Rebranding for 2020 begins: “Elizabeth Warren’s Christian faith is deep and authentic”
Boston Globe has Warren’s back, as it did in 2012 over Native American scandal
During the 2012 Senate campaign between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, I learned early on that The Boston Globe had Warren’s back, and used its full political sway to promote and defend her, particularly on Warren’s false claim to be Native American for employment purposes while climbing the law professor ladder to Harvard Law School.
When The Boston Herald first exposed that Harvard touted Warren as its first Native American tenured hire, the Globe published a story that Warren was 1/32nd Cherokee, Document ties Warren kin to Cherokees:
A record unearthed Monday shows that US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has a great-great-great grandmother listed in an 1894 document as a Cherokee, said a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society.
The shred of evidence could validate her assertion that she has Native American ancestry, making her 1/32 American Indian, but may not put an end to the questions swirling around the subject.
The claim was quickly debunked, as the Boston-area genealogist to whom the claim was attributed denied having any evidence to support the claim. When the Globe ran its correction, it was buried deep in the paper, as I wrote on May 15, 2012, Boston Globe buries correction of Elizabeth Warren 1/32 Cherokee claim:
As you know, that Boston Globe story created a legend which lives on in the media despite having been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked at every level, and one from which even NEHGS has walked away.
The Globe finally gets around to correcting the story, but buries it in the “For the Record” correction section today:
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in the May 1 Metro section and the accompanying headline incorrectly described the 1894 document that was purported to list Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great grandmother as a Cherokee. The document, alluded to in a family newsletter found by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, was an application for a marriage license, not the license itself. Neither the society nor the Globe has seen the primary document, whose existence has not been proven.
(Note: The correction references an article on May 1 which repeated the story; the correction now is appended at the end of the original online version.)
That’s it? After all the trouble The Globe caused, necessitating countless hours by lowly bloggers to correct the falsehood.
The Globe and the false report of a 1/32 Cherokee connection may have saved Warren’s campaign, as it came at a time when her campaign was in panic and without any evidence to substantiate her claim to Native American ancestry, which she used when a junior faculty member in a law school association directory to obtain “minority law teacher” status.
Yet to this day I frequently see discussion about Warren, even critical discussion, assuming she is 1/32nd Cherokee. In that one false meme, the Globe provided the uncertainty Warren needed to help ride out the storm.
The Globe helped bail out Warren again by running a deep investigative piece prepared with the assistance of the Warren campaign, again arguing that there was uncertainty as to Warren’s heritage and family lore. The Warren campaign made family and friends available to the Globe reporters, yet the story included only the barest and most superficial support for Warren being Native American. I analyzed the Globe post in detail at the time, Boston Globe unintentionally proves Elizabeth Warren’s ethnic fraud:
The Boston Globe ran a massive 3,000 word lead article this morning trying to excuse away Elizabeth Warren’s claim during her professional career to be minority and a woman of color based on supposed Native American ancestry.
The story, which had the cooperation of the Warren campaign, comes just days before the first debate in Massachusetts’ Senate race. Clearly, the Warren campaign is worried after even Native Americans who are Democrats criticized Warren at the DNC in Charlotte, and is attempting to put its story out there through a friendly source.
The article is a masterpiece of distraction, weaving stories from people completely unrelated to Warren as to their own experiences with Native America family lore or growing up as Native American in the 1950’s and 1960’s with bits and pieces of Warren’s story. The end result is an attempt to paint Warren as a victim of circumstance and the times she grew up in, as a means of explaining away the many inconsistencies in her story.
Yet when one digs down into the actual facts in the Globe story, it actually is quite devastating to Warren, proving that contrary to her many recent accounts, Native American ancestry was not central to her life at any time prior to the mid-1980s when she claimed “Minority Law Teacher” status in a national law faculty directory.
I examined seven aspects of the Globe story, under the following subheadings each of which contained detailed analysis. Perhaps most demonstrative of the deception is that the family line Warren claimed to have Native American ancestry in the Globe article was a different family line than originally claimed:
1. Warren’s claim now is focused on a different family line than originally claimed.
When the story broke that Warren might be 1/32 Cherokee, it was based on supposed ancestry on Warren’s maternal grandmother’s side, the so-called Crawford line. That 1/32 claim was completely debunked, and the Globe had to issue a retraction, although Warren being 1/32 Cherokee lives on in pop culture.
