Christian Group Urges Andy Stanley to Publicly Rebuke Marjorie Taylor Greene, Calls on Lauren Boebert to Resign
“Faithful America, a nondenominational Christian advocacy group, recently launched two petitions in response to the actions of congresswomen Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene.” - C.Leaders
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Here you go. I am personally fine with the notion of asking fools on the right to step down from power, but at the same time, honest Christianity ought to ask fools on the left and in the center to do the same. There are plenty.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Here you go. I am personally fine with the notion of asking fools on the right to step down from power, but at the same time, honest Christianity ought to ask fools on the left and in the center to do the same. There are plenty.
Agreed, but it should be noted that Faithful America's concern is with Republicans because it's Republicans who are hijacking evangelicalism for their own political ends. I'm a registered Republican, but I hardly recognize my own party anymore due to the extremism and level of causticity and just plain nastiness. And yet most of my evangelical friends can see nothing wrong and think the party is headed in the right direction.
Of all the news that has come out over the last couple weeks, SharperIron posted two.
Is SI planning to be a shill for the evil liberal party again this cycle?
How about Andy Stanley rebuking Andy Stanley?
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
Ken, we might posit that, by pretty much uncritically accepting a liberal/progressive agenda, "Faithful America" has done exactly what they're accusing evangelicals of doing, no? I remember something along the lines of "two wrongs don't make a right" from my parents in childhood.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Dan, I read the article you linked above by Naomi Wolf. She was very fair and showed integrity in admitting she had believed lies. It takes a big person to admit that they have been deceived. I fear that few people have that level of humility.
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-conservatives-i-am-sorry
I guess that's one way of looking at it. If true then it makes me wonder why the lawmakers even bothered to flee the Capital, or why people were texting President Trump and his chief of staff trying to get them to stop the protesters. I suspect there's just a wee bit of sanitizing history in that article.
Here's an alternative viewpoint from Mike Pence:
I think where we are now is that one small subset of film has been released by those who would like to blame the GOP and Trump completely, and another small subset of film has been released by those who would exonerate them. That leaves an awful lot of film to flesh things out.
All in all, when I was told about the protests, my instant thought was "this will not turn out well." It is sad to consider that people didn't sit down and think through the consequences of their actions.
One other thought I have about this is about whether, with all these hours of video footage coming into review, adequate care to mandatory discovery was given for those prosecuted. We could have a real mess here that could end a lot of careers.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Dan Miller wrote: https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-conservatives-i-am-sorry
I was rather confused by this article myself. Naomi Wolf acknowledges the "violent and terrifying scenes of that day." She admits that she doesn't agree with Mr Carlson’s interpretation of the videos as depicting “mostly peaceful chaos.” Yet she still says there was "valuable journalism" being engaged in "simply by airing the footage." I don't understand the value. Suppose there was a parade in which several of the floats veered into the crowd. The media would refer to the parade as a dangerous and terrifying parade and if there was intent to injure, there would be criminal charges. Would there be "valuable journalism" in airing hundreds of hours of footage of the parade traveling down the street safely? What would be the value of showing the floats that didn't veer into the crowd? Would that somehow excuse the ones that did?
She compares the leaking of the videos to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers. She wrote "I do not see how Mr Carlson’s airing of video material of national significance that the current government would prefer to keep hidden, or Fox News’ support for its disclosure to the public, is any different from that famous case of disclosure of inside information of public importance." Really? She can't see the difference? What "national significance" is there in seeing some people enter peacefully while others violently broke their way in?
She wrote "I mention the massing of the Bonus Army on the Capitol steps in 1932, to note that the dominant narrative around Jan 6 today, often implies that it is an act of violence or of “insurrection” simply to march en masse peacefully to the Capitol." I think she is deliberately exaggerating the "dominate narrative" to claim it is often implying that marching peacefully is an act of violence. Her next sentence was "But we should be wary of allowing history to be rewritten so as to criminalize peaceful, Constitutionally-protected assembly at 'The People’s House.'" We should also be wary of allowing history to be rewritten to downplay violent assaults against the police officers guarding "The People's House."
