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For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
I Timothy 6:10

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Views From The Outside For June 30, 2026

 Views From The Outside

The purpose of this page is to list news stories and reports from mostly Western sources outside of the U.S. You can use Google Translate to translate articles that are printed in another language. 

So far, news sources include:

International

From Canada

From England

From France

From Germany

From Russian Source 

From Spain

From Switzerland

From Ukraine


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Friday, June 26, 2026

Is Christian Nationalism Just The Tip Of The Iceberg?

 As we all know, an iceberg is larger than what can be observed above the water. In fact, the part of the iceberg that we can see is the smaller, and least threatening, part of the iceberg. According to the AI used by Google, around 90% of an iceberg is submerged.

The above pertains to Christian Nationalism because of the growing authoritarian movement in the U.S. This authoritarianism has already captured the Presidency. And because of the influence that Christian Nationalism has had on some of Trump's key people and the public attention that it is receiving, the question being considered here is whether Christian Nationalism is just the tip of the threat being posed to America's democracy or is there is something more dangerous lurking below the surface.

Christian Nationalism not only threatens to replace our democratic processes for determining our representatives and how they make decisions; it opposes equality by granting religiously conservative Christianity a privileged place above all ethnic and ethnic-religious groups in determining who will be governing our society. We should note what has been previously claimed in this blog. That what we are seeing in Europe and North America is a battle between Democracy with equality vs Authoritarianism with hierarchy. And the first sign of the latter is when an individual/group/ideology attacks equality for others. For without equality, we have no democracy, which, in contrast to authoritarianism with hierarchy, would be the rule of the people--the 'demos' means people. With the onset of Christian Nationalism here, what we seem to have, as Jeff Halper pointed out in his book, An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, is an ethnocracy--the rule of an ethnocity or selected set of ethnocities over all of the people,

And so what is most apparent about the current authoritarianism in America is its Christian Nationalism character. But is Christian Nationalism the only threat to our democracy? And if the answer is 'no,' then what other threats are there to our democracy?

We need to realize that religiously conservative Christians do not have to be Christian Nationalists to threaten our democracy. That is because religiously conservative Christians have a strong penchant for favoring authoritarianism. Consider the following 2 video clips of John MacArthur speaking on Christian Nationalism and then on the freedom of religion:



AND



Outside of the abortion issue, which is really a social justice issue if the unborn child is a human life, note that MacArthur opposes both equality for the LGBT community and religious freedom. One could summarize his opposition to both equality and religious freedom by noting that he seems to conflate supporting the right to choose with supporting the choices made. That is because Christians should not support people chosing homosexuality, transgenderism, and the practice of other faiths than the Christian faith, he believes that Christians should oppose giving people the option to choose those alternatives. And so in attacking the freedom to choose, MacArthur is attacking the equality of people from the LGBT community and those who hold to nonChristian religious faiths. A Christian approach to supporting equality for the LGBT community and those who hold to nonChristian faiths would be to support people having the right to  choose options that we religiously conservative Christians don't want them to choose. Such a perspective protects the equality of those mentioned by respecting their right to choose unbiblical alternatives. And then we could add that we Christians could then offer different choices through evangelism.

Note that MacArthur does not support Christian Nationalism. And yet, he is attacking the equality of some who think differently than he does. And the same goes for others, my fellow religiously conservative Christians in particular, who use code words to justify their opposition to equality for certain groups. Their opposition is based on traditional Christian beliefs that sprang from Christendom, which was an authoritarian time period when Christianity had a privileged place of influence and power over all other faiths throughout Europe and much of the Americas.

These code words are often used to obligate the civil authorities to ban certain practices that are condemned in the Scriptures. Code words like 'natural law' or the 'moral law' can be defined a number of ways. But when referred to by many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, what they refer to are Christian definitions of those words. In fact, because Christian Nationalism is a diverse movement, sometimes what those religiously conservative Christians use code words want ends up being the same laws that some Christian Nationalists want to exist. Now it is obvious that Christian Nationalists are far more visible than these other Christians in terms of posing a threat to our democracy. But is Christian Nationalism the only threat to our democracy? 

