An Evangelical Call for the State to Sanction Religious Speech

https://evangelicalfocus.com/europe/35103/patriarch-kirill-has-built-a-theological-architecture-built-to-sanctify-aggression

It would seem Tatiana Kopaleishvili, a female theologian from the Evangelical Alliance supports the notion of EU sanctions against Kirill, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The charge is that he has employed propaganda in which the war against Ukraine is deemed by Kirill, a holy conflict. As such, given his teachings are deemed authoritative by his flock, he is guilty of war crimes and worthy of sanctions.

One need not agree with Kirill to realize this is a terrible idea and opens a rather dark doorway of possibility. The Evangelicals who support this are fools and blind to the fact that Enlightenment-rooted states will start attacking religious institutions and restricting speech.

The modernist and feminist theologian/think-tank academic in question (Kopaleishvili) cannot even clearly define or delineate what a Church leader is supposed to do. Her definitions are limited to sociological categories.

Did Kirill sanctify aggression? Of course, this heresy is as old as Constantine and the Crusades. While I don't agree with sacralist categories and its conception of Church-State relations, I likewise don't just assume (as Kopaleishvili seems to) that Enlightenment values and categories are therefore correct. When combined with Christianity, they too are heretical - a syncretism of a different kind.

I don't want the state evaluating these questions. Such false teachers (such as Kirill) should be put out of the Church (which is not always so easy to define), but then again if the Evangelical movement in Europe was worth anything (in terms of Biblical conformity) it wouldn't allow this Georgian woman to sit and dictate theology and ethics. She's also in rebellion against the God-ordained order.

I suppose she would be fine with Brussels extending sanctions against me for daring to impugn the feminist givens of the modern Enlightenment order? Aren't I guilty of some kind of micro-aggression or something?

Will the EU also sanction figures like Franklin Graham? If anyone deserves it, it is him. And yet, where does it end? The majority of American Evangelical leaders support war and murder. They did during Vietnam and certainly in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. Millions have died and yet I don't hear Evangelical voices willing to call on the state to come after them or for these leaders to be put out of the Church - which is something that should happen.

John Stonestreet provides theological justifications for Trump's assassinations. Should all these people like him be sanctioned too?

This was a disturbing article and quite vexing as I don't want to defend Kirill but I find this liberal Evangelical angle very offensive.

Kopaleishvili has spoken out of turn and in error and yet it's more disturbing that Evangelical Focus didn't even bother to give voice to other opinions or raise related issues - or that they would even give someone like this a platform to speak.

And will her church hold her to account? I doubt it. I'm sure she's celebrated even as she has modelled her life on compromise and disobedience. Such is the state of contemporary Evangelicalism - women, children, and fools rule over them.

And pardon my scepticism, but looking at some of her other work, I get the distinct feeling that her Georgian identity is (perhaps) also influencing her thought on these points, which would include the relationship and tensions that exist between Tbilisi and Moscow. If this is so, then it only serves to further discredit the 'theological' nature of her thinking, which in fact is really a syncretist blend of selective theological ideology combined with Enlightenment categories (such as rights, economics, and the nation state).

I also found it noteworthy that the think-tank to which she is connected (ETF Leuven) is the recipient of state subsidies with a government overseer.

In other words, in some capacity it is an arm of EU interests. I have to say I find this kind of state-sanctioned and accredited academic Evangelicalism to be little more than the wolf of theological liberalism in sheep's clothing, paying lip service to the Reformation and the Bible even as it seeks to undermine truth at every turn.

Condemn Kirill, but don't call on Brussels to evaluate theology - even if it's by means of a toady-theologian in a government-funded think-tank.