Christian leaders honor golden statue of Trump

[joshuabgood]

Yep. I was reading a few days ago about AI is so good it can fool anyone. It’s even coming up with fake celebrity preachers, fake experts and even fake accounts of real people to make it more believable. I think it’s a really good idea to not fall into traps believing stuff on the internet just because it tickles that ear.
Now the Bible we can believe. Other stuff like the internet needs to be checked out in person because AI is now flooding search engines with fake back stories.

AI is a good reason to be suspicious but I think this event is real.

Wife: actually, now I’m curious. Does anybody actually have any articles from mainstream sources and not just tabloids or small newspapers? I saw one thing from CNN, but you would think that all the other media would be all over this like New York Times, Newsweek, Washington post and everywhere else.

It's real.

[PeterG]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/g ... 887376007/

https://www.dispatch.com/picture-galler ... 810783007/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 72303.html

https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/ ... olf-course

[Soloist]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/g ... 887376007/

https://www.dispatch.com/picture-galler ... 810783007/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 72303.html

https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/ ... olf-course

Wife: Thank you. I could not find anything, although I’m still a little surprised that it didn’t get wider coverage. I might look into it more if I’m bored later.

[Szdfan]

I don’t think every non-Anabaptist Christian is being condemned here. I don’t think Anabaptism is the only legitimate form of Christianity.

For the sake of discussion, we can say expressions of Christianity which reject involvement in politics. Practically speaking, there isn't much else other than plain Anabaptism.

As I have said, I don't want to explicitly condemn every other form of Christianity that is not identical to my own.

What’s being criticized is a particular relationship between some Christians and political power. It’s the same kind of criticism that goes back to origins of Anabaptism when our forebears rejected the close relationship between church and state. I don’t think Ernie is liberal-progressive Anabaptist and some of the criticism he’s levied against Trump and the Republicans is congruent with historical Anabaptist belief.

No, what is being criticised is Christians having a relationship with one particular politician. That's partisan, and it should be called out as such.

It’s interesting that when plain and conservative Anabaptists apply historic Anabaptist critiques to civil religion, you repeatedly dismiss these criticisms as partisan, unfair, excessive and politically motivated. You accuse conservative Anabaptists of being out-of-touch with reality, when their criticisms are connected to the historical convictions of Anabaptism. I am not the only one criticizing the President on this forum.

A great deal of conservative Anabaptists are slowly sliding into political entanglement; many of them get mixed up with "conservative" parties, and a handful get mixed up with being anti-conservative. Neither is a good path to go down.

Honestly, I believe that if liberals erected a giant gold Obama statue that was ceremonially blessed by progressive clergy while supporters described him in quasi-messianic terms, conservatives would absolutely recognize the authoritarian and idolatrous symbolism immediately. And they would also be correct to criticize it.

My opinion is that partisan, politicised evangelicals would criticise it and partisan, politicised liberal Christians would conveniently find nothing wrong with it.

And I believe I would probably be the only person pointing out that building statues of Presidents is entirely normal, and the religious people ending up entangled in dedication ceremonies for these things is to be expected when religious people get entangled in politics. I cannot recall any criticism of the Carter statute being unveiled in 1994, nor can I find any in the historical record now.

There is plenty to criticize Democrats about. But they’re not ones in charge. Trump is President. Republicans control both houses of Congress. Conservatives control the Supreme Court. It’s at this particular moment in history that Republicans are more openly flirting with authoritarian and messianic symbolism. Not Democrats.

So yes, there are reasons why the majority of criticism right now is being directed at Trump. He’s in charge.

Interesting. So did you put effort into criticising the Carter statute back in 1994?

So I was 15 in 1994 with very limited access to the Internet because my family only had dial-up. I was not secretly harboring a pro or anti-Carter bias or activism.

This is how I understand part of your argument. You argue that:

• Plain and conservative Anabaptists can't criticize Trump because they're too naive and sheltered
• Progressive-liberal Anabaptists can't criticize Trump because we're too partisan and don't count.

So then who is allowed to criticize Trump? You? Are you the solitary, high-minded, rational person on this forum allowed to breathe criticism against the President? In what ways are you compromised and complicit?

As I said earlier I this thread, "The issue isn't just that a statute exists." No statue or public memorial is morally neutral. All of them communicate something about the values of the people who are doing the remembering.