The Globe focuses its examination on the maternal grandfather’s lineage, the so-called Reed line, and it is that family line which appears in the story to be the focus of Warren’s campaign.
Warren’s story has switched sides. Now it’s supposedly the Reed line which had the strong Native American connection.
Yet in its 3,000 words, the Globe never notes this switch, although to its credit the Globe did note that Warren’s family can’t keep its own story straight:
Warren said she was informed by others in the family that her mother’s mother “was a little bit Delaware, and her father was more Cherokee.” Told that her brother recalled the opposite, she added, “It might have been the other way around.” Her grandmother, she added, “always talked about PawPaw being a lot more Indian.”
The main thrust of the Globe article was that Warren’s lack of proof of Native American Ancestry was actually proof that she was Native American.
3. Lack of proof becomes proof.
Much of the Globe article is devoted to proving that not all Native Americans can document their ancestry, so lack of proof doesn’t mean much.
I won’t bore you with all the stories from people unrelated to Warren recited in the Globe article. But this is the heart of Warren’s defense on whether she actually has Native American ancestry, that because some real Native Americans can’t prove their ancestry, Warren not being able to prove her ancestry is proof she’s Native American.
Think about that. The complete absence of any documentary evidence that Warren has Native American ancestry becomes the proof for Warren having Native American ancestry.
Even with the help of the Warren campaign, the Globe could only find one person from her childhood who remembered Warren claiming to be Native American, and it was an almost comical example of a conversation in a convertible.
5. Warren grossly exaggerated her family lore.
Here is where the Globe works really hard to obfuscate, but ultimately reveals facts demonstrating what I always have believed about Warren, that there were rumors (her nephew’s word) and some family stories, but that Warren grossly exaggerated those rumors and stories when it suited her professional purposes later in her career.
Here are some excerpts from the story:
Warren’s extended family has mixed opinions on the Native American question. The stories shared by Mapes, as well as Warren’s brothers and a number of her cousins, echo Warren’s assertion. But other cousins, some of whom also do not know Warren, say they know nothing of Native American blood in the family. According to one family biography, on file at the California State University at Fullerton, one of Warren’s relatives once shot at an Indian….
The Globe does note that virtually none of her childhood classmates recalls her being Native American:
Forty years later, when the subject of Warren’s heritage erupted on the national airwaves, some of her former classmates smirked to hear her say that Native American blood was central to her identity. Few of them, certainly, had ever heard anything of it.
The Globe does quote one classmate, who presumably was identified to the Globe by Warren or her campaign, as follows (emphasis mine):
While Warren did not talk to many classmates about her heritage, she loosened up with her friend Katrina Cochran.
As the two drove in Warren’s white MG to the Charcoal Oven drive-in for lunch in their senior year, they would sometimes have a mock debate about who was more “Indian.”
“She talked about her grandmother being a Cherokee, and I talked about how my aunt by marriage was a Choctaw,” said Cochran, an Oklahoma psychologist. “I was making a totally illogical argument, saying I was just as Indian as she was. It was ridiculous because she had the blood and I did not, but it made us laugh.”
When pressed to discuss conversations she may have had with classmates who had similar stories, Warren declined to elaborate. “It was a different time,” she said.
Note again the highlighted wording, back then Warren was claiming Cherokee lineage on her maternal grandmother’s side, now it’s supposed Delaware ancestry on her maternal grandfather’s side.
Getting back to classmates, the Globe could have noted that one such classmate who had no idea Warren claimed Native American ancestry was her debate partner, who has said he was “joined at the hip” with Warren for three years. Yet we are supposed to believe that because of the times Warren kept her ancestry a secret from everyone, yet it was so fundamental a part of who she was? This strains credulity.
You can read that rest of my post analyzing the Globe story to understand that just as with the claim that Warren was 1/32nd Cherokee, the Globe didn’t seek to prove Warren has Native American ancestry, it simply sought to sow doubts and leave open the possibility. That uncertainty was all Warren needed in the campaign to turn the argument against Scott Brown and her critics by claiming they were attacking her family.
