Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
So says the terminally loopy Jan Markell:
Jan Markell is a Messianic Jewish believer who directs Olive Tree Ministries in Minnesota. She shares that she is deeply disturbed about that summit, believing that the U.S. could pay a serious price for Bush's continued push for a Palestinian state to be carved out of God's covenant land."When Israel as a nation disobeyed, she got some pretty rotten kings. If she was in obedience, she got better kings -- and we are entering an election year. I would hate to see America get judged because of what we've done, and the playing out of that judgment come through the election of 2008," warns Markell.
So let's get this straight: If we don't do what God says, God's going to punish us by giving us bad leaders. How exactly will we tell? They could scarcely be worse than what we've had when God, presumably, was not punishing us. If Bush is not God's punishment, I shudder to think that God could do any worse than that. Is he putting Satan himself in charge?
Then there's that ever-present free will problem. Our leaders are elected, so the only way God can impose such a punishment is to influence people to change their minds and vote for God's punishment candidate. But that pretty much does away with that whole free will excuse that they use to get out of other logical problems. According to believers like Markell, we have free will...until God decides we don't.
Comments
Why, oh why do you expect logic from these yahoos? These people say whatever comes into their heads and attribute it to God. Messianic Jews juggle so many contradictory thoughts in their heads at once, that it's no wonder Jan Markell is loopy.
And as for this, "Is he putting Satan himself in charge?" Remember, we have Dick Cheney as Veep.
Posted by: wheatdogg | December 13, 2007 9:46 AM
If you look carefully at the sorts of scenarios some of these folks frame their history into, it looks as if they're telling stories which assume that minor characters don't really count. They're cardboard figures, evil minions who exist only to prop up a narrative which works around the main characters -- them.
How would God "give" America bad leaders? He would have all those shadowy American citizens who exist only as plot devices all vote for someone. There is no problem with God stepping in and interfering with people's free choices. What people? Not you, and not your friends. Don't get all deep and everything and think of how it works it from the irrelevant point of view of the extras.
Posted by: Sastra | December 13, 2007 11:00 AM
Surely you've heard the rumblings from some left-wingy types (a label that applies to me, as it happens) that Ohio's electoral votes in 2004, or (obviously) Florida's in 2000, were illegally stolen from the Democratic candidate. If it's even theoretically feasible for Republican operatives to have rigged voting machines (or hanging chad, etc.) to throw an election to their preferred candidate, how can we doubt an omnipotent being's ability to do something similar?
An all-powerful god is capable of committing election fraud, isn't she?
Of course, I very much wonder if that's the kind of scenario that fundies like this one have in mind. Rigging voting machines seems a bit sneaky and dishonest for the god that conservative Christians claim to believe in. You're probably right that, if she's thinking about this at all (no safe bet), Markell is imagining that her deity will interfere with Americans' interal voting deliberations. And that does indeed present problems for the idea of free will.
But, on the other hand, there's no shortage of Biblical precedent for God pulling exactly that kind of stunt. For starters, in Exodus Yahweh repeatedly "harden[s] Pharaoh's heart" so that the plagues/escape/Red Sea/dead Egyptian soldiers (and kids) scenario will play out the way He wants it to....
Posted by: Rieux | December 13, 2007 11:05 AM
All one has to do is read the Book of Joshua to see that God's people never had full control of the Promised Land. The Jebusites were never driven out of the holy city of Jerusalem; they continued to live among the Israelites from day one.
The Israelites were the ones who asked for kings. God didn't want them to have kings in the first place. And yes, just like our presidents, you get some good and some that are bad. I don't look at these last seven years as God's retribution for something we've done wrong. I don't find God in the "hanging chad."
Posted by: Rev. AJB | December 13, 2007 11:12 AM
God has been known to make people behave in a certain way just so he could show off his powers. Pharaoh was basically set up in Exodus so that God could justify his terrible vengeance:
Exodus 4:21 "And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go."
Exodus 7:3 "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt."
Exodus 7:13 "And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said."
Exodus 9:12 "And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses."
Exodus 10:1 "And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:"
Exodus 10:20 "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go."
Exodus 10:27 "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go."
