Chuck Baldwin: ‘Religious Landscape Of Congress Reveals The Impotence And Irrelevance Of America’s Religious Institutions’
The fruits of Cultural Christianity are war mongers and those catering to the world
23 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. 4 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5 But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. 6 They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ 8 But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. 11 But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ 17 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ 19 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21 He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22 And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”—Matthew 23
Below, I will be posting Chuck Baldwin’s latest column. It touches on the data of religious affiliations of the new Congress and what it says about the pitiful state of the church in America that has produced a bunch of blood thirsty war mongers who claim to rule over us. It is the fruits of what I call Cultural Christianity.
Before getting to Baldwin’s piece, I want to point out the numbers. Among our new Congress, 98% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats profess to be Christians.
Well, hallelujah and amen, the gullible products of Cultural Christianity will say. America must be in God’s good graces, right?
Well, I don’t think so. Those numbers say a lot more about the churches full of religious hypocrites who are more concerned about appeasing the world rather than putting faith in Jesus Christ alone and following God’s plan.
Let’s look at what passes for churches in America. In Tennessee, there’s a pastor who rolls up blunts with pages from the Bible. Other churches are promoting “furries.”
The fact is that nearly every single member of Congress supports murderous wars of aggression for the sake of building empires. Most endorse or fund the holocaust of America with abortion. Nearly every one of them will vote to add more to our national debt, which stands at $36.3 trillion, robbing generations not even born yet of a future.
Christianity, to nearly every one of these Congressmen, is nothing more than a political tool to win elections. They don’t care about following God. They care about themselves and worldly gain.
And the churches are perfectly fine with that. They push religiosity rather than true faith. They are more concerned with God fulfilling their desires rather than us following His will.
“Unraveling the ball of yarn that is religion is a monumental task…. There are hundreds of theistic religions and numerous atheistic religions. They are all religions. We are all people of faith because without faith there is no movement, no direction, and no life. Faith is the starting point. Faith is the verb. Faith is the spirit. Faith however is not religion, but the devil always wishes to combine these two in order to deceive his foolish atheistic followers….
It takes the biggest of men to humbly follow God and walk away from religion.”
With that, here is Baldwin’s piece posted unedited with his permission.
Religious Landscape Of Congress Reveals The Impotence And Irrelevance Of America’s Religious Institutions
Published: Thursday, January 9, 2025
I read an interesting report from the Billings (Montana) Gazette. Of course, what leaped out at me about the report’s research was not what the paper’s editors were attempting to convey.
Let me quote key portions of the report:
The religious makeup of the 119th Congress will be little changed from the prior term, though with some pronounced differences between the two parties, according to an analysis by CQ Roll Call.
On average, Congress will continue to be much more religious than the nation as a whole, with about 95% of lawmakers in the Senate and House identifying with a religious faith. The rest either are nonreligious, did not specify a religion or did not share their faith affiliation.
In contrast, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center this past year found just under 70% of Americans affiliating with a religious faith.
“Congress represents America as it looked 20 or 30 years ago, not the way it looks today,” said Ryan Burge, a professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University who has written on religion in politics.
“Incumbency advantage keeps people in office that were elected … some of them in the ’80s, in the ’90s, when America was overwhelmingly a religious country,” Burge said. “In some ways, it’s just kind of like it’s a good snapshot of the generational difference in American religiosity.”
An overwhelming majority of Republican members – 98% – identify with Christianity. In contrast, 75% of Democrats or those who caucus with them do the same, with a larger variety of faith traditions as well as nonreligious beliefs represented.
Protestant Christians, from across the denominational spectrum, continue to make up the majority of religious adherents in Congress in either party, with small deviations. Slightly more Episcopalians and Methodists are Democrats, while Baptists overall lean Republican.
The largest single Christian denomination continues to be Roman Catholicism. Democrats account for a larger share, with 83 Catholics across both chambers, compared with the GOP’s 68.
The GOP, however, is home to a wider variety of Christian denominations, including several evangelical and Pentecostal traditions not found among Democrats. All nine Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, in Congress are Republican, as are roughly three-quarters of the 93 members who identify as nondenominational Christians or simply as “Christian.”
Six members of either party are affiliated with one of several Orthodox Christian denominations — two fewer than in the 118th Congress.
