ask Andrew Yang to begin my $1,000 a month ... before I vote? I have high standards. They are now up to $1,000.