MUTANT CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA
Beloved Christians, how did this zeal to make America a Christian nation or a Christian culture come to be? It has been the painstaking work of false prophets. There are false prophets and false teachers among you. The current calls by altogether too many to make America a Christian nation and to remake America’s culture into a form of Christian culture are false prophecies. They seem to others to make Jesus into the political tool of a particular political party in a particular nation. It exposes Jesus to skepticism and disrepute. It unnecessarily alienates onlookers from Jesus, the salvation He came to bring and His teachings. That is not Jesus’s way.
This intertwining of politics and Jesus is a deception. It is a mutation that has created another species that sounds Christian, but doesn’t follow Jesus’s teachings or example. It is perpetrated by wolves in sheep’s clothing, as Jesus called false prophets. Consider the fruit, the byproducts: White Nationalist movements, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, KKK and QAnnon have adopted the use of the Bible and Christian language to promote their vision of a white America. Since, as they say, “birds of a feather flock together,” it makes Jesus guilty by association of being used for racism. And it makes you look like unhinged extremists, whom others don’t trust. That does not serve Jesus’s mission and is not Jesus’s way.
SEEDS OF MUTATION: FALSE PROPHECY
Much of the present generation of Christians in America has been fed on false teachings grown from duplicitous seeds. Let me illustrate the corrupt seeds that have born bad fruit during the past fifty years. It’s something that I’ve already mentioned in passing.
In 1976, a Southern Baptist Evangelical, named Jimmy Carter, was elected President of the United States. He had been the Governor of Georgia and knew the ways of the South quite well. Under his administration the Justice Department began to enforce the Civil Rights Act in new ways.
When racial integration was imposed on public schools many southern Christian churches saw an opportunity. It was an opportunity to draw new white members to the churches and would be a financial boon, as well. Churches opened private schools that could remain segregated. They could remain segregated because they were religious and could claim that only children of members could be admitted. It was a way of avoiding civil rights laws on the grounds of the separation of church and state.
One of the first actions brought by the Justice Department was to file suit against a segregated Southern Evangelical college, Bob Jones University. The loss of its tax-exempt status suddenly became an existential threat to white churches with segregated schools. That action unnerved Southern pastors. They envisioned the loss of income from their schools or the loss of their tax-exempt status and possibly the loss of members drawn to their churches because their schools were segregated. Ultimately, the two issues were money and segregation. Neither profit nor maintaining segregation could be legitimately called upright moral issues.
MORAL MAJORITY
Southern Baptist Evangelical pastor, Jerry Falwell, was energized. He felt the existential threat of his church’s school losing its tax-exempt status or the loss of income and members. He called upon like-minded Christians to convene to defend against those economic losses.
Of those who rallied to his call was an ultra-conservative former Roman Catholic, by the name of Paul Weyrich. He had actually left the Catholic Church after Vatican II. He disagreed with the Church’s decision to substitute the Latin Mass with modern vernacular language. Ironically, Weyrich joined the Melkite Catholic Church, which exclusively used Arabic in its version of the Mass because he so resented the loss of the Latin Mass. Such was his resistance to innovation.
Weyrich was religious, but he was even more political. He had been a political strategist for the Goldwater campaign in its development of the “Southern Strategy.” His goal was to attract segregationist southerners to the Republican Party. Weyrich persuaded Falwell and others that an anti-abortion emphasis would bring Catholic leaders and traditional Catholics into their political movement alongside Southern Evangelicals. He also coined the name of the movement. The “Moral Majority” was the organization they founded.
What they created was a political organization masquerading as Christian. The Moral Majority wedded politics and religion together from the outset in ways that hadn’t happened since Abolitionists did it in the lead up to the Civil War. The Moral Majority spawned other offshoot political organizations disguised as Christian, such as “the Christian Coalition,” the “Faith and Freedom Caucus,” “Focus on the Family” and many others. They have been working tirelessly to draw Evangelical, Charismatic and conservative Catholic Christians into a unified political movement within the Republican Party.
