Yang Michael

Tucker Carlson Exposed the Church’s Fear A frightened church is very easy to lead. Tucker Carlson recently said that many Christians wanted a protector in Donald Trump. Whatever one thinks of Carlson, that line might be exposing something revealing in the American church. Fear has a way of making believers reach for protection before they ask what faithfulness requires. That is why this moment in America is so dangerous for Christians. Under fear, a man excuses what once disgusted him. Once fear gets into the bloodstream, almost any kind of harshness starts to look like strength. And that is where Jesus stands in our way. When our Lord opens His mouth in Matthew 5, He does not give His disciples a strategy for preserving influence or a playbook for cultural retaliation. Jesus does not give His disciples a strategy for controlling their enemies. He teaches them how to live when wronged and how to walk through a world that will misunderstand them, mock them, pressure them and sometimes hate them. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” (Matthew 5:38). That line had been twisted by the religious teachers of the day. What God gave as a principle of public justice, they turned into a private license for revenge. They took the measured scales of justice and traded them for the hot pleasure of getting even. Jesus pulls the knife out of that lie. “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil” (Matthew 5:39). Christ is not setting justice aside. He is forbidding the bitter instinct for personal vengeance and teaching His people to live without the craving to strike back. That word lands right in the middle of American Christianity. A great many believers say they are standing for righteousness and some of them are. Yet somewhere in all the noise, a different spirit has started moving through the church. It is a spirit of quick contempt. It is rude, suspicious, easily provoked, hungry for humiliation, eager to crush an opponent rather than win a soul. Fear dressed up as conviction is still fear. The church in America is tempted to believe that survival depends on finding a protector powerful enough to guard our place. The New Testament keeps pulling our eyes elsewhere. Christ does not teach His people to panic when the world turns hostile. He calls them to holiness and teaches them to bear witness to another kingdom. “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). “Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matthew 5:41). These are not words for cowards. They are words for people so anchored in God that they do not need revenge. Christ is describing a soul that cannot be baited into becoming worldly in the very act of denouncing worldliness. He is describing a people who would rather suffer wrong than stain their witness with spite. That is where many of us have lost our footing. We have watched the country change. We have seen laws shift, morals erode, speech coarsen, and hostility toward Christian conviction grow bolder. Those dangers are real. Christians do not have to pretend otherwise. Justice still matters. Truth in public life still matters. What children are taught and what a nation honors still matter. Public justice and law matter. The state has real responsibilities before God. Yet the Christian heart must never confuse justice with personal malice. The believer may stand firm, speak plainly, vote carefully and contend earnestly, but a man who borrows the world’s sneer will soon start looking like the world. Jesus presses further. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy” (Matthew 5:43). Then He says what no frightened tribe wants to hear: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). That command tears through every politics-first version of Christianity. Love your enemies. Not surrender truth. Love your enemies. Pray for the people who would gladly push your faith to the margins. Do good to those who despise your convictions. Bless those who curse you. Speak truthfully, stand cleanly and leave behind the sour thrill of treating opponents like prey. Why? “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Picture that. Morning light spilling across the porch of a man who mocks Christ. Rain settling into the fields of people who use God’s name as profanity. Bread on the table of families who never bow their heads in gratitude. Breath in lungs that will spend the day denying the One who gave it. And still the sun rises and the rain falls. Still God is kind. Jesus says that God is your Father. Then this is the family likeness He expects from His children. The church loses her beauty when she forgets that. A church can keep its slogans and lose its witness. It can cling to its tribe and lose the tone of Christ. It can preserve a political identity while its spiritual aroma turns sharp and cold. The world already knows how to hate…how to curse, mock, caricature and strike back. When the church does the same thing with a cross around its neck, she has not become bold. She has become ordinary. There is a reason Jesus closes this section with words that tower over the whole chapter: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). That is the mark before us. We are meant to look like our Father. And here is where every honest Christian has to stop and lower his eyes. Who has loved enemies like this? Who has prayed for persecutors with a clean heart? Who has kept his tongue from the acid of contempt and moved through this angry age with steady holiness and no mixture of fear? Few of us have. That is why the end of this article cannot be a command to try harder and do better. The end must be Christ. Because the One who said, “Love your enemies,” did exactly that. He was reviled and did not revile in return. He was struck, mocked, falsely accused, spat upon, crowned with thorns, nailed to wood outside the city walls, and in that hour He prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). The world gave Him hatred. He answered with mercy. The guilty drove in the nails. He opened the door of pardon with His blood. This is the gospel for a frightened church. Our hope is not finally in a protector who can preserve our rights. Our hope is in a Savior who forgives our sins, kills our fear and remakes our hearts. Jesus did not come merely to improve our tone. He came to rescue rebels, cleanse the bitter, humble the proud and give new hearts to people who have loved power more than holiness. At the cross, fearful sinners can be forgiven. At the empty tomb, fearful sinners can be changed. The church in America needs less panic and more holiness. The church must come back to Christ, repent of fear and hatred, repent of looking so much like the world while claiming to oppose it and feel the steadying power of the gospel again. Because when a man knows that Christ has loved him at his worst, he can stop grasping for a worldly protector. He has already found his refuge.