She correctly states "Those who violently entered the Capitol or who engaged in violence inside of it, must of course be held accountable." but then she confusedly counters that with "But in addition, anyone in leadership who misrepresented to the public the events of the day so as to distort the complexity of its actual history — must also be held accountable." What events of that day were misrepresented? What was the "complexity"? Some people violently entered the capitol and assaulted capitol police. Some people had even planned ahead of time for a possible assault. Does the fact that some people entered peacefully change the nature of the violence that was caused by others?
She claims that "Peaceful Republicans and conservatives as a whole have been demonized by the story told by Democrats in leadership of what happened that day. So half of the country has been tarred by association, and is now in many quarters presumed to consist of chaotic berserkers, anti-democratic rabble, and violent upstarts, whose sole goal is the murder of our democracy." I think this is another exaggeration. The only Republicans really being "demonized" and "tarred" are the ones who are sorry that the assault didn't work and that Trump didn't get reinstated as president. I hope that those are not the Republicans that Naomi Wolf is apologizing to.
Here’s an alternative viewpoint from Mike Pence:
Ken, Pence has an awfully selective memory of these events as specified in the article you quoted. Here is Pence in December 2020:
“And as our election contest continues, I’ll make you a promise: We are going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted. We are going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out! We are going to win Georgia, we are going to save America, and we will never stop fighting to Make America Great Again!”
And again on January 4th 2021:
“I share the concerns of millions of Americans about voting irregularities. I promise you, come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the objections, we’ll hear the evidence!”
Whether Pence was saying these things because he believed them, or because he was just trying to cover his own butt with Trump, it is in clear disagreement with what he said in the article you quoted:
“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said pointedly, adding that he had “no right to overturn the election.” “His reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
It sounds to me like what he is saying now is an attempt to whitewash everything he did that came before. As far as I’m concerned, this makes him no more a reliable witness than anyone else who was at the Capitol that day. I’d prefer to just let the security footage speak for itself. All of these competing views and commentaries on what it shows demonstrate perfectly the need for all that evidence to be public and available, rather than just presenting the public selected snippets with “context.”
Let’s just say that whatever respect I had for Pence before has diminished quite considerably, and his trying to cover up his own responsibility shoots a big hole in whatever credibility he may have had. Yes, both the Jan. 6th committee and Carlson have axes to grind, and they present things as they want people to see them. I don’t see what happened as either an “insurrection” or “tourism.” Pence was part of everything that happened, and is clearly NOT rising above all the noise to present a “totally unbiased” (or even trustworthy) view.
Dave Barnhart
dcbii wrote: It sounds to me like what he is saying now is an attempt to whitewash everything he did that came before.
I don't think that's the only possible interpretation, Dave. He may have changed his mind after he saw where the rhetoric led.
I've always thought well of Pence, with the only possible tarnish the fact that he accepted Trump's call to be his VP nominee.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
My thought is that there's nothing inconsistent with abhorring the January 6 riots while being suspicious of the voting methods that were introduced in the wake of COVID. I've been doing it for over a year now.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Don, I agree that someone can change their mind about something. However, acting as though his own rhetoric was not part of what happened, and trying to put all the blame on Trump, is, IMHO, dishonest. That’s why I think Pence has lost credibility. If he did change his mind, he could easily have added “I was wrong with what I previously said on this topic.” But he didn’t.
Bert, I actually agree with what you said above. I’m also suspicious of what went on in the 2020 election, while believing that the actions of those protesters that broke into the Capitol, assaulted police, and caused damage were definitely wrong (even though there were plenty of protesters who did not join in that), and should be punished appropriately. (Though I am still quite disappointed and disgusted that there are apparently no repercussions for all the violence and death that occurred in the 2020 “Summer of Love.”)
My problem is that Pence is making it sound like Trump’s words spurred on this illegal action (even though he called for peaceful protest), while implying that Pence himself was somehow not a part of that. Whether you agree with what Pence and Trump were saying before Jan. 6th or not, Pence doesn’t just get to stand back and imply that his words were not part of this. If Trump bears responsibility for what happened, Pence has to accept that he was part of egging it on as well.
Dave Barnhart
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