"Two Versions of Christianity": Pope Leo Calls for Peace as U.S. Uses Religion to Justify Iran War

[Uncle Joe]

As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter Sunday, we go to Palestine to speak to Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor of the Lutheran Church in Ramallah and director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, located in the city of Jesus Christ's birth. This year's Easter preparations come against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, which many Christian nationalists in the U.S., including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, are framing in extremist religious terms. Reverend Isaac calls the Christian Zionism espoused by Hegseth and others "a theology of war, of violence" and highlights the efforts of Pope Leo XIV, the U.S.-born head of the Catholic Church who has come out stridently against both the war and Hegseth's rhetoric, to promote peace in the region.

Isaac also comments on Israeli authorities' recent attempt to prevent the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday due to Israel's ban on gatherings at religious sites during the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly granted access to the church following global backlash. But, "do we really need permission from an occupying authority?" asks Isaac. "Israel does not have sovereignty over, should not have sovereignty over Jerusalem. … We have been worshiping here for centuries, uninterrupted."

[Jilly_in_VA]

1. Christian Zionism and Christian Nationalism

are pretty much the same thing. Those who believe in one also believe in the other.I don't care if it's in the US, or if you're talking about the days of the Crusades, or Russia before the Revolution, or what. Those who believed in one believed in the other.

[Moostache]

2. This is not new...

For Millenia now, the Church has been used as both guidance and weapon - depending on the aims and goals of those using it.

Starting with Constantine and the Roman Empire and moving through every single major European and world conflict since, there have been people attempting to use the religion for their own desires.

John Fugelsang's recent book "Separation of Church and Hate" is a pretty good read and a detailed dissection of the modern use of Christ as weapon and false premise by the so-called faithful.

Link to a interview with him on this:
https://www.interfaithalliance.org/post/separating-church-from-hate-a-conversation-with-john-fugelsang

Because, as you all well know, for the whole history of our country, the history of our lives, the history of the faith these people have… I like to say, they hide behind a big gold cross to crap all over the New Testament; and it's a guide to actually showing that the most pompous, pious, obnoxious ones among us don't really follow Jesus all that much.

I was raised in a Christianity that was about service, that was about love, that was about forgiveness, that guided us to the margins. What are you doing for the least among us? Are you welcoming the stranger? Are you caring for the poor? Are you trying to help those who are hated and despised on the lowest rungs? Because that was Jesus's whole ministry. You reach out to the marginalized.

And like many, I grew up watching TV news all the time and seeing these blow-dried televangelists, these Jerry Falwells and Jimmy Swaggarts and Pat Robertsons that were always on the news, always introduced as Christian leaders. But they didn't talk about anything that Jesus talked about. These were the men, as you know, who talked about AIDS patients or welfare moms or the illegals. These are the people who are more angry about protests against racism than actual racism.

The whole history of the faith has been Christ-followers, liberal Christians and their non-Christian, atheist, other religious allies fighting to beat back the bats**t crazy Christians. That's how it's always been, and it's always been in service of love over meanness and selfishness and this kind of MAGA Christianity that is just cruelty and selfishness masquerading as piety. It's not hard to call out. They don't follow Jesus. And you don't need to believe in the Bible as literal fact to call them out on it.

[walkingman]

3. When God enters wars, truth dies.

[Norrrm]

4. There are two major groups of 'Christians' in our country; Christians of faith and Political Christians who praise proud

There are two major groups of ‘Christians’ in our country.

Christians of faith and Political Christians who praise proud adulterer Trump who does not need Christ’s forgiveness and ridicules Holy Communion.

Trump's evangelicals/political Christians are the public face of Christianity in America today.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Pentagon Threatened the Pope After He Criticized Trump

It was so bad that Pope Leo changed his plans to travel to the U.S.

This thin-skinned mafia administration is insane.
newrepublic.com/post/208820/...

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T22:50:43.514Z

https://newrepublic.com/post/208820/pentagon-threatened-pope-criticized-donald-trump

Relations between the U.S. and the Catholic Church have not been the same since January, when senior U.S. defense officials shared an abrasive message with a Vatican official.

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.

“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France......

The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo cancelled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”

Tensions had not been mended by February, when the Holy See rejected the White House’s invitation to host Pope Leo—the religious order’s first U.S.-born pontiff—for America’s 250th anniversary in July. Instead, the Catholic leader has arranged to visit a very different locale on July 4: Lampedusa, a tiny island between Tunisia and Sicily where North African immigrants wash ashore by the thousands

Hegseth is a religious nut case who believes that G-d is supporting trump's war and military actions. I note that Hegseth excluded Catholics from Good Friday religious events. See https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221145488 If nothing else, Hegseth's actions/statements and the attack on the Pope violate the basic fundamental precepts of the separation of church and state.