Sunday, November 06, 2016

Eric Erickson on Trump as the anti-Christ

I do not think that Donald Trump is anti-Christ. But I do think what you will read below shows you that there is a growing softness and desperation in the American church that is only going to grow. - Erickson 


I have a problem with the deeply un-Christian character that Trump consistently exhibits, and even without apocalyptic thinking here, he is deeply problematic from a Christian standpoint. And this is independent of the fundamental divide between liberals and conservatives. 

When you say that you have the right to approach women sexually without permission, and that wealth and position of power gives you permission to do so, then you have something deeply un-Christian. I am not saying that this can't be repented of, but someone who has said those things has to really walk these attitudes back in ways in which Trump has not. 

49 comments:

B. Prokop said...

Keep in mind that the concept of the antichrist is totally un-biblical. What we do find there is the plural - antichrists. ("as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come" 1 John 2:18) So it is entirely possible for Trump to be an antichrist, or for there to be several such alive at the same moment. Stalin, for instance, was beyond question an antichrist, as was Hitler (and Nero, and Mohammed, and Diocletian, and //name withheld//, etc., etc.).

Ilíon said...

VR: "When you say that you have the right to approach women sexually without permission, and that wealth and position of power gives you permission to do so ..."

That is not what he said, and you know that that is not what he said. He was laughing about (boasting about) how his wealth and fame gives him the opportunity to take advantage of one of the most common ways in which the sinfulness of women is manifest.

Meanwhile, and even aside from her own personal-and-well-known wickedness, Hillary is a Democrat -- Hillary is for murdering children and making you and me pay the murderers; Hillary is for forcing all doctors and nurses to participate in murdering children; Hillary is for persecuting Christians.

David Duffy said...

When people vote for someone because they believe they are a true Christian, that's called theocracy. When we despise our politicians because they don't follow Christian sexual ethics, that's called puritanical. What a bunch of bullshit.

My (real) choice is between the corrupt, lying, inside dealer that is Hillary Clinton or endorsing rolling around in the mud with Trump. Who's happy with that choice?

I know exactly what I am doing and I'm voting for Trump. God help me.

Ilíon said...

to continue --

There is no such thing as "voting for the man, not the party"; to vote for a any politician is to vote for his party, all of it. The Democrats are the party of abortion (and treason, let us not forget that).

Anyone who votes for *any* Democrat for *any* office is guilty of the abortions the Democrats facilitate; unless one repents, anyone who votes for *any* Democrat for *any* office is already condemned by God.

When you stand before Christ in judgment, and he asks you about your active support of the Party of Abortion, do you *really* imagine that he's going to let you justify that by pointing to your support of the other sinful policies of the Democrats?

Ilíon said...

Dave Duffy: "My (real) choice is between the corrupt, lying, inside dealer that is Hillary Clinton or endorsing rolling around in the mud with Trump. Who's happy with that choice?"

America-the-nation is under God's judgment/condemnation (*) for the murder of its children, just as the ancient Canaanites were (and just as the ancient Israelites were under judgment for the sin of their king). As the people are technically the king in this republic, God has given us a choice:
1) choose a viceroy whose rule will be the doubling down on all the things that are destroying both the Nation and the Republic;
2) choose a viceroy whose rule may allow national repentence to save us from the doom coming.



(*) For instance, it's not that "God is gonna get us" for the government's imposition of homosexuality upon us. Rather, the government's imposition of homosexuality upon us is *already* part of God's judgment against the USA; it's a symptom, not a cause.

Victor Reppert said...

But pro-life laws don't save fetuses.

In countries where abortions are legal on a woman’s request, 34 women in every 1,000 have one. In countries where abortions are always illegal or legal only if a woman’s life is in danger, 37 women in every 1,000 have one.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/women-in-countries-where-abortion-is-illegal-just-as-likely-to-have-one-as-countries-where-it-is-a7025671.html

What Democrats do is eliminate anti-abortion laws. I suppose most abortion doctors are Democrats, but is there any statistics on this?

It's a mistake to think that if you think something is wrong, there has to be a law against it, as if you could keep it from happening by making it illegal.

David Duffy said...

