Category: Warren Throckmorton

Donald Trump’s New Strategy: Publicly Suggest Foreign Governments Investigate Political Rivals

Well, all of those Trump defenders who questioned the Intelligence Community whistleblower can be quiet now because Donald Trump just publicly suggested what was once private. Watch starting at 1:38:

Trump said President Zelenskyy should start an investigation into the Bidens and “China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as Ukraine.”

Twitter was abuzz with reaction:

Law professor Orin Kerr said:

Christian Post political writer Napp Nazworth asked:

Congressman Justin Amash wrote:

This from Zack Hunt is pretty funny and inspired my headline:

In sum, the new strategy seems to be to dare the nation to do something about it. He seems to be saying to his base that he will do whatever he wants and thus far, they seem to be going along with it. My question is about Republican office holders. Will they see the problem here? This is setting the tone for any future presidency. If the GOP does not act in some manner, there will be no obvious limits. Will soliciting foreign help in our elections be the new normal? Will foreign governments fight their battles via our candidates? This is not a sustainable position.

Mark Driscoll is Touched by an Angel

Mark Driscoll’s transformation from “young, restless, and reformed” icon to charismatic teacher has been fascinating to observe. He recently said Calvinism is “garbage” and just wrapped up a featured gig at Gateway Church’s pastor’s conference where he talked about his views of spiritual warfare. In that talk, Driscoll told a story about encountering an angel at a park. Watch:

I’m trying to imagine driving into the mountains for seclusion and finding a park full of kids but anyway, that is the story. An angel in the form of a disabled middle school girl gave him a piece of paper with a Bible verse and told him God loves him.

In a way, this isn’t such a departure from the old Driscoll. He also believes he can see the sins of others in the past. He described demon trials while at Mars Hill Church. However, with this sermon (the rest of it was a critique of naturalistic Christianity) and his new books, it appears that the leading edge of his work will be to appeal to the charismatic wing of the church.

Update: Mark Driscoll told this same story in a sermon of about the same content to his church recently. Here it is.

Robert Jeffress Doubles Down on Civil War Comment

First Baptist of Dallas pastor and Trump court evangelical Robert Jeffress doubled down on his warning of a “civil war like fracture” if Trump is removed from office via impeachment and conviction. Watch:

One of the CBN hosts gave him an opportunity to ratchet back his rhetoric but in Trump-like fashion, he called his analogy to the Civil War “a perfect idea.”

When the same host cited Illinois GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger’s tweet condemning the reference to the Civil War, Jeffress said:

Read the comment and if they come away with that conclusion that I’m advocating or the president’s is a civil war, then they either can’t read or are too stupid to understand what we’re saying.

Here is Kinzinger’s tweet:

Robert Jeffress Invokes Threat of “Civil War Like Fracture” in Defense of Trump

Donald Trump just tweeted the following quote from Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress:

This is of course is an outrageous statement from Jeffress and a sign of panic and desperation from Trump. It is one more sign that Trump is unfit for office that he would incite such divisive rhetoric to try to keep himself in power.

For Jeffress to equate the impeachment of Trump to slavery as a reason for a “Civil War like fracture” is absurd. While we are in the minority, there are many evangelicals who want to see respect for the rule of law.

You can see the interview below:

Gospel for Asia: Does This Look Evangelical?

In his recent video defense of Believers’ Church in India, Gospel for Asia CEO and Believers’ Church Metropolitan K.P. Yohannan told Francis Chan that his church was “hard core evangelical.” Below watch Yohannan lead what looks like a kind of mass.

A relative of Yohannan’s sent this video to me and said it was a mass of the BC. I can’t understand what is happening so I can’t say for sure what this is. I will say that it doesn’t look like any evangelical church service I have ever attended.

As I have said several times when commenting about BC, I don’t care what they do. The reason I point this out is because it seems to be a matter of great importance to GFA to portray the organization — here and in Asia — as evangelical. Donors who care about this designation and about what this means should know that it may mean something very different there than here. I also think that GFA should simply represent their field partner accurately.