by baldilocks
Today’s Twitter mob is using the hashtag #FakeChristian as its weapon of choice and, this time, it’s directed at Vice President Mike Pence, who was in Texas yesterday.
During his hours-long tour of Texas detention facilities Friday, Vice President Mike Pence came face-to-face with a group of nearly 400 migrant men who were being held in cage-like fences. The men, who didn’t all have room to lie down, told reporters that they’d been there for 40 days, and were hungry.
Because of this report and others like it, the mob says that the vice president and those who agree with the Trump administration’s policies on illegal entrants are fake Christians.
It’s a safe bet that they don’t know what the lone criterion is for being a Christian.
Also, it’s both amusing and sad to find out how little biblical literacy there is out there, but, certainly, literacy of God’s Word would make it a powerful weapon for God’s purposes rather than the purposes of the mindless mob.
But the accusation has absolutely no power because it’s based on a distorted version of God’s Words. It’s based on lies.
And the amusing part is the how stale these cudgels are. How many times must it be pointed out that the non-moral laws in the Old Testament are for the ancient Hebrews? God was and has been trying to shape them and their descendants into an oracle people and, therefore, He gave them special — sanctified — rules to follow in order to set them apart from the rest of the nations. The moral laws, aka, the Ten Commandments, are for everyone, not just the Hebrews. But the other 600+ don’t apply to gentiles.
One thing I want to address, since it was addressed to me.
Of course, this person is trolling me. How do I know? Because he/she was still doing it when I went to get the link and the screen capture. My crime? Point this out.
I may return to him later, since I enjoy toying with trolls, but I want to address something he/she asked.
God is neither for nor against locking people up, whatever their age. He’s not even for nor against slavery – which involves restriction of movement, otherwise known as locking people up. In fact, He will often cause such things to happen for His purposes.
How do I know?
He caused Joseph to be sold into slavery AND imprisoned in Egypt. One of God’s purposes: to save the House of Jacob from famine in Canaan.
Much later, God caused the Hebrew tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi to be taken from their home country and into captivity by the Babylonians to punish them for long-term disobedience.
Both are very long stories, but the point is that in the last meme.
As for the alleged abuse? They can be improved, but that takes money. Has the Democrat-controlled House approved funds for that yet? I’ll have to check, but I’m 100% positive that VP Pence has no control over that.
One more overarching point: everything in the Old Testament is about the Hebrews/Jews and about how God relates to them. In the New Testament, He comes down to earth as a Hebrew/Jew so that He can relate to the rest of us (and the Jews, too, but that’s another controversy I won’t be addressing here).
So it is that the finger-pointers howling FAKE CHRISTIAN!!! wonder why most Christians look at this accusation and at the accusers (of the brethren) with pity.
You know, Leftists, you could read the Bible yourself to find out if what I’m telling you is the truth or not.
Okay. Let’s go see if I’m still getting trolled.
On second thought, nah. I have more work to do.
Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here. She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.
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Okay. Crush the troll. He deserves it.
But there is a cute irony, Miss ‘Locks, in an article decrying finger-pointing from someone with your particular avatar.
You had a good response to the anti-Christian part of his trolling.
However, there is also a good response to his jail/concentration camp trolling.
These detention centers are unlike any prison in the history of the world. If the people want out, all they have to do is request, “I would like to go home now.”
I chuckle when the God-haters try to lecture me on the quality of my Christian faith.
“the Ten Commandments, are for everyone, not just the Hebrews. ”
Only the 7 Noahide laws are for everyone. (No: idolatry, blasphemy, murder, illicit sex, theft, eating of flesh cut from a living animal; and the positive command to establish courts of justice.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.” John 10:1 ESV.
There are proper ways to enter this country. They have a choice – legally or illegally; the later shows their true intent.
When I saw the reference to John 10:1, I was anticipating a more figurative assertion:
“Those that attempt to speak to the sheep, but do not enter through the door (in other words aren’t believers), are thieves and robbers.”
