Preachers Can't Seem to Pick 'Em

When I was a boy, before the term "Christian Right" was coined, my dad told me that when he saw a bunch of preachers get behind some guy with a business proposal, that I should run like the wind.    He said that most preachers did not know enough about business to avoid being taken in by scams and get rich quick schemes.     He said the guy doing the pitching would run rings around them.   His thought was that if the fellow running the pitch really had a good one, he could pitch it to ordinary investors.   He said that I should get out of there when the preachers start coming to you as a member of the congregation with such "investment" ideas.   As much credibility as they might have on theological matters, it did not carry over to good judgement about business.

Well, preachers have not tried to recruit me into a business proposal based on the fake promises of some huckster, but they have tried to do something very similar when it comes to politicians.    All my life I have considered myself a part of the "Christian Right."   Now at age 50, I realize that the leaders of the religious right have been "taken" by con artist politicians in the Republican Party, just as my dad warned me they would be by unscrupulous businessmen.  

The leaders of the Christian Right are men I greatly respect.   I am talking about men like James Dobson and Don Wildmon.  But I don't respect what they have done to our political system.   They have put us all in disrepute by helping Bush the Younger.   Not that the alternative was any better than him, but when they are so prominently in his corner, they "own" his record.     He did not give them anything they really wanted, but now much of America blames them and considers him an example of what a "Christian" President would govern like.

In their desire to remain relevant, to be "players" in the current system, they are now sifting through the grifters and corporate sellouts that are among the current GOP offerings in an attempt to find one who is willing to lie to them enough to garner their support.   It's sad.   Why not just say that none of these men are worthy?  Why not just say "here are the issues that are important to us and we will leave it to our congregants to decide who will really be best to work for these issues?"

I think they have some idea that as the priests and prophets of our day that they are supposed to "anoint" the king.   Maybe the priesthood is supposed to anoint the king, but the scripture teaches that all believers are now the priesthood.    There is no intermediary group of men between God and man other than Christ, and a bunch of Protestant ministers ought to know that.    It is the people as a whole that will "anoint" the king, not a select priestly caste.

I used to think that these fine men just needed to be replaced by others, but maybe the problem is deeper than that.   God may not want any select group of men to be the leader of the "Christian Right".    Certainly, He has not blessed their efforts in that realm as he has in many of the other ministries they have been involved in.   It is sad to see Don Wildmon stand shoulder to shoulder with globalist Newt Gingrich.    If they only endorsed issues and not men, they would not feel constrained to compromise their integrity when the men crossed the line and betrayed them on the issues.  Jesus said that we should not call any among us "leader" because we had but one leader- the Christ.   The efforts of these men to position themselves as "leaders" of the Christian right has brought discredit to the faith when their selected politicians turned out to be duds.

Martin Luther said that he would rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian.     That's pretty far to go, but I get the feeling that he would not be taken in by these politicians who have used Christians.  Today's Christian "leaders" have bought on the cheap with a little rhetoric and symbolic action while the nation slips further into fascism and globalism.