Alas! I have someone on my side! I have many e-mails that depict the argument Mark Gall and I had over Christian Zionism being encouraged by Israeli Zionists.
John Presco
Rob Reiner Takes on Christian Nationalism Threat in ‘God & Country’ Trailer
The documentary from director Dan Partland explores right-wing religious extremism and the danger it poses to both the United States and Christianity itself.
BY JAMES HIBBERD Plus Icon
DECEMBER 8, 2023 7:41AM
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Rob Reiner has shared the first trailer for his upcoming documentary taking on the rise of Christian nationalism.
In God & Country, religious leaders and scholars, journalists and historians sound off about the threat of a movement that infuses Christian dogma with far-right politics. At the same time, the documentary seems to strive to make a distinction between the positive aspects of Christianity and the political-fueled variety.
“Christian Nationalism is not only a danger to our Country, it’s a danger to Christianity itself,” tweeted Reiner (A Few Good Men), who is a producer on the project and whose trailer (below) got him trending on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Friday.
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The trailer mixes footage of right-wing marches and the riots of Jan. 6 with various interviews. “This is not a movement about Christian values, this is about Christian power,” says one interviewee, while another notes, “Christianity at its best is committed to love and truth and justice. If we do this right, what a country we will be.”
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The documentary is directed by Emmy-winner Dan Partland, who previously waded into similar territory by directing 2020’s #Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump.
“Christianity is in crisis,” Partland previously said about the film. “To be clear, Christianity is not the problem, and having one’s faith inform one’s political beliefs is not the problem. The problem is the intertwining of a Christian identity with a political identity such that it can be hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. The danger to democracy led me to explore this topic, but what I learned in the process is that the threat may be even greater to the Church itself.”
The trailer follows Democratic strategist James Carville declaring on Bill Maher’s Real Time last week that Christian nationalism was a massive threat facing the country. “This is a bigger threat than al-Qaeda to this country,” Carville said. “Let me tell you something, they got the speaker of the House, they got probably at least two Supreme Court justices, maybe more. Don’t kid yourself … this is a fundamental threat to the United States.”
God & Country will be released in theaters in February by distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories.
Oct. 22, 2023, 3:00 AM PDT
By Sarah Posner, MSNBC Columnist
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, American evangelicals have been especially vocal in backing Israel. Last week, 90 prominent pastors and other leaders issued “An Evangelical Statement in Support for Israel.” Citing “just war” tradition, the statement affirmed “Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack.” Evangelical leaders around the country have expressed sympathy, as The New York Times reported, “for a country to which many of them feel intense spiritual, cultural and political connections.”
But evangelicals’ support isn’t simply driven by a theology that compels them to love the Holy Land, detached from its convulsive domestic and global political implications. For many “Christians Zionists,” and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.
At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism. What happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage. Christian Zionists are anticipating, and hoping for a war to end all wars, and a resulting Christian world that they claim will vanquish evil and bring peace. Only those who accept Jesus as their savior will benefit from these events that Christian Zionists claim the Bible predicts will happen. Nonbelievers — including Jews and Muslims — will not survive them.
John Hagee, the controversial Texas televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel, an influential Christian Zionist advocacy group, long has been one of the most visible and powerful proponents of this ideology. On Oct. 15, Hagee preached at Free Chapel in Gainesville, Georgia, a megachurch pastored by televangelist Jentezen Franklin. Speaking in front of a cartoonish mural that purported to depict the events in the Book of Revelation, Hagee maintained that the epic showdown at Armageddon, or the Mount of Meggido in Israel, will be “the most bloody battle ever recorded in the history of the world.” He claimed the Bible prophesied that for armies that “come against Israel” from China, Russia or Iran, “God is going to wipe them out.” After that, he predicted, “there will be 1,000 years of perfect peace, no presidential elections, no fake news, none of all of this nonsense.” Instead, there will be “one king, and one leader, Jesus Christ the Son of God. One law, it will be his law.”
Hagee was hardly alone in preaching about Israel’s role in the end-times in the wake of the outbreak of the war. The Trinity Broadcasting Network, a major hub for Christian Zionist televangelism, broadcast several programs discussing the war as part of end-times prophecy. Popular preacher Greg Laurie told congregants that the recent events were a “super-sign” that the “prophetic clock ticking is the regathering of the nation Israel into their homeland.”
