Evangelical White Christian Nationalists Back in the Headlines with "Rededicate 250"

There was some complaining about the fact that all of the speakers at this particular event except one were Christians.  

I would disagree with that assessment.  "Christian" is not a term I would use to describe most of the speakers in that lineup.  Pseudo-Christian, yes, in that many of them are Evangelical, which is more of a political designation these days than a doctrinal or theological branch of Christianity.  But using the definition of "Christian" established by several of the Bible's New Testament writers, and the very words spoken in testimony of the faith, theology and doctrine held by the Evangelical speakers in this lineup, the conclusion must be made that they are not, by their own testimony, Christian, according to the words of the Biblical authors.  

The Apostle John, in his first church epistle, defines being Christian as acknowledging that Jesus was the Christ, sent by God to reveal him and his nature to the world in a clear and redemptive way that had not been revealed previously.  And, the gospel writers, specifically Matthew and Luke, directly quote Jesus equating the first two commandments, loving God with all your heart, soul and mind, and demonstrating that you love God that much by the way you treat others, as the very core of Christian faith practice.  

That doesn't leave room for the kind of loyalty most of these pseudo-Christians give to a worldly, and demonstrably evil politician who doesn't acknowledge God or the deity of Christ.  And the idea of "loving your neighbor as yourself," combined with the definition of "neighbor" that Jesus revealed, is not something that can be found in the faith practice of any of the Evangelicals in that "Rededicate 250 lineup."  

Left to consider who these people are, and what they've done with regard to ministry, it would be my observation that they are very much in love with money, and have figured out how to convince their constituents to part with some of theirs, hoping to stimulate their own financial windfall which is the only salvation and blessing dispensed by the god they have invented.  That's what they preach  and teach.  The redemptive message of the Christian gospel, which includes repentance, submission to Christ, restoration and a lifestyle based on the practice of a set of principles can't be found among Trump's Evangelical sycophants.  Just listen to them. Not a single one of the Beatitudes provides a blessing of money, but all of the blessings of the Trump Evangelical heretics are measured by how much of it they have.  

And what to they have to say to any of us?  None of them worries about putting a roof over their head, or where their next meal will come from as their food costs and medication costs have surged because of the Iran war, and none of them cares about what price they will pay for a gallon of gas at the pump.  Nor do they care about the millions of Americans who live on a fraction of what they do, on a social security check or a tiny pension.  And because of that, they have absolutely nothing to say to me, or to the millions of other Americans like me.  

So go peddle your phony pseudo-Christian "gospel" somewhere else.  

 

First Amendment Religious Liberty is For Christians Only, Says Jenna Ellis

 Baptist News Global: Jenna Ellis Says First Amendment is for Christians Only

Here's her quote: 

"The whole point of having a civil society that recognizes the principles of religious freedom is so that we can go and evangelize, so that we can practice our faith, so that we can train up our children in the way they should go, says Proverbs, so when they’re old they won’t depart from it. It’s so that we can preserve and protect the Christian way of life. I mean, we don’t have all these protections for our rights that our Founders recognize come from God our Creator, so that we can go out and live a pluralistic society and say, ‘Well, let’s recognize the dignity of Islam.’ I mean, that’s not the point, that’s not the purpose whatsoever. We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work. And we have this whole perverted notion that somehow our Constitution demands pluralism. That just isn’t there. If you take the whole context of the Declaration, the Constitution, the founding and everything we’re celebrating in America 250, absolutely."

And ignorance really is bliss, I guess.  

There's a clear indication in the language of the first amendment that crushes Ellis' argument that the founding fathers intended to protect only the religious liberty of Christians.  For one thing, Christianity is not mentioned, referenced, or even alluded to in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution in its vague references to divine providence.  "Religion" was then, as it is now, an all inclusive term indicating an awareness of the existence of other faiths beyond Christianity, Judaeo-Christianity or Judaism.  

There is, in fact, no specific reference to Christianity in either the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution.  That's not surprising, given that there were few Christians among the founding fathers, and none who understood Christianity in the context of conservative Evangelicalism's 19th century fundamentalist and pre-millennial dispensational perspective that is Ellis' understanding.  

The freedom of conscience protected by the first amendment is all inclusive.  Conscience includes religious practice, or the absence of any religious practice.  It also includes all other ideologies and thoughts, including those that are unique to any individual.  In the absence of any kind of interpretation written by any of the founders that would support Ellis' view, there is the fact that the courts have exercised the constitutional powers they have been given to interpret the Constitution as demanding and protecting religious pluralism.  