The Gazette was obviously attempting to make a big deal out of the nuances of religious preferences between the Democrat and Republican parties. I found the differences to be insignificant.
The Gazette is accurate when it points out the decline in America’s religious devotion since the year 2000. I’ve been pointing out this reality since the decline began. In fact, I predicted the decline during G.W. Bush’s first term in office.
On my national radio talk show, I repeatedly said,
G.W. Bush is destroying evangelical Christianity in America. By the time Bush leaves office, American evangelicalism will not even resemble New Testament Christianity.
I was 100% right.
The Christian G.W. Bush thoroughly brainwashed evangelicals into accepting his preemptive and perpetual war doctrines and his ubiquitous surveillance state. His war on terror in the Middle East and his creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, etc., forever changed the spiritual mindset of evangelicals nationwide.
During eight years of G.W. Bush’s presidency evangelicals went from peacemakers to warmongers; they went from bold adherents of constitutionally protected liberty to meek appeasers of unconstitutional governmental intrusion and usurpation. I will go so far as to say that the universal display of non-resistance to the Covid tyranny by pastors and churches was mostly due to the intense brainwashing that had taken place during the Bush years. Ditto for evangelicals’ current support for the genocide in Gaza. Who in their right mind could support genocide—anywhere?
But the rest of the focus of the Gazette’s report I find to be extraneous. The two parties in Washington have more similarities than differences. For example:
An overwhelming majority of Republican members – 98% – identify with Christianity. In contrast, 75% of Democrats or those who caucus with them do the same, with a larger variety of faith traditions as well as nonreligious beliefs represented.
Protestant Christians, from across the denominational spectrum, continue to make up the majority of religious adherents in Congress in either party, with small deviations.
Whether the majority Christian faith of party members is 98% or 75%, both are overwhelming majorities. Furthermore, the Gazette acknowledges that Protestant Christians comprise a majority of religious adherents in both parties.
I believe it is a complete waste of time or even a deliberate obfuscation of reality to attempt to make one political party in Washington more Christian than the other party. What the statistics in the Gazette report glaringly demonstrate is that the religious landscape of the U.S. Congress reveals the impotence and irrelevance of America’s religious institutions.
Regardless of religious preference, the vast majority of D.C. politicians are enthusiastically committed to the perpetual war agenda—especially wars fought on behalf of Zionist Israel. They are enthusiastically committed to the expansion of the military/industrial complex. They are enthusiastically committed to the expansion of the authoritarian surveillance/police state. They are enthusiastically committed to maintaining a debt-based driven economic system. They are enthusiastically committed to perpetuating and enlarging America’s hegemony around the world—even at the expense of lawful, moral or civilized authority.
If Christian denominations and institutions are required by their faith to do anything, it is to promote PEACE and LIBERTY.
War is the antithesis of peace; and authoritarianism is the antithesis of liberty. Regardless of denominational differences, any person or institution of persons who flies the banner of Christ should be among the most zealous and ardent promoters of peace and liberty.
Then, how can both parties in Washington, D.C.—parties that are each overwhelmingly composed of people identifying as Christians—aggressively and consistently promote wars around the world and government overreach and usurpation over the private lives and liberties of the American people here at home?
To be sure, numbers of these miscreants are religious in name only. I think we all know that. But many of these Washington insiders actually do practice their religious faith. By practice, I mean attend church services, read the Bible and pray—at least semi-regularly.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has a reputation of being a devout, faithful Christian—a man who ostensibly attends church faithfully and prays and reads the Bible every day. Yet, this man is a rabid warmongering neocon in the similitude of Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. And as with Graham, Cotton and almost all of the members of the U.S. House and Senate (save only a few such as Thomas Massie), Johnson is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Israeli lobby.
What does this tell you?
It tells me that the religious institutions that these Washington criminals attend are either 1) saying nothing about the truths of God’s Word that directly relate to the duties and obligations that these political leaders have to promote peace and liberty, or 2) publicly promoting the godless agendas of military conflict and civil subjugation.
In other words, what the Gazette findings show is that on the whole America’s religious institutions have become impotent and irrelevant to the proclamation of the principles of peace and liberty.
What I said on my radio talk show in the early 2000s happened exactly as I said it would. I sure wish I had been wrong.