Given that experience of the Globe covering and obfuscating for Warren, it’s no surprise to me that the Globe is helping rebrand Warren in advance of an expected 2020 run for president (her re-election to the Senate in 2018 is presumed).
Rather than focusing on Warren’s supposedly deep Native American roots, the Globe is focusing on Warren’s christianity. The article is titled Religion is constant part of Elizabeth Warren’s life., but on Twitter, The Globe was even more direct:
“Elizabeth Warren’s Christian faith is deep and authentic, and it informs her work as a senator”
The Globe article on Warren’s “deep” religious faith reminds me of the 2012 Globe article on Warren’s deep Native American heritage – making much out of very little, acknowledging the problems with the narrative yet spinning the narrative. Here’s an excerpt from the article
… Warren is well known for her acrid take on Wall Street money power, on the Trump presidency, and on all the forces in American life that, in her view, deny equal opportunity to all. Much less well known is Warren’s relationship with God.
The senator’s personal religious views are part of her life that few if any of her supporters or detractors think of when they contemplate the Massachusetts lawmaker, who has built a national reputation on the strength of her populism and is on many political observers’ short list of likely 2020 White House contenders.
But religious leaders who have known her since her first run for public office say her Christian faith is a constant, if quiet, presence in her life, that it is deep and authentic, and informs her work as a senator….
Warren’s religious background is a minor theme in the two political books she published since taking office. She was raised Methodist in a conservative Oklahoma town, and writes about taking her children to church most Sundays and teaching Sunday school during her years as a young law professor in Texas. She recounted using the Socratic method to teach her fifth-graders their Bible lessons.
Back in Boston, Warren, who declined to be interviewed for this story, doesn’t have a home church she regularly attends, but she frequently visits a variety of houses of worship — including many African-American churches — around the state, particularly in Boston, according to local religious leaders and aides.
Get that? There is little historical evidence of Warrens’ “deep” religious faith, other than in a political context. The Globe cites examples of Warren’s quiet, unpublicized faith, which of course the Globe publicizes for her:
Warren greeted congregants during a service at the Columbus Avenue African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in February.
Most recently, she visited Jubilee Christian Church in Mattapan on the first Sunday in August. The visits are almost never publicized.
She carries her own Bible with her, pastors say, a well-worn King James version she has had since the fourth grade.
“We sort of consider her a member,” said the Rev. Jeffrey Brown, an associate pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, because she has been there so many times.
Warren displayed her familiarity with the Bible during her Aug. 28 appearance at Ebenezer Baptist Church. She was there as part of the King Center’s “Beloved Community Talks,” and her roughly 30-minute conversation with Bernice King, the civil rights leader’s youngest daughter, quickly turned from her trademark political themes to faith.
When King asked about the ability of the country to bridge its vast partisan divides, Warren responded with a parable Jesus told of God dividing people into two groups, as a shepherd divides his flock into sheep and goats. The sheep are going to heaven because they fed the hungry, ministered to the sick.
Then she continued with her reflection about the presence and power of “Jesus in every one of us.”
Jesus is calling people to act, Warren continued, “to get up and make a difference. . . . I think that’s the place where we start this conversation.” …
Culpepper, the pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist, said he’s not surprised Warren doesn’t discuss her faith more publicly. “Many Christians don’t wear their Christianity on their sleeve, but they do live their Christian life.’’
Why this sudden focus on Warren’s Christianity?
I consider it the start of the Warren rebranding for 2020. While a lot of potential Democrat candidate names are mentioned, Warren is at the top. A NY Times article yesterday about Democrat contenders focuses, not surprisingly, on Warren in the featured image:
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whose populist rhetoric has attracted a grass-roots activist and donor base that overlaps with Mr. Sanders’s, has said that the party should avoid a temptation to moderate its views, and that its candidates should not “grovel on Wall Street” to raise money.
