Americans who think logically and independently have every right to be disgusted with what the Christian religion has become, which primarily has occurred because of the abuse of scripture.

You can’t turn an ostrich into a soaring eagle.

I am not an apologist for the Christian religion or any organized religion, for that matter; similarly, I have neither motivation nor need to defend the collection of books and writings that came to be called scripture. I do think it is of significance, however, to say that one of the primary reasons scripture becomes a dangerous tool or weapon in the hands of unscrupulous preachers and teachers of scripture is that so many adherents try to make scripture something it is not and was never intended to be.

Very few parts of Hebrew or Christian scripture were intended to be read or taken literally. Further, trying to read any part of scripture as if it is today’s newspaper stripped of the cultural perspectives of the individuals and communities that produced it is an assured way to arrive at misinterpretation.

This would be no more of a flaw than misinterpreting any ancient literature, except for the fact that in the hands of unskilled wanna be interpreters, the misinterpretations are often presented as required principles to live by. A quick illustration.

In the letter to the Church in Rome, the Apostle Paul, or presumably the Apostle Paul, praises the government and goes so far as to say that all government leaders are put into place by God Godself. Nero had a huge fan in Paul. At that moment.

The book of Romans in Christian scripture, chapter 13, verses 1 and 4a:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God…For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good.

A few years later, about CE 67, when Nero ordered Paul executed, Paul—awaiting his beheading—did not think so highly of either Nero or all government leaders. Despite the facts, MAGAts have used this very passage to justify supporting Donald Trump, regardless of stolen elections, insurrection, and countless convictions for breaking laws. Such an ignorant and self-serving use/abuse of scripture.

Thirty years later, Domitian’s reign as Rome’s emperor had been over a year. Seer John, in a prison on the Isle of Patmos, had penned his various visions about how evil would not ultimately prevail (though it came close!) and published/circulated them as the book of Revelation. The symbols were necessary as code language that Domitian’s goons wouldn’t immediately understand.

Government did not fair nearly so well in John’s estimation as in Paul’s initial perspective. As you have noticed all too dramatically, MAGAts completely ignore this part of Christian scripture.

In Revelation chapter 13, the last book in Christian scripture as ultimately collected, government could not have been more intentionally vilified. There are two beasts, both in service to the Dragon who symbolizes Evil Incarnate.

The sea beast symbolizes the Roman government. It is terribly frightening to behold and is the relentless enemy of anyone refusing to worship, literally, Domitian. What it does best is to kill.

Then, there is a land beast, and the land beast is what Revelation scholar James Blevins referred to as the committee to enforce emperor worship. Its full-time job simply was to spy and find those who would not worship Domitian and drag them away to all sorts of punishments, including—for many—death.

It would be very easy to use this to interpret Netanyahu as the sea beast or Trump as the sea beast or Putin as the sea beast. Insights, no doubt, could be gained, but the book of Revelation was not written to our time. Once again, it was written to Christians suffering at the hands of evil emperor Domitian near the end of the first century and addressing the far-reaching Roman Empire.

There is no such thing as a part of scripture that was written primarily to address a time and place far removed from the writer and the original readers or hearers. Applying scriptural teachings to our day and time requires us to understand that such contemporary application is always secondary to the original. Forgetting that immediately nullifies any possibility of getting a meaningful message out of the passage of scripture in question.