Christian faith practice does not require exclusive Constitutional protection.  True Christian faith, based on the core principles of the gospel revealed by Jesus Christ, can easily coexist, and win converts in a religiously pluralistic culture, as it did for the first three hundred years of its existence under Roman persecution, as it has everywhere else in the world, and where it has survived, and even thrived, under the  persecution of totalitarian regimes.  Ellis' pseudo-Christian religion is inherently weak, and requires being propped up by the power of civil government, lacking any real spiritual power of its own.  If they perceive a threat to their faith under the religious liberty provided by the United States Constitution, then they are genuinely insecure adherents of a false religion. 

And it's pretty clear that the establishment clause and the separation of church and state that it created was a clear benefit to Christianity in America, more than any other religion.  As Jefferson and Madison envisioned, and predicted, setting the church free from the state to practice faith with a free conscience was the best thing that could have happened to it.  

The attitude exhibited by Ellis, aside from the sheer ignorance she shows, isn't consistent with her claims of being Christian.  Jesus made it very clear that the one way Christians have of testifying to the veracity of their faith and commitment is by the way they treat other people.  As those billboards say, "That love-thy-neighbor thing?  I meant it! --God"  Jesus was pretty clear, using the example of a Samaritan to illustrate the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" in his answer.  

So why isn't Ellis treating Muslims like they are her neighbor?  But then, those kind of people always have an answer as to why they don't have to be true to the core principles of their alleged faith.

Approval Rating of Democrats in Congress Signals Major Change is Needed

It's 19%.  

The difference between the approval rating for Democrats in Congress, and the polling data which shows the formation of a blue tsunami on the way in November is sending a message to which Democrats must pay close attention if they are to continue winning elections, especially down the road toward 2028.  We're going to win the mid-term elections, and in spite of media bias that includes the overanalysis and over-reporting of insignificant changes which mean nothing, will not only gain at least 25 seats in the House (I'm thinking 45 might not be overly optimistic) but we will also get the majority in the Senate.  That's not overly optimistic, that's just looking at day to day polling data without the media spin.  We're going to pick up two or three seats that will "shock" the clueless media.  

But it's not because we laid out a great plan for doing so.  Look at the difference between the approval rating and the generic ballot.  We will win because voters, especially a huge percentage of independents, have finally realized that electing Trump as President twice was the most ignorant and stupid political move Americans have ever made in our history, and he has to be taken down before he completely destroys everything this country stands for.  

Money in Politics is Not Just a Republican Problem

It's pretty easy to look at those first two years of the Biden administration and consider them a success in terms of the legislation that got passed.  We had the strongest economy in 60 years, with low unemployment, and steady growth of our gross national product, healthy and due completely to Biden's economic policy.  He managed to fix the major damage that Trump had done to our COVID recovery, in fact, and as a party, the Democrats got some things done.  

But, did we get done those things for which Democrats have been advocating and pushing for a decade or more?  And did we enforce the law against the criminal acts of the Trump administration, bring him and his cronies to justice and save this country from the disaster we are now facing?  Did we get big money out of politics?  Did we get the health care reform that we have been pushing for more than a decade now, that single-payer health care system that will actually make medical care afforable and accessible to all Americans without robbing us blind by the profiteering that goes on?  

We got a lot of excuses, especially when it came to the incredible incompetence of the Justice Department, and we got the same excuses we have always been given about health care costs and the changes to that system that are needed.  The Affordable Care Act has sputtered along, attacked and diminished, and is hanging by a thread, as opportunities to strengthen it and prevent the other side from killing it were missed.  Excuses and apologists, yes, but real action, no. 

There is a Clrar Indication of What Democrats Want Their Leadership to Do

The reality of the situation is that we need to win this midterm election in order to stop Trump and have anything close to a chance at repairing the damage he has done to everything American, including our reputation in the world, our economy, and to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of the American people.  So we are going to support Democratic party candidates in the midterm elections.  

But I think the indications about where the party needs to go after that are pretty clear.  Graham Plattner is one good example of the kind of challenge new leadership is bringing to the table.  It seems that candidates backed by David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve, especially in state legislative primaries, have been successful without having the kind of money behind them that some old liners have.  Julianna Stratton, another progressive who was an underdog in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat being vacated by old school, old liner Dick Durbin, and who ran against big money, old line establishment Democrats and old school endorsements, won the nomination and will easily win that seat.  So Durbin, a good ole boy, old school politician afraid of risk and bold action will be replaced by a new leadership progressive who is not afraid to kick some Republican ass. 