As a result, many Christians have become highly politicized during the past 45 years. And many of them have become political activists as much as disciples of Jesus. Those political efforts, which adopted Christian language, has blurred the lines between following Jesus and political action in service of cultural causes. Many American Christians are no longer able to distinguish between the two. That has distorted what it means to follow Jesus for many American Christians. Jesus was neither a moralist nor a political activist. He resisted all the attempts of the Jewish political parties of His time to side with them. Indeed, He was criticized by them for associating with those they considered morally unfit.
UNCOVERING FALSE PROPHECY
How can Christians discern false prophets? According to the Bible there are several ways.
“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.’” (Jeremiah 23:16)
False prophets claim to speak for God, but they make up their messages from their own imaginations to fit with people’s hopes and fears.
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3)
False prophets tell their chosen audiences what their itching ears want to hear.
“For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11: 13 – 14)
“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them… Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories” (2 Peter 2:1-3).
False prophets diminish God’s power by substituting it with other powers, like political power. They do not uphold God or Jesus, but they fabricate lies and false stories to promote their views and bring Jesus into disrepute in the process.
“At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time” (Matthew 24:23-25).
False prophets elevate their own signs and wonders or miracles to gain credibility among believers. They trick people into following false messiahs.
“I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naive people” (Romans 16: 17-18).
False prophets create divisions. They divide believers rather than uniting them. They do not serve Jesus but themselves or others.
“Then the Lord said to me, ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds’” (Jeremiah 14:14).
False prophets claim to have visions, imagine revelations, create idols and use quasi-religious soothsaying. Then they pretend those messages are from God.
“The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The prophecies they gave you were false and misleading” (Lamentations 2: 14).
False prophets do not call for repentance of sins that enslave a people. Instead, they mislead people with false hopes.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7: 15f).
Pay attention to the outcome of their messages. They take advantage of others to benefit themselves. Their words do not produce what St. Paul wrote, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5: 22) Instead, they provoke malice, anger, fear, impatience, ill-will, corruption, distrust, harshness, and impulsiveness. The bear witness to false messiahs instead of Jesus.
FRUIT OF FALSE PROPHECY: THE TRUMP PHENOMENON
Remember, the first Christian leader to urge Christians to vote for Donald Trump to be President was Jerry Falwell’s son, Jerry Falwell, Jr. He was president of the largest Evangelical university in the world. It was founded by his father. Like many other false American Christian influencers and prophets, his beliefs were forged in the caldron of Christianity melded together with a particular political ideology. He followed a mutation of Jesus’s way. Falwell’s motives, messages and actions were examples of false prophecy.
Falwell was instrumental in the false prophecy that this lying and lawless man, Trump, was God’s chosen one for the Presidency. Falwell was deceitful. He disguised his actual motivations as spiritual ones. He masqueraded as Christian leader, but was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was motivated by his need to hide something compromising.
Falwell’s false prophecy in support of Donald Trump was based upon a quid pro quo arrangement. He owed Trump for a favor. That favor legal help to bribe a pool boy to conceal certain unsavory services. Falwell had arranged for the pool boy to have sexual relations with his wife while Falwell watched. Trump’s lawyer facilitated the transaction to bribe the boy to be silent about the ongoing arrangement. In return, Falwell compensated Trump by spearheading Evangelical support for Trump’s election with his false prophecy.
This false prophet was the son of a false prophet. His father started a political movement, claiming it was Christian when it was actually an effort to resist a Christian president. He claimed his passions were from God, for morality and to defend the church from persecution by the government. His actual motives were to enable him to continue to make money by breaking Civil Rights law. He claimed it was to make America moral again. That was the beginning of the deception in which politics, money and racism were disguised as Christian, but were not.
No one speaking by the Spirit of God can say that the Creator of all that is wants the followers of Jesus to be devoted to a particular political party. I say this to you with confidence, since the parties of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots each tried to manipulate Jesus to side with them against the others. He absolutely and consistently resisted affiliation with any of them. In reaction, those parties made every effort to trap and discredit him in public. He called them hypocrites and white-washed tombs. He warned his apostles against the pride of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He told them not to put loads on others that they didn’t have to bear. He warned them against spiritual self-inflation. He refused to be a political tool of those who used religious or spiritual language and claimed to be on God’s side. Jesus knew they weren’t.
