AMERICA’S #1 FAKE CHRISTIAN

AMERICA’S #1 FAKE CHRISTIAN

He fails the Ten Commandments test. Has he even read the Bible?

One of the revelations coming out of the epidemic of creepy men exposed as having committed sexual harassment, sexual assault, and sexual misconduct is the unveiling of a bumper crop of fake Christians.

Who knew so many Christians could hastily put their Bible aside? The deft ability to compartmentalize their faith, and support creeps in the name of politics, would be shocking if it weren’t for Trump having been elected president.

Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore’s situation follows a pattern like Trump’s. Otherwise sane people, not just Christians, separating themselves from what’s right to support candidates who arguably should be in prison.

Despite believable allegations, by very credible women, that powerful men participated in sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and/or sexual assault, too many Christians turn their cheek to this abhorrent behavior. And in doing so prove themselves frauds just like the creeps.

Sitting at the head of the class of fake Christians is Vice President Mike Pence. (Finalists included Mike Huckabee, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Rev. Darrell Scott).

Despite his claims otherwise, Pence is not a Christian. He operates with wiggle room, a sliding scale, allowing himself to be a ‘convenient’ Christian. Oh, he says the “right” things. But his actions do not back up his words. Instead, like the great and powerful Oz, Pence is a humbug.

If we pull back the curtain we see exactly who Mike Pence is.

For example, a true Christian would not support a vulgar fool like Donald Trump. Period.

The list of wrongdoing by Trump is lengthy and we’ve all heard about it. Bragging about committing sexual assault. Loitering in a dressing room with teen girls. Disrespecting war hero John McCain and Gold Star families. Making fun of a man with a disability. Supporting white supremacists after the murder of a young woman in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Alarmingly, for a supposed Christian, Pence consistently defends Trump’s lies and poor behavior. And Pence once said, “The greatest privilege of my life is to serve as vice president to the president.” Pence also lied about his knowledge of the Mike Flynn situation. Very un-Christian-like.

Pence likes to pull out his Christian playbook and yammer on about how important his faith is. He has a rule that he won’t have dinner one-on-one with a woman political/business associate. (Lack self-control, Mike?)

Speaking with people in Indiana, many do not like Pence and two recent situations provide insight.

Before he was pardoned by current Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, a man named Keith Cooper asked then-Governor Mike Pence for help.

Cooper spent 10 years locked up for a crime – attempted murder and armed robbery – that DNA evidence later proved he did not commit.

Despite evidence Cooper had been wrongly convicted (The Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended a pardon), for four years Pence refused, leaving a stain on Cooper’s record that affected his ability to find a job and restart his life. In a sinister response, instead of a pardon, Pence’s office, via his legal counsel, said Cooper should face retrial.

Like Dorothy, who learned Oz couldn’t get her back to Kansas, innocent Keith Cooper learned that Mike Pence, even with the power to do so, wouldn’t pardon him.

Why Pence refused to clear Cooper’s name is anyone’s guess. What’s not a guess is a true Christian, with the might bestowed by his standing as governor of Indiana, would help his fellow man. What do those tee shirts say, “What would Jesus do?”

In a situation tailor-made for a devout Christian, Mike Pence failed miserably.

In an equally appalling display of being a faux Christian, Pence put his head in the sand and refused to approve funding to clean up an environmental disaster in a low-income housing project in East Chicago, Indiana.

For three years fake Christian Mike Pence literally turned his back on the elderly and mothers and their children, forcing them to live in homes surrounded by soil with frightfully unhealthy levels of lead. Most likely some of these people have been poisoned and, if they haven’t already, will pay with health ailments in coming years.

Unlike its neighbor Illinois, Indiana is in good financial condition. Why then, with a state budget running a comfortable surplus, would Mike Pence not help his fellow man by authorizing funding to clean up this poison lead mess? Why would Pence turn his back on poor people living in unhealthy conditions when he had the power help them?

As he did with Keith Cooper, Pence’s successor Governor Eric Holcomb helped the people of East Chicago and started the process of clearing the lead soil from their neighborhood.

Again, when given the opportunity to be Christ-like, Mike Pence was a cowardly fraud.

Let’s give Pence a Ten Commandments test, pass or fail.

1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me. (Fail. Pence puts GOP super-rich elites above everything else and in doing so ignores God’s will to do good for the less fortunate.)

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. (Fail. Pence, through proposed tax cuts for the rich, has made money paramount.)

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. (Fail. Pence’s claim he is a Christian slanders God’s name.)

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (Fail. Pence walking out of an NFL game desecrated the sabbath, pitting one man against his brother, while costing tax payers about $200,000 dollars.)

5. Honor thy father and thy mother. (Presumed Pass.)

6. Thou shalt not kill. (Fail. The healthcare plan and tax plan Pence supports would result in the premature deaths of thousands of people.)

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Presumed Pass)

8. Thou shalt not steal. (Fail. Pence’s support of a “reverse Robin Hood” tax plan will steal from the poor and give to the rich.)

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. (Fail. Pence ignored DNA evidence and refused to give a pardon to Keith Cooper, instead saying Cooper should be re-tried.)

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house or anything that is thy neighbor’s. (Fail. Pence’s support of Trump’s position on DACA will break up households, ripping mothers, fathers, and children away from their families.)

Pence does not live up to eight out of 10 Ten Commandments. He is a failure as a Christian.

And because he continues to tell us he is a devout, Christian, man-of-faith despite evidence to the contrary, Pence is a fake Christian.

He’d fit in quite well in Alabama, which has become the fake Christian capital of the world.

Douglas FreelandNovember 23, 2017