Ms. Warren has built a formidable online fund-raising operation, which has brought in $5.1 million this year for her 2018 re-election campaign and allowed her political action committee to donate $270,000 to other Democrats. Yet she also has joined a parade of would-be Democratic presidential contenders who have paid visits to the wealthy summer enclaves that serve as A.T.M.s for the party’s candidates.
“I think Elizabeth is laying the groundwork for a run. She won’t admit it, but it looks like that,” said Guy Saperstein, a San Francisco lawyer and part owner of the Oakland Athletics. Mr. Saperstein, who tried to coax Ms. Warren into the 2016 presidential race with an offer of a $1 million super PAC contribution, met with her in June in San Francisco.
“Why would she be out in California if she wasn’t interested in running for president?” Mr. Saperstein said. “I mean, she says she’s raising money for her re-election, but she won’t have any problems with that.”
Running hard left will help Warren win the primary, but will hurt in the general election. She’s going to have to appeal to those God-fearing Christians Democrats have long mocked as bitter clingers and deplorables.
Enter Elizabeth Warren’s deep Christian faith narrative. And it can’t come soon enough.
As I’ve written, Trump has done a masterful job at branding Warren, Trump branding of Elizabeth Warren as Fake Indian continues, expecting her to run in 2020:
When Newt Gingrich spoke at Cornell earlier this semester, he made a very important point.
Trump doesn’t attack his political opponents, he brands them. The brand for Jeb was “low energy.” For Rubio, it was “little Marco.” For Cruz, it was “lyin’ Ted.” Once branded, they could not shake the image.
Just ask “Crooked Hillary.”
Which brings up Elizabeth Warren. As we posted earlier, while Warren is denying that she “is” running for president in 2020, she’s making all the normal pre-presidential run moves.
She’s raised her profile as the face of “the resistance,” a face Republicans also are jockeying to put out front.
Speaking at the NRA today, Trump warned that members should expect “Pocahontas” to run….
Trump is branding her. And being someone who was a fake Indian is her brand. She’ll never shake it.
Call me cynical, but I see in the Globe’s focus on Warren’s Christianity what I saw in 2012 – narrative building and distraction. Why is mean Donald Trump (and other Republicans) besmirching this church-going deeply-faithful Christian woman?
Expect more of it, a lot more of it, as Warren wins in 2018 and quickly becomes the presumptive 2020 frontrunner.
[Featured Image: Elizabeth Warren at Logan Airport Protest against Trump Executive Order]
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Comments
Hillary’s thinking about being a pastor. Now, Warren has a “deep and authentic” Christian faith. What are we to expect next? Bill’s going to take a vow of celibacy and poverty whereupon he enters a monastery?
Warren has a “deep and authentic faith” but no church? I’m not saying one must have church ties in order to have faith, but I think the support, uplift, and healing one feels in worship and prayer with others can’t be found anywhere else.
She may be an authentic descendant of New England Puritans. They have managed to remove the Divine from daily life and replaced Him with the goodness of the Progressive State. Therefore, she has a deep faith in that State.
So you are saying that she can’t have “deep and authentic faith” without a church. No judgment here.
mathew 18:20. So I guess she only needs her husband, a friend or her children.
Someone claims to be a christian and you have the temerity to question that? Do you think Trumpie is a christian? He is a member of the Church of “I am the divine”.
How is it that you guys can remember what Blumenthal said 6 years ago or what Warren said 10 years ago, but you can’t remember Trump’s lies or broken promises from yesterday. i definitely don’t want whatever drug you conservatives take.
Billy Bob will enter a Nunnery wearing a Hijab.
I guess you have to have been in the service to know exactly what Billy Jeff is going to do. And he ain’t entering no monastery.
As my late Father liked to say – You can go to Hell for lying same as you can for stealing!
Given the attitude of many Dems with regards to the Divine and Christianity, I have a difficult time believing that they suddenly “have religion.” You shall no them by their fruits, which of late have been rther dang rotten.
agreed – Democrats have become a predominantly anti-Christian, anti-Jewish party (unless it’s the kind of self-hating Jew that wants to see Israel destroyed)
and they hold people who do have religious beliefs in such contempt that they think all they have to do is strike a few poses, say a few platitudes, and people of faith will fall all over themselves to pledge their support.