Exodus 11:10 "And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land."
Posted by: Stegve | December 13, 2007 11:21 AM
God to punish America with bad leaders?
She already has.
Posted by: Flatlander | December 13, 2007 11:30 AM
According to believers like Markell, we have free will...until God decides we don't.
Everybody who argues for free will knows that the Bible is full of places where God interferes with free will. Draw your own conclusions from that!! I dunnoo....
"When Israel as a nation disobeyed, she got some pretty rotten kings. If she was in obedience, she got better kings -- and we are entering an election year. I would hate to see America get judged because of what we've done, and the playing out of that judgment come through the election of 2008," warns Markell.
How come God has to punish the whole nation at once? Why not just punish the bad people and not punish the good people? I dunno!!
Posted by: mangerboy386sx | December 13, 2007 11:54 AM
Stegve: Hebrew (particularly 4th Century BCE Hebrew) does not differentiate between agency and action. In the case of Pharoah, there are (I believe) 30 instances of where Pharoah's heart is said to be hard without God playing a role, and ten in which the text specifies "And God hardened Pharoah's heart, etc."
In other words, it could just be a Jussive clause meaning, "God ALLOWED Pharoah's heart to be hardebed" where that phrase is exactly equivalent to the 30 times God is not involved. This could be the result of the telescoping of two or more traditions (I'd have to look up what the Documentary Hypothesis has to say on this section of Exodus) or it could just be a particular scribe's favored turn of phrase immortalized for all time. What it is not is particularly strong evidence for the proposition that God causes evil to be done, and then punishes the innocent evildoers.
As for the actual topic here, it appears Phred Phelps has been right all along and God really does hate Amerika.
Posted by: kehrsam | December 13, 2007 12:04 PM
I don't know that there's much free will involved in modern elections. The two-party system combined with the influence of special interest groups and the media make for very confined choices for the average citizen.
Posted by: Harq al-Ada | December 13, 2007 1:39 PM
kehrsam,
Yahweh admits that he personally hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he could show off his powers:
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them,
[Exodus 10:1]
Posted by: David Ratnasabapathy | December 13, 2007 1:49 PM
So the Us elects a crappy leader, who makes bad decisions, who pisses off God, who punishes America with an even crappier leader, who will presumably make even worse decisions, pissing God off even more, who will then smite America with an even crappier leader, who will make even worse deicsions....
(I'm leaving in the misspelling. Can that be a new word? Deicisions: When God makes our choices for us, then punishes us for those choices)
Posted by: Jason Failes | December 13, 2007 4:28 PM
She should read her Tanakh more closely. The bible god is no keeper of promises and he will punish his people even when they are good.
Posted by: Heathen Dan | December 13, 2007 5:36 PM
So saith the history-writers, i.e. the winning leaders claiming divine blessing regardless of what they did.
Posted by: Tony | December 13, 2007 8:57 PM
Remember, Ed, Bush wasn't elected? And he does seem like a rather harsh punishment for -- I don't know what. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic; unfortunately, I don't usually come across that way even in person.)
As for the free will argument (sarcasm continues, I blame the snow -- my brain is frozen), don't you know God can do anything? Right can be left and left can be right and he's absolutely capable of making a square circle and a purple cow. As for me, I'd rather see one than be one.
Posted by: Donna | December 14, 2007 9:04 AM
God will punish California for allowing gay marriages. We will suffer a catastropic earthquake as a warning to all. Some may not understand why it happened. This understanding only would come with the knowledge of Gods laws.
Posted by: G. Olmos | June 6, 2008 7:21 PM
.
Posted by: G. Olmos | June 6, 2008 7:23 PM
That, or a basic understanding of plate tectonics or even the history of California. What's your next prediction Nostradamus, that Seattle will be punished for it's liberalism with lots of rain?
Oh I know, tornadoes will tear up Kansas for... Actually when was the last time Kansas broke God's laws? Hey God, I think you're aim is off. Try a little more to the west. I hear someone in Denver was nice to a homosexual.
(I know, don't feed the trolls. But damn that felt good.)
Posted by: Abby Normal | June 6, 2008 9:50 PM