In a shockingly blunt piece, Michael Weinstein seems to have inadvertently undermined his own defense against those who claim he’s “anti-Christian” by essentially admitting that he’s opposed to a vast swath of American Christianity.  Said Weinstein [emphasis added]:

Do you know that in this country in 1970, we only had ten mega-Evangelical churches, meaning those with 2,000 or more members? But after 9/11, a new mega-Evangelical church has opened up in our country every 48 hours.
 
That is their right. That’s fine. But when they engage the machinery of the state and the people in the government, that’s when we have a terrible, hideous problem.
 
And this is coming right down from the DoD, up and down the chain of command…

Weinstein seems to clearly convey Christians from these ubiquitous “mega-Evangelical churches” (as opposed to Evangelical megachurches?) are the ones “engaging the machinery of the state” and trying to take over the world for Jesus.

Remember, this is the same guy who for weeks has been saying “I’m not anti-Christian, because I have Christian clients! I’m being repressed!”  But if he’s not waging a “war” against what he has plainly called an “evangelical coup in America,” why bother even mentioning mainstream Christian churches?  Why emphasize the growing, mainstream Christian movement in America?

At the end of his piece Weinstein returns to his roots (2007), adding 6 adjectives to “Christian” in an effort to claim he only wants to restrict the religious liberties of that wrong kind of Christian:

I’m now fighting a small subset of Evangelical Christians who have strategically embedded themselves into the U.S. Military who go by the long technical name — premillenial, dispensational, reconstructionist, dominionist, evangelical, fundamentalist Christians. Basically, they believe that it’s their inalienable right to push this weaponized gospel of Jesus Christ. Either you’re with us, or if you’re not with us, we or our version of Jesus will eradicate you.

The first problem is even some of Weinstein’s staunchest supporters admit using all of those adjectives together is at times contradictory and always ridiculous; probably only one or two people in the world could accurately be described that way.  Despite Weinstein’s claim, no one “goes by” that “long technical name” — he assigns it to them.

The second problem is that Weinstein is omitting a very important fact: In Weinstein’s world, he’s the one who gets to say who’s a PDRDEF Christian, and who’s not.  Just as MRFF staff member Rick Baker can watch a short video and declare a person’s theology, so too Weinstein creates villainous religious labels — and then assigns those labels to people he opposes, whether they hold those theological beliefs or not.  He’s banking on people opposing the label — much like they oppose bigotry, homophobia, sexism, etc. — and missing the fact the label isn’t true.

After all, when was the last time you heard of a military member claiming or demonstrating a “right” to a “weaponized gospel,” or that they were going to “eradicate” those who didn’t share their faith?  If it is such a serious danger — Weinstein calls it a “national security threat” — why are examples non-existent?  As has been noted once already, even the windmills Weinstein is tilting at aren’t real.

To the point, though, Weinstein has successfully put his foot in his mouth, again.  Weinstein’s not anti-all-of-Christianity, just the Christianity Mikey doesn’t like — which seems to be almost all of it.

Does Mikey like your Christianity?  Well, if you publicly oppose him, you may suddenly find out you’re a PDRDEF Christian, even if you’re a Quaker.

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