Washington D.C. during the Civil War, United States (1862) 🇺🇸

Golly, if your takeaway from this election is that Americans suddenly embraced socialism and wokeism, you're missing the bigger picture. Many conservative voters are frustrated by an administration that promised no new wars and relief from inflation but hasn't delivered. This election may have been less about embracing the left and more about frustration in general.

Robert E. Lee on the back of his warhorse “Traveller”, 1866.

164 years ago today Abraham Lincoln finally ran out of patience and fired the most popular general in the Union Army. The removal of George McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac was a long time coming, and it closed one of the most frustrating chapters of Lincoln's war. This is the end of a story this thread has touched on repeatedly. McClellan had been the Young Napoleon, the brilliant organizer who built the Army of the Potomac and whom the soldiers adored. But for all his gifts at creating an army, he could not bring himself to use it decisively. He consistently overestimated the enemy, demanded endless reinforcements, moved with agonizing slowness, and treated his own president with open contempt, once even snubbing Lincoln by going to bed while the president waited in his parlor. The breaking point was Antietam and its aftermath. In September 1862, McClellan had turned back Lee's invasion of Maryland in the bloodiest single day in American history, but then he had let Lee's battered army escape back across the Potomac, mounting only a feeble pursuit. For weeks afterward, as Lincoln begged him to move and destroy the enemy, McClellan sat still, famously complaining that his horses were fatigued, which prompted Lincoln's stinging reply asking what the horses had done since Antietam that could fatigue anything. Lincoln had seen enough, but he was also a careful politician. He deliberately waited until the Northern midterm congressional elections were over, so that firing the popular general would not be seen as a political move and hurt his party at the polls. Then, on November 5, 1862, just after the elections, he issued the order. General Orders No. 182 relieved McClellan of command of the Army of the Potomac and named Ambrose Burnside in his place. When the order reached him days later, McClellan was shocked and bitter. The soldiers, who genuinely loved him, were dismayed, and some reportedly wanted him to refuse to go or even march on Washington, which he declined to do. He rode off to await orders that never came, his field career over. He would return, not as a general, but as a politician, running against Lincoln for the presidency in 1864 on the Democratic ticket, and losing decisively. The removal had enormous consequences, not all of them good. Burnside, who took command reluctantly and doubted his own fitness for it, would within weeks lead the army to one of its worst defeats of the war, the slaughter at Fredericksburg in December. The search for a general who could both build an army and win with it would torment Lincoln for another year and a half, until he finally found his man in Ulysses Grant. But the long, maddening McClellan chapter, the general who could do everything but fight, came to its end on this day.

On the morning of November 1, 1755, thousands of people gathered inside Lisbon’s churches to pray. Then the ground began to shake. Those who survived the collapsing buildings fled toward the waterfront. But the sea suddenly retreated, exposing the riverbed. What came next would destroy much of one of Europe’s wealthiest cities, kill tens of thousands, and force some of the greatest thinkers of the age to question everything they believed about God, nature, and human suffering. This is the story of the morning Lisbon disappeared.

