Trump Lawyer Jenna Ellis Accuses Pastor-Senator Raphael Warnock Of 'Heresy.' That's It, That's The Joke.
Raphael Warnock is the actual pastor of the actual Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Saturday was the 53rd anniversary of the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Sunday was Easter. And on Easter Sunday, Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, along with several other conservatives, called Georgia Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock, the current senior pastor of King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, a heretic .
Why? Because he posted a nice Easter message about helping people and also included non-Christians (who he also represents, as a senator) in that message.
Text:
The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.
Oh no, not helping people!
This is a false gospel and heresy. We cannot save ourselves. The absolute truth and only meaning of Easter that ma… https: //t.co/uetCzapc3c
— Jenna Ellis (@Jenna Ellis) 1617563747.0
"The absolute truth and the only meaning of Easter that matters," Ms. Ellis explained, "is the literal, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we must accept Him as Lord and Savior."
No, only Christians must do that. The rest of us can do whatever the hell we want. Also, there are 87,000 flavors of Christianity and they all believe different things. Some of them don't even literally believe Jesus rose from the dead.
Let us take a moment and rewind to the time Ms. Ellis intentionally misgendered the Biden Administration's Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, shall we?
When asked by NBC News about her "public misgendering" of Levine, Ellis, through a Trump campaign spokesperson, called the backlash to her remark "both hilarious and tragic."
"The truth of biology shows that human beings are created immutably male and female. Yet in our post-truth society, the progressive leftists not only demand that we affirm patently false facts, but also demand we not 'offend' people who insist on speaking their lies, otherwise we are called insensitive bigots and required to apologize," Ellis stated. "I won't apologize."
So, just to be clear, "the truth of biology shows that human beings are created immutably male and female" (which is not even true from a super transphobic perspective because intersex people exist), but a dude can die and then come back to life three days later without even having been bitten by a vampire or a Sumatran rat monkey? Really? A+ in science for Ms. Jenna Ellis!
Let us also not forget that Ms. Ellis shot to fame largely by helping Donald Trump pretend he won the election, resulting in a bunch of sycophants who believed them as literally as she believes in Zombie Jesus trying to invade the Capitol and overthrow the government. Perhaps the world might want to shy away from things Jenna Ellis considers to be "literal" truths.
Ellis was also very mad at people "who don't even pretend to be Christians" defending Warnock.
Leftists who don’t even pretend to be Christians (like @JoyAnnReid and @mehdirhasan) defend Warnock’s heresy just b… https: //t.co/ttWR3YLsUQ
— Jenna Ellis (@Jenna Ellis) 1617598516.0
Does Jenna Ellis think people are supposed to pretend to be Christians? Also Joy Reid is a Methodist , or was at least raised as one.
It seems clear Reverend Warnock was referring to a more secular definition of "saved," rather than to the "Are you saved? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" definition favored by proselytizers who think the best time to discuss theology with people is while they are trying to catch a bus. This makes sense given that he is also a senator who represents people other than Christians. It would be pretty gross and Republican of him to tell his constituents of other faiths that he thinks they will all burn for eternity, or to get all "Only in the blood of Jesus Christ are we saved!" or whatever this dude is on about.
There is literally no variety or denomination of Christianity (outside of some guy in a shack somewhere, I dunno) t… https: //t.co/q1fZZoT5X1
— Jeff B., who on earth is this guy?? (@Jeff B., who on earth is this guy??) 1617579306.0
Actually, among Christian theologians the meaning of the crucifixion and the resurrection is a subject of heated debate, but good try.
The first born-again Christian I ever met at the age of 17 -- up until then, I did not know they called themselves that -- told me the real problem with Catholics was that they think "good works" are the way to heaven, which is just about the crappiest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like of all the things one could possibly criticize the Catholic Church for, what kind of a psychopath do you have to be to think "Never mind the child sex abuse coverups and the homophobia and the Magdalene laundries, the real problem is that they are too nice to poor people"?
Also very upset about this was Fox News's Allie Beth Stuckey, who whined about Christians like Warnock who think Christianity is about helping people and not just about declaring oneself saved and then being shitty to LGBTQ people and trying to force women to have babies against their will.
Run hard and fast from any semblance of this kind of heresy. You cannot save yourself. No amount of good work (and… https: //t.co/ofFRb688aM
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@Allie Beth Stuckey) 1617574451.0
Conservatives have used the Bible to defend every horrible injustice in the world, from slavery to Jim Crow to LGBTQ discrimination to gender discrimination, but someone uses it to defend "helping people" and they get their panties in a bunch. Godforbid .
These people actually admitting that they consider being a shitty person to be part of their religion, and yet they're still probably wondering why church membership in the US is now below 50 percent.
graph via Gallup
If a person writing a relatively nice thing about helping people is considered heresy in your religion, perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider that your religion, or your interpretation of that religion, is bad .
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people are funny and by funny i mean stupid about imaginary things.
So I'm a preacher's kid from the Bible Belt. My dad was a General Baptist, and his dad was a Free Will Baptist preacher, and *his* dad was a preacher at I think some sort of non-denominational church that was very Baptist-flavored. I think there were also a few on my grandma's side of the family, not sure exactly who, but it's kind of a thing in the family. Three of my dad's four sisters married preachers, and every family reunion was a week-long theological argument, even though everyone was some flavor of evangelical.
What I'm getting at is that claiming EVERYBODY AGREES on some aspect of Christian theology is complete and total bullshit. Nobody agrees on anything! There were wars and stake-burning and shit in the past, and a bunch of my uncles yelling at each other now.
As for this particular point, COME ON. One of the very first theological lessons I remember getting is that Christians have a longstanding disagreement about whether good works are a requirement for salvation or a sign that it's already happened. My dad's position was "if you're not doing good works, I'm not convinced your salvation by faith is legit" -- and as far as these assholes are concerned, he's quite right.