Religion, Leadership, and the Shedding of Innocent Blood

In my daily reading I came across several passages toward the end of 2 Kings which not only stood out in their own right, but especially seemed relevant given a recent shocking announcement by one American evangelical. More about the latter in a moment, but the passages have to do with one particularly wicked king of Judah, Manasseh.

We read about this nasty piece of work in 2 Kings 21:1-18. Unfortunately he had a very long reign, starting when he was just 12 years of age. For 55 years he did great evil in the eyes of the Lord. As with so many other evil kings, his problem was he followed the “detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites” (v. 2).

Verses 3-7 list in more detail his heinous actions:

He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my Name.” In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger. He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple….

We read about how he led the people astray in v. 9, and an incredibly damning thing is said about him in v. 11: “He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.” And what I especially want to emphasise is what we read in v. 16: “Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end – besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

We read more about Manasseh and his bitter fruit in 2 Kings 24:1-4. There we read about how the Babylonians invaded Judah, and the reason for it:

During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. But then he turned against Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled. The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by his servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.

Once again we read about the shedding of innocent blood. This is something God Almighty absolutely will not put up with. This will always bring about the sure judgment of God upon those who do this. And it is here that I need to bring back into the discussion the US evangelical leader who I mentioned above.

campolo 1I discuss him because he too is advocating for and defending the shedding of innocent blood. He is doing this in a mind-boggling political endorsement. I refer to Tony Campolo and his utterly reprehensible call for Christians to vote for Hillary Clinton!

This is how one report headlines this story: “Evangelist Tony Campolo says Christians should vote for Hillary Clinton”. It begins:

Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo issued an endorsement for presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in an essay published earlier this month. Campolo served as Bill Clinton’s spiritual advisor during his presidency, but said he is vetting Hillary for more than personal reasons.
Beginning with Hillary’s tenure as first lady of Arkansas, Campolo said she has demonstrated her administrative abilities and commitment to educational reform. He also cited her experience as senator of New York and Secretary of State as evidence of her ability to work effectively across party lines. “Hillary… understands how Congress works,” Campolo wrote, “a needed skill since legislative gridlock has characterised Washington over the last several years.”

What? A hard core feminist who is pro-homosexual and committed to abortion on demand is someone he thinks Christians should vote for? Just how far removed is this guy from biblical Christianity? In addition to a host of problems with Clinton, including being an unrepentant liar, she is of course fully committed to the shedding of innocent blood.

The very thing God absolutely hates and has vowed to judge is the thing she most resolutely celebrates and champions. And this apostate evangelical leader is quite happy, just like Manasseh, to lead many people astray by moving in this same direction of sin, wickedness and rebellion against God.

There were plenty of professing Christians who voted for the pro-abortion Obama not just once but twice, and I shudder to think how many of these clueless wonders will also vote for Clinton. They will have to stand before a holy and righteous God one day to give an account for this.

And so will Campolo for this horrific and utterly misguided recommendation. He might as well just get up and tell us how he thinks Manasseh was a great guy and a great leader. That Campolo is an unashamed apologist for the shedding of innocent blood tells us all we need to know about this guy and his “faith.”

He is a false shepherd who needs to repent – and soon.

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/evangelist.tony.campolo.says.christians.should.vote.for.hillary.clinton/52536.htm

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22 Replies to “Religion, Leadership, and the Shedding of Innocent Blood”

  1. Proverbs 6:16-17

    There are six things which the Lord hates,
    Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
    Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
    And hands that shed innocent blood ….

  2. Hillary has come out claiming she is a Christian and the bible is the most important book in her life. Just like with Obama, plenty of people will vote for her based on that reason. And if she gets in, then everyone who voted for her will get exactly what apathetic ignorance in the face of real peril deserves – unfortunately, so will the rest of the world.

  3. Yet again, another wicked cleric, fed and watered by another hopeless dumb a*se congregation.

  4. Oh dear, I remember that name from our youth group days. I pray he understands what his support for HC really means and retracts his statements.
    What frightens me most about that passage about Manasseh, though I a glad he did repent in the end too, is that he was the son of one of Judah’s most godly kings. We do our best as parents, but our children don’t always walk in the ways of the Lord, nothing is more grievous to the heart of a other, but in Manasseh’s case Prov 21 I think came true “teach a child in the way he should go and when he is old he shall not depart from it”. I know this is not a promise, but a helpful and hope inspiring guideline. We all make our own choices and are responsible for them, but we also are responsible for the way we have influenced others.
    Many blessings
    Ursula Bennett

  5. Bill I just looked up Tony Campolo to refresh my mind what I’d ever read of his and I discovered that, whilst some of his books were terrific, sadly his son has gone the way of agnostic humanism and his wife openly supports gay marriage. A big pity. Tony claims that Hillary is a christian, though pro-abortion and plans to cut abortion by 50%. A bold move, though most likely for the Democrats, highly improbable. She has to win Democratic candidacy first, also highly improbable! Cheers.

