Fanatic Christian Mike Pompeo Opposes Religious Pluralism, Supports the ‘Rapture’
Read Time:3 Minute, 47 Second
Trump’s former CIA Director, and US Congressman, Mike Pompeo, will have the confirmation hearing for his appointment to secretary of state today. What most may not know, however, is his well-documented history of working with activists who inflame anti-Muslim fear and bigotry, and his fervent belief in the “rapture.”
Just a few years ago, speaking at a “God and Country” rally in Kansas, Pompeo allied himself with a pastor who gained notoriety for delivering a prayer in the state legislature criticizing America for having “worshipped other Gods and called it multiculturalism.” According to him:
“Jesus Christ, our savior, is truly the only solution for our world.”
Mike Pompeo has a documented record of hostility to religious pluralism, which generally refers to the belief in two or more religious worldviews as being equally valid or acceptable. More than mere tolerance, religious pluralism accepts multiple paths to God or gods as a possibility and is usually contrasted with “exclusivism,” the idea that there is only one true religion or way to know God. According to Right Wing Watch:
This is deeply troubling for a secretary of state nominee, and not only because it undermines the core American values of religious liberty. A panel of distinguished retired diplomats recently met at Georgetown University to warn that growing religious intolerance in the U.S. threatens the ability of the U.S. to effectively advocate for human rights and for the victims of religious persecution in other countries.
Pompeo’s unscripted remarks to the 2015 “God and Country” rally at Summit Church in Wichita, Kansas, were in part an appreciation of Pastor Joe Wright’s notoriously divisive 1996 legislative prayer, which was immediately denounced by some legislators but which was promoted by radio broadcaster Paul Harvey and continues to circulate among Religious Right activists.
Pompeo lavished praise upon the “critical nature of pastor Wright’s prayer,” which he said was first and foremost a call to action and a sign that “we will defend our Christian values and American exceptionalism with all our heart.” He went on to say:
It is an awesome honor to be standing here today in front of the United States flag and a cross. We’ve watched government try to rip faith from our schools, and diminish the education that comes as a result of God not being in that classroom.
Pompeo also talked about being part of the struggle against “radical Islam.”
Sometimes they’ll call us Islamophobes or they’ll say that we’re bigoted. I’ve had each of those bestowed upon me. I’ve been called a tool of the Jews. But it will never dissuade me, and I hope none of you, from acting out in the most important fundamental way, and that is proclaiming that this is an exceptional nation and that Jesus Christ is my savior.
Pompeo, speaking soon after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Obergefell marriage equality decision, also quoted a part of Wright’s prayer in which he said the U.S. had “endorsed pluralism and called it an alternative lifestyle.”
Pompeo criticized the ruling, saying the Supreme Court had “created out of whole cloth a brand new right”:
Well, they can change the law, but they can’t change the truth. For the first time in the history of this country, the federal government will now take away from every state, including Kansas, the right to determine what 70 percent of all Kansans wanted—marriage between one man and one woman. And this won’t be the end of their demands, I can assure you. It’s just at the beginning. They will come to places like Summit Church and attempt to impose burdens that are against your Christian belief, and I can stare out in this audience today and know that you will never let that happen. You should know that I’ll always have your back when you do that.
Pompeo promised that he would continue to fight these battles, saying “it is a never-ending struggle until that moment Pastor Fox spoke about, until the rapture.” Think about that: “until the rapture.”
Pompeo also had kind words for Ralph Drollinger, the right-wing pastor who leads weekly fundamentalist Bible studies for members of the House and Senate and for members of President Trump’s cabinet.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation says the anointing of Mike Pompeo as U.S. secretary of state will be a disaster for the world and I expect they are right.
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These Christian nationalist extremists, who want to overthrow our secular democracy and replace it with a theocratic dictatorship in which their warped fundamentalist Christianity is the law of the land, are far more of a threat today than their Islamic fundamentalist counterparts
[Speaking of the “rapture,” here’s a web bit that sheds some light on it:]
50 million or so US evangelicals believe in the “rapture” which is an “imminent secret coming of Christ” they say will happen several years BEFORE the traditional Second Coming. Before 1830 all Christians had believed that the “rapture” was just a mere ASPECT of the Second Coming. But in 1830 a young Scottish lassie claimed she “saw” in the Bible a separate secret coming of Christ (several years before the Second Coming) that would rapture all true believers to heaven and thus exempt them from the endtime “tribulation” ruled by the Antichrist! This escapist theory, begun in Britain, has long been a huge money-maker for evangelicals like Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, Jimmy Swaggart etc. and the rapture-based “Left Behind” books and films have broken sales records. Google “Famous Rapture Watchers” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” and find out that NO pre-1830 Bible scholar ever “saw” a separate “pre-tribulation rapture” in the Biblical manuscripts. Pompeo will be embarrassed when he finds out that the vast majority of his own evangelical scholars have rejected the British-invented “pre-tribulation rapture” belief! The definitive work detailing the long-covered-up history of the “pre-trib rapture” is journalist Dave MacPherson’s 300-pg book “The Rapture Plot” (available at Amazon Books).
What could go wrong with a guy in office that has a hard on for approx 1 billion of the world’s population. It will be fine I am sure, otherwise I am thinking I may lose faith in dolt45’s choices for dept heads.
So true. We don’t want to lose faith in the Big Pig after all.
Mike Pompeo was unfit to even run the country’s premier intelligence agency. But now he’ll be in charge of the U.S. diplomatic apparatus and be its face to the rest of the world. His extreme views make him utterly unfit for this tremendous responsibility.