Want to convince believers that you have faith, Lizzy? Come out and say publicly that abortion on demand is a violation of human life and an Evil before God. But if you can’t do that, then forget you. All the pretty news accounts of your wonderful piety will be read only by your sycophants, and no one else.
Marvelous analysis, Professor. Thanks for staying on the warpath against this non-Injun.
The left will certainly object to this Native American’s cultural appropriation of the White Man’s religion.
Unless one shows a commitment to understanding and following biblical truth, I have a hard time thinking of them as having Christian faith, much less “deep” faith. To most progressives, it seems that progressivism is their religion, and any biblical study they might do is based on using the sacred tenets of progressivism to direct their biblical interpretation.
This.
you have hit the nail on the head. The lack of any actual religious conviction also explains why their pet causes, especially environmentalism, take on all the trappings of religion for them. They have made themselves a god of their Politics, and that is working out about as well as it ever has.
Politicians who claim to have a deep and abiding faith have no doubt done more harm to religion than anyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you as an example Barack Obama. He pronounced the Sermon on the Mount as explicitly over-ruling Paul’s “obscure” letter to the Romans.
No authentic Christian would do that. It’s all scripture, and scripture doesn’t conflict with itself.
I realize this may seem a little too “inside baseball” to our Jewish friends. Or, atheists. But Paul’s letters are central to Christianity. There’s nothing obscure about them, and only some community organizer from Chicago with the thinnest of veneers of religion could possibly imagine it would make sense to say what he said. To be a Christian you must believe that Christ is the Son of God. That He died on the cross for our sins. And that He rose again on the third day.
Again, I’m not trying to talk anybody into or out of anything. Peter said I should have an answer if I’m asked about the hope that I have.
“1 Peter 3:15 15But in your hearts revere Christ as LORD. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,…”
But I need to be respectful and, moreover, I should wait to be asked. Believe what you want. But if you’re going to call yourself a Christian you have to believe at least that. It’s not above my pay grade to ask a few fundamental questions, such as, “What did Christ proclaim to be the two greatest commandments?” A Christian would know this. Is it too much to ask that if people are going to call themselves Christian they should at least read the Bible?
I bet Liz Warren doesn’t know what car the apostles drove.
Acts 5:12
And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders worked among the people; and they were all with one Accord in Solomon’s porch.
A Honda Accord
The headline would make more sense if it read her “Muslim faith,” as taqiyyah (lying) is permitted in Islam. In Christianity, not so much.
Actually, in Christianity just as much.
Actually, no. From your own Wiki stub: “Mental reservation, however, is regarded as unjustifiable without grave reason for withholding the truth.”
And it explains that these grave reasons have to do with protecting life; for example, not telling a murderer where his intended victim was. Anne Frank was justified in not telling the Nazi’s that she was hiding Jews from them.
Taqqiyah is far more expansive, and does not need any special justification:
Quran (3:28) – This verse tells Muslims not to take those outside the faith as friends, unless it is to “guard themselves” against danger, meaning that there are times when a Muslim may appear friendly to non-Muslims, even though they should not feel friendly.
Quran (66:2) – “Allah has already ordained for you the dissolution of your oaths…”
Reliance of the Traveler (p. 746 – 8.2) – “Speaking is a means to achieve objectives. If a praiseworthy aim is attainable through both telling the truth and lying, it is unlawful to accomplish through lying because there is no need for it. When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible.
There are many more references.
A correction. Anne Frank did not hide Jews. Anne Frank was Jewish. Her parents left Germany for the Netherlands after the Nazis took control of the government. In 1940 the Nazis occupied the Netherlands and Anne and her family hid in a building owned and occupied by her father’s company. They were subsequently discovered along with others also hiding with them. Anne and her sister died of typhus (IIRC) in early 1945, she almost survived to freedom. Only her father, Otto, survived the camps.
The question now becomes is the poster above a sinner for lying or just making a mistake like wiping a server clean with a cloth?
Something tells me political affiliation would make all the difference in that answer in the court of public opinion.
mea culpa!
or the long version, “for all are sinners, and have fallen short of the Glory of God.”