We are well aware that Trump will remain in the White House after the midterms, if his health doesn't collapse like his mind has done.  We want a Congressional majority that will make his life miserable in the White House from day one, that will challenge everything he has done, undo as much as it can do, shut down the appointment of judges and work to use every lever of power that it has at its disposal to force a resignation or to move on impeachment articles that will set records.  

We also want to see our agenda set in place as much as is possible, preparing for the possibility of controlling both Congress and the White House after 2028.  Hit the ground running by major Supreme Court reform, which would require breaking the filibuster, amending the Judiciary act, and putting six or seven far left wingers on that court to silence the incompetence and restore justice.  

It's a Matter of Wanting to Win Elections or Keep Playing the Old Games

Both things are not possible.  It now takes a lot of independent voters to win elections, and if the leadership has been sharp enough to observe, it's the turnout of independent voters who have made the "No Kings" marches and rallies so successful and so large.  Democratic politicians are too preoccupied with their fundraising to take much advantage of this opportunity, it seems.  Those that are involved are mostly the progressives.  A lot of the credit for Democratic party gains this spring goes to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whose rallies turned out tens of thousands.  

Hakeem Jeffries is experiencing some of the pushback.  He seems, at least to me, to be the kind of politician who listens before he makes a decision.  Some Democrats seem to think he's too connected to the big money and the old school.  If he were a little more visible and vocal, I think he'd earn more trust and get more people behind him as a leader.  On the other hand, a little pressure from the left and a little uncertainty about his role as minority leader before the midterms might not be a bad thing.  

Schumer has to go.  Resign, let Hochul appoint a new senator and retire.  

We want to win, and we want to restore America, leaving no opening anywhere for another fascist to challenge American democracy.  

This is the Kind of Leadership Found in the Conservative Evangelical Right

Texas Monthly: He Remade the Southern Baptist Convention in His Image. Then Came the Abuse Allegations. 

For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.  Jude, V. 4, NRSV

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, a small congregation in a small town outside the deep South, but with a membership made up of transplanted Texans, Tennesseeans, Virginians, Mississippians and Alabamans who had relocated there as a result of their jobs.  A nearby military base brought about half the congregation there.  A Mississippi-based construction company that built high intensity, long distance power lines and the Texas-based El Paso Natural Gas company were other employers that accounted for the other half.  

My parents were transplants, too, from West Virginia, and though my Dad had been raised in a Christian Church affiliated with a denomination known as the Disciples of Christ, and my Mom had grown up in a Methodist church, they were drop-outs by the time they got married and moved to this small town in Arizona.  They were attracted to this particular church by the pastor at the time, who was a co-worker with my Dad at the military base.  So it was that through my elementary and high school years, I found myself in Sunday School and worship service most every Sunday.  As part of that experience, I made the necessary "walk down the aisle" when  I was seven years old, and, in the church vernacular, "accepted Jesus in my heart," and was baptized by immersion with two or three other children.  

By the time I got to college, I had more or less determined that what my Sunday School teachers had taught, and what the succession of bi-vocational pastors preached, was a combination of a literal, verse-by-verse interpretation of the Bible combined with a dose of Dixieland superstitions and cultural customs, and some Appalachian fold religion.  

But the university I attended was also affiliated with the state group of Southern Baptists, and the required Bible courses in Old and New Testament history that I took completely changed my impression of Christian faith.  I discovered that the Christian gospel had a very systematic theology that emphasized spiritual transformation exhibited not in some kind of nebulous intellectual assent to a set of doctrines, but in a lifestyle of principles and values intended to make a difference not only in my own life, but in the lives of those whom I was commanded to love because they were my neighbor.  

So as a result of this renewed interest, along with majors in history and English, for the purpose of teaching in secondary education, I minored in Biblical studies.  And it was while I was in graduate school, in a Southern Baptist-affiliated university, that I first heard the names Dr. Paige Patterson and Judge Paul Pressler.  