  6. That’s why it’s important that the GOP puts up someone capable of winning an election this time, and the Dems put up other options less worse than Hillary, if that’s even possible.

  7. Many more to come yet. Nothing is hidden that shall not be uncovered. The last and great sign of the coming of the Lord is a great apostasy from Scripture. A Christian faith without the Bible runs rampant. No shortage of them around, it just takes a little time and the Lord will show them up for those who have knowledge.

  8. Dear Bill

    Tony Campolo is a vicious anti-semite who has done lecture tours in the UK defaming Israel and her people. He walks with some very unsavoury and evil people. Without doubt he has gone over to the Dark Side.

    Blessings
    Naomi

  9. Manasseh did eventually repent (2 Chron 33:11-16). That should give hope that some evil people today might also repent. Yet interestingly when a few generations later God brought punishment on Judah the sin of Manasseh is cited. It seems that the individual repented and was forgiven, yet God still brought judgement on Judah as he had warned (2 Kings 21:11-15).

  10. There is a dark cloud of deception all over the evangelical church in these last days. Campolo is just a symptom of the blindness and darkness in the church. I am utterly astonished at some of the things I am hearing and seeing in what used to be Bible-believeing congregations. The pastors are tickling itching ears. The people don’t care. Many Christians spend their time addicted to playing Candy Crush and Farm Animals on Facebook. Others are going to casinos and living like the devil. We need to start speaking prophetically to these people and to pastors who are preaching soft sermons.

  11. I was saddened to read this post. Why? Because many years ago I heard Tony and liked him and his teaching. Later I realized that he is a, “East Coast Liberal” and that I am a West Coast Conservative”…but this development is unacceptable. I wish I could see him face to face and tell him how wrong he is in his one sided thinking. He is a powerful speaker and now he is using this ability for evil…sad.

    In pastoral ministry for 42 years.

  12. I feel that’s a very good insight on Campolo endorsing Hillary. This marrying of tolerance is pure evil. It is shocking when Christians in the Public Forum denigrate our most sacred Faith system by their filthy compromises. I see this kind of overtones of moral relativism and secularism destroying this coming generation with nonsense and rhetoric. As I see it, we either stand for the empirical truth in the Word of God our highest criteria or we fall into correctness and tolerance. Thank you so much Bill for your daily blog. I use it alongside my devotional. God bless you. Shonda Davis

  13. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that Tony’s dodgy teaching was outed many years ago. It was my understanding he held the belief that if Jesus had not mentioned a particular topic, or doctrine, then it was up for debate.

    Basically it was described as “Red Letter” doctrine, as in only accepting the words of Jesus (the words in red in some Bibles) as binding doctrine. Thus, as Jesus has not specifically spoken about abortion then it is okay to ignore the rest of scripture that might otherwise be applied to that topic, so his stance does not surprise me.

    It would probably be more than twenty years ago that I heard this, but prior to that time his videos had been used at the youth groups I had been involved with. This reported belief of Tony’s was given as the reason that his material was no longer to be used.

  14. This is off topic to some extent, but still very much on the theme of “innocent blood”.

    The day before ANZAC day, i.e. last Friday, 24th April, marked the centenary of the most disgraceful episode in C20th history, the Armenian Genocide, when at the behest of the Ottoman government some two million plus of Armenian Christians were herded out of their homes, put on the road without food or water and made to march hundreds, even thousands of miles in the blazing sun or the freezing cold until tens of thousands perished. Many others were brutally murdered, beheaded, bayoneted, burned alive, crucified, thrown bound into the sea, thrown off cliffs, run through with swords, shot, etc. etc. In all the death toll was about 1.5 million, done to death only for their Christian faith.

    Yet this is a largely forgotten episode in modern history, aided and abetted by the Turkish government which denies either that it happened at all (although it was well documented at the time by reliable witnesses), or to the extent that they admit, adamantly refuse to admit that it was a “genocide”, since they deny that there was any policy of deliberate extermination, even though there are recorded statements by Talaat Pasha, the then Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire, and Enver Pasha, another Senior government minister, that this WAS their deliberate policy.

    Pressure must be exerted on the present Turkish government to acknowledge their history, and even at this late stage to make reparations to the Armenians. “Lest we Forget” is the slogan we hear at this time. Let us hear it for the Armenian Christians who, I fear will suffer again at the hands of the present leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, who has largely undone the “secular” Islamic state of Turkey built by Kemal Ataturk, and who desires a restored Ottoman caliphate.

    We should also remember it, especially at this centenary occasion, because Christians in that part of the world are suffering the same pogroms at the hands of ISIS, and with the same brutality, as has been seen on even our news media.