No one speaking by the Spirit of God can say that the man of lies and lawless one, Donald Trump, is a messiah chosen by God. He stands for the opposite of Jesus and has lived his entire life that way. They say, “We have had dreams.” “We have seen visions.” “He is the Lord’s appointed one.” “He is the Lord’s anointed one.” “He has been chosen.” Those false prophets are deceiving you, and if you believe it, you are deceived. You were eager to be deceived because you have been steeped in politics wedded to religion and can no longer discern the difference between the two. You have bonded with a mutant American Christianity.
THE MUTATION REVEALED
False prophecy is rampant in America in our time, and many of American Christians have itching ears for false prophecies and conspiracies. As St. Paul wrote in his Second Letter to Timothy, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4: 2-3) Currently, more than fifty percent of those who believe Q-Anon myths and conspiracies are self-proclaimed American Evangelical Christians. They have chosen to follow myths instead of sound faith. They also ardently believe that Trump is ordained by God to be President of the United States. That makes such Christians look power-crazed and deluded. It causes onlookers to dismiss Jesus altogether, not just in America, but throughout the world. It holds other Christians up to scorn. It discredits Jesus and embarrasses Him.
What is it that your itching ears want to hear? You want to hear that you have been willing to abandon Jesus in such ways? Is it that you want to hear that you’ll be great again and will take dominion over others. What are the desires that make you want to hear such things? You have itching ears, centered on yourselves.
Do you remember that when James and John wanted Jesus to seat them beside him when he attained his glory, Jesus said this to his apostles: “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10: 42-45)
These false prophets and counterfeit apostles of a mutant Christianity want prominence. They want to be seen laying hands of prayer on a president. Yet, Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5f)
Those American Christian leaders want admiration. They want power. They want prosperity. They crave what the one they call God’s Chosen One also craves. He mirrors to them their own yearnings and they, in turn, mirror it to you. Many of you crave such things – prestige, prominence, power and prosperity.
Such false prophets, self-ordained apostles, and leaders of a mutant Christianity are prominent throughout America, nowadays. You are the ones, who give them prominence. They may be corrupt, but they are also clever in their manipulation of you, like Simon Magus.
“When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, ‘Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’ Peter answered: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.’” (Acts 8:18-23)
Simon was a worker of signs and wonders, back in the days of the Apostles. He came to believe in Jesus and was baptized. But he craved more power for his personal advantage.
A PROPHET SPEAKS, BUT IS IT TRUE OR FALSE?
I’ll add another name of an American Christian, who claims to be a prophet. It’s up to you to discern whether he is a true or false prophet. His name is Lance Wallnau. He is a prominent member of the New Apostolic Reformation. You will recall that the “New Apostolic Reformation’ is a movement made up largely of Neo-Charismatic Christians. They believe that demons possess or influence places, businesses, institutions of government, schools and people. This includes almost anyone, who thinks different from themselves politically. They feel called by God to identify and vanquish evil spirits that influence the aforementioned by taking power over every aspect of American life.
It has been the fastest growing movement within American Christianity during the past 15 years. It boasts having almost four million members of its churches, but adds that ten times that number subscribe to its beliefs in other churches. Beside their emphasis on spiritual warfare, they also replace the positions of trained and tested bishops, presbyters, priests, deacons and other ordained ministers of the Gospel with self-proclaimed and discerned apostles, prophets, teachers, healers and exorcists.
Lance Wallnau identifies himself an apostle as well as a prophet. Others in the movement also consider him such. He has been called the best representative of the New Apostolic Reformation.
He became a born-again Christian in college. After working in Texas as an oil industry marketer, he became a self-styled communications expert. He developed businesses as a free-lance marketing consultant. And in the 1990’s, he started marketing and publishing companies, while founding a church in Texas. He provides videos and conferences on enabling “Kingdom-minded Christians” to profit through various money-making ventures.
