Matt Lewis writing at Daily Beast.

If you think Rep. Lauren Boebert’s conservative political philosophy is perverse, wait until you get a load of her version of Christian theology.

Speaking at a Christian Family Camp Meeting last weekend, Boebert revealed her mangled interpretation of Christ’s crucifixion: “On Twitter, a lot of the little Twitter trolls, they like to say, ‘Oh, Jesus didn’t need an AR-15, how many AR-15s do you think Jesus would have had?’” The Colorado congresswoman added, “Well, he didn’t have enough to keep his government from killing him.”

First, he writes like a second grader, and additionally, he blasts out how much he detests her conservative political philosophy right off the bat.  This doesn’t set the foundation for good analysis.

This might be one of the most un-Christian things a person could say—and not just because guns are bad, or whatever else might viscerally repel secular progressives. Consider the biblical account of Jesus’s arrest, after he was betrayed by Judas (as recounted in the Book of Matthew):

“[O]ne of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?’”

Now, compare the Gospel of Jesus to the Gospel of Boebert.

First, Boebert assumes that Jesus wanted to prevent his own crucifixion. Of course, this is true—in a sense. Before his arrest, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” But he hastened to add, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Second, as Jesus told his disciples, he could have summoned “twelve legions of angels” to save himself and kill his captors. He didn’t. And the idea that Jesus simply needed more firepower denies one of the central tenets of Christianity—which is Christ’s divinity and omnipotence.

What is more, Boebert (and everyone else who claims to be a believer) should be thankful that Jesus did not take the easy way out of an excruciating death. As Jesus said, “how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled?”

Christians believe that God sacrificed his only son to atone for our sins. No sacrifice, no atonement. Sure, a bloody Tarantino-esque revenge scene might have felt very satisfying for his disciples, at the moment. But consider the eternal consequences.

Now, maybe you think this entire crucifixion story (never mind the resurrection) is one big absurd fairy tale—and that’s your right. But for those claiming to be Christians—as Boebert ostensibly does—getting this fundamental part of the story so badly wrong suggests it was either (a) a sacrilegious joke meant to score political points about the need to use guns against one’s government, or (b) evidence Boebert has a fundamental misunderstanding of basic Christian theology.

Either possibility should exclude Boebert from speaking publicly before a Christian audience.

But there’s something else here, too. By botching the events after Jesus was betrayed, Boebert betrays a worldview that has become ubiquitous during the Trump era: the hunger for a political savior.

It’s important to understand that the desire for a political savior (who will smite your enemies), while simultaneously overlooking the spiritual savior (who will change your heart and crucify your flesh), is a major theme of the New Testament.

“My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus told Pontius Pilate during his trial. “If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Yet, what we see time and again in the Gospels—as evidenced by Peter cutting off the ear of an arresting officer—is that Jesus’s own disciples constantly struggled to understand this.

Indeed, most of Jesus’s disciples were anticipating a savior who would rule over Israel and liberate them from Rome. Instead, they got a “servant leader” who washed other people’s feet, and told them to turn the other cheek. They got a king who was forced to wear a crown of thorns.

Someone with a Trumpian ethos might even look at Jesus and conclude that he preaches weakness. “What a sap,” they might think.

Today, a lot of evangelicals are making the same mistake. They are so desperate for a political savior that they are missing the real-life spiritual savior.

Some are attempting to Trumpify Jesus—to change Him instead of letting Him change their hearts. Others are steering their passionate adoration toward an earthly king: Donald Trump. This, of course, is a form of idolatry.

This trend is being perpetuated by Trump disciples like Boebert, who advance this perversion of the faith—and by Christian organizations who baptize this warped worldview when they give it a platform.

We should all be thankful the Gospel of Boebert didn’t end up in biblical canon. Simply put, it’s a sin.

Second, readers here are no stranger to the notion that no politician will save us.  Only the King of King and the Lord of Lords can do that, both individually and nationally.

But Matt’s analysis has run off the rails, and badly so.  His bias has so clouded his judgment that he isn’t perceptive enough to notice it.

Ms. Boebert’s silly statement is a rehash of what has been seen and available over various blogs, Twitter accounts and elsewhere for months now.  She didn’t make it up.  It’s an attempt – a poor one – to cast weapons ownership in the light of self defense.

I am a Calvinist.  The events that surround the Crucifixion were ordained from before the foundation of the world, and could not have happened any other way.  God was saving His people from their sins.

That’s why I have never used this silly one-liner, and never will.  But I assume that Matt isn’t a Christian.  He gives me nothing in this article to assume that he is.  It’s always amusing to me to see non-Christians try to hold Christians accountable for living within the framework of their own world and life view.

They rarely accomplish that task because they don’t really understand the world and life view of the Christian.  To say that God’s kingdom is not of this world has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with whether the rulers of the world are to “Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way” (Ps 2:12).  It has nothing to do with whether God expects His people to pursue righteousness in their vocations, witnessing, and laws they help enact.  It has nothing to do with whether He will hold accountable those rulers who make ungodly laws and lead men and women in ungodly ways.

By 325 AD (anno Domini), Christianity had so conquered the known world that Constantine the Great convened the Council of Nicea to address the Arian heresy and affirm Athanasian doctrine.  There was sitting no back and quietly praying among Christians.  They worked to change the culture.  Nero was throwing them to the lions.  By 325 AD they had taken the Roman empire.

Another mistaken notion with Matt is that he conflates weapons with evil, or Trumpian doctrine, or something (we don’t know what).

Trump has nothing to do with this, and isn’t in Boebert’s statement.  We consider Trump to have been a failure because of all the awful people with which he surrounded himself, and his failure to root out the rot in the bureaucratic state.  Boebert’s statement has much to do with something entirely different than what Matt assumes, and his dragging a past-president into the conversation is weird and bizarre.

Finally, he of course thinks that Jesus is supposed to be a long haired, Bohemian, peacenik, flower child hippie, like so much of today’s Christians and non-Christians alike.

Remember though, it was Jesus who ordered His own disciples to go get themselves swords, in complete violation of the Roman laws of the times.  Jesus quite literally ordered His own disciples to become law breakers in order to effect self defense.

Our history of Christians and weapons is extensive (see here for one of hundreds of such examples).  We won’t recapitulate that here.  But suffice it to say when Matt decides to sus out Christian doctrine again, he needs to hire someone who is actually a Christian and believes Christian doctrine.  He also needs to learn quite a bit about Christian theology before weighing in again.

This article was a complete failure, and Matt is as much an ignoramus on Christian doctrine as Boebert (if in fact she wasn’t just trying to be cute with her response).