X was made for man, not man for X, so I’ve been off the app lately, doing far more important things. But here are a few comments on what were recently “current events” and ongoing discussions while I’ve been away, covering the Pope vs. Trump, Tucker Carlson’s on Trump and Islam, Hegseth’s comments on war, and so forth (I’m not posting these to X because X is friendly to “hot takes,” but not “cold takes”):
*The Trump-as-Jesus meme was most certainly blasphemous. Perhaps Trump thought it really depicted him as a doctor rather than the God-man, but that kind of misunderstanding is hard to fathom. I will give him credit for taking it down. Further proof Trump is a Jehu, not a Josiah. Conservative Christians did not vote for Trump because we expected him to know better but because we excepted him to (a) be better than the Democrat alternative, and (b) because we believed he would oppose the greatest evils in our society rather than promote and celebrate them. Blasphemous meme aside, a Christian voting for Trump has been sufficiently vindicated.
*Muslims may say they believe Jesus (pretty much every religion and cult has some opinion of Jesus since he is the most dominant figure in all of history), but they do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible. They do not believe in the claims Jesus made about himself and they do not believe in the Apostolic witness to Jesus found in the NT. They believe in “another Jesus” – the very thing that Paul warned about in 2 Corinthians 11:4. This is precisely why Islam is Satanic. Satan appeared to Mohammad as an angel of light and deceived him (2 Corinthians 11:14); much of the world has gone along with the demonic delusion that is Islam. Muslims affirm the virgin birth and miracles of Jesus, but that’s about all they get right about him. the Muslim Jesus is not the biblical Jesus. Muslims deny that Jesus is the eternal Son of God in the flesh; they deny the incarnation. Because Muslims deny Jesus is God, they deny the Trinity. Muslims deny Jesus actually died on the cross, so they obviously deny his resurrection. Muslims deny Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and the only way to the Father. Muslims deny Jesus is God’s final and climatic revelation of himself in history (cf. Hebrews 1:1-3). Islam is a false faith, promulgated by a false prophet, proclaiming a false gospel. It does no good to soften these truths in a futile quest for unity. At its core, Islam wants to conquer those who do not share their faith. By contrast, Christians want to convert those who do not share their faith. We are not the same. And we do not have the same Jesus.
*Chrislam – the view that Muslims and Christians both love Jesus, or both worship the same God, or have “communion” together is every bit as problematic as the Judeo-Christian mash up of Christian faith with Judaism. Faithful Christians always have and always will resist any form of syncretism with other faiths. Tucker and Pope Leo appear to be Chrislamists; many pro-Israel Christians have fallen into Judeo-Christianity.
*Islam is incompatible with the historic Western way of life. islam has always been at war with Christendom. Allowing Muslims to immigrate en masse to Western nations is a mistake of catastrophic proportions. The claim that “Muslims love Jesus” is completely misguided from a Christian perspective.
*I’ll tell you who a people who do love Jesus: Christian Zionists/dispensationalists. Now, I have very strong disagreements with dispensationalists. They are wrong on significant issues that impinge not only on theology and biblical hermeneutics, but also politics. But most of them are Jesus-trusting, God-fearing believers, albeit with a messed up eschatology. Dispensationalists have been a huge part of the conservative backbone of the American church, pushing back against progressivism and maintaining the inspiration, infallibility, and absolute authority of the Bible. But here’s my point: Muslims have inflicted way more suffering on the world than dispensational Christians could ever dream of doing. To laud Muslims while hating dispensationalists is more than just misplaced priorities. It’s spiritual blindness. Dispensationalists/Christian Zionists are wrong, but not in the same way or to the same degree that Muslims are wrong. Dispensationalists have the wrong eschatology, but Muslims are wrong about most everything.
*is Pope Leo Catholic? Is he even Christian? Not in any traditional sense. If he believes Christians have “communion” with Muslims and if he is willing to pray with Muslims (as if we worship the same deity), he’s not a Christian. He has abandoned the historic faith of the church altogether. He has abandoned Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life.” of course, none of this is a suprise. Post-Vatican 2 Roman Catholicism is a disaster — a very different kind of disaster than late medieval Catholicism, but still a disaster.