The Cyrus Wrecking Ball
In 2016, this Christian prophet claimed that God revealed to him that Donald Trump, should be elected president. He asserted that he thought Trump would be the 45th president of the United States, and so he looked up the 45th chapter of Isaiah. On the basis of the number of that chapter in that book, he said that Trump would be a secular messiah, like Cyrus the Great of Persia. With the precedent of that pagan ruler who was called a messiah about 550 years before Jesus, Wallnau applied that precedent to Trump, even though all supposed messiahs have been superseded by Jesus and neither Isaiah nor any other biblical prophet ever said that there would be another such messiah, like Cyrus.
Wallnau also claimed to have had a vision in which Trump would be a wrecking ball from God to break down the walls of American government to set God’s people free. He has even published books about God’s plan to use Trump to purge America. “Invading Babylon: The Seven Mountains Mandate” was published before Trump entered the political scene. But he has published two others about Trump: “God’s Chaos Candidate: Donald Trump and the American Unraveling” and “The Chaos Code.”
He has also appeared on Jim Bakker’s television program. He displayed a gold coin with Trump’s image engraved on it overlaying Cyrus’s. He sold the coin on that program.
Wallnauh s become something of an American Christian celebrity since his prophecy about Trump. He leads the church he founded. He not only has established marketing and publishing businesses, but hosts podcasts and a new television program. He is also the driving force behind “Ziklag,” which is an organization of more than 125 Christian Nationalists, each with a net worth of more than $25 million.
Wallnau and others also prophesied that Trump would remain president after the 2020 election. He didn’t. It was a false prediction. But, in order to counteract any doubts about their self-proclaimed status as prophets of God they adopted a lie.
The lie was that Trump really did win the election as they had prophesied. It must have been a hoax that he lost the election. It must have been a corrupt election. Trump’s votes must have been discounted. It must have been cheating by the enemies of God’s plan. It must have been the devil at work. They had to make up excuses for their false predictions, made in the name of God. They embraced a lie and fabricated false reasons for their false predictions. False prophets lie and defend their lies with fabricated myths.
Recently, and congruent with New Apostolic Reformation doctrine of spiritual warfare has identified demonic forces at play in the 2024 election. Wallnau has said that Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris, has increased in popularity in the American election polls by the use of witchcraft. He has said, “She used witchcraft in the debate (with Trump).”
Other Christian leaders and some bishops agree with Wallnau’s assessment that God’s wants Trump to be President of the United States. Some also agree with the New Apostolic Reformation’s belief that opposition to Trump is inspired by evil. They see spiritual warfare playing out.
In a November, 2019, there was an interview with American Christian leaders, Franklin Graham and Eric Metaxas. They were asked why they thought Trump was the focus of congressional impeachment hearings. Graham, the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, replied, “Well, I believe it’s almost a demonic power.” Metaxas, a Christian radio political talk show host and Trump supporter interrupted, “I would disagree, It’s not almost demonic. You know and I know it’s a spiritual battle.”
Discernment and Repentance
I ask this question sincerely, Is this true prophecy, inspired by the Spirit of the Creator of all that is, or false prophecy, inspired by the desire for personal gain or American Christianity steeped in politics? It is your responsibility to decide.
It’s one thing if such prophecies are inspired by God, and it really is God’s will for the lawless man of lies to be President of the United States again. It’s quite another thing if they are false prophecies inspired by a mutant form of American Christianity, concocted to promote a false messiah in service of selfish goals.
If it is the latter and you, my brothers and sisters have embraced it, there is still hope. Remember the story of Peter’s first sermon, delivered of the Day of Pentecost. This is what happened:
Peter said, “‘Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.’
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?
Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.‘” (Acts 2: 36-38)
There is always room for repentance. It involves acknowledgement, asking forgiveness and mending our ways by renouncing allegiance to the lawless man of lies.
CHRIST-APP by philtierneyblog 
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