During a recent discussion with the American Family Association, Christian hate-peddler Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council accidentally told the truth: He wants our nation to become a theocracy.
Religious-right activist Tony Perkins says that men "were created to be warriors for Christ" and complains that when he says stuff like that, critics accuse him of "trying to take over the world" … then admits, "Yeah, we are." pic.twitter.com/T9yw0y6yzX
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 4, 2021
We should be… happy warriors. We were created for this. It wasn’t, like, this is just something that happens to fall upon us at this moment.
We were created to be warriors for Christ — especially as men, we’re to leave our families as warriors.
Now, that terminology has been maligned by the culture… that we’re… these “Christian Warriors” from a standpoint of trying to take over the world. Yeah, we are! The Kingdom! We want to see everyone come to the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and experience the abundant life. And that means we’re gonna have to wage warfare…
Perkins added that it wasn’t violent warfare, but metaphorical warfare, but the Christian rhetoric sounds awful no matter how you say it. (Also, if you don’t want people to take it out of context, maybe stop using the language of war.)
If Muslims or atheists or Satanists used similar language to talk about how they want to take over the world, Perkins would be one of the loudest figures demonizing everyone else. But he expects praise for what he said here.
It’s not enough that Christians want to convert people. That alone might be defensible in the sense that we all want to persuade others to think the way we do about certain topics. But Perkins and his ilk go much further than that. They want to take over the world of politics and force their views on everyone else. Who needs weapons when you can write the laws? But those laws undeniably hurt people who don’t belong to right-wing churches or who oppose conservative Christian beliefs.
In that sense, there is a war. The same Christians who complain about being persecuted openly brag about their desire to persecute others. The irony is that even when Christians “lose,” no one’s trying to override their religious beliefs. They are free to preach hate and bigotry and harm within church walls, and they can live their lives as they see fit. That’s just not good enough for Perkins. He wants you to live like him.
If living an “abundant life” means becoming more like Perkins, we should all work to avoid it at all costs.
(via Right Wing Watch)