*I have no problem with church leaders speaking truth to political leaders. We see it all over the Bible and in church history. We need more political preaching, not less. We need more pastors serving as advicors to civil rulers, not fewer. But Pope Leo’s denunciations of Trump ring hollow. The Roman Catholic Church refuses to discipline pro-abortion, pro-Sodomite, pro-transgender politicians in its membership. The pope has had nothing to say about the Biden administration targeting pro-life groups. But the pope does have time to comment on American immigration policy and the Iranian conflict? Trump, Vance, and Homan (two of whom are Catholic) are fully justified in pushing back against the Pope’s non-sense, whether it’s the Pope’s anti-borders views or his complete rejection of historic Christian just war doctrine. I think the pushback should be respectful, of course, and Trump was not exactly respectful. But once again, the pope has demonstrated that the papacy is an utterly worthless office. The pope is fraud. The papacy has not solved a single problem in history.
*If it’s wrong to use the “f word” on Easter, it’s wrong to use it on other days too. Nothing about Easter alters the Bible’s rules about speech.
*Some on the right are attacking Christian Zionists while simping for Islam. This is idiotic. Christian Zionists are wrong about the place of Israel in God’s purposes. It is a serious error that sometimes has horrific geo-political consequences. But Christian Zionists (excepting theological quacks like Paula White and John Hagee) are still brothers and sisters in Christ. Muslims are obviously not brothers and sisters in Christ. If a so-called Christian is showing more affinity for Muslims than Christians with a screwed up eschatology, that’s a problem.
*It is not categorically wrong to mock false gods and their followers. That’s not to say Christians should engage in mockery all the time, but it is not off the table. Mockery is one of the tools in the Christian’s rhetorical toolbox, to be used judiciously. But note: Elijah mocked the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18. Psalm 115 and Jeremiah 10 mock idols. John the Baptist and Jesus mocked the self-righteous religion of the Pharisees. Mocking Allah or other imposters is not categorically wrong; it is a matter of prudence. Christians oppose those who mock Jesus — but we do not threaten to kill them for their blasphemies. Meanwhile, everyone knows many Muslims are very willing to use violence against those who mock Allah. We are not the same.
*Why have Roman Catholics produced so many more political leaders than evangelicals in America? aaron Renn has some intersting thoughts on this lately. Here are some additional notes: Remember, our nation was largely founded by Protestants. It was “our” nation. When Roman Catholics first came to America in large numbers, it was controversial. They were outsiders. They were sometimes attacked and discriminated against. As a result, they set up their own schools, universities, hospitals, etc., because they did not trust the informally Protestant institutions Americans had already established. By the 20th century, as the Protestant mainline denominations that had guided our nation went off the rails, evangelicals more and more found themselves on the outskirts of political power in a nation their spiritual and biological ancestors created. Yes, evangelicals still constitute a large voting bloc with real political sway, but they never created a pipeline for their own people to move into positions of cultural leadership because for much of our history, there was no need. Besides, evangelicalism was always a populist movement to some degree, emphasizing a personal relationship with Jesus and (foolishly) de-emphasizing the institutional aspects of the faith. Evangelicals emphasized conversion over culture, the personal over the societal — and this has come back to haunt them. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic population in America continued to swell over the years, and along with it, the influence and prominence of Roman Catholic institutions. Roman Catholics have attained political power in America because they have explicitly sought it in a way that evangelicals have not. Initially, Roman Catholics had a to find ways to gain influence as a matter of survival in a new nation where they were not always welcome. Today, both traditional and liberal Roman Catholics have much better established pathways to get their own people into positions of political power than evangelicals do, despite the fact that America is an historically Protestant nation.
*Two things can be true at once: The rules of engagement the American military has labored under for a long time have hamstrung our soldiers, making them less safe and making it more difficult to defeat the enemy. We have forced half-way measures upon ourselves. Hegseth definitely has a point here. At the same time, the church’s just war doctrine, rooted largely in Deuteronomy 20 and broader ethical and prudential considerations, does put restraints on how and when Christian soldiers fight. The rules of engagement we have established in recent years have often gone far beyond what just war doctrine requires, but war is not a lawless endeavor for Christians. But it’s also worth noting that the “real world” is often complicated. War is especially complex. How do you protect civilians in the enemy nation you are fighting against when the enemy army knows your scruples about killing civilians and thus embeds soldiers inside of civilian areas? Or when they set up military camps right next to schools and hospitals so they cannot be attacked without causing unwanted collateral damage? Or when they refuse to make any distinction at all between the military and civilian populations? Or when they want a nuclear warhead?
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