"as if you could keep it from happening by making it illegal"

But pro-civil rights laws did help African-Americans.

B. Prokop said...

I am sick and tired of everything being turned into a political issue, whether it's appropriate to do so or not. I am as pro-life as you can get, and* I weep when I think of all the decades of effort utterly wasted on trying to change laws when people should have been working at changing hearts and minds.

We wouldn't have an abortion problem if a tithe of the effort spent on trying to make the procedure illegal were focused instead on making people not want it in the first place.

Not everything in the world is a right/left issue, or a Democrat/Republican issue, or (let's be frank) a political issue at all. As Solzhenitsyn so wisely said, "The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every person." Note: not between parties, not between ideologies, not between political platforms, but within us - every one of us.

Whenever anyone (Ilion, are you listening?) says every societal ill can be blamed on some political faction (of which the speaker is always (conveniently) not an adherent), I stop listening.

*I had originally written "but", but thought better of it. "And" is more accurate.

David Duffy said...

Bob, I wish this were true:

"We wouldn't have an abortion problem if a tithe of the effort spent on trying to make the procedure illegal were focused instead on making people not want it in the first place."

There are more than a tenth of effort working with abandoned single mothers. The church is there (at least my church) for the broken and abandoned. But, at some point we need to say the current sexual ethic is wrong.

You tell me Bob, how we figure out helping the single mother and trying to tell her child and father that something about this arrangement isn't right.

Gyan said...

"It's a mistake to think that if you think something is wrong, there has to be a law against it, as if you could keep it from happening by making it illegal. "

So do away with laws against murder, against rape. Indeed, do away with ALL laws, by the same (lack of) reasoning.

Gyan said...

And the weasel word "if you think something is wrong"
Abortion is wrong, not merely some people think it is wrong.

Victor Reppert said...

There are many things that are morally wrong that we rightly do not legislate against. Most of the lies people tell are told for inadequate moral reasons. If we locked everyone up who told such lies, everyone would be in prison.

Gyan said...

Any moral wrong is candidate for legislation. Then we argue that it is not prudent to legislate against this particular wrong at this present situation.
Plenty of lying is in fact criminal. Also, abortion IS murder and no society would fail to legislate against murder.

Kevin said...

It's pretty simple really. Murder is illegal because it is the killing of an innocent human life.

Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. Thus by the same logic that murder is illegal, abortion should be as well.

"But...but bodily autonomy!!" says the protester. Bodily autonomy, along with financial security, is risked the second you have sex. Use that bodily autonomy to not have sex unless you are ready to procreate. Once pregnancy occurs, you are responsible for that life, and killing it is one of the most repellant acts a person can do.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Abortion as the deal breaker is just a right wing organizing took,no reason why it should be the one universal issue that forever means the liberals mus always be wrong. It is just not cut and dry like that, It's much more complex especially with a pro choice stance,

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Legion of Logic said...
It's pretty simple really. Murder is illegal because it is the killing of an innocent human life.

Abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. Thus by the same logic that murder is illegal, abortion should be as well.

nonsense, right wing brain washing because that gives them a huge organizing tool they could have ended it a long time ago, they had the political power in the Reagan admin but they didn't, because its too good as an organizing tool.

(1) RU486 prevents fertilization if you take at right time, it can kill fetus but i the woman takes it at time it is not abortion not taking life. RTL propaganda will not admit this.

(2) It is a human being at fertilization but it's not necessarily the same as a born person, There;s a process of becoming and we don't know the point at which it becomes a rel person.It's really the old issue being vs becoming.

(3) we don't know when consciousness begins.

(4)Republican policy tends to lead to death and oppression for third world and poor, There is no justice in saving unborn at tyhe expense of the born.

I kno tht statment will draw fire but I can prove policies ofNixon,Regan and the bushs

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Gyan said...
And the weasel word "if you think something is wrong"
Abortion is wrong, not merely some people think it is wrong.

I think abortion is wrong, I also don't think it;s wrong in the same way that murdering my seven year old kid (if had one) would be wrong,it does not outweigh murder,rape, and torture of political policy in 3e world and among the poor.

