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Last Sunday, speaking in a church in her district in Los Angles, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters said, among other things, "God sent me to get Trump."
This week a Bishop told the press, "I would turn all churches into Mosques to save migrants."
Welcome to the "religious Left"--a group within the Christian Church who carry the banner of tolerance, equality, acceptance and "love."
However, theirs is a misguided mission.
Be Informed.
Who is the Religious Left?
Their website introduces them with this:
Welcome! Are you a Christian and a Liberal? We've been searching for you for 5 years! If you're like many others like us you've probably felt alone out there. You've probably been told "You can't be a Christian and a Liberal!" You've probably been ostracized by churches, and conservative "Christian" friends and family. You've probably doubted your own viewpoint at times.
You're in the right place! Conservative "Christians" have turned their back on one of the central tenets of the Bible. The tenet that Jesus said was "The sum of the Law and all the prophets," to Love God and Love your neighbor as you do yourself! And who is our neighbor? Jesus taught us it was a stranger … A stranger, of a foreign belief system, who stopped to help another stranger beat up and left for dead on the roadside while religious types passed him by! The Bible is full of instruction that this teaching isn't “just for individuals.” It's a universal teaching. It applies to individuals, governments, and businesses.
Welcome home. You have found your tribe. Conservative "Christians" are wrong, and you've been right about Jesus all along!
The website includes a lengthy explanation of how the Bible allows us to redefine the family, marriage, human sexuality and basic moral concepts of "right" and "wrong" in the name of "love, and compassion."
Sadly, as with all progressives, the end justifies the means with the progressive religious Left as well.
The fruit of the religious Left.
Last Sunday, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters took the pulpit in the Los Angles AME church and declared that "God has sent me to get Trump."
She promised the congregants "I am in the fight," saying, "I don't know shut up," "I don't know intimidation," "I don't know fear."
She told the cheering audience, "Don't you worry about those who are threatening. Don't you worry about those who are talking about they're gonna shoot. I know some of you got a little worried when I said to them, 'If you're gonna shoot me you better shoot straight.' There's nothing like a wounded animal."
Waters ended her sermon by claiming God has sent her on her mission against Trump.
She said, "You've gotta know that I'm here to do the work I was sent to do, and as the pastor said to me when I came in this morning, 'When God sends you to do something, you just do it'!"
She concluded by promising that tomorrow morning, "I'm going back to Washington---I'm going to tell them pastor told me to come here and just do it."
The congregation erupted in applause.
This was not inconsistent with what the Congresswoman has been telling everybody since Trump was elected.
She recently told MSNBC following White House press sec. Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia, that she has "no sympathy for Trump administration officials who have been subjected to public harassment."
She said, "I tell you they won't be able to go to a restaurant, they won't be able to go to a gas station, they're not going to be able to shop at a department store. They're going to harass them until they decide that they're going to tell the president, 'No I can't hang with you'."
While Rep. Waters opposes President Trump on everything every time, her main focus has been his immigration policy of securing our borders.
It's difficult to square all her rhetoric with the Bible, but it folds neatly into the religious narrative of the religious Left.
While I support the president, this is about much more than the president.
Italian media reported Monday that Catholic Bishop Raffaele Nogaro said, earlier this month, that he would be willing to see an end to Christianity and the dominion of Islam if it meant saving migrants' lives.
He said, "Morally, and as a man of faith, I would be willing to turn all churches into mosques if it were useful to the cause and if it helped to save the lives of the poor and unhappy men and women..."
This is not what Christ died for. It is not "The Great Commission."
Protestant Rep. Maxine Waters and Catholic Bishop Nogaro are both on a "misguided mission."
And they are not alone.
On Ash Wednesday earlier this year, a group of religious Left church and ministry leaders met in New York. The meeting was organized by Rev. Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and other Christian Left leaders.
The meeting was called "Reclaiming Jesus" with an emphasis on organizing against the president's immigration policies. They produced a joint statement, that all signed, which clarified their progressive Left position and mission.
It said in part, "While we share a patriotic love for our country, we reject xenophobic or ethnic nationalism that places one nation over others as a political goal." This echoes remarks made by President Obama repeatedly while he was in office.---"America is not exceptional."
Statement 6 of the "Reclaiming Jesus" document says the authors believe in the Great Commission found in Matthew 28--and the subsequent "therefore" statement describes the "America First" philosophy as "a theological heresy for followers of Christ."
Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Tx., says "signers like Campolo and Wallis make Karl Marx himself look like a conservative."
After reading the Statement, Christian apologist Alex McFarland said "nothing in Scripture demands open borders and unsafe communities."
He said, "I pray that people will not be misled by the religious lingo sprinkled throughout this document and by their either accidentally or intentionally crafted logical fallacies that permeate this very unsettling tome called 'Reclaiming Jesus'."
He says he hopes the statement dies a quick and quiet death.
Unfortunately, it won't, because heresy is as old as recorded biblical history. It tends to hang around.
Misguided False Teachers.
The Apostle Peter warned that false teachers would "bring in destructive heresies" and blaspheme the truth with deceptive words because "they have forsaken the right way and gone astray"(II Peter 2:1-15).
Some of the strongest prophetic denunciations found in the Bible are directed at the "end time religious leaders."
Jesus taught that Christians are to live by "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).
Jesus also chastised religious leaders of His day who "honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me...in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:8-9).
This is not a political issue about a president, it's a spiritual issue about good and evil. Truth and Heresy.
Recently in Iowa, 160 "faith leaders" presented a document to state legislators declaring their support for same-sex marriage.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted to allow homosexuals to be ordained into the ministry---violating God's Word under the guise of "love." It has divided and torn the church.
The Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, claimed publicly that "God is still speaking to us"---urging Lutherans to consider more "modern" views on sexual orientation because "the understanding we have of homosexuality today does not seem to be reflected at all in the context of the biblical writers."
In other words, "The Bible is not the final authority for Christ's Church."
Jeremiah, Ezekiel and other prophets of the Lord warned of false prophets and times like these.
Jeremiah said some of the religious leaders who "handle the law did not know Me" ( Jer. 2:4,8), "and they have lied about the Lord...the prophets became the wind, for the word is not in them...The prophets prophecy lies in My name. I have not sent them (Jer. 5:12-13; 14:13-14).
Then this: "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture..."
And finally this: "In the latter days you will understand it perfectly" (Jer. 25),
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.