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As the 2024 campaign heats up, be wary of politicians who ‘textjack’ the Bible
So far no Bible gaffes such as the ones described in this article have been reported AFAIK. But I have no reason to doubt there could be unreported mistakes in quoting Scripture among current politicians. I am afraid many people cherry-pick verses or chapters, then reinterpret them to fit their own agendas, which I am sure is what Ronald Reagan did when he called America "a shining city on a hill" and Jeff Sessions did when he cited Romans 13 to support separating kids from their parents. So we need to settle it once and for all: keep the Bible out of politics no matter what because American is constitutionally prohibited from being a theocratic nation, like it or not, and only 43% Christian.
This practice is a bipartisan affair. It’s not confined to one party or any one era. But it gets particularly heated during campaign season when scriptural references and allusions sprout like mushrooms on the campaign trail.
One theologian, however, is providing the public with a biblical sloppiness detector. Kaitlyn Schiess, author of the new book, “The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here,” offers some notorious examples from US history of politicians abusing the Bible.
So far no Bible gaffes such as the ones described in this article have been reported AFAIK. But I have no reason to doubt there could be unreported mistakes in quoting Scripture among current politicians. I am afraid many people cherry-pick verses or chapters, then reinterpret them to fit their own agendas, which I am sure is what Ronald Reagan did when he called America "a shining city on a hill" and Jeff Sessions did when he cited Romans 13 to support separating kids from their parents. So we need to settle it once and for all: keep the Bible out of politics no matter what because American is constitutionally prohibited from being a theocratic nation, like it or not, and only 43% Christian.
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