🇺🇸✝️❤️🔥 The Bulwark 的 Jonathan V. Last（JVL）： “James Talarico 的胜利，是我过去20年来在美国见过最令人充满希望的事情！” 为什么？ 因为他看到了一种与 Christian Nationalism（基督教民族主义）截然不同的政治道路！ JVL 在评论 James Talarico 的历史性胜利时说： ❤️ “Watching James Talarico come out to victory on a platform of love your neighbor…” “看着 James Talarico 凭借‘爱你的邻舍’这一政治理念赢得选举……” “Is like the most hopeful thing I think I've seen in America in 20 years!” “这或许是过去20年来，我在美国见过最令人充满希望的事情！” ✝️ 随后，他特别提到了 Talarico 和另一位 United Methodist 牧师 Adam Hamilton。 他们正在尝试为美国政治开辟一种新的道路： “An alternate to Christian nationalism.” “一种能够替代基督教民族主义的政治道路！” 而且，是： “An actual Christian ethic in politics.” “一种真正落实在政治中的基督教伦理！” 🔥 JVL 接下来提出了一个非常尖锐的区别： “We don't vice signal.” 我们不应该把恶劣行为当作值得炫耀的政治信号！ “We don't rally behind people because they're shitty.” “我们不应该因为某个人品行卑劣，反而拥护、追随他！” ❤️ “We just try to love everybody through it.” “我们只是努力用爱对待每一个人！” JVL 认为，这种转变在文化层面具有深远意义。 随后，他说出了另一个值得注意的观点： 这次赢得选举的许多民主党候选人，不仅是优秀的候选人，而且在他看来，也是品格良好的人！ 他举出了 Annie Andrews、Amy Acton、Adam Hamilton、Gina Hinojosa 等人。 他强调： 你并不一定只是为了反对共和党而投票！ 虽然这次选举确实包含了选民对 Donald Trump 的政治否定。 但更重要的是，许多值得尊重的人赢得了选举！ ❤️ “I find that incredibly heartening.” “这真的让我感到无比振奋！” ✝️⚖️ 我认为，这段评论最有价值的地方，在于它提出了一项基督教公共伦理的根本问题： 基督徒应该因为某个政治人物符合自己的阵营身份而支持他，还是应该根据他的真实行为和品格判断他？ 一个政治人物高举《圣经》，不代表他真正遵行了耶稣的教导。 一个政治人物高喊爱国，不代表他的行为一定维护了国家利益。 一个政治人物声称自己代表基督教文明，也不代表他的权力行为符合基督教伦理！ 信仰不能成为政治领袖获得无条件忠诚的许可证！ ✝️ 耶稣教导人们： “爱神，并且爱邻舍如同自己！” 但这种爱绝不是无原则地纵容权力、腐败、欺凌和不义！ 我们可以反对一个政治人物的错误行为，同时继续尊重他的人的尊严。 我们也可以与不同政治立场的人合作，而不必放弃真理、证据和公共问责。 ⚖️ 真正重要的不是一个人宣称属于哪个政治阵营，而是： 他的行为是否诚实？ 他是否尊重每个人的尊严？ 他是否滥用权力？ 他是否愿意为错误承担责任？ 他的政策是否真正改善人民的生活？ 这套标准，也必须同样适用于 James Talarico 和所有民主党政治人物！ ❤️ 爱邻舍，不等于政治偶像崇拜！ ⚖️ 反对 Christian Nationalism，不等于反对基督教信仰！ ✝️ 真正的基督教公共伦理，应该约束权力，而不是神化权力！ 🇺🇸 Faith should challenge power, not worship it. ❤️ Love your neighbor, not your political idol. ⚖️ Character matters. Actions matter. No double standards. 🎥 The Bulwark 原视频：

The neocons & those who prioritize Israel over America don’t have a significant enough constituency to win on their own. Yesterday proved that. Letting them dictate our foreign policy is the vehicle by which we destroy our coalition & hand a victory to the democrats. The ideals of the 2024 MAGA movement—which were mandated by 77 million Americans—are solid. These ideals can win in ‘28, we just need leaders the people can trust will fulfill their promises.

- 塔拉里科的德州突破口——教育 - 深红的传统文化有什么问题？

德州中期选举——几十年来的转折点？（中） - 讲别人的圣经，让别人无经可讲？ - 为什么我从来不跟教友用神学辩论政治？

德州选举——几十年来的转折点？（上篇） - 深红州竞选须知 - 共和党候选人之争

当我们不断检视自己的悔改、信心与属灵成长，可能不知不觉把上帝想成一位随时评估表现的审判者。Russell Moore提醒我们，基督不是用来躲避天父愤怒的工具；祂正向我们显明天父的慈爱，让软弱的人也能坦然来到上帝面前。 🔗 请点击链接，阅读全文： zh.christianitytoday.com/202…