So what else could be attached to the iceberg that has Christian Nationalism as its tip? As this blog has pointed out before, oligarchy also threatens our democracy. And in a nation that celebrates Capitalism like America does, and especially like this President does, to follow what motivates those in our government, we need to follow the money. And in this case, that means we must look at the influence that certain sets of financial and corporate elites have on our government.

Here, we should note the past. And by the past, we should note Russia's influence on our President. Why? It is because Russia's Putin not only significantly contributed to Trump's 2024 election win and his other campaigns, he is greatly admired by Trump. And in terms of Putin's contribution to Trump's win in 2024, we don't know how much Trump owes Putin for his victory. In terms of admiration, Timothy Snyder, who is the author of the book, The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, Trump's strong concern with having Putin's approval began in 2013. In addition, at one time, Trump chose to believe Putin regarding his attempts to influence our elections over what our intelligence agencies said.

This blog used the question of how much Trump owes Putin along with his admiration of him to predict what would happen if Trump was elected: Russia would be America's future. And what is Russia? It is a corrupt oligarchy run by a strongman where the national identity is tied to the Russian Orthodox Church even though most Russians do not regulary attend worship services.. That while Putin's government tosses out enough culture bones, such as its strong opposition to LGBT lifestyles, out to the Russian Orthodox Church to garner its support, it is mostly Putin, and then his oligarchs who are running the nation and primarily benefitting from its rule.  

What do we see in America? At Trump's inauguration, elite tech leaders were given seats of privilege. We see how Trump and his family has been financially garnering hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth. We see corporations receiving tax cuts, secured through the "Big Beautiful Bill," and cuts in regulations. And some are receiving higher government contracts. We see Trump removing Congressionally approved funds from charitable, educational, social safety net funds. In addition, there is the power that Trump gave to Elon Musk, who contributed around $250 million to Trump's campaign. And who did Trump take with him in his trip to China?

But if those facts are not enough, Trump's Presidency provides enough evidence to show that we have already entered some level of oligarchy. Trump's personal criteria for success is based on domination and acquisition. As mentioned before, programs of 'social uplift,' as Martin Luther King Jr. called them, are easily sacrificed because there is no profit being made. Trump has said that the federal government can no longer support Medicare, Medicaid, and some food assistance programs because the government can't afford to support those programs and pay for  what Trump sees are new defense needs to a tune of $600 billion being added to the defense department. As with USAID, Trump is threatening to cut federal assistance to state unemployment funds because of Trump alleged fraud. But that increase in defense spending is despite the fact that the Pentagon continually fails audits. And so it is the Military Industrial Complex, along with Trump's Presidential power that are the main beneficiaries of that increase in spending. This should remind us of what Martin Luther King Jr. once said:

'A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death'

Or look at Trump's military aid to autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Or look at how Trump supports Ukraine in its war with Russia. Trump supports Ukraine by selling needed weapons to Europe to give to Ukraine. Do you see the transactional basis for his policies. While criticizing Biden for freely providing some weapons for Ukraine, Trump is seeking an economic profit for corporations here as the basis for helping Ukraine. In short, and an early blog article has already made this point, Trump is the culmination of all that is wrong with Capitalism according to Marx.

We should include that some of the programs that are being cut or are threatened with being cut enable greater social/economic mobility for those who are the have-nots. Here, we should note what Martin Luther King Jr. said in his 1967 interview by Xander Vanocur. What  King stated was that he was afraid that his 'dream' was turning into a nightmare because of the lack of economic improvement for many blacks. Much of the above should help us see some degree of connection between financial well-being with civil rights

At the same time, Trump portrayed himself as the savior-defender of religiously conservative Christianity in America. And he has appointed people who have been strongly influenced by Christian Nationalism to certain key positions in his administration. In the meantime, Trump has been waging a "Christian" crusade against wokism, both here and abroad, to the extent that he is violating the free speech of those in the education systems of our nation.

