Just like his white counterparts on the religious right, Bishop Harry Jackson seems to be getting more unhinged every day. Any doubt of that appears to have been erased by an appearance on TBN's Praise the Lord last week. Jackson told Perry Stone that God was going to strike down Christians who voted to give Obama a second term. People for the American Way got a clip.
Jackson thinks that black Christians who supported Obama ignored the Bible by voting for a president who supports marriage equality. He thinks that the election exposed a pro-Obama "false church," and God is going to "take out" that church and replace it with a true church. To his mind, those who supported Obama should have asked themselves, "Are you going to choose your race, or grace?"
Let me tell you something, Harry--and no, I'm not going to call you Bishop because you aren't deserving of the title. I'm a black charismatic Christian who voted for Obama twice and is damned proud of it. You mean to tell me that if I didn't vote for a guy who, among other things, openly stated he doesn't care about the poor, has millions stashed away in Swiss bank accounts, may very well have lied to the SEC and gave succor to a discredited and borderline racist conspiracy theory, I'm not really a Christian? Stones, meet glass house.
What was even more frightening was whom Jackson thinks will replace that so-called false church. Jackson is a leading member of the New Apostolic Reformation, the fascistic offshoot of the religious right that thinks it can actually bring about the Second Coming by taking over the world. He offered a full-throated endorsement of the Seven Mountains concept, which calls for Christians to take over the seven forces that influence our culture--business, entertainment, media, education, family, religion and especially government. He claimed God was putting people in strategic places that would make it possible. I've heard this talk before. As many of you know, I was tricked into joining a dominionist campus ministry during my freshman year at Carolina, and they talked a lot about having Christians "strategically placed" all over campus.
Believe it or not, this was just part of a whole night of lunacy. Watch it here. Stone led off the night with what appears to be the party line from the religious right since Sandy Hook--things like this happen because God is no longer in our culture.