  15. Dear Murray

    Thank you for raising this. This is Islam all over and has been since it was conceived in the deranged mind of Mohammed 1,400 years ago. I have a dear friend in London, both sides her extended family were WIPED out in Armenia in the 1915 genocide of muslim on christian. Her father and mother only miraculously escaped as youngsters and got out through Constantinople. It was HORRIBLE. The Barnabas Fund have done a very good piece recently on this in their magazine to mark the 100 years. I will see if I can get the link.

    In Him, Naomi

  16. Dear Bill

    Here are the excellent links to the Barnabas Fund series of articles and current commentary on the Armenian Genocide. I would moot that this would be worthy of an article from you Bill. Barnabas Fund support and encourage persecuted christians throughout the world.

    https://barnabasfund.org/news/magazine-mar-april-2015-remembering-the-forgotten-genocide

    https://barnabasfund.org/news/magazine-may-june-2015-armenian-timeline

    https://barnabasfund.org/news/As-centenary-commemoration-approaches-Europe-urges-Turkey-to-recognise-Armenian-genocide

    Interestingly Barnabas Fund’s International Director Dr Patrick Sookhdeo was on the winning side in a prestigious debate, organised by The Spectator, arguing that Islam is a greater threat to Christianity than is secularism.

    Dr Sookhdeo spoke alongside Observer columnist Nick Cohen, and Douglas Murray, an author, journalist and Associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society, against the motion “Secularism is a greater threat to Christianity than Islam” at the event in London on Wednesday (29 June 2010).

    Damian Thompson, the Telegraph’s leader writer and blogs’ editor, Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, and Father Timothy Radcliffe OP, a Dominican friar from Blackfriars, Oxford, spoke for the motion.

    Before the debate, the audience voted in support of the motion but the house shifted decisively against it after hearing arguments put forward by Sookhdeo, Cohen and Murray.

    In Him, Naomi

  17. Thank you Naomi.
    Yes, I subscribe to Barnabas Fund, and that in part what what inspired me to write as above. However, I knew about it from other sources, and I have drawn the attention of my history classes to it. The leftists in my classes, however, couldn’t give a rip. They make gratuitous excuses, evasions, and diversions in response. They give the stock response, “This isn’t real Islam”, as if they are world experts on the subject!

    As for this blog, so far you are the only one who has responded, which is very sad. I feel very strongly moved to make a submission to the Turkish embassy on the issue: polite but firm.

    But it’s not merely in the past: as you observe, it shows very graphically the mindset and methods of Islam in all its horrors, and it is happening all over again! We ignore history at our peril.

  18. Dear Murray

    As a history teacher you will be interested in this, written in 1898 about the birth of Islam. The piece, which is exceptionally well written as one would expect from the calibre of the writer, is very revealing on the detail of the evil behind Mohammedism and of general interest to the thoughtful Christian. Here are some opening paragraphs:

    Periods of European History, edited by Arthur Hassall, MA, published by Rivingtons, Covent Garden, London, 1898, Third Edition.

    Extract from Volume : Period 1, The Dark Ages 476-918 by Charles Oman, MA, FSA, Fellow of All Souls College and lecturer at New College, Oxford.

    In May 628 the emperor Heraclius was able to return to Constantinople, bringing peace and plenty with him. He had restored the boundary of the empire, and inflicted on Persia a blow from which she never recovered. His arms had penetrated far beyond the limits of the conquests of Trajan and Severus, and his six years of unbroken victory were a record which no Roman, save Julius Caesar, could rival. Not unjustly did the inhabitants of Constantinople receive him with chants and sacred processions, and hail him by the name of ’the new Scipio’. The crowning moment of his triumph came when the True Cross was uplifted in St Sophia, and publicly exposed for the adoration of the faithful. Well might the emperor have sung his ’Nunc dimittis’ on that day of solemn rejoicing, and prayed that the hour of his triumph might be the last of his life.

    But already there was another tempest gathering, which was destined to sweep over the Roman empire with even greater violence than the Persian storm which had just been weathered. While in the midst of his last campaign, Heraclius had received a letter from an obscure Arabian prophet, bidding him accept a new revelation from Heaven, which its framer called ‘Islam’, or ‘Submission to God’. A similar missive was delivered at the same moment to Chosroes (King of Persia), then on the eve of his fall. Chosroes tore up the letter, and swore he would, at his leisure, lay the insolent prophet in a dungeon. Heraclius sent a polite letter of acknowledgement and a trifling present to the unknown fanatic, being adverse to making enemies of any sort while the Persian war was still on his hands. Little as it could have been foreseen at the time, the followers of the writer of these eccentric missives were fated to tear up the empire of Chosroes by the roots, and to lop off half of its fairest provinces from the realm of Heraclius.

    The Arabian prophet was no less a person than Mohammed the son of Abdallah, that strange being, half seer and half imposter, whose preaching was destined to convulse three continents, and turn the stream of history into new and unexpected channels.

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