The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention

The Southern Baptist Convention has always been an oligarchy controlled by a small, elite group of pastors, mainly of large, influential churches.  It claims to be organized on democratic principles, but the fact of the matter is that only about 10% of its churches, in any given year, elect "messengers," which is what they call delegates to the convention.  And those who understand that involvement in denominational politics not only carries prestige, but power within the denomination, and opens a pathway to getting the necessary recommendations and influence needed to grab off the high dollar administrative jobs at the mission boards, seminaries and the Executive Committee agencies. 

Being a denomination with the majority of its churches in the South, and 80% of them being in rural areas or small to mid-sized towns, with an attendance of less than 80 people on any given Sunday means that most of the churches are going to have that folk-religion, supersition and verse by verse, word for word literal interpretation of the Bible.  There's an anti-education bias in most churches, who do not trust their seminaries and consider them to be liberal because that kind of systematic study of the Bible emerges with a different result than the hard line literalist, legalistic fundamentalism that prevails. 

The anti-education bias combined with the blending of right wing politics with conservative Evangelicalism during Reagan's campaign for President.  There were those within the Southern Baptist Convention looking for a way to influence seminary trustee boards to introduce a more fundamentalist theology and doctrine, at the same time there were those looking for ways to hook the nation's largest Evangelical denomination up with the Republican Party.  

Enter Patterson and Pressler.  Patterson was a protege of Dr. W. A. Criswell, the influential and long time Fundamentalist pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, the SBC's largest church at the time.  He was President of the broken down Criswell College, the Bible college owned by the church.  Pressler, a member of First Baptist Church of Houston at the time, another large, influential congregation, was a Texas Appeals Court Justice and a Republican party operative.  

These two men set out to organize a political campaign within the denomination that had two purposes.  On the surface, it was to appear as an attack on liberalism in the seminaries, using the flawed Fundamentalist doctrine of the Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible as a means of convincing churches to send messengers to the convention meetings to elect trustees who would be willing to dismiss professors who didn't sign doctrinal statements claiming to believe this flawed doctrine.  

However, Pressler's job in this movement, was to connect the Southern Baptist Convention, through its board and executive leadership, with the Republican Party, initially to help get Reagan elected.  As a result of their political activity, both of these men secured positions in leadership in the SBC, Patterson as President of two of its six seminaries, Pressler, rotating from committee to committee, trustee board to trustee board and eventually the Executive Committee.  Over a ten year period, Patterson succeeded in pushing out the previous leadership, labelled as "moderates," but considered to be "liberals" in the classic sense of the definition of that term, in all six seminaries and on all of the trustee boards, while Pressler helped the SBC become a major influence and supporter of the GOP, and of white, Christian nationalist views.  

A Haughty Spirit

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.  Proverbs 16:18

As can be discerned from the Texas Monthly  article referenced at the top, the allegations against Pressler involved alleged homosexual activity.   Initially, there was just one individual whose name was associated with these allegations but apparently, there are allegations involving cases that were settled out of court, involving individuals who came into contact with Pressler in at least two churches, including an independent Presbyterian church in Houston where he had been on staff as a youth pastor. 

I would suggest that every person who is concerned about the threat of white Christian nationalism, and the threat to American constitutional democracy posed by the Trump Administration and his fundamentalist, Evangelical allies, including the well-funded Heritage Foundation, read this piece in Texas Monthly.  The author of this piece, Robert Downen, worked alongside reporters at the Houston Chronicle on their expose of the sex abuse scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, called Abuse of Faith, which came out in 2022.  

I'm one who insists that the integration of conservative Evangelicalism and Trump extremist right wing politics is a clear indication that most Evangelicalism in this country is a pseudo-Christian cult which has obviously abandoned the core principles of the Christian gospel, which is the lifestyle that is a testimony to authentic faith.  And their actions are rooted in a straight, up front, visible denial of what Jesus revealed to us as the first and greatest commandment.  And under the new covenant, which Christians believe was revealed in its fullness by Christ himself, leaders are expected to be moral examples.  

The fact that this is a heretical intrusion into the church that is leading it into complete apostasy is evidenced by the lack of moral character in its leadership.  Pressler is still revered by conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention who once hailed him as one of the "architects of the Conservative Resurgence."  There is evidence, including a letter from the deacons of the church where he was a member, indicating that his homosexual lifestyle was known, and he was asked to resign from the positions he held in that church.  But aside from a warning that such activity could damage the cause for which he was working, they chose to keep it hidden.  The power he wielded, and the "cause" he was promoting were more important to them than the Christian gospel, or their own church and its testimony.

