Faith-based outlets like the Christian Broadcasting Network have praised Pompeo’s selection. Erik Rosales, CBN’s national security correspondent, celebrated Pompeo as a man who “even held a Bible study inside the White House.”
But Pompeo’s specific brand of dualistic, evangelical faith — dividing the geopolitical into good and evil — and the office of secretary of state may be at odds.
For Pompeo, American patriotism and a narrowly defined brand of Christian pugilism are inextricable from one another. He’s not subtle about it, either. “To worship our Lord and celebrate our nation at the same place is not only our right,” he told attendees at a Kansas rally in 2015, “it is our duty.” He added that politics is “a never-ending struggle … until the rapture.”
Pompeo’s reference to the rapture here is particularly noteworthy. The rapture is a distinctively American fringe theology that says Christians will be taken up, or “raptured,” into heaven at the onset of the end times.
As I’ve written previously, a number of GOP politicians allow their belief in rapture theology to influence their political worldview. Because the rapture is ultimately desirable — it marks the return of Jesus Christ — anything that hastens it is desirable too. For many evangelicals, apocalyptic “good versus evil” battles, particularly centered over the “Holy Land” of the Middle East, are signs that the longed-for end may be at hand.
-
The Christian right doesn’t like the president only for his judges. They like his style.
- "This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew."
-
Falwell:"A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume. It’s just common sense to me."
-
How will the brainwashed bumpkins react when it all comes crashing down? Here is some useful reading: "When Prophecy Fails"
- Comic Relief for our play: The Pool Boy and the Hostel
-
How will the brainwashed bumpkins react when it all comes crashing down? Here is some useful reading: "When Prophecy Fails"