Forgive me Father. It has been 14 years since my last confession.
It seems to me that the fundamental flaw in Christianity is Christians, and particular a lack of humility in them (and as a Christian, when I point a finger, there are three pointing back at myself).
One can find factions plaguing the church reported by St. Paul in the New Testament itself, and the history of the Church is spattered with intolerance of one Christian group for another. Catholics excommunicated Martin Luther. The United States arose in the context of religious intolerance, leading to freedom of religion being foundational to the Constitution. A member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America isn’t welcome to take communion in a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation. Several paragraphs of other examples is left to the reader to fill. Christians, many at least, think that they know better than others Christians. They have opinions far above their pay grade.
We should have been warned. Jesus himself said (paraphrasing Matthew 7:13-14): “Most people get it wrong.”
Here, I want to talk about one current example of lack of humility. I wrote an article very long ago, I Don’t Know When Jesus is Coming, but Neither Do You, that touched on the general subject; some Christians believing that they know God’s cosmic plan, and in particular apocalyptic events just over the horizon. Jesus was rather explicit putting the quietus on that idea here in Acts 1:7 (among others):
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.
Acts 1:7 ESV
Christians have nevertheless been climbing the mountain to to greet the returning Jesus since at least the 2nd century. Such speculation has been mostly harmless, except when some cult leader persuades his followers to sell all their possessions, or drink the Kool-Aid. Today, however, there is a particularly dangerous variety among the authoritarian MAGA movement in the US that somehow believe that Donald Trump is the “flawed vessel” of God, along with Vladimir Putin.
In a recent interview, Tucker Carlson tried to push this narrative with Putin in an interview. The relevant portion is:
Tucker Carlson: So do you see the supernatural at work? As you look out across what’s happening in the world now, do you see God at work? Do you ever think to yourself: these are forces that are not human?
Vladimir Putin: No, to be honest, I don’t think so. My opinion is that the development of the world community is in accordance with the inherent laws, and those laws are what they are. It’s always been this way in the history of mankind. Some nations and countries rose, became stronger and more numerous, and then left the international stage, losing the status they had accustomed to. There is probably no need for me to give examples, but we could start with Genghis Khan and the Horde conquerors, the Golden Horde, and then end with the Roman Empire.
Mirage News transcript
Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is acting like Donald Trump is the president already and he (and Franklin Graham) seems to believe that MAGA will bring on the end times.
While we can strive to do our best, we must recognize our limitations. At best, we can hope to do the right thing perhaps more than half the time. Bowing down to evil people is never a wise choice.