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Notes -
I think you left out a 5th option, enemy action. What happens when a sociopath infiltrates the church, makes all the right mouth sounds, and uses their superior verbal intelligence to hoodwink the congregation into beliefs and actions antithetical to their core beliefs or interest?
I picked Bari Weiss for my example, because this is a woman with a singular interest. What's best for Israel and Jews. She's not shy about it at all. I mean if you put it like that to her, she'd deny it. But then she'd go on to prove the accusation correct with no possible alternative with every word and deed. She's thrown enough red meat to the right that now the left hates her, but that's only so she can lead and pace an increasingly Israel skeptical right wing back in the direction of backstopping Israel's well being at the expense of their own.
Some people seem to get an almost sexual glee out of rewriting reality in front of people's eyes. I think often of that scene in Batman Begins where Falcone is bragging that he could shoot Bruce Wayne in front of a hundred witnesses, including law enforcement, and everyone would ignore their lying eyes and parrot whatever he says happened. Alternately, if you've ever dated a woman with BPD, letting them gaslight you turns them on like almost nothing else. Not that I recommend it.
The problem with the Church is the same problem with Western Civilization at the moment. Christian Charity. They are so willfully blind to enemy action, cannibals could be harvesting their flesh and they'd try to come up with a plausible alternate explanation.
That Nation article/hit piece you've linked as presumable evidence against Weiss isn't particularly compelling.
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