What is it about you that compels you to say things about me that aren’t true, Milhouse? I can’t lie.
Also, Tom through what I’m sure is an oversight left out Tauriyya, Kitman, and Muruna. These along with Taqqiya are called “outwittings” by Muslims.
Or rather, it’s a sin for me to lie. I can lie. I have free will.
Don’t think so.
“When a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.” – Sir Thomas More, A Man For All Seasons
Well, the Party’s not averse to challenge—it did try to sell Hillary as “competent”, “trustworthy”, “inevitable” and “human”, albeit without much success. Still, selling Warren as “authentic” is going to be a majorly uphill slog.
lock Hiawatha up…
Not content with stealing ethnicity, she steals her religion as well. You just can’t trust these Cherokee people.
Fake Indian. Fake patriot. Now add fake Christian.
Maybe Fauxahontas will be attending Pastor Hillary Clinton’s church – like obama attended the evil Rev. Wright’s.
Lie, cheat, steal, kill: the communist manifesto now has to add the “fake Christian” thing.
“By their fruits you shall know them.” Well, we’ve seen the kind of fruit Warren tries to sell, and I’m not buying it. She’s a supporter of both abortion and same-sex mirage (just to name two major issues), both of which are non-starters if you follow actual biblical principles.
She’s not much of a Christian, who denies individual dignity and intrinsic value of human life.
Christians don’t lie and cheat.
I thought she was a Ghost Dancer.
She injects her supposed deep and authentic(I commend her if it truly is) Christianity into politics; she carries a bible, source of theocratic and religious law to inform her work as a senator. i.e., crafting proposed law. The yells and screams from apoplectic meltdown
of all my lefty, progressive friends that she wants to establish a theocracy is deafening. What next, will she claim to be a bitter clinger?
A whore like fauxcahontas? Of course she woould. Thats what whores do.
Substituting one shrill bitty for another is unlikely to work.
The ends justify the means — a core principle of a leftist. She has already demonstrated how she will use whatever label works (until it doesn’t) to further her career.
The Boston Globe is simply swimming in the same tank that smells a lot like a cesspool for some reason.
“doesn’t have a home church she regularly attends, but she frequently visits a variety of houses of worship — including many African-American churches — around the state, particularly in Boston”
Chief Spreading Bull. Is now exploiting black churches.with her new lies. Before you know it, she will be 1/32 African American.
I am rather dismayed at the comments here to date. There is not a one of us who knows her heart, or can peer into it. It is not ours to judge her on the extent or depth of her belief. “By their fruits you shall know them” certainly, but there isn’t a one of us who could stand against the judgement of our neighbors, should they commence an examination against us. So much less could we stand before The Triune God.
To take Sen. Warren to task for her interpretations overlooks how the so many variations among the Christian sects demonstrates how little we actually understand God’s Holy Word. I am a staunch Lutheran of the Missouri Synod, but I am also well aware that Doctrine is not Scripture. I am firmly convinced that we have proper doctrinal interpretation of Scripture – but so do the rest of you in your convictions.
Christians are NOT better people than anyone else; there is NOT a ‘holier-than-thou” permitted among Christians: “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” (Eccl 7:20). The only difference between a Christian and anyone else is that our sins are forgiven. In everything else – lying, stealing, cheating, angers, pursuit of false gods, etc. – we are no different than any non-Christian. We cannot see another’s heart; it is not ours to judge them.
No, we can’t know her heart. But we have a window through which her words and actions are a clue. Those we may judge and will do so if she runs for office. Her heart is known only to her and Him.
“No, we can’t know her heart. But we have a window through which her words and actions are a clue….”
Wow – have to disagree with that. We know her ‘heart’ – if she has one. A selfish, lying, scheming, megalomaniac like Fauxcahontas? It’s shot with malignancy, through and through.
Where was Fauxcahontas’ heart when she stole the privilege of the American Indian(s) she displaced by lying about being one? It was in the same chiller as hillary clinton’s.
Judging behavior and reaching conclusions regarding the trustworthiness of Warren’s claims is reasonable and prudent behavior on my part. I am not judging her heart. Her heart is her problem not mine.