Yes, Christian Nationalism should be a concern for us.  Some of it is just the tip of the iceberg while the rest is the part of the iceberg that that threatens our democracy. We are right to be concerned about it.

However, it is too easy to become so focussed on Christian Nationalism that we blind ourselves to the threat that oligarchy poses to our democracy and way of life. Here we should note that most of the dangers posed by Christian Nationalism lie in the future. In contrast to that, oligarchy is not just posing current dangers to our democracy, it has been damaging our democracy for a while. And so again, according to this blog, the current authoritarian movement in America is using a religious façade to garner the votes of religiously conservative Christians to support something in addition to Christian Nationalism. And though the iceberg that threatens to sink our democracy consists of both Christian Nationalism and oligarchy, it is time that we start paying more attention to our oligarchy, to the large part of the submerged iceberg, that has been gouging huge holes in the hull of our democracy some time now.





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Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Views From The Outside For June 23, 2026

 Views From The Outside

The purpose of this page is to list news stories and reports from mostly Western sources outside of the U.S. You can use Google Translate to translate articles that are printed in another language. 

So far, news sources include:

International

From Canada

From England

From France

From Germany

From Russian Source 

From Spain

From Switzerland

From Ukraine


<< Previous Views                                                        Next Views >>



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Friday, June 19, 2026

How To Avoid Becoming A Secular Pharisee

I want to tie two seemingly unrelated quotes together. The first quote comes from Jesus's parable of the two men praying in Luke 18:9-14 (click here for the source):

 

9 Now He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The second quote come from the speech that Martin Luther King Jr. gave protesting the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

'The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.'

Before I connect the two quotes together, we need to substitute a fill-in-the-blank for the word 'Western.' As a result, we come up with the following:

The ________ arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not  just.'

Note that we can use any group's or individual's name in the fill-in-the-blank. For examples:

The Leftist arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just

or

Curt's arrogance of feeling that he has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just

And so we should see that this arrogance of feeling knows no personal, group, nor ideological boundary. From here, we should easily see the connection between the 2 quotes. In the former, we see the Pharisee who offers evidence of his own righteousness by how he is  morally superior to the Tax Collector.  The Pharisee proudly proclaims that not only is he morally superior to the Tax Collector, that he is without fault while the Tax Collector is without merit.

And what is said in the second quote? That the 'Western arrogance of feeling' proclaims that the West believes that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. This does not just imply that the West believes that it is superior to other parts of the world, it claims that the disparity is so great that the West is completely self-sufficient while the rest of the world is dependent on the West. Just as a side note, do we still wonder why there are some Americans, the President for example, who are plagued with narcissism?

Those of us who believe in Christ should be alarmed at having such arrogance. We should be alarmed because arrogance is not only not smiled on by God in either the Old or New Testaments, such arrogance brings God's opposition and punishment. And so no believer should have such an arrogance of feeling, but many of us do anyway.

To the unbeliever, having such an arrogance of feeling is not necessarily a problem as it is for the Christian, and so many of them could enjoy being arrogant, but not all do. And so one of the many conditions that harms the reputation of the Gospel is when an individual or group of believers are arrogant while there are many unbelievers who are repulsed by that characteristic.

By now we should see how the second quote can be an example of the Pharisee's attitude expressed in the first quote. Though they are not identical, the two quotes have enough in common so that the person or group  in question in the 2nd quote becomes an example of the Pharisee from the 1st quote. And since what the West was trying to teach others involved secular concerns, then we can conclude that one does not have to be religious to be a Pharisee. That those who have only secular interests can be Pharisees too.

The possibility of becoming a Pharisee should, for us who believe in Christ,  strike fear in us because of what happens to the Pharisee in the end.  We should also note that, for us believers in Christ, there is never a time whenwe can safely pray the prayer of the Pharisee nor is there a time when we no longer need to pray like the Tax Collector.

For unbelievers, the possibility of becoming a Pharisee means that one is emulating the characteristics of what they often criticize Christians for. 

