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Let me begin by expressing the tone of this letter right up front: I love you guys!
We have never met or spoken to one another. I know nothing about your personal lives or your religious beliefs. And after watching each of you on various interviews, I don’t even know much of anything about your individual political affiliations—except the judge is widely known to be a Libertarian. But none of those things matter. What matters is that you are devoted to peace, as I am.
I have watched you men often, and I want you to know that as a non-conformist pastor, I totally agree with you about the wars in Ukraine and Israel. If the American electorate would listen to you men, we wouldn’t have the bought-and-paid-for warmongers in Congress that we have today.
As I have watched you, I have seen the frustration—either subtly or openly—that you have expressed with how the American people could allow their representatives in Washington, D.C. (of both parties), to become the calloused, cold-hearted collaborators of perpetual military conflict.
Please know that I understand that the public platforms that you men occupy are not religious in nature, and no one expects you to abuse those platforms by injecting “religion” into your very educated and perceptive analyses. But I want you to please consider that there is a very relevant religious reason why the U.S. government has become so bloodthirsty.
You men have eloquently described the powerful influence that the donor class exerts upon the White House and Congress. I am so very grateful for the way you expose the Israel lobby—such as AIPAC—and the lobby groups representing the military/industrial complex. Bravo!
And as a veteran pastor of over 49 years, please let me share with you what I believe is the religious juggernaut that enables and facilitates these lobby groups. My past involvement with evangelicalism, including leadership roles within the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, etc., has given me insight into a giant, mostly undiscussed and undetected, cancer that has taken over America’s body politic.
I’m talking about the devilishly fallacious doctrine of Rapturism, aka Prophetic Dispensationalism, Scofield Futurism or Christian Zionism. Call it what you will; it is the ubiquitous 800-pound gorilla in almost every cloakroom, newsroom and pastor’s study in the country.
This hellish doctrine says that modern Israelis are God’s chosen people, that the Zionist State of Israel is a resurrected end-time Biblical Israel and that the Palestinian people are modern-day Philistines. This doctrine also teaches that the Zionist State of Israel is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham. Because of the above, the promoters of this erroneous belief (which comprises over 80% of evangelical pastors and churches in this country) say that America can only be blessed by God if it supports the State of Israel—no matter how barbaric or inhumane its actions might be. They also believe that Benjamin Netanyahu is akin to King David.
I know, because, as I said, I was once one of them.
But it’s actually worse than the above. This extremely popular and pervasive doctrine teaches the only way that Jesus can return to earth is that there must be global war—even nuclear war—beforehand.
At this juncture, anyone with half a brain would stop and ask, “Why would anyone believe such a thing, and how could such a belief system become so pervasively popular?”
Here is their religious Arkenstone: Before all of this conflagration and war come to a peak, the true believers will be raptured to Heaven, thus escaping the impending desolation. Therefore, the more war there is—especially in the Middle East—the sooner they will be raptured to Heaven.
And the truly incredible part of all of this is that adherents of this diabolical prophecy doctrine see no contradiction between their support (even lust) for war and their repeated acknowledgement that Jesus is called the Prince of Peace in the Holy Scriptures. They further fail to see the contradiction of Jesus’ command that Christian believers love one another and their support and justification for Israeli brutality, torture and murder of their fellow Christian believers in Palestine.
Gentlemen, it has taken over one hundred years to come to the fruition that we see in front of our very eyes today, but it all began with the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 (revised in 1917).
Without the perfervid support of millions of evangelicals for end-time wars, the war profiteers would be impotent to dominate and control the American government—and many State governments—as they do today. The multitude of Israeli lobby groups would not even exist (at least not in great strength) without this support of Christian Zionists in our evangelical churches. And the U.S. Congress would not be littered with warmongers without this support of Christian Zionist voters in this country.
For example, I dare to suggest that the State of South Carolina has more evangelical churches, more evangelical preachers and more evangelical Christians per capita than any other State in the Union. The State is home to the flagship evangelical college: Bob Jones University. I have traversed and spoken across this State many times. Yet this State, where massive numbers of evangelical Christians worship and pray, is also the State that has elected and re-elected the most pathological warmonger in the entire U.S. government: Senator Lindsey Graham.
This would seem to be a massive contradiction, except when you understand what I’ve been talking about in this letter: the domination of Christian Zionism among America’s evangelical churches.
Why are evangelicals so supportive of the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine? Again, the answer goes back to Scofield Zionism. Christian Rapturists believe that Russia is the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 37 and Revelation 20 and that these passages predict that Russia will lead the final war against Israel at the end of time. Of course, these evangelicals are very misled. The Gog and Magog of Ezekiel (and Revelation) do not represent Russia.
This letter is not intended as an attempt for you to change anything that you are saying to the American public. On the contrary, what you gentlemen are saying is exactly what America needs to hear. I just wish that your voices were being heard by every American.
I write this letter to simply give you my learned observations over almost a half-century relating to the religious element within our country that is enthusiastically enabling the War Party in Washington, D.C., and to tell you how much I appreciate you.
Speaking just for me personally, I truly believe that if somehow the eyes of America’s evangelicals—especially America’s evangelical pastors—could be opened to the devilish doctrines of Christian Zionism it would transform the heart and soul of America—including the American government.
The 19th century revivalist Charles G. Finney held beliefs which I do not share, but he said something that I believe is very relevant to the times in which we live today:
If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in religion, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it.
When Finney preached, the doctrine of Christian Zionism did not exist in America—and warmongers did not rule in our government or in our churches. I do not believe that that was a coincidence.
The religious component I shared with you in this letter is mightily contributing to the war fever and Israeli domination of the U.S. government.
I realize that the responsibility to call out this damnable doctrine of Christian Zionism rests with pastors like me. But as you must feel like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness on your podcasts and in your writings, believe me when I say, though I am perched upon a different platform than you men, I know exactly how you feel. The evangelical world is just as blind and deaf to our Creator’s Natural Laws of constitutional government, sound economics, just war and the primacy of peace as those in the secular world.
I repeat what I said at the opening of this letter: I love you guys! Keep on keeping on for Liberty, Justice and Peace.
Your friend in the fellowship of the free,
Chuck Baldwin
Kalispell, Montana
© Chuck Baldwin
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