A Christian should apologize and make amends when they’ve done wrong. She has never done that concerning her lying about being Native American and getting preferences in her schooling based on that.
You might be dismayed, but I have no qualms in calling report of a “deep and authentic faith” into question. I’ve known some persons who could be described as such and read the biographies of others. I have considerable difficulty reconciling her words and deeds, her life in you will, with theirs.
They didn’t take themselves too seriously, were happy even joyous people, and were ones with whom you could disagree, even vigorously so, without getting a sense that they were about to go over the edge. Also, they were passionate and enthusiastic people. I don’t confuse this with what certainly seems to be an angry persona exhibited rather regularly by Warren.
We do not know her heart – this much is true. But we are to judge – not hypocritically, as the Pharisees, but righteously, according to the revealed will of God in the Scriptures.
Hence we can look at the fruit Warren has borne over the years. We cannot gather grapes from thistles, nor figs from thorns. Warren’s fruit is highly dubious – and, more importantly, she does not appear to live a life of repentance. I would think that you, being a Lutheran, would at least have a passing familiarity of the 95 Theses, in particular the first one: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
“…But we are to judge – not hypocritically, as the Pharisees, but righteously, according to the revealed will of God in the Scriptures…”
Here’s where I venture into controversy.
”
Mark 10:2-12
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied.
6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’
7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
8 and the two will become one flesh.’So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this.
11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.
12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
”
Here was Christ’s chance to redefine marriage. But he didn’t. And if you believe Christ was divine, you have to believe he knew about gay people. Instead, Christ refers back to Genesis 1 and 2.
A further aside. Of course God exists.
“Genesis 1:1 1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Until the beginning of the twentieth century nearly all cosmologists believe in a steady-state universe. But Monsignor LeMaitre, Catholic priest and physicist, argued that the universe was expanding. That meant if you followed the logic, you could trace the universe back to a beginning. There was a creator. The Bible isn’t a science book, but secularists have believed the exact opposite of the very first verse for millennia. This shattered the faith of atheist scientists. And, yes, it’s a faith. Frederick Hoyle derisively labeled LeMaitre’s theory the “Big Bang.” He, like many other atheists, continued to believe in the steady state universe until the evidence became overwhelming. Hoyle eventually, reluctantly, came around.
Do you realize just how perfect the timing had to be? Had the “Big Bang” been less strong by one ten thousand million millionth it would have collapsed back in on itself in seconds in the “Big Crunch.” Had it been stronger by the same fraction it would have blown itself apart and there would be no galaxies. Had the strong nuclear force been out of proportion to the electromagnetic force by the same fraction it would have meant no stars.
To believe there is no God means you have to believe in more absurd things than I do.
What is so dismaying? Can you be a Christian if you don’t believe in Christ’s divinity? Can you be a Christian if you don’t believe Christ died for our sins? Can you be a Christian if you don’t believe in the resurrection? Didn’t Christ tell us the two greatest commandments? There are certain fundamental things you must believe to be a Christian. It’s what defines us.
Warren wouldn’t amount to a freckle on a Christian’s rear-end.
If she did, the Christian would probably make an appointment with a dermatologist to have it removed.
Fauxahantis’s deep family religious roots go all the way back to the Catholic missionaries teaching her great-great-great grandmother’s….Native American neighbor.
Using the word authentic to describe Warren immediately brings to mind her inauthentic Cherokee ancestry. Not clever.
Cherokees were slave owners and part of the Confederate Army. Will she disavow her past?
Stand Waite – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Watie
Cherokee Freedman issue – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_freedmen_controversy
I’ll leave it to folks in a much higher pay grade than I to determine if Sen. Warren is a good Christian. But I will say it’s odd how when Republicans make similar claims they’re vilified but when Democrats do so they’re seen as wonderful.
“…when Democrats do so they’re seen as wonderful.”
Well, it depends what media source you’re watching or reading. This’ll teach you to watch the democrat media’s propaganda for the likes of scum like Fauxcahontas and hillary clinton, and against everything the rest of us stand for.
All you have to do to defeat Warren is show clips of her claiming to be the ideological support for Occupy, the precursor of Antifa.