At the heart of Christian Zionism is not a love for Israel but rather Christian nationalism. Christian Zionists maintain that the Book of Genesis says that God will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse it. They insist that if America, as a country, does not “bless” Israel (that is, offer its government its unconditional support), God will curse America. Conveniently, those who Christian Zionists claim are insufficiently supportive of Israel are usually Democrats. In his recent sermon, Hagee baselessly accused President Biden of “treason,” without specifying why. He also urged his audience to “vote for someone who at least loves America” and to “blame Biden for their [sic] corrupt betrayal of America and the American people.”
For Christian Zionists, the steady rightward shift of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive returns to office is not a cause for alarm — for Israel’s democracy or for the fate of the Palestinians — but a positive development. In this interpretation, settlers’ further control of the occupied West Bank, which they call by its biblical names Judea and Samaria, is a fulfillment of God’s plan for a Jewish return to Israel — one of a sequence of biblical prophecies that culminates in the Second Coming. White evangelicals “are the religious group most likely to express a very or somewhat favorable view of the Israeli government (68%),” according to a 2022 Pew Research Center poll.
Hamas’ unprecedented and horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children, played directly into Christian Zionists’ singular conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When Trump moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even he admitted that most Americans, including Jewish Americans, opposed the decision. But Trump made the move for his evangelical supporters, who were ecstatic. Hagee claimed he had helped convince Trump by telling him at a White House dinner that Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem to “set up His throne on the Temple Mount where He will sit and rule for a thousand years of perfect peace.” The televangelist, who described the day as “nothing short of a divine miracle,” gave the benediction at the dedication ceremony.
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Hamas’ unprecedented and horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children, played directly into Christian Zionists’ singular conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In their minds, there is little or no distinction between Hamas terrorists and ordinary Palestinians who have been living under the Israeli blockade of Gaza or its brutal occupation of the West Bank. On the American right, even innocent Palestinians displaced by the war are the enemy. This week, the Heritage Foundation called for the United States to reject any refugees from Gaza because “the Palestinian population has no interest in assimilating into American culture and governance, or in expressing loyalty to America or American allies.”
There is some evidence, fortunately, that younger evangelicals are less entranced with Israel’s role in end-times theology than their parents or grandparents. But for now, this crucial portion of the Republican electorate remains entrenched in the Christian Zionist mythology. And its menacing interference, with so many elected officials beholden to it, makes one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world even harder to resolve.
Witch Trial In Salem Oregon
Posted on January 10, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
For several months I have debated about turning The Royal Janitor into Historic Fiction, employing real people and places. With the discovery of Moral Panic, and the Republicans not doing anything about THEIR Great Imposter, George Santos, I got permission form my Great Muse – who I may have identified!
The Royal Janitor
by
John Presco
Chapter: The Salem Skull Woman
When Miriam Starfish Christling entered the Oregon State House in Salem, her long strides left her husband and Professor John von John, in her wake. She was furious with ‘The Worm’ as she now called him, because he could worm his way into this, and worm his way into that. And he wormed his way into the inauguration of Governor Tina Korek.
In the drive to Salem in the professor’s Tessler, once again John went into tedious details about the Gordian Knot Eugene and Emerald Valley networking, is. Starfish was furious to be part of his Emerald Network as he called it. Demanding to know what political affectation he was, Starfish had it with his Clever Worm Maneuvering, he already going in to detail about how important it is to remain neutral, and…..”Socially Nurturing”
“I’ve had it with your Worm Shit. You’re a Democrat – right?”
John lowered his eyes. He could not take that witches deadly gaze! Starfish marched up to the first gentleman she saw – who looked like a respectable Republican Greeter – or usher!
“Where are the Republicans’ sitting?”
Taking in The Wild She-thing, Elvis Boone wished he had worn his tall white cowboy hat with the emblem of The Holy Urban Cowboy Family on it. He felt very small, and hated this tall – freak!
“We don’t sit apart anymore. Governor Brown got rid of political apartheid. But, if you want to sit next to the Liberal-Leftist Anarchist Hippies, they are squatting their lazy asses down by the trainyard!”
The Holy Usher turned quickly and shoveled his ass back to a group of Republicans that didn’t like to take orders – from any Liberal. He lucked out. If he had seen Starfish giving him the look of The Evil Skull Woman – he would have shit his pants. Victoria first saw this look when her wife beheld her arch enemy, Victor Bout. The Merchant of Death appeared next to Brittany Griner in the prisoner swap.
To be continued
Rosamond Press 
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