We Need to Know This

No one is perfect. 

But, this kind of moral bankruptcy, corruption, secrecy and hypocrisy is characteristic of both the religious right, and its Evangelical supporters, as well as the political right.  It needs to be understood, called out, properly and accurately discredited, in order to help people understand that this is not patriotic, it is un-American, and it is anti-Christian.  

This all had the effect of completely undermining my trust in almost any pastor or religious leader in the Southern Baptist Convention.  I have a few close friends who are still pastors in that denomination, and there are times when I'm not really sure that their motives are pure.  I can't trust what I hear from the pulpit, knowing the influence that had to be traded, and the favors that had to be paid in order for that pastor to get into that pulpit.  And in spite of everything that has been revealed about both of the men who are still called "the architects of the Conservative Resurgence," there has not been anything that looks like repentance or repudiation of this "intrusion of licentiousness" that has infected the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.  

Even as its membership and attendance rapidly dwindles, there are still those who have been engaged in back slapping, glad handing, good-ole-boy influence peddling to try to get themselves into a prestigious pulpit, and a position of dwindling power on a committee, trustee board or the executive committee.  So they are silenced by their own pursuit of power.  

And in right wing extremism, it's a trademark.  

Where are the Real Christians? 

I must admit, it took me a long time to process all of this, and to try and recover some kind of trust in the practice of my Christian faith.  I realize that who they are and what they do does not have to affect who I am or what I believe.  But it is the bigger part of my own Christian experience, and coming to grips with the fact that I had to step away, leave it behind and find my way back to something I could believe in and trust was not easy.  As I look at my own values, principles and beliefs, when asked, I self-identify for others as a Quaker, though I am not able, at the present time, to fellowship with a specific Quaker meeting.  

I look with a totally different perspective upon those Christians who are part of the patchwork of denominations and fellowships that make up American Christianity, and realize that those values and principles that we hold in common is a bond that binds us together.  Churches that I was once taught were not "Bible believing" or "of like-minded faith and order" I now consider as fellow Christians.  And even in those congregations, churches and denominations there is this temptation to power, that seems to be the biggest obstacle to the practice of Christian faith regardless of the label that is worn.  

And one of the biggest blessings and gifts we have been given as Americans is Constitutional freedom of conscience in the first amendment.  Christian faith is a matter of individual conscience.  And when Jefferson and Madison determined that the only way the Christian church could be authentic and free was to be separated from the coercion of the state, they gave the Christian church the ability to be true to the gospel that was revealed by Jesus Christ.  

The bulk of Evangelicalism in this country, in its fundamentalist, Pentecostal or Charismatic form, has taken the side of politics with the expectation of using its power to enforce its beliefs, rather than on using the power of God's Holy Spirit and separating itself from the conscience of the state.  The article in Texas Monthly is a long one, but I encourage reading all the way through, because it will give those who are committed to resisting the anti-American Trump Administration, and the white, Christian nationalism of the Heritage Foundation, information they need to understand and motivate their actions.

This is Not the Christianity I Knew While Growing Up

The small Baptist church was almost at the end of the street, as far from the main drag in town as it could get.  There was a small Lutheran church on the other side of the street that dead ended in the city cemetary.  It was one of two Baptist churches in town, formed in 1954 by a group of people who had migrated there from southern states, mostly Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and a cluster of families from Virginia.  The "other" Baptist church in town had once been affiliated with the American Baptist Churches, USA, the heir to the Triennial Convention headquartered in Philadelphia, known as Northern Baptists.  This particular church was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention because, even though they were both Baptist, that's just the way it was.  

Or so it was in my way of thinking.  

My parents had migrated here from West Virginia, where most of the Baptists were of the Northern variety.  When they first relocated to this small Arizona town, they hadn't been participating in a church.  My Dad grew up in a church affiliated with a denomination known as the Disciples of Christ, and stopped going to church about the time he enrolled in college.  My mother was the wild child of her family.  Raised in a deeply rural area of West Virginia, she abandoned the Methodist church that her parents occasionally attended when she ran away from home to elope.  So finding a local church wasn't their priority.  

But after working at a nearby military base as an air conditioning mechanic, one of the other guys in his shop invited him to church one Sunday.  As it turned out, it was the Southern Baptist church he attended, and so my parents became regulars.  I'd gone to Sunday School there on occasion, so it wasn't a big change for a six year old.  So it was that I wound up being raised in a Southern Baptist church.  