Many of my fellow believers will object to what has been written here by claiming that because they have Biblical worldview, in contrast to the worldviews of unbelievers, they have everything to teach unbelievers and nothing to learn from them because they have what unbelievers don't have. Here, James Boice's criticisms of Monasticism and the early Anabaptists apply here as well. We should note that those Monastics and Anabaptists believed that, because of how corrput unbelievers were, they had nothing to learn from unbelievers, Boice said that the attitude of the Monastics and early Anabaptists failed both to appreciate the effects that God's common grace could have on people in government and on those influencing culture as well as it  'overestimated' the godliness of devout believers including themselves (see pg 104 of Two Cities, Two Loves: Christian Responsibility In A Crumbling Culture). And so those fellow believers who conclude that they have everything to teach unbelievers because of  their own adherence to a biblical worldview have deceived themselves about both their godliness and the contributions that unbelievers can contribute.

At this point, we should point out the carrot that arrogance holds out in front of us. That carrot consists of feeling good about oneself. That carrot consists of feeling a sense of significance. In fact, feeling superior to others can be especially gratifying especially when others consist, in part, of those whom we do not respect or even despise. In addition, being arrogant can lead us to feeling entitled over others. However, because being arrogant can make some feel significant, challenging a part of those beliefs that makes them feel significant, regardless of the facts and logic one employs, can be perceived as a personal attack by those who feel superior to others.

Certainly there are individuals and groups from all over the ideological spectrum that could accurately be used in the above fill-in-the-blank. And there are other times in which our own names could accurately put in the fill-in-the-blank. But because of the current situation, we need to look at the Evangelical support for President Trump and his policies. Why? It is because of both what Trump has said and done, especially during his 2nd term as President, and the level of support he gets from religiously conservative Christians.

Note that Trump had campaigned on the claim that only he can fix it with it being the nation with its problems. Trump had hats made saying: 'Trump Was Right About Everything.' Or consider the title of a Charlie Kirk book: The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win The Future. Don't both Trump's self-proclamations and the book title sound way to similar to what was said in the second quote? And, if so, can't both Trump's self-proclamations and Kirk's book title  cause those who embrace those sentiments to speak like what was said in the 2nd quote?

If so, then perhaps the Evangelical community needs to reexamine the kind of commitment that it has made to both Trump and the MAGA Doctrine. The claim that some believers have all of the knowledge while unbelievers have none should raise a score of red flags because of the arrogance that such a claim carries with it. The recommended reexamination does not imply that one must necessarily leave the Trump and MAGA followings, though I would strongly recommend it, such a reexamination should cause Christians in the Trump and MAGA followings to adamantly stand for drastic change in both their leader and their their groups. That change must include promoting hybrid approaches and solutions to our nation's problems rather than just Trump and MAGA ones. Those hybrid solutions must have contributions from unbelievers who hold to different ideologies than MAGA ones. That is because, as the Scripture say, 'GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD' (which is part of I Peter 5:5). And looking down on others as inferiors is a first and almost certain indicator that one is arrogant. On the other hand, recognizing the contributions that those outside one's group can make is evidence, though not necessarily proof, that one is not arrogant.

For those fellow believers who insist on Christian Nationalism, arrogance cannot be one of their traits. In fact, arrogance should never be a part of any Christian's life. And we should note that for those of us believers who have escaped the clutches of yearning for Christian Nationalism, we have our own sins to battle. We can neither entertain the notion that we are superior to any Christian Nationalist nor think that we have nothing to learn from them. We too should seek hybrid approaches and solutions to our nation's problems. This should cause us to avoid the all-or-nothing thinking that Trump and many MAGA followers employ--a kind of thinking that provides the cognitive foundation for authoritarianism. And that authoritarianism would make believers do what both Jesus and Peter warned against: the lording it over of others.


  

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Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Views From The Outside For June 16, 2026

 Views From The Outside

The purpose of this page is to list news stories and reports from mostly Western sources outside of the U.S. You can use Google Translate to translate articles that are printed in another language. 

So far, news sources include:

International

From Canada

From England

From France

From Germany

From Russian Source 

From Spain

From Switzerland

From Ukraine


<< Previous Views                                                        Next Views >>


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