I also know you can't prove your statement thiat it is wrong,

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

ps you are complaining about people recognizing the relative nature of various view points, your insistence that there is no realpolitik nature does not prove that,

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

My (real) choice is between the corrupt, lying, inside dealer that is Hillary Clinton or endorsing rolling around in the mud with Trump. Who's happy with that choice?

demonetization of Hillary is brainwashed bullshit,

jdhuey said...

Not only is Trump's attitude un-christian, it is also un-humanist. But it is pathological.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Crooked Hillary vws Traiotor Trump: civil war


dialing demonizations

Victor Reppert said...

Generally we lock people up when there is no reasonable doubt about what they did. Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that fetuses are persons. Even if you think they are, to support anti-abortion morality with legal force you need to make the case against it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Trump as the guardian of the unborn? I find this unbelievable.

Kevin said...

Personhood is a whimsical legal concept. Just ask blacks in the American south a couple hundred years ago whether personhood is such a great measuring stick.

The question for pro-abortion people is, at what point does a human life have worth? The non-brainwashed know the answer, but what do pro-choice people think? (See what I did there, Joe? It isn't wise to call someone brainwashed for having a different opinion than you, since the charge is so easily reversed.)

Crude said...

Generally we lock people up when there is no reasonable doubt about what they did. Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that fetuses are persons.

We also generally will not commit to an action unless we have reasonable certainty no one will be harmed by it. Abortion doesn't pass that test.

Anyway, this sort of reasoning only works with a country that is generally on the same page with fundamental worldview and commitments. We don't have that anymore. Whoever wins tomorrow, have fun with what's to follow.

Gyan said...

"Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that fetuses are persons."
VR, your idealism is showing again. Next, you will ask for proof that there are persons beyond your own self.
Anyway, this asking for legal proofs is silly. It is a political question and not susceptible to the kind of legal juggling you trying to create.
All humans are persons. There is no non-person human. A fetus is an unborn human. Thus, a fetus is a person.
Either you believe in the premises or you don't.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Blogger Victor Reppert said...
Generally we lock people up when there is no reasonable doubt about what they did. Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that fetuses are persons. Even if you think they are, to support anti-abortion morality with legal force you need to make the case against it beyond a reasonable doubt.


that is why I', pro choicer, i don't believe we can prove it, to that extent,i9 would council against abortion but I would not try to dictate.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Personhood is a whimsical legal concept. Just ask blacks in the American south a couple hundred years ago whether personhood is such a great measuring stick.

Personhood is what we have to protect. But it;'s a complex concept, Read Charles Taylor's Sources or the Self to see how complex. Just because white society didn't extend persohnhood to slaves doesn't jean they were not persons.

The question for pro-abortion people is, at what point does a human life have worth? The non-brainwashed know the answer, but what do pro-choice people think? (See what I did there, Joe? It isn't wise to call someone brainwashed for having a different opinion than you, since the charge is so easily reversed.)

I did not call anyone brain washed for having a different opinion, The people who think Hillary is guilty of some imaginary crime for she needs to be shot or put in jail with no formal charge and no trial, or those who see her as the evil person on earth, are brainwashed. People who disagree with me on abortion are not necessarily brain washed.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

We also generally will not commit to an action unless we have reasonable certainty no one will be harmed by it. Abortion doesn't pass that test.

if you can't prove they are people you can't prove it doesn't pass. The thing is we are not debating the rightness of abortion we are debating weather or not that one issue should be the voting deal breaker for Christians. The court has ruled the President does not have authority to change it,it is ridiculous to hod the future of the country hostage to that one isssue

Anyway, this sort of reasoning only works with a country that is generally on the same page with fundamental worldview and commitments. We don't have that anymore. Whoever wins tomorrow, have fun with what's to follow.

which we would be had the right wing reps not spent 30 years building a culture of hate and tearing down education and demonizing everyone wh is notin thier camp

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

All humans are persons. There is no non-person human. A fetus is an unborn human. Thus, a fetus is a person.
Either you believe in the premises or you don't.


wrong! you clearly have not read Taylor. indispensable to any discussion on this issue,

making politics the primary decision making paradigm and putting law and philosophy on the back burner some kind of antiquated quaint old relics reminds me of what Trotsky said about Stalinist's principles, The Stalinists think principals are dead weight but they are really ballast.

