Ted Cruz Parlays His Execrable Behavior at Arab Christian Conference Into Martyrdom

ted-cruzWhen GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz was booed off stage during the Middle East’s Christian conference in Washington D.C., liberals rightly laughed at his display of political miscalculation and ineptitude.

He completely misread his audience. “Stop it, stop it, enough,” and “Out, out, leave the stage!” outraged listeners in the crowd shouted, at which point Cruz seemed to lose his cool (not for the first time), petulantly stating “if you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you. Good night and God bless,” He stalked stage, earning him his first applause of the night.

The is the stuff of dreams for liberals. A Religious Right demagogue getting his just desserts. A would-be savior of the Middle East’s Christians booed off stage by Middle Eastern Christians.

But Cruz may have the last laugh. The conservative media supports Cruz, of course, but his childish antics have earned him near-martyrdom status from Cruz fanboys and fangirls, that is, if The Blaze is any judge.

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For some on the Religious Right, Cruz is like a persecuted Old Testament prophet, with Hugie 59 PA saying that, “They persecuted the Prophets of the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) who were speaking truth to power and these so-called Christians are persecuting Sen. Cruz in the same manner.”

Yes, poor Ted. He is such a victim!

But let’s not stop here. An analysis of comments by Blaze readers cited by The Blaze, demonstrate that fake Christians love a guy who, like them, forgets about Jesus and refuses to turn the other cheek:

maryann72961
For the first time in a long time, I am proud of a leader standing up and saying what he believes, despite being booed. You go Ted Cruz. If you run for president in 2016 you will have my vote. God bless you.

TROONORTH
You have to give Cruz credit for entering the lion’s den and telling them what they needed to hear. A brave and principled man indeed.

LogCabinRepublican
What’s right isn’t always popular, and what’s popular isn’t always right. I stand proudly with Israel and Ted Cruz.

The human capacity for self-delusion is amply demonstrated in these comments: “There is something fishy about this,” writes Peace2011, apparently unable to believe Christians would boo Cruz. This commenter closes with mutually incompatible wishes, saying, “I am for peace and I support Ted Cruz. I pray he becomes our next president.”

This reader must not pay attention to where all the saber rattling is coming from. Hint: It’s not from the political left.

This one staggered me. Did you know that Christians have been bigger victims of genocide than Jews? Nothing like a little anti-Semitism from the Religious Right:

wolfy ghalkhani
How did Israel get into this conversation? The whole venue was supposed to be about the Christian genocide taking place now. I like Cruz, but he’s being naive about Jews. Jews don’t love Christians. As a matter of fact, Jew Bolsheviks were behind the murders of over 20 million Christians in Russia less than 100 years ago, and their progeny are here in America turning the screws on us as I write. Jews never helped Christians — ever. So I understand the rage that the audience felt when Ted opened his mouth about the Jews. Yes, the Jews suffered, but Christians have suffered even more genocide (at the hands of the Muslims, Bolsheviks and slavery of which the Jews were middlemen). Cruz should not have been so bullheaded. If it had been me being booed, I would have stopped and asked what the problem was. That’s what a man/woman of the people would have done.

This reader is apparently unaware of the Holocaust. He is apparently unaware of Czarist anti-Jewish pogroms (at the hands of Christians). He is apparently unaware of Spanish Christians forcing Spain’s Jews to convert, die, or get out. Unaware of the Crusaders, on their way to massacre Muslims, massacring Jews in the Rhineland en route to the Holy Land.

Hey, I have an idea. Let’s look at just a few examples of Christians killing Jews in the name of Christ. R. Joseph Hoffmann has provided a list illustrating the long history of monotheistic violence, a list which could be longer, if it were made to extend back to the period prior to 554 or the period between 554 and 1032, but it is still illustrative of the scope of monotheistic violence in general and of monotheistic anti-Semitism specifically:

554, at Clermont, slaughter of Jews and forced baptism of 500

1032, Fez, Muslim troops kill 6,000 Jews in bid to reconquer Spain
1066, Grenada, 4,000 Jews killed

1096, Germany, from Mainz to Speyer, thousands of Jews slaughtered

1099, Christian slaughter of Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem

1148, Christians and Jews in Islamic Spain forced to accept Islam or die

1209, Beziers, Christian forces kill 20,000 Albigensian heretics – fellow Christians – and hundreds of Jews

1236, across France, 3,000 Jews killed in an failed attempt to organize a Crusade

1298, professional “Jew Killers” move across Germany, looting, burning, and killing as many as 4,000 Jews

1328, 5,000 Jews killed in Navarre

1614, Frankfurt, 2,000 Jews killed [1]

It wasn’t liberals killing these Jews, but their fellow monotheists, Christians and Muslims both.

And suddenly it matters to the Religious Right that Jesus was a Jew, a Semite, rather than the Northern European Evangelical Christian:

bobohack1
These so-called Christians seem to forget one thing; Jesus was a Jew! Jesus was not a Christian; the Christian sects were named after him. Jesus was a Jew. Only after his disciples began to preach his philosophy to the masses and many years later did the word Christian even come into being. Ironic as it may seem, without the Jews there would be no Christians, and those so-called Christians could not boo Ted Cruz for suggesting that they support the Jews as our ally.

There is no accounting for taste:

TJM1791
The more I hear him talk, the more I grow to like him. I haven’t experienced a politician like that in my lifetime.

You’ve been lucky so far, TJM, is all I’ve got to say.

Ted Cruz is exposing “fake Christians,” apparently, and is a living, breathing spiritual revival all unto himself, even while repeatedly violating Jesus’ injunction to love his enemies and turn the other cheek:

RAMJR
SALT HURTS! We are going to see fake Christians exposed. This is going to be the normality, and God is a part of the eyes that are opened, and ears that hear through the many lies and liars from pulpits across the country.
Ted Cruz is taking that stand, and many will see just how broken our churches are. Believe it or not, this is a good thing. It means that revival is happening. We have to turn back to God, though the hearts of human knowledge will not understand the heart God says we have to have.
We need to pray for God to keep a hedge of protection on the voices that call out that which is not of God…even if they have the word ‘Christian’ in them.
“He who has ears let him hear.”
God bless.

The Blaze doesn’t analyze the comments but really, they speak for themselves. In the end, the delusional masses are no more delusional than their hero, who characterized his experience thusly:

I’ve certainly encountered audiences that disagreed with a particular point of view. But this virulent display of hatred and bigotry was remarkable, and considerably different from anything I’ve previously encountered.

The division and anti-Semitism expressed tonight by some of the crowd is not reflective of the teachings of Christ, and is in fact directly contrary to the tenets of Christianity.

Apparently, Cruz has never encountered his own words!

And so, with the death of our shared reality, Cruz the martyr is born. And as always, the hater and not the hated the real victim in the eyes of the Religious Right.

Notes:

[1] R. Joseph Hoffmann, ed., The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006), 7-8.



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