Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the Muslim politician who once described 9/11 as an event in which “some people did something,” must have attended the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez School of Theology. Because she’s now weighing in on biblical injunctions and seems to be saying that no godly person could serve in the military.
Omar’s comments were made after Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted the below video and comment about another hardcore leftist, radical Georgia Senate candidate Raphael Warnock.
Perhaps sensing that Warnock needed help from one of our time’s intellectual giants, Omar leapt into action, tweeting:
Mathews 6:24
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and dmoney [sic].”
The lies and smears of the GOP have no boundaries, but this is a disgrace and shameful.
Since Omar wrote “Mathews” instead of the correct name, “Matthew,” some could perhaps be forgiven for not mistaking her for Thomas Aquinas resurrected. She would have been better off, however, if she’d just reiterated Warnock’s defense.
To wit: “‘[The sermon] was about priorities and about how one orders your priority so that you can live a moral life,’ Warnock said during an online press conference on Wednesday,” reported the Washington Free Beacon.
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“I think it’s unfortunate and shameful that they [his critics] are trying to distort not only my message but the message of Scripture,” he continued.
Of course, this could be a valid defense. If Warnock meant not that you couldn’t serve God and serve in the military, but that you couldn’t serve Him and serve the military — as in worship and show unconditional obedience to — that’s one thing. After all, nothing of this life should be put in God’s place, whether it’s money, fame, accomplishment, status, or anything else (such as political power).
Yet this raises a question. The relevant biblical passage only explicitly states that you can’t serve God and “mammon” (money, wealth). Why did Warnock single out the military, and only the military, as something else to avoid deifying? Was there a problem in his congregation with young enlisted men praying to their commanding officers and fancying that they don’t bleed? It would be interesting to read his whole sermon — which doesn’t seem available online — for some context.
But many read the worst into Warnock’s comments because of the context we do have: His past radical statements, which include “his claim that ‘America needs to repent for its worship of whiteness,’” the Beacon reported in an earlier article.
“He has also come under scrutiny for his support for his religious mentor James Hal Cone, who said that white Christians practice the ‘theology of the Antichrist’ and described white people as ‘satanic,’” the site continued.
“It was also reported last week that Warnock was working at a Harlem church in 1995 that hosted and applauded Cuban dictator Fidel Castro,” added MSN.com Wednesday. In other words, he’s a dangerous radical — just the type of person who would label American military service sinful.
This explains why Omar is defending him, too. As the Washington Standard reminded us yesterday, the congresswoman said in July
that her colleagues’ pet treasonous cause of defunding the police would not be enough: “We can’t stop at criminal justice reform or policing reform for that matter. We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system, [sic] we are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, in the air we breathe.”
Those “systems of oppression” that need to be torn down, in her sage view, include “our economy and political system.” Omar continued: “We must recognize that these systems of oppression are linked. As long as our economy and political system prioritize profit without considering who is profiting, who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality. So we cannot stop at criminal justice, we must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.”
Omar would know something about dismantlement, since her moral compass apparently underwent that process long ago. She has, after all, been credibly accused of marrying her brother and committing immigration fraud.
As for the military, whatever Warnock meant, the truth is that having godly men in the armed services is the ideal. George Washington certainly seemed to understand this. Consider his famous prayer at Valley Forge in the midst of the American Revolution and how he made clear that he desired “the blessing of Heaven on our army.”
Leftists don’t like actual Christians anywhere, though, because government won’t be first in people’s lives if God is. They know that authentic Christianity negates doctrinaire leftism (note here that Christians who attend church regularly vote GOP by a wide margin).
Yet while they may not like true Christians in the military, don’t think they in principle dislike the military. Their professed antipathy for it will disappear the moment they achieve enough control and it’s their military. At that point, don’t be surprised if they become Dr. Strangelove’s General Jack D. Ripper.
