Ron Johnson, Poster Child

This blog's existence was originally due in large part to my attempt to warn about the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's (WELS) evolution into--at first--a wing of the Republican Party and--eventually--into an allegiance with the Evangelical Right. 

[As an aside, that term (Religious Right or Evangelical Right) has become less descriptive of reality. More recently, some people are using more apt terminology such as Religious Nationalism or White Evangelicalism. Indeed, some have referred to the January 6 riot as a White Evangelical Insurrection. The biggest reason for changing the terminology, is that this sect of the former Religious Right is almost exclusively identified with cult-like loyalty to Donald Trump.]

This descent started out gradually and then took a real nose dive during the four years of the Trump presidency. The WELS has historically been one of the most (doctrinally) conservative church bodies in America. But this was also historically coupled with a pretty steadfast recognition of and adherence to the concept of the "Two Kingdoms". Without getting too deeply into theology, this is the teaching that God created the Church as the authority in spiritual matters (heavenly kingdom) and he created governments as the authority over civil society (earthly kingdom). The synod is run by human beings, so there may have been occasional lapses, but for the most part the WELS did a pretty good job of staying out of the earthly kingdom.

That slowly began to change after (1) Roe v Wade and (2) the election of Barack Obama. I recall fighting some battles with the WELS and some of its affiliated organizations over things like the Affordable Care Act (and its "death panels"), the birth control mandate (where WELS falsely claimed that churches would be required to provide certain coverages) , and (3) same-sex marriage (the gays are going to takeover our churches!). Now, all of a sudden, the WELS was making "public statements" about political issues like it never did before.

The curious thing is that once you start making public statements about certain things that you disagree with, that leaves others to speculate about all the things about which you are not making statements? Does it imply that you approve or at least you dont disapprove. Where's your statement about family separation? children in cages? In effect, the WELS has chosen sides in the culture war and has broken down the wall between the heavenly and earthy kingdoms.

This is kind of a long introduction into my peeve for the day.  You see, Senator Ron Johnson is a WELS member and one of the leading promoters of lies about the past election and the January 6th White Evangelical Insurrection (one of many stories here). Where is the WELS public statement? But beyond that, I would say that the  majority of WELS members I know also believe Johnson's lies, and I am pretty sure they aren't hearing anything from pulpits that pushes back on these lies. My fear is that the WELS has simply become another outpost of the Trumpian Religious Nationalist, White Evangelical political movement, and Ron Johnson is just the poster child.