The Essence of Southern Baptist Christianity

The "theology", doctrine and Christian practice that is found in smaller Southern Baptist churches, especially in small towns or rural areas where a pastor with seminary training is a premium, is more of a combination of superstition, folk religion and a literal, "verse by verse" interpretation of the Bible.  Since the Bible wasn't divided into verses when it was written, and a literal interpretation misses the entire original meaning and historical context of the original language, I don't think what I was taught was authentic Christianity.  

And I more or less figured this out by the time I was ten or eleven years old.  I didn't really have much of a choice as to whether I went to church or not, and I spent a lot of time in Sunday School trying to make some sense of what never really made much sense.  And as I got older, I learned that asking difficult questions only antagonized my Sunday School teachers, none of whom were educated beyond high school and who perceived difficult questions as skepticism and doubt.  I was told that my questions were a sign of my lack of faith.  

I did something else that some of the members of that church didn't like.  I was admitted to the freshman class at the small university that was affiliated with the Southern Baptists in the state.  I'd have thought they would have been pleased, but within this small congregation made up mostly of people who had been born and raised in Dixieland, there was a very strong bias against college and seminary trained pastors, and they sensed that the Biblical studies department at this university was "liberal."  

Learning the Basics of Christian Faith and Practice From Educated Liberals

It turns out they were right, at least, from their own perspective.  

I went intending to major in history and minor in English with a concentration in secondary education to get a teaching certificate.  Taking survey courses in Old and New Testament studies was a first year requirement for freshmen, and the professors I had for both of those courses really caught my attention.  From them, I got a perspective of Christian faith and practice that was focused much more on being a lifestyle than a set of intellectual assertions to specific doctrinal points.  

Most Evangelicals believe that all parts of the Bible are equally inspired, which undermines the Christian gospel and leads to the kind of literalist fundamentalism that has produced the pseudo-Christian nationalism that has led Evangelical churches into apostasy.  But what they call liberal is actually the Christian gospel that was revealed in the teaching and preaching of Jesus, beginning with the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount.  It's actually a lifestyle, not merely a legalistic intellectual assent to a set of doctrines.  

The Christian gospel is the interpretive criterion for every other part of the Bible.  And there isn't even full agreement on what actually constitutes "the Bible."   Understanding it requires knowing what its 40 different authors intended to convey to their original audiences, and understanding that the circumstances to which that meaning applied are long gone and no longer exist.  In Christian doctrine, the gospel as revealed by Jesus is where the values and principles that establish the practice of the faith are found.  

Human existence is considered sacred.  In Christian theology, humans are created in the image of God, a reflection of divine existence, and supported by Jesus' stating that the greatest commandment consists of two concepts.  One is true worship of God.  The other is that the evidence of being a Christian is seen in those who love their "neighbor," their fellow human beings, as they love themselves.  

Concepts That Are Inconsistent With the Christian Gospel

What this means is that almost everything I was taught, and believe to be Christian is completely inconsistent with the rhetoric of conservative Evangelicalism into which political ideology incompatible with Christian principles has intruded.  If the Christian gospel is a system of life-enhancing values and principles, lived out as love for one's neighbor, defined by Jesus as any other human being, then it is impossible to call any war "just."  

It is also not possible to claim that God's spiritual annointing is on a leader whose lifestyle shows zero consistency with any principle of the Christian gospel.  Old Testament leadership examples do not apply, since there is no longer any nation which exists as a theocracy under the direct control of religious leadership.  And while there are historical examples of "flawed men" God appeared to use in achieving his ends in governing ancient Israel, they also demonstrated full spiritual conviction when it came to their flawed character, depending on God for forgiveness.  That's not what we see in the American political leadership misled conservative Evangelicals accord to their political idol. 

The idea that an unrepentant, morally bankrupt, narcissistic, convicted felon and adulterer would be chosen by God as a political leader would have been considered absolute heresy by the people in that small town church in which I grew up, if that idea had surfaced back in the 70's.  Now? It's hard to say.  At any rate, such an idea is inconsistent with authentic Christian faith and practice, which is built on a foundation of grace.  Old Testament examples used to justify war and violence against people whose religious beliefs and cultural practices took place before Jesus introduced the Christian gospel.  They are irrelevant and inapplicable to the church age.  

Blessed are the peacemakers, said Jesus, for they shall be called the children of God.