Both assertions work.
Recent reports account for Mormons’ burgeoning demographic success less as a doctrinal matter (posthumous conversions, and all that) than due to strong emphasis on home-and-family to believers’ mutual benefit across the generations.
Just so, the New Testament message resonates more as a deeply ethical, profoundly moral creed conjoined with classic Mosaic (Ten Commandment) tenets: What is it about The Master’s “do unto others”, “love thy neighbor”, “strive for right” message do pusillanimous doctrinaires not understand?
As for YHWH, the beatific Mother Teresa of Calcutta (d. 1997) said it best: Etsi Deus daretur, when in doubt “act as if Divinity exists”. Even in partisan-political terms, this has its uses; and meantime –who knows?– “amazing Grace” takes forms beyond mere human comprehension.
Very safe. But “the lone criterion” entails so much else; for Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And what did Christians hear at Mass this Sunday? Why Luke 10:25-37 which includes these two Great Commandments, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.”
Satan (and his minions and dupes) can quote Scripture. But is destroying your neighbor’s country of America a genuine example of loving your neighbor? No. So the real #FakeChristian is the phony who tries to use rhetorical trickery to put Christian Americans in a double bind.
I say this to the Leftists: it’s not that we Christians ‘don’t get it’, it’s that we’re not buying what you’re selling.
baldilocks:
“Lone criterion” = a valid baptism, if speaking canonically; baptism plus a reasonable approximation of Nicaean/Chalcedonian orthodoxy, if one is speaking orthodoxically; and the graces of election and perseverance, if one is speaking soteriologically.
But, yeah, an Internet Troll doesn’t have a clue what any of that is.
As for “God is neither for nor against locking people up, whatever their age”:
I think there’s a distinction you might wish to make a bit clearer, in your argument which follows. God is quite firmly opposed to the institution of chattel slavery; i.e., of the lie of treating any human being as sub-human. And of course He’s quite firmly opposed to unjust imprisonment.
But He’s God. His plan cannot be twisted by the non-cooperation or even the evil intent of men, because He sees all times as Now and, from His eternal perspective, incorporates the evils of Pharaoh’s hardness-of-heart, Nebuchadnezzar’s self-exaltation, the lust and vindictiveness of Potiphar’s wife, into His plan. He uses them to achieve His purpose in much the same way that a wise battlefield commander can make seemingly problematic terrain features into the lynchpin of a plan-of-attack.
All this is straightforward.
And it is furthermore straightforward that God can graciously and undeservedly intervene in the hearts of men to turn them away from their sin; but that when He opts not to do so, and they sin, He is not at fault. He can hardly be at fault for failing to give something undeserved: He was under no obligation!
Given all this, I think you could be a little clearer when you say, “He will often cause such things [instances of human wickedness] to happen for His purposes.”
One doesn’t want to depict God as a person who intentionally programs humans (as if He were programming a robot) to do evil! I’m quite sure you didn’t intend that; but, you see how the “ignorant and unstable” (2 Peter 3:16) might be likely to twist your words that way.
“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’” says the Epistle of James, “for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:13–14).
God withdrew the undeserved graces from Joseph’s brothers that otherwise would have turned them towards repentance. Left to their own sinful desires, they sold their brother. Likewise Potiphar’s wife, so that Joseph was imprisoned. And God chose to abstain from giving “actual”/”operating” graces in both cases precisely to achieve His plan.
Contrariwise, those who pray often for God’s graces receive a different treatment: Ephesians 2:10 and Philippians 2:13.
And, of course, an Internet Troll doesn’t know a whisker of any of that, either.
Keep up the good work!
Blah blah blah I hate Christians but I know you’re not really one because a true Christian would agree with me…
Do these people even listen to the words coming out of their mouths?
Well put.
Only point I think you missed is that God most certainly does advocate locking up law-breakers, because he is a God of law and of order. (And, yes, grace, thankfully.) He also states specifically that he institutes governments to handle law and defense (both of which are implicated in our current border crisis).