Post by Eugene 2.0 on Apr 14, 2022 12:11:45 GMT
theconversation.com/war-in-ukraine-is-testing-some-american-evangelicals-support-for-putin-as-a-leader-of-conservative-values-180638
I do hope this is some kind of a blind mistake... because... I do know not what to say. The Evangelical church does not have gone crazy, does it? Putin and his church (the orhodoxy) supports killing of many people, many Ukrainians. And this cannot be accepted by any sentient human being.
I do hope that Franklin Graham has only his own thoughts... This is a nightmare!.. How could they accept the devil?
In February 2022, evangelical leader Franklin Graham called on his followers to pray for Vladimir Putin. His tweet acknowledged that it might seem a “strange request” given that Russia was clearly about to invade Ukraine. But Graham asked that believers “pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost.”
The backlash was fast and direct. Graham had not solicited prayers for Ukraine, some observers commented. And he had rarely called on believers to pray for U.S. President Joe Biden.
A significant subset of the U.S. evangelical community, particularly white conservatives, has been developing a political and emotional alliance with Russia for almost 20 years. Those American believers, including prominent figures such as Graham and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice see Russia, Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as protectors of the faith, standing against attacks on “traditional” and “family” values. At the center is Russia’s spate of anti-LGBTQ laws, which have become a model for some anti-trans and anti-gay legislation in the U.S.
Now, with Russia bombing churches and destroying cities in Ukraine, the most Protestant of the former Soviet Republics, American evangelical communities are divided. Most oppose Russia’s actions, especially because there is a strong evangelical church in Ukraine that is receiving attention and prayers from a range of evangelical leaders.
Nonetheless, a small group of the most conservative American evangelicals cannot quite break up with their long-term ally. The enthusiasm for Russia is embodied by Graham, who in 2015 famously visited Moscow, where he had a warm meeting with Putin.
On that trip, Putin reportedly explained that his mother had kept her Christian faith even under Communist rule. Graham in turn praised Putin for his support of Orthodox Christianity, contrasting Russia’s “positive changes” with the rise of “atheistic secularism” in the U.S.
But it was not always so. Once upon a time, American evangelicals saw the Soviet Union and other communist countries as the world’s greatest threat to their faith.
They carried out dramatic and illegal activities, smuggling Bibles and other Christian literature across borders. And yet, today, Russia, still a country with low church attendance and little government tolerance for Protestant evangelism, has become a symbol of the conservative values that some American evangelicals proclaim.
I do hope this is some kind of a blind mistake... because... I do know not what to say. The Evangelical church does not have gone crazy, does it? Putin and his church (the orhodoxy) supports killing of many people, many Ukrainians. And this cannot be accepted by any sentient human being.
I do hope that Franklin Graham has only his own thoughts... This is a nightmare!.. How could they accept the devil?
In February 2022, evangelical leader Franklin Graham called on his followers to pray for Vladimir Putin. His tweet acknowledged that it might seem a “strange request” given that Russia was clearly about to invade Ukraine. But Graham asked that believers “pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost.”
The backlash was fast and direct. Graham had not solicited prayers for Ukraine, some observers commented. And he had rarely called on believers to pray for U.S. President Joe Biden.
A significant subset of the U.S. evangelical community, particularly white conservatives, has been developing a political and emotional alliance with Russia for almost 20 years. Those American believers, including prominent figures such as Graham and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice see Russia, Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as protectors of the faith, standing against attacks on “traditional” and “family” values. At the center is Russia’s spate of anti-LGBTQ laws, which have become a model for some anti-trans and anti-gay legislation in the U.S.
Now, with Russia bombing churches and destroying cities in Ukraine, the most Protestant of the former Soviet Republics, American evangelical communities are divided. Most oppose Russia’s actions, especially because there is a strong evangelical church in Ukraine that is receiving attention and prayers from a range of evangelical leaders.
Nonetheless, a small group of the most conservative American evangelicals cannot quite break up with their long-term ally. The enthusiasm for Russia is embodied by Graham, who in 2015 famously visited Moscow, where he had a warm meeting with Putin.
On that trip, Putin reportedly explained that his mother had kept her Christian faith even under Communist rule. Graham in turn praised Putin for his support of Orthodox Christianity, contrasting Russia’s “positive changes” with the rise of “atheistic secularism” in the U.S.
But it was not always so. Once upon a time, American evangelicals saw the Soviet Union and other communist countries as the world’s greatest threat to their faith.
They carried out dramatic and illegal activities, smuggling Bibles and other Christian literature across borders. And yet, today, Russia, still a country with low church attendance and little government tolerance for Protestant evangelism, has become a symbol of the conservative values that some American evangelicals proclaim.
