Adam Kinzinger – false witness

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (RINO-Ill.) has made a lot of news lately, and to his great discredit. Most recently he defended Cassidy Hutchinson, a witness before the “January 6 Committee” who famously – and hilariously – perjured herself at the green table. (Multiple influencers have shown conclusively that Cassidy Hutchinson’s version of January 6 events, besides being hearsay, is physically impossible.)

But today CNAV wishes to address the barb he threw at fellow Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), after she denounced as extra-Constitutional the notion of separation of faith and state. CNAV has already shown that Lauren Boebert is right. Today we shall show that Adam Kinzinger is wrong.

Who is Adam Kinzinger?

Adam Kinzinger at least looks like a good man. He served his country in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Milwaukee TV report credits him with saving a woman from a knife attack.

That happened in 2009. So it’s no stretch to assume he somehow parlayed that to get the 2010 nomination for a seat in Congress. He won election to what started as the 11^th District of Illinois, then became the 18^th after the 2010 Census. But the 2020 Census cost Illinois a seat. So the Democrats in the legislature decided that Kinzinger’s 18^th District would have to go, and he with it.

For that reason alone, why he would continue to cooperate with the “January 6 Committee,” even after the Democrats did him out of his seat, begs explanation. (Any statement he makes to defend his continued service to the House Democratic Conference would be pointless. It could only show that he was acting out of spite.) But to today’s point, why he would weigh in on Rep. Boebert’s statement about separation of faith and state is even more difficult to explain. That is, until one examines critically the religious background about which he now boasts.

What did Adam Kinzinger say?

On June 29, three days after Lauren Boebert spoke to the Cornerstone Christian Center in Basalt, Colorado, Kinzinger tweeted this:

The text, typographical errors and all, reads:

There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must opposed (sic) the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian

“I say this as a Christian?” As soon as he said that last, he opened the door to a critical examination of his faith. More to the point, let us examine what he thinks a Christian should be.

Adam Kinzinger grew up in a Christian home. He and his family attended Calvary Baptist Church in Kankakee, Illinois. Calvary Baptist is actually an Independent Baptist Church. But The Atlantic, in profiling Kinzinger, chose to explain Calvary Baptist’s “fundamentalist” stance with a book from the press of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.

But Adam Kinzinger no longer attends that church. He and his family attend The Village Christian Church of Minooka, Illinois. A brief perusal of the Web sites of these two churches reveals stark differences. Calvary Baptist emphasizes the fundamentals of the faith. But The Village Christian Church seems to emphasize “seeker friendship” at the expense of Scripture and doctrine. Your editor has experience at “seeker friendly” and fundamentalist churches, and knows now to distinguish them. When you ask a church what they are about, and they answer you with vague platitudes, and you find yourself asking, “What about Scripture?” then you must ask yourself: what indeed?

By their fruit you shall know them

Jesus says,

You will know them by their fruits.Matthew 7:16, NASB

So let’s look at Adam Kinzinger’s fruits. The Atlantic piece tells us he “felt alienated” at Calvary Baptist. The interviewer asked him why, and he said this:

The best way to put it is your salvation is by faith alone unless you do something wrong—and then you were never saved in the first place. And by the way, we have these really strict rules that you have to follow that nobody can follow, but everybody at the church is going to act like they are and you’re the only one that isn’t.

Mr. Kinzinger should read more of his Bible, especially Paul of Tarsus’ Letter to the Romans, especially:

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Far from it!Romans 7:1, NASB

Because without the written Law, you don’t know by how much you missed the mark, which is what sin means. Elsewhere, Paul also says one does not go on sinning; that is to show disrespect. Kinzinger doesn’t seem to understand that. So he has no business claiming to be a witness for Christ. Or accusing one who, more than any President in recent memory, has advanced the faith, of harming it. That is to bear false witness. But what of that? If he would defend perjury, he would defend anything to feed his spite.

Taliban? Really?

From that you know where the “Taliban” canard came from. First, the true needs no defense against the false. That applies especially to Christianity on one hand, and Islam on the other. And it goes double for the viciously spiteful interpretation of Islam that now prevails in Afghanistan.

Second, that Adam Kinzinger would even coin an oxymoron like “Christian Taliban” shows only how far he has strayed. When he compares a set of rules designed to guard against temptation, to a code of laws making the most minor offenses punishable by death, he only shows that his only rule of life is that rules exist for us to break with impunity. Wrong, Rep. Kinzinger. The Bible is an Instruction Manual for care of spirit, mind and body. This is not to say that Donald J. Trump always follows Instructions as best he could or might. But at least you never heard Donald Trump cast doubt on the validity of those Instructions. Which is what Adam Kinzinger did in that Atlantic piece.

Furthermore, Rep. Kinzinger continues the central error of James G. Blaine and his ideological successors. Blaine sought to discriminate against the adherents of a particular faith (the Catholic). His successors, especially Roger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, took advantage of Blaine’s scheme and turned it into an explicit championing of atheism on the part of the government.

In summary

That is what Adam Kinzinger now supports. In upholding the Blaine Scheme, he forgets that power abhors a vacuum. That applies as much to spiritual power as to temporal power – the power of governments and their functionaries.

For all these reasons, we can dismiss his complaint against Lauren Boebert, as we can dismiss his other complaints.

One last thing might or might not be significant, but it does bear mention. Adam Kinzinger will shortly be out of a job. After Midterms, the country will see the last of him. But Lauren Boebert just won her primary and will likely win re-election easily.