第四段：我为什么参政？宗教、基督徒与政治。/4 就职第一天，我把手放在《圣经》上，宣誓效忠《宪法》，而不是反过来。我是基督徒，但我知道，最危险的政府形式是神权政治，因为比暴君更糟糕的，只有自认为肩负上帝使命的暴君。我对耶稣的信仰，使我拒绝基督教民族主义，并投身于建设一个多种族、多文化的民主社会。在那里，我们都能自由地爱上帝，也能充分地爱我们的邻人。 我把手放在那本《圣经》上，是因为信仰是我的根基。我的政治立场从信仰中生长出来。耶稣比任何政治意识形态、任何政治候选人都更加激进。我说“激进”，不是指极端。“激进”（radical）这个词源自拉丁语中的“根”。耶稣直抵我们问题的根源，呼唤我们走向更深的爱、更深的正义、更深的和平。 无论你是共和党人还是民主党人，是社会主义者还是资本主义者，是自由意志主义者还是共产主义者，耶稣都应当挑战我们的政治立场。耶稣应当挑战我们的笃定。如果我们的基督教信仰没有使我们感到不安，那么，我们就做错了。但太多基督徒把政治立场放在信仰之前。太多基督徒给自己的党派立场施洗，然后把它叫作基督教。信仰关乎的不是右派与左派，而是对与错！ 这是我在这里学到的。我们的牧师吉姆·里格比博士告诉我们，爱上帝、爱邻人，要求我们致力于正义。正是这种承诺，让他批评布什总统入侵伊拉克，也让他批评奥巴马总统的无人机袭击和大规模驱逐移民。宗教绝不应该属于某个党派，但从其本义来说，宗教总是关乎政治的。 罗马帝国把耶稣钉上十字架，不是因为他是个好人。十字架刑是对反叛者的惩罚。耶稣挑战了当时的政治、经济和宗教权势。他与统治阶级、与富人和权贵、与那些自以为是神的人发生了直接冲突。耶稣挑战的是整个体制。无论什么时候，只要一个政府、一家公司或者一间教会实行暴政、施行压迫，它就是在与耶稣对立。 然而，纵观历史，基督徒太多次站在了这个世界的统治者一边。有时，我们大声支持；有时，我们以沉默支持。保持中立、保持“不谈政治”，就是站在强者一边，就是维护现状。基督教在其最好的时候，曾挑战帝国、挑战封建制度、挑战奴隶制、挑战吉姆·克劳种族隔离制度。作为基督徒，我们蒙召要做的，就是拆除支配与压迫。今天，我们必须继续这项工作。 我记得，小时候有人戴着印有“WWJD”几个字母的手环：What Would Jesus Do？“耶稣会怎么做？” 那么，面对一个让富人比穷人更受益的税收制度，耶稣会怎么做？面对一个迫使病人到GoFundMe上发起众筹、才能负担救命手术的医疗制度，耶稣会怎么做？面对一个把儿童的学校经费与所在社区的房地产财富绑定在一起的教育制度，耶稣会怎么做？面对一个监禁人数比地球上任何其他国家都多的司法制度，耶稣会怎么做？面对一个把利润看得比地球健康更重要的经济制度，耶稣又会怎么做？ 他会待在房间里祷告，还是会走进权力中心，掀翻不义的桌子？ 耶稣呼唤我们做的，不只是施舍。作为基督徒，我们蒙召，要挑战那些使施舍成为必要的制度。政教分离，绝不应被理解为信仰与政治的分离。我们都会把自己的道德观念和人生哲学带入政治，信仰也不例外。我的信仰塑造我的政治立场。我希望它也能塑造你们的，就像它塑造了吉米·卡特、金博士、多……多萝西·戴——也许还有多丽丝·戴（笑声）——以及塞萨尔·查韦斯那样。 基督徒参与社会行动，不等于基督教民族主义。基督教民族主义，是把我们的宗教置于其他宗教之上，是支配我们的邻人，而不是爱他们如同自己。 我不认为耶稣会为民主党或者共和党的纲领背书。我认为，耶稣会要求美国继续朝着一种激进的民主愿景努力：让更多邻人享有更多权利、更多自由、更多机会。

第三段：爱的政治。/3 塔拉里科： 我们的政治应当从我们的信仰中生长出来。 你知道，如果你想想吉米·卡特，想想马丁·路德·金博士、塞萨尔·查韦斯、多萝西·戴、罗杰斯先生，这些人的生活都受到他们信仰的指引。是他们的信仰塑造了他们的政治立场。 而现在，在宗教右翼、在基督教民族主义那里，你看到的却是人们的信仰从他们的政治立场中生长出来，对吧？他们给自己的党派立场施洗，然后把那叫作基督教。 所以，它才会与耶稣基督的生、死和教导毫不相像，对吧？ 国会里的这些基督徒，这些基督教民族主义者，他们想要一个基督教国家——除非这意味着要为病人提供医疗保障，除非这意味着要出资为饥饿的人提供粮食援助，或者为穷人提高最低工资。 我是说，他们的政策没有一项像是耶稣的教导。 所以，我试着指出这种言行不一。 无论怎么说，我都算不上一个完美的基督徒。和我们所有人一样，我也在努力追随耶稣的道路。但我确实认为，当有权有势的人为了自己的政治利益和经济利益而歪曲我们的宗教时，我们必须发声。 （注：他反复的引用的医疗保障、粮食保障等，基本都散见于马太福音。 马太福音25：35-40: “因为我饿了，你们给我吃；渴了，你们给我喝；我作客旅，你们留我住；我赤身露体，你们给我穿；我病了，你们看顾我；我在监里，你们来看我。” “我实在告诉你们：这些事你们既做在我这弟兄中一个最小的身上，就是做在我身上了。” ）