Baptist News Global: Evangelical Supporters of Trump are silent about his lying about Ukraine
There are six things the Lord hates--no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family. Proverbs 6:16-19
Lying gets mentioned twice in this list, an emphasis on just exactly how much of an evil practice it is considered to be. I'm going to cut to the chase quickly here, and simply point to the fact that Trump is a pathological liar. It's pretty well impossible, at this point, to find a statement he's made publicly that is truthful. But, living in a time when people have lost the ability to discern fact from fiction, and are able to live away from the real world in a media silo protected from truth, and when they'd rather play games on their phone, I run into adults who aren't even aware Trump has returned to office, and can't tell me what day of the week it is. Such is the state of the adult mind in the United States today.
Conservative Evangelicals claim that the Bible is inerrant, in its original autographs, and in spite of the individual writing style of each of its 40 plus writers, is infallible in its content, bringing the revelation of God through written word to humanity. If that is the case, then blatant lies told by a secular politician should certaintly draw some criticism or ire from the Bible thumpers, and there should be plenty of leaders in America's Christian churches who would point out, for their congregants, lies told that have a major affect on national policy and foreign relations, especially to demonstrate their point, that the country is being taken to hell in a handbasket.
Since Trump entered back into public office a few weeks ago, what's come out of his mouth, to defend actions he desires to take, has been a litany of lies. I can't verify, by multiple sources of information, a single coherent sentence he's made that is true. He's lied about everything from the extent of government waste to claiming social security has people getting benefits who are well past 100 years of age. Not one of the economic claims he's made has been right.
Now, it's a litany of falsehoods about Ukraine.
There's a segment of the American population that is ignorant about Ukraine, the war, the people and what's happening, don't care and are easily duped by simple assertions. But a majority of Americans have been following it, and not all of those have done so from the limited, and skewed perspective of Fox News or Newsmax. It's fairly easy to identify, out of the word salad that Trump has dumped about the Ukraine War, what is true and what is not. What is true is that Ukraine is at war with Russia. Noting else Trump said is true.
Silence From His Conservative Evangelical Sycophants About His Lies Identifies Them as "Pseudo-Christian" False Propehets
There may still be some confessing Christians among the conservative, Evangelical denominations, but I believe most of that movement, which was already steeped in a litany of false doctrine and faulty theology, falls well outside the boundaries which define Christianity as a set of core values on which a lifestyle is based, more than the legalistic assertion of a set of subjective doctrinal points of fundamentalism, or the phony "signs and wonders" of Pentecostalism. Evidence of its collapse is visible by watching where followers of those considered to be it's "leaders," named in the Baptist News Global piece cited above.
Those named include Franklin Graham, Executive director of Samaritan's Purse and son of the late Billy Graham; Tony Perkins, former Louisiana legislator and head of Family Research Council; Robert Jeffress, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, who captured Trump's attention; Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church of Dallas, one of the largest megachurches in the Southern Baptist Convention, and Paula White-Cain, a self-proclaimed "prophetess" in the prosperity gospel movement who is Trump's "spiritual advisor. The fact that he chose a prosperity gospel heretic for this role shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who understands that "the love of money is the root of every kind of evil [I Timothy 6:10].
Trump lies, and these pseudo-Christian leaders are silent. In their silence, and that of hundreds of other pastors and church leaders caught up in the anti-Christian evil of the cult that has been formed by blending conservative Evangelicalism with right wing political extremism, is the reason why nothing they say can be trusted. Their failure to call out his lies makes them liars right along with him. They preach a distorted, false gospel, exposing their heresy and proclaiming their churches as apostate.
To be fair, there are some conservatives who see all of this for exactly what it is, and are calling it out, including, rarely, an occasional Evangelical. The article from BNG mentions several political conservatives, including Heath Mayo and John Bolton, who call out Trump's lie and point out how ridiculous and dangerous it is. The only conservative Evangelical who is mentioned, Malcolm Yarnell, a Southern Baptist theologian and self-proclaimed conservative, said, just after the election in November, "Do not trust those who would surrender any part of Ukraine to Russia in the name of world peace and security," and he calls out any effort of the west, including the US, to turn its back on Ukraine.
Without a Foundation of Facts, This Approach is Going to Collapse
Trump has already missed his deadline for ending the war in Ukraine, which he claimed he would do on day one, yet another lie. His purpose in putting forth a view of the war that is so obviously false is to bring about terms favorable to Vladimir Putin. That's the guy who made the threats, for months before launching the attack, who had his generals draw up invasion plans, laid down the political pretexts, and ordered the attack. Other than the phony pretexts, which didn't fool anyone, and which provided a basis for President Biden to rapidly re-activate the NATO alliance Trump had been trying to downplay and eliminate.
Putin's goals haven't been hidden. A Ukrainian democracy on their southern European border is seen as a threat, a potential NATO member that brings the alliance much closer to Moscow and the inner military infrastructure of Russia itself. Trump's lies, and most of his rhetoric and his actions toward Ukraine when he was in office, seem aimed at helping Putin achieve his goals, not in providing United States support for a democracy that was formed out of a former soviet Republic. So in addition to the immorality resulting from endangering and supporting destruction of a country's infrastructure and national identity, Trump is siding with an enemy of the United States of America. There are serious implications, including the possibility of treason, associated with all of that.
The truth is out there and it cannot stay hidden inside some media silo or in the hope that most Americans will choose to remain blissfully ignorant. The Ukrainians are not backing down, and in fact, there is evidence that Trump's lies are helping President Zelenskyy galvanize his support, and expanding Ukrainian desires for peace on their terms. Trump's lies have served to strengthen their own position and that of the European allies supporting them, because it has expose the fact that they, not the US, have been the biggest backers of Ukrainian independence and freedom.
What an embarrassment for the United States of America, to have a President who is turning out to be "the ugly American."
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