Crude said...

if you can't prove they are people you can't prove it doesn't pass.

Said the slaveowners. More seriously, I don't care about whatever nonsense rules you pull out of your posterior.

which we would be had the right wing reps not spent 30 years building a culture of hate

Says the self-hater.

Joe, with all due respect, don't you have an female minister to listen to while she yammers on about how Jesus was really a hermaphrodite and Shi would demand we vote for the first female president because God wants womyn in power to protect to enact Her will?

Admittedly, that's not much respect, but then little is due, so...

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

I am surprized no one quoted that Jeremiah passage about he knew me when I was in the womb, that would make him a person, doesn't say the trimester

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

if you can't prove they are people you can't prove it doesn't pass.

Said the slaveowners. More seriously, I don't care about whatever nonsense rules you pull out of your posterior.

I think I could prove a born adult black person is a person as much as a born adult white person.I am assuming we must accept someone is a person at some point. The two are not analogous since slave are mostly born people.



which we would be had the right wing reps not spent 30 years building a culture of hate

Says the self-hater.

conclusion not in evidence, you are basing that on some folksy idea that liberals are liberals through self hating guilt. you forget i'm actually a colonialist. we love ourselves and hate oppressors.



Joe, with all due respect, don't you have an female minister to listen to while she yammers on about how Jesus was really a hermaphrodite and Shi would demand we vote for the first female president because God wants womyn in power to protect to enact Her will?

Admittedly, that's not much respect, but then little is due, so...


do you really think that bit of hysterical utterance does anything but convene me that fudnies are nuts? what I get out of that bit of raving is that you have some deep seated fear about your own manhood,that is what drives your sexism. Those of us who are secure in our manhood don't need be hyspterically afarid to include women as valid people.

Ilíon said...

VR: "Generally we lock people up when there is no reasonable doubt about what they did. Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that fetuses are persons. Even if you think they are, to support anti-abortion morality with legal force you need to make the case against it beyond a reasonable doubt."

Really? Is that the best you can come up with?

All laws are backed-up up by giving agents of the state the permission to employ force and violence-unto-death against those *suspected* of breaking those laws. *All* laws are backed-up up by the threat og violent death even *before* one's case is adjudicated before stately tribunals.

"Generally we [execute] people [only] when there is no reasonable doubt about what they did [being a heinous crime]. Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that [speeders] are [guilty of heinous crimes]. Even if you think they are, to support anti-[speeding] morality with legal [and lethal] force you need to make the case against it beyond a reasonable doubt."

Clearly, we cannot have laws against speeding -- because there is always someone who will deny that speeding is serious enough merit the meting out of death-on-the-spot.

Meanwhile, the very people formerly denied that "fetuses" are "persons", and therefore that abortion is not murder, are now taking that logic *exactly* where we anti-abortionists have always said it must go -- "Generally we lock people up when there is no reasonable doubt about what they did. Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that [neonates] are persons. Even if you think they are, to support anti-[infanticide] morality with legal force you need to make the case against it beyond a reasonable doubt."

VR: "Can we establish beyond a reasonable doubt that fetuses are persons."

Why is it that when people want to hide the nature of the crimes and sins of which they approve, they stop using Anglo-Saxon?

VR: "Trump as the guardian of the unborn? I find this unbelievable."

Unlike *all* the Democrats, Trump doesn't appear to be a doctrinaire pro-abortionist. He appears to be someone who until recently hadn't really given it any deep thought ... and, it appears that when he did gave it a bit of thought, he came to the right conclusion (i.e. that women as morally responsible for their sins and crimes as men are for theirs).

Milton Friedman: "It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing."

Ilíon said...

B.Prokop: "I am sick and tired of everything being turned into a political issue ..."

Translation: I am sick and tired of the crimes and sins of the Democratic Party being pointed to as being crimes and sins.

B. Prokop said...

Did you just say something?

("Whenever anyone (Ilion, are you listening?) says every societal ill can be blamed on some political faction, of which the speaker is always (conveniently) not an adherent, I stop listening.")

Ilíon said...

^ That's because your political faction is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Satan, and you don't want to admit it.

