Recently, a friend of mine — a retired pastor — posted the following on Facebook:
One thing I’ve noticed since the murder of Kirk is the outpouring of support and adoration for him. He has certainly become a powerful symbol for many. But to be honest, I wonder how many of us actually followed him before last week or even knew much about him? In a culture of celebrity worship, many have latched onto him, or at least the vision we’ve been given. Politicians are demanding in some cases that we say nothing ill of him.
I pride myself in being in the know about a lot of what’s going on in the country abd the American church, but I’ll admit im not always aware of the powerful forces at work. I knew about Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA (TPU) But what seemed to be behind the scenes is now coming out in the open. A toxic mix of church and state is becoming a reality, but instead of a Rome or Canterbury, generic evangelical Christianity is becoming our national religion.
If you go to the TPU website, as I finally did last night, you’ll either love what its about or be horrified. They is no line between church and state. And for many of us, that is a problem. Our country did not come together as a ‘Christian’ nation. Nations are not Christian. People are Christians. And together, that is the true Church. Our citizenship is in heaven, and Jesus emphatically said his kingdom was not of this world. We are a nation of many religions and cultures, or even no religion at all. We need to respect that. But pushing for what amounts to a theocracy, we often demand laws that do not touch on the poor, greed, and injustice, which were major themes of the New Testament and the Prophets. We instead gear towards a Christian Taliban, punishing those that we deem unclean or immoral.
As a Christian and a pastor, I reject the idea that the state and the church can co-exist as equal partners. When the Church gets into bed with the state, it becomes a whore that is only used for the pleasure of its false master. The Church, Christ’s bride, needs to reject this false idol of power and be a prophetic voice to the world instead of a mouthpiece for antichrist values. We promote Christ and his Kingdom, not the whore of Babylon. Let us not confuse the two.
If you doubt this pastor, consider what took place at Charlie Kirk’s funeral — a full-blown worship of not only Kirk, but Christian Nationalism. The funeral was nothing more than masturbatory worship of Kirk, the Evangelical deity, and Christian Nationalism.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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“When the Church gets into bed with the state, it becomes a whore that is only used for the pleasure of its false master.”
That is so very wise….(I saved that to my notepad on my phone because it really rings true).