In 2014, Right Wing Watch dubbed Rafael Cruz “the poor man’s David Barton” because the speeches he delivers are little more than a recycling of a variety of myths long promoted by Christian-nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton.
Ten years later, Cruz, the father of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, is still out on the Christian nationalist lecture circuit and he’s still spreading Barton-esque lies. Over the weekend, Cruz made an appearance at the 2024 Christians Engaged conference in Texas, where he baselessly claimed that “everything in our government came out of the Bible.”
“Did you know that the Bible tells you exactly who to vote for?” Cruz said, citing a passage from Exodus 18 in which Moses, having led the Israelites out of Egypt, was overwhelmed by the responsibility of having to settle all the disputes that arose, and so his father-in-law, Jethro, urged him to select judges who would hear the simple cases while reserving for Moses the difficult ones and thus easing his burden.
“In Exodus 18: 21, God speaks to Moses through Jethro and he says, ‘You select from among the people,'” Cruz stated. “Now that word ‘select’ is the same as ‘elect.'”
Obviously, the word “select” is not the same as “elect.” As we pointed out years ago when Barton was making this claim, in this passage from Exodus, Moses was instructed to select able men “who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe” and place them as judges over the Israelites. In this case, the people were not instructed to elect their representatives, but rather had their leaders selected by Moses and placed over them, which clearly undermines Cruz’s entire claim.
Undaunted, Cruz continued.
“Do you realize that everything in our government came out of the Bible?” he asked. “Do you know why we have three branches of government? Isaiah 33:22, where God says ‘I am your king, I am your judge, I’m your lawgiver’; executive branch, judicial branch, and legislative branch. Do you know why churches are tax exempt? Ezra 7, which says that the workers of the temple and the Levites should not be taxed. Do you know why we are a Constitutional representative republic and not a democracy? The rest of Exodus 18: 21-22, where he says that after the four qualifications [mentioned above], you set them up as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, rules of ten … That’s equivalent to federal government, state government, county government, local government, school board.”
“Only take up to Moses, that is to the federal government, matters of great importance; everything else you handle yourself at the local level,” Cruz continued. “That’s Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. It’s called the enumerated powers of Congress. [There are] only 18 powers described in Article 1, Section 8. If it isn’t [listed], the federal government has got no jurisdiction and all those powers are reserved to the local government; that’s the Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment. It all came out of the word of God.”
Cruz, like Barton before him, neither provides nor has any evidence to support any of these claims. Nevertheless, he continues to boldly assert them time and again because, like so many other Christian nationalists, he knows that these sorts of myths are useful in bolstering his modern-day right-wing political agenda.
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