A day after conservative pastor Robert Jeffress claimed President Donald Trump had divine authority to “take out” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Stephen Colbert had a little chat with “God” to get the facts straight.
Jeffress, head of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch and one of Trump’s evangelical advisors, told CBN on Tuesday that a biblical passage in Romans allows rulers to use “whatever means necessary ― including war ― to stop evil.”
Jeffress said:
In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un. I’m heartened to see that our president ― contrary to what we’ve seen with past administrations who have taken, at best, a sheepish stance toward dictators and oppressors ― will not tolerate any threat against the American people.
On his show Wednesday night, Colbert had a visit from “God” and asked Him if Jeffress was right. The caricatured Almighty ― depicted as an old, white man with a long, white beard whose only language is English ― responded just as Jeffress might hope.
“Oh yeah! Always on America’s side when it comes to blowing stuff up,” said the fictional “God.”
Absurd as it seems, this depiction of God appears to align with the Trump-loving Almighty that Jeffress and others imagine.
Jeffress justified his comments, as other evangelical Christians close to Trump have done, by claiming that the Bible’s rules about love and pacifism don’t apply to the government.
Specifically, the pastor pointed to Romans 13, which he said warns that governing authorities are “established by God” and are “agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”
Jeffress told The Washington Post “that gives the government the authority to do whatever, whether it’s assassination, capital punishment or evil punishment, to quell the actions of evildoers like Kim Jong Un.”
The pastor also appears to think he’s exempt from the Bible’s mandates about neighborly love and forgiveness. Jeffress, who once said President Obama was “paving the way for the Antichrist,” has a long history of intolerant rants directed against gays, Muslims, Catholics, Mormons and more.
If a God like Colbert’s Jeffress-inspired one is running the show, then we’re all doomed.
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