Cruz, DeSantis Portray the Left As Demonic, the Right As God’s True Followers
“You’ve got to be strong,” said DeSantis at the end of his speech. “You’ve got to put on the full armor of God. You’ve got to take a stand, take a stand against the Left’s schemes. You’ve got to stand your ground. You’ve got to be firm. You will face flaming arrows, but take up the shield of faith and fight on.” - C.Leaders
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I’ve been seeing evidence of Christians thinking this way for a while but these two came right out and claimed it directly.
But no, “the world” in the sense of “enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil” is not the Left. And the church is not the Right. What we’re seeing is a disturbing trend of identifying Scripture’s battle/soldier language with political struggles. At the anthropology level, there can be some overlap, but in today’s Right, not much—and the relationship is superficial at best.
There are multiple dangers in this thinking. One of the worst is that when believers identify “the world” (in the sense of John 15:18, 1 John 2:15) with the Left, and see Right as “Us,” they’re blinded to all of “the world” that is on the Right and all of the good that is, if not exactly on the Left, is not on the Right either… the not politically aligned good.
This is toxic on so many levels—as we’ve already seen. But take the trajectory and look at where it leads.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I realize that politics is blood sport these days, but the habit of throwing red meat, rhetorically speaking, at one’s supposed core supporters like this is one of the things I hate the most. Let’s set each other at each others’ throats and then wonder why there’s blood all over. Very disappointed to see DeSantis and Cruz doing this kind of nonsense.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The partisan political right is completely dominated by red meat throwing now. As disgusting as insincere pandering is, I really hope that’s all these guys are doing. Which is worse, rhetorically demonizing people you disagree with—and portraying their defeat as the mission of the church—just to keep the base fervent, or saying that sort of stuff and really meaning it?
It’s a sad day when you hope “conservative” leaders are only lying.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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