In the second sentence of his tweet, Mark Burns explicitly states that this statue is not a "golden calf." Why does he take this pre-emptive defensive move before anyone has had a chance to actually read the tweet?

Because he understands what this golden Trump statue looks like. He understands what prayers around a golden statue of the current leader looks like. He understands the symbolism of this statue even if he doesn't agree with it. His preemptive denial demonstrates awareness.

A year after the Carter statue, my family was back in Berlin. I remember intense controversy about what should happen with East German and Soviet memorials because none of them were neutral in their meaning. Countless of Communist symbols and statues were defaced and destroyed throughout the former Eastern Bloc. The Giant monument of Lenin in Friederichshain was removed despite protests and fierce opposition. The head is currently on display in a museum on destroyed political monuments. The statue of Ernst Thälmann, the communist leader executed by the Nazis is still there. So is the Soviet cemetery in Treptow.

Post-authoritarian societies understand that symbols carry weight and are able to negotiate these symbols carefully and selectively. Statues are not just generic civic objects. They are not merely decoration.

[Ernie]

The reason there is so much criticism of one man right now is because it has been a long time since any single person so badly mixed church and state, and it has been a long time since so many professing Christians have made so many adulations about a political ruler.

[joshuabgood]

The reason there is so much criticism of one man right now is because it has been a long time since any single person so badly mixed church and state, and it has been a long time since so many professing Christians have made so many adulations about a political ruler.

Right...from my perspective it is less about Trump, the quintessentially worldly man, and more about the stunning response of those who say they follow Jesus and worship only one God.

[JohnH]

The reason there is so much criticism of one man right now is because it has been a long time since any single person so badly mixed church and state, and it has been a long time since so many professing Christians have made so many adulations about a political ruler.

That seems a bit ahistorical. We have been having Presidents who claim to be Christian for quite a long time, and then we had the debacle of Jimmy Carter who basically ran on a platform of "I'm a Christian" and was an ordained deacon. I don't think you can really get more mixing of church and state than that.

The present-day President doesn't even claim to be a Christian, nor does he claim to have much understanding of Christianity.

Right...from my perspective it is less about Trump, the quintessentially worldly man, and more about the stunning response of those who say they follow Jesus and worship only one God.

I have yet to see any signs of "worship" from evangelical people of things other than God, although I disagree with them about the state. As pointed out earlier, Jimmy Carter had a similar statue commissioned for him with seemingly little objection.

The positions some of you hold would be far more defensible if there were a simple admission of partisanship.

[ohio jones]

So yes, there are reasons why the majority of criticism right now is being directed at Trump. He’s in charge.

Interesting. So did you put effort into criticising the Carter statute back in 1994?

Carter was not in charge at the time; it was more than a dozen years after he was in office. If you want a comparable statue it would be this one from the campaign trail.

[joshuabgood]

I have yet to see any signs of "worship" from evangelical people of things other than God,

Did you look at the pic in the op? The pastor literally had to qualify it wasn't a golden calf because he was worried that is how."Don Colossus" looked.

The positions some of you hold would be far more defensible if there were a simple admission of partisanship.

The partisan loyalties I hold are to King Jesus. He alone is worthy of glory and honor. All the idols should be torn down. And the fact pastors are erecting them is especially concerning.

[Szdfan]

The reason there is so much criticism of one man right now is because it has been a long time since any single person so badly mixed church and state, and it has been a long time since so many professing Christians have made so many adulations about a political ruler.

That seems a bit ahistorical. We have been having Presidents who claim to be Christian for quite a long time, and then we had the debacle of Jimmy Carter who basically ran on a platform of "I'm a Christian" and was an ordained deacon. I don't think you can really get more mixing of church and state than that.

The present-day President doesn't even claim to be a Christian, nor does he claim to have much understanding of Christianity.

Right...from my perspective it is less about Trump, the quintessentially worldly man, and more about the stunning response of those who say they follow Jesus and worship only one God.

I have yet to see any signs of "worship" from evangelical people of things other than God, although I disagree with them about the state. As pointed out earlier, Jimmy Carter had a similar statue commissioned for him with seemingly little objection.

The positions some of you hold would be far more defensible if there were a simple admission of partisanship.

I think your accusations of partisanship would be more defensible if you examined your own biases. In what ways are you compromised?