Ilíon said...

^^ Until B.Prokop is willing to admit that the Democratic Party is actively and deliberately wicked, he might as well be Joe Hinman.

B. Prokop said...

For the ten millionth time - I don't have a political faction. Yes, I used to - I will not deny it - but those days are long gone. I am, and have been for some time now, aggressively non-partisan (a "middle of the road extremist").

B. Prokop said...

Partisanship (or, at least, hyper-partisanship) is a mortal sin, and needs to be condemned with the same fervor that we condemn murder, false witness, adultery, or idolatry.

Ilíon said...

A famous hyper-partisan once said, "What fellowship has light with darkness?"

B. Prokop said...

An even more famous "Hyper-partisan" also said, "Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?"

Ilíon said...

^ And, once again, B.Prokop lies about what Christ said.

B. Prokop said...

Lies? I quoted Him exactly! (Or, at least, in translation. Here it is in Latin: "Homo, quis me constituit iudicem aut divisorem super vos?" Perhaps still not the original, but closer to it than in English.)

You've repeatedly made this accusation, but have never once explained your reasoning.

B. Prokop said...

And your (very strange) accusation makes even less sense when you consider Christ's words in their context. A man comes before Him, and asks Jesus to intervene in their economic dispute. Christ declines to do so, saying (albeit obliquely) that He is neither judge nor divider in our economic (and therefore, in our political) affairs.

And even were I incorrectly interpreting the passage, that would still not make me a liar but simply mistaken.

Gyan said...

Prokop,
"Partisanship (or, at least, hyper-partisanship) is a mortal sin"

Never heard of this sin, mortal or otherwise.
Now, as "mortal sin" is a category in Catholic teaching, could you cite where the Catholic Church has declared partisanship to be a mortal sin?

B. Prokop said...

Gyan,

The Church has not so declared. But its greatest poet, Dante Alighieri, vividly described the sin and its effect in The Divine Comedy. He had an entire circle of Hell (the fourth) dedicated to it. Most telling to me was Virgil's admonition to Dante that he not attempt to make out any one individual amongst the mass of sinners there.

"Why sir," said I, "surely there must be some
Faces I know in all this gang, thus brought
By these defilements to a common doom."

"Nay," he replied, "that is an empty thought;
Living their minds distinguished nothing; dead,
They cannot be distinguished."

(The Inferno, Canto VII, Lines 49-54, the Dorothy Sayers translation)

The surrender of their intellects to a party spirit had robbed them of any individuality to the point that one could no longer tell them apart from each other. Hyper-partisanship thus deprives us of our very personhood, an effect common to all mortal sin.

B. Prokop said...

If you're balking at the term "mortal sin", then substitute "grave sin". I don't believe there is an "official" definition for that phrase.

Crude said...

The Church has not so declared. But its greatest poet, Dante Alighieri, vividly described the sin and its effect in The Divine Comedy.

Just chiming in to say that Dante also was unique in casting a reigning pope as being damned to hell.

That said, I can see what Bob is talking about as being an ill. But 'mortal sin' or even 'grave sin' is another matter. Probably easier to find sin in the actions one takes in the name of a political party.

As for me, I'm sin free on that front. Voted for Trump over the abortion-witch, you know.

Ilíon said...

VR: "But pro-life laws don't save fetuses."

*eyeroll*

Well, then, it's a good thing I don't give a damn about "pro-life" laws; I want anti-abortion laws.

VR: "In countries where abortions are legal on a woman’s request, 34 women in every 1,000 have one. In countries where abortions are always illegal or legal only if a woman’s life is in danger, 37 women in every 1,000 have one."

*eyeroll*

Ah! So *that's* why the pro-abortionists in the US freak out every time any State imposes even the most minor of restrictions upon their multi-billion dollar industry, such as requiring their abattoirs to maintain even the most minimal of health standards or requiring the murderers there employed to have admitting rights at near-by hospitals for those inevitable and frequent cases in which their act of murdering the infant endangers the life of the woman who hired them to murder her infant.

Whodda thunk it? Pro-abortionists are just trying to keep the numbers of murders performed by abortionists down; that's why they freak out.