It shouldn’t be hard to find clips, she’s always shooting her mouth off.
C’mon – stop being so hard on her. It’s not like she claimed to be a Vet who served in Vietnam or anything…
She was my squad leader before the operation.
Didn’t Fauxcahontas serve as Mother Theresa’s right hand person for a while?
And wasn’t she shot at on an airport runway in Europe? (No that was hillary clinton.)
Wasn’t Fauxcahontas named after Sir Edmund Fauxcahontas? Or was that hillary clinton?
Wait? Which s-bag are we talking about. Eh, they’re interchangable, anyway.
This rebranding isn’t the one she needs. She still doesn’t stand for anything. All she does is grouse; when pinned down for something more constructive, she makes a few vague noises, nothing but standard sophomore-level socialist claptrap, then changes to subject to grousing again. This is not the sort of stuff of which political movements—or even mere campaigns—are made.
Democrat national candidates have to lie about what they stand for, or they won’t get elected. Now, even when they do, they don’t get elected, witness the nation’s “f-you” to hillary clinton.
Fauxcahontas is as ‘outed’ as lying, corrupt scum as much as hillary clinton is.
I don’t see your point, Professor. In today’s world if a person says he/she is a man/woman then they are in fact a man or a woman even though their genitals tell a different story. If a person is white but claims to be black, then we are expected to consider them black. So if this woman claims to be 1/32 Cherokee then who are we to call her out on it? From watching her in action I would expect any day now for her to also claim to be a man who is muslim and handicapped.
I think the issue is can we define who is “in” and who is “out” as far as identifying who is a Christian.
Years ago this is what led to divisions in Christianity with Fundamentalism. I believe it started by defining a set of core beliefs, then those beliefs became a litmus test. The Historian George Marsden at Notre Dame has published on this.
I think some on this board want to use abortion as the litmus test. Others adhere to a list of doctrinal beliefs. The Prophets spoke a LOT of compassion and mercy. My guess is that this latter strand is what informs Warren’s faith.
My understanding is that the Ecumenical Councils never codified exactly what defined one as a Christian. They were more concerned with Orthodoxy and heresy.
What defines “Belief” (the greek word is ‘pistis’) is the subject of much debate. Some believe it is mere mental assent to a doctrinal belief. Others point to James to confirm faith has to lead to action and works.
A new book entitled “Salvation by Allegiance Alone” argues that ‘pistis’ includes a sense of ‘allegiance’ as part of it’s semantic range, in addition to faith/belief. He interacts with usages of pistis from Josephus to the biblical texts to demonstrate this.
As some have said, it is also hard to understand Senator Warren’s claim to a “deep faith”. We only see her public life and can’t see what she does in private. But if she publicly states to be a Christian, we can ask what she means by that, and how her allegiance to Christ is understood and worked out.
Lizzy, the howler monkey (look at the first picture) is a fraud the same way Obama and Clintons were. Religious for votes. But if she’s a Christian, she must favor those churches with lesbian pastors. Christians, not church attenders, don’t condone abortion on demand (of off demand), not do they consort with people who hate the US as she does.
I can’t abide listening to that voice for 2 minutes let along four years. She’s fraud.
This is a losing position for her. Not only is it previously unknown that she was deeply religious (so deeply, even she didn’t know!) but her radical left-wing base will hardly find it resonating with the kind of anti-semitic, anti-christian views that they often exhibit.
If she ever tries that in front of them, the uncouth rabble will shuffle their feet,check their “uber-riot” smartphone app and start reading the small-print on the back of their SEIU cards to pass the time. They know she’d by lying “by any means necessary” so we should not feel bad to jump to the same conclusion.
I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
I suspect that, in this 21st Century, her claim to be a Christian will lose more votes for her than it gains her.
1 Corinthians 6:
“10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Elizabeth Warren still has a chance. I hope she takes it. I pray for ISIS. I used to be an a##h*le. Some probably would say I still am. If there’s a chance for me, there’s a chance for everyone.
With apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien, it would seem that the transparent fabulist, Chief Dropping Bull Warren, has been spending too much time steeped in “herb-lore.”