JUST WAR OR JUST MESS?
by Cash Michaels
Let’s cut right through the butter, shall we.
Verses from the Bible about going to war and perpetrating violence in GOD’s name have been misinterpreted for generations now, and continue to be right up to this very minute.
As a result, when mankind experienced past global conflicts like World Wars I and II, Christians believed that the Book of Revelations was in full swing, and expected to see the end of times play out as prescribed, especially with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Well, unless we’re the unlucky ones who have been left behind in the aftermath of the foretold Rapture (Second Coming of Christ), I have to assume it hasn’t happened yet. But just like in years past, it sure feels like it’s getting closer and closer every day.
That’s because of all of the madness and evil going on around us right now. Hallowed social norms we have all held dear are being unthinkably violated every day by Donald Trump, like picking public fights with the Holy Vicar of Christ and leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church; or openly lying about what that leader, Pope Leo XIV, has said about the Islamic nation of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon; or that he’s “soft on crime,” “weak”or anything else, in an attempt to diminish him in the eyes of the world (“despicable” is not nearly a strong enough word for such acts of blatant disrespect and deception).
My friend, Bishop William Barber, raised the alarm last week when he addressed the issue saying, “If we listen closely, it is clear that Trump is waging a war on divinity itself.”
Barber continued, “The religious nationalist movement for so long has been saying [Trump} is an imperfect instrument being “used by God.” But he’s not satisfied with that. He wants to be God.”
Fortunately, Pope Leo, the first American pope, is a truly blessed man of GOD, and knows the wicked emissaries of evil when he sees and hears them, so as he has said, he’s not wasting his time “debating” these jackals. He’s just sticking to the Gospel.
“I do not think the message of the Gospel should be abused, as some are doing,” Pope Leo said last week, adding, “too many innocent lives have been lost… I believe someone must stand up and say there is a better way.”
Hey I’m not Catholic (though I did attend Catholic elementary and high school in my youth), but the Pope, no matter who he was during my lifetime, has always represented GOD’s love, goodness and mercy, even when other clerics in the Catholic Church were falling short with their personal scandals.
The one thing I appreciate is that no pope in my lifetime has ever justified perpetrating violence unless it was to protect the helpless, the defenseless, or to stop evil from hurting GOD’s children.
Why? Because in the modern age, and certainly since World War II, man no longer enters into global conflicts limited to just swords or guns. It was easy to justify war when you didn’t have the capacity to wipe out a “whole civilization,” let alone brag about it.
It was easy to justify conflicts when your nation did not possess an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could travel through space from one end of the earth to the other to blowup whole cities with just the press of a button.
But now that countries like ours have this capacity, damn fools like the clowns we have leading us are more than willing to beat their collective chests about having “the greatest military the world has ever known” and quoting made-up biblical verses from an old Quentin Tarantino movie at a Pentagon church service, all to justify starting a war in GOD’s name.
Actually, history is replete with crimes against humanity that man has invoked the name of GOD to get away with, like slavery, genocide, racism, classism, and of course, war. Shamefully, the Holy Bible has selectively been used as a tool for oppression before.
Today, we’re seeing the likes of Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Sean Hannity, Evangelist Franklin Graham and other proponents of the so-called “Christian” nationalist right-wing “Just War” dogma justify starting what should have been an absolutely unnecessary war against Iran.
“Should have been absolutely unnecessary” because contrary to what Trump and company would have us believe, the Islamic nation had already agreed, after years of negotiations with the Obama Administration back in 2015, not to pursue a nuclear weapon, in an ironclad, verifiable international agreement that Trump arrogantly ripped up a year after he got into office in 2017.
The agreement restricted Iran to certifiable limits in developing its nuclear program for energy use only, with stringent monitoring and inspections clauses. In exchange, sanctions were lifted and the country got $1.7 billion back of its own money that the United States had earlier confiscated from banks here.
So if Iran was on the road to reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, it was because Trump, in his “brilliance,” ripped up the solid Obama agreement, letting Iran off the hook for any enforced compliance.
This is a war that Trump’s rash actions in 2018 caused, if you believe him about nuclear weapons. But it makes more sense to believe that this war is really about Iran’s oil, and his wanting to control it.
Naturally, Trump has to bomb Iran into submission in order to do that, and that’s what his phony song and tragic war-dance for the past eight weeks has really been about. Otherwise, he has no real explanation for starting a war when Iran was not threatened us.
Pope Leo has said, just as Christ once did, “blessed are the peacemakers,” and obviously President Obama understood and embraced that message. So for Donald Trump to lie and tell the world that the Pope wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, is so blasphemous, so untrue, it’s off the charts.
But such talk, in the minds of right-wingers like Trump and company, justifies every crazy thing they’ve said and done to literally attempt to smear Pope Leo in the minds of the world’s devout Christians, and elevate Trump himself as a GOD or Christ-like figure in their eyes, thus justifying the use of American military power to dominate countries like Venezuela, Iran, and soon Cuba.
Bishop Barber says, “To be sure, the church - both Protestant and Catholic - has not always been consistent in its witness to the message of Jesus, but in this moment the Word of the Lord is clear, and the Pope, along with many other moral leaders, is clear that the religious nationalism embraced by Trump, Hegseth, and the MAGA movement is wrong, sinful, and blasphemous. The 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said, “The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.” We can’t bow down to a false god in a president, nor to the false and immoral narrative that this war of choice is holy and can bring a lasting peace.”
Pope Leo couldn’t agree more.
“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” the pontiff said.
Many are so shocked by the boldness of Trump’s savage, unholy behavior and weaponizing of faith, they’ve suggested that he may, in fact, be the anti-Christ. Well, if he’s not, Trump, the master of self-idolatry, is sure as hell bucking hard for the title.
This is sinister stuff, and the Bible has warned us about wicked events like this in the “last days”:
“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” – Matthew 24:6-7
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.” – 2 Timothy 3:1
“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.” – Mark 13:7-8
But the thing that comforts me most amidst all of this blasphemous foolishness from Trump and his MAGA minions is something that my dear mother always assured me of.
GOD is in control.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment