I keep trying to get away from this topic, but the cover story of World Magazine’s February 13 issue talks about the mindset of some of the rioters of January 6. Apparently, Christian believers were among them. The article, Crisis of Fath, also talks about Christian leaders with followings publishing prophecies that Donald Trump would win the election. Here’s a snippet telling what happened when one such “prophet” apologized:

On the morning after the Capitol Hill riots, preacher Jeremiah Johnson posted a public apology on his namesake ministry’s website: “I would like to repent for inaccurately prophesying that Donald Trump would win a second term as the President of the United States.”… On Jan. 7, the day after Congress certified that Biden prevailed—and after a mob of rioters stormed the Capitol in protest—Johnson posted an apology for being wrong about Trump. He rejected the notion that Trump didn’t win because people didn’t pray enough. And he refused to say Trump actually did win but the election was stolen: “I want to go on record: I was wrong, I am deeply sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness.” Johnson says the response was brutal. In an update on Jan. 10, he wrote: “Over the last 72 hours, I have received multiple death threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I have ever heard toward my family and ministry. … I truthfully never realized how absolutely triggered and ballistic thousands and thousands of saints get about Donald Trump. It’s terrifying. It’s full of idolatry.”  – World Magazine, February 13

This reminds me of an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about climate activists. Here’s a snippet of that:

Unfortunately, America is absurdly supplied with citizens whose professed passion for climate science is not matched by a desire to know anything about it. – “Biden’s Age of Climate Decadence,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2021

We could paraphrase that provocative sentence into something like,

There are thousands of Americans whose passion for Christianity is not matched by a desire to know anything about it.

Scriptures are clear, and tomorrow I want to post an uplifting story from Acts about how things are supposed to work. In the meantime:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way… I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling… (1 Timothy 2.1, 2, 8, ESV)