Guns and religion, what the hell is going on? Kari Lake recently said  “Now is the time to cling to our guns and our religion”. What in the hell is that? She also stated that the “75 million that voted for him are ready to defend him”. Lake Stated “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me.” She added that most were “card-carrying members” of the National Rifle Association. She further stated “That’s not a threat. That’s a public service announcement. We will not let you lay a finger on President Trump”. That is like stealing a line from a John Wayne movie.  I have known for some time that violence is now a part of the Republican Party’s unwritten platform. I saw it starting to rise with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” and keep building to where we are today. What really amazes me is how fast it accelerated once Trump entered the picture. I don’t understand how people can be consumed with so much hate yet claim to be Christians.

What has really surprised me is the violence that has gone so mainstream in the Church. Guns and Religion just seems to me to be like trying to mixing oil with water. I was always raised that Jesus was turn the other cheek guy. That doesn’t seem to be what is practiced today. I know the church has had a history of violence but I will say that the words of the Gospel are not violent. From what I have read for the first 3 centuries Christians were pretty much non-violent and were persecuted for it. Constantine in the 4^th century was the one that ended the persecution of Christians. What’s funny is Constantine ended the persecution of all religions not just the Christians. He wanted to let people worship any deity that they pleased. Today I hear the saying the one true Church or the one True Religion and I know that it didn’t start that way.

The Church, to many, have gone from an institution of love and understanding to an institution of hate and bigotry. Many churches have gone from the institution that gave spiritual inspiration to a political institution wanting to control our lives. Can you imagine Jesus blessing guns? We have churches that have blessed guns. Come to Church and have your AK47 or AR15 blessed so you can kill the enemies of the Church and the Republican Party? That just doesn’t sound right to me. That was not the message that I was taught in my youth. I had a man who claimed to be a minister from Indiana tell me that Jesus was not a pacifist. I couldn’t believe that a minister would say such a thing. They went from brotherly love to gun toting vigilantes. Reverend Siersbeck, the man that baptized me, has to be rolling over in his grave. That man talked of love not war. Now we have Ministers saying that the Gay Community should be taken out and shot like that is something that Jesus would approve of. We have a Minister in Tennessee stating the there should be a Christian insurrection. Conservative Evangelical pastor Rick Joyner has urged Christians to “mobilize” to fight a civil war against left-wing activists. Pastor Greg Locke threatened to expose “Witches” that were members of his church. This is not like the church that I grew up in the 50s and 60s.

Our freedoms are under attack and it is the White Christian Nationals that are attacking them. The separation of church and state and the freedom of religion are both under attack. Our freedom of religion is the freedom of all religions not just the White Christian Nationals religion. They claim that this country was founded as a Christian nation which is far from the truth. God is never mentioned in our Constitution nor are any references to the Bible or the Commandments. We were founded on the idea of Representative Government that the White Christian Nationals would take away from us. The Religious structure of government is not one of representation. It is a structure of a dictatorship without compromise or debate. Even our freedom of speech will come under attack as the White Nationals movement strengthens. I will say this and I hope people let this sink in, Religious growth depends on freedom but Religious growth does not enhance everyone’s freedom. For some, the White nationalist church is an organization that means to oppress people’s freedoms.  Remember when Constantine establish religious freedom he did not for all religions and not just Christianity.

 When we had an election that elected Joe Biden I don’t have to tell you what happened because the whole world witnessed it. Many were White Nationalists and the Cross was present as one of the symbols of the insurrection. The White Christian Nationals have not strengthened our Republic with their talk of violence and their guns. Through the chaos that they bring to the table does not come strength. They have weakened us and in doing so they have weakened every Democracy in the world. They have emboldened our enemies like Russia and China. They are saying to the world that our system doesn’t work. White Christian Nationalists are saying to the world that an authoritarian form of government is the way to go and that freedom and liberty are just a myth. They are financed by the very money changers that Jesus threw out of the Temple.

I have said on Twitter, The Post, Tribal and now Threads that the Evangelicals have turned their backs on the teachings of Jesus and now worship at the feet of Pontius Pilate. The words of Jesus are no longer important and don’t work in many of today’s churches. They ignore the things that Jesus talked about and what Jesus did and concentrate on things that he didn’t talk about. We build barriers and hazards at our border to keep asylum seekers out when Jesus himself was an asylum seeker himself as a child. We put children on busses to die when Jesus said suffer the children not. When Jesus said,  let he that has never sinned throw the first stone we throw stones anyway. Jesus’s words, the words that he actually wants us to live by don’t work in today’s world. Today Jesus would be called Woke by someone like DeSantis. He would be called a libtard or even a communist by someone like Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Green. Jesus would be called fake news from a person like Trump.

Funny but I don’t consider myself a Christian but I think that I believe in the words of Jesus more than most so called Christians. When I see things happening I will often think “What would Jesus do?” I don’t always do what I think Jesus would do but thinking that way does help me choose better paths.