I think it goes beyond the politics. They constantly tell their flock that the only way to be a good Christian is to be conservative. He is a very public counter-example, proving them wrong just by existing (in the public eye).
Oh man, CP has an anti-Talarico article at least once a week. Many are quite a stretch. I’ve inquired what Talarico’s veterinarian’s sister’s lawn service owner’s pastor thinks.
Talarico is showing the right wing, especially the evangelicals, that their leadership is lying to them about democrats. The whole “you can’t be a Christian and vote democrat” schpiel is being demolished by current society. Where day in and day out a Republican is being charged or convicted of heinous crimes against women children and family values, where their best candidate is a divorced predator convicted of fraud at the highest government level in the state and he’s going against a freakin Eagle Scout who is demonstrably Christian and lets no one forget it. (I expect Talarico to have some flaw, that might come out to bite him, no one is perfect [well, there was this one guy, but they killed him😜]) Reality, if one bothers to look at it, puts paid to the lie that democrats can’t be Christian. And the more the right fights to prove the lie, the more they lose the battles over it.
But the fight isn’t over. We need to make a real statement in November, and then we need to hold our politicians’ feet to the fire and not let up ever. Not being vigilant is what got us here in the first place.
Except that Talarico is not a Real Christian (TM). And neither are Dems. I’ve seen it in CP comments that anyone who votes for a Dem is not a True Christian.
And this, more than anything, is what has conservative panties in a twist. To them, language matters because of the patriarchal authoritarianism they espouse. They hate preferred pronouns because using them prevents them from forcing others into their narrow little boxes. God must be male, because men are always at the top of their power structure. "[I]t is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is". And that's the takeaway these conservatives want girls to get. That they are less than.
They are mad that Rigby welcomes atheists because the atheists aren't coming to their churches for high pressure conversion. They are going to Rigby's church because of shared values.
While my worldview doesn't include a "Christian God", those in the church I go to know I'm not Christian as they are: no public prayer (but I can bow my head), no communion (just creepy), and I wear jeans, a "message shirt" and sneakers, and I'm VERY political. (And NO ONE wants me to sing....)
But I love the responsiveness in this majority-Black church! It's so much fun to yell out in public! And clap! An hour, and it's time to go home for another week. It really is wonderful!
So, why aren't all churches like the one I go to, where I don't think people could be more supportive? They see me as a human being, not someone who exists solely to support their bigoted viewpoint.
The evangelical crowd only wants to associate with people they agree with. Everyone else is part of the out-group to be feared and scorned. I'm a Texas resident who will vote for Talarico if for no other reason Ken Paxton is an awful human being. That said, I do not like politicians of any stripe putting their religiosity forward as something that qualifies them for public office.
“…Talarico once saying “God is non-binary” because God shouldn’t be defined by a gender. (That, by the way, is something many conservative Christians believe, too.)”
Well… they say they believe this, this is something that is supposed to be cannon, however, the church is and always has been male centric and therefore god is more male than female. I mean, Adam was created first and Eve as an afterthought (and apparently a second draft, hi Lilith) so of course god is a man since he created Adam in his image and Eve from Adam’s rib. Let’s not forget Christianity’s history, and Jewish and Islam, is patriarchy with an omnipotent leader.
These are nice words this preacher, but they are not really supported in reality. There’s a lot that Christians believe that they do not practice.
Virtually nothing of Christianity is based in reality, but Rigby at least thinks that being inclusive rather than exclusive is more productive and more positive.
To test them on how strongly they believe God shouldn't be defined by a gender, refer to God using she/her pronouns within earshot. Time how long it takes for their heads to explode.
When I comment at CP I always structure my sentences to say “your god” or “the Christian god” etc. That way I am using proper English by not capitalizing a non-proper noun. This irks some people there who think I should be writing “God”. And when they admonish me, I refer them to a grammar guide.
“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”
-Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
[Mr. Rigby does not use male pronouns for God, for example, because it is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is, he said in an interview after the service. He does not use the word “Lord,” because it conjures a wealthy, European, male God, he said.]
Those are the exact reasons why conservative fundamentalists need God to have a gigantic godly mega-cock.
So that men are superior to women and rich and white men are superior to everyone else.
They worship power. Brute force power. They want a cruel, powerful tyrant who orders murder of anyone defined as "Them" and not "Us." They want a king with a massive penis and balls who build an eternal medieval torture chamber for the people defined as enemies, people who refuse to recognize the superiority of "Us" and obey "Us".
They are the angry, bitter, hateful, resentful son from the story of the Two Prodigal Sons. The one who gets angry at God for welcoming "Those" people into the house and throwing a party for Them. The story ends with that son still being petulant and hateful refusing to go into the party and enjoy himself.
To humble themselves is terrifying to them. Giving up unearned power terrifies them. Giving up their core identity as a superior being in the hierarchy they've inherited and maintained terrifies them.
I will take a guess and say that the Islamic temples that accepted you were not of the Wahhabi / Salafist ilk, and the Judaic and Christian houses of worship were of a similarly liberal bent.
I appreciate Talarico’s inclusive flavor of Christianity. I still don’t want to be any part of it. Anyone with the slightest bit of sanity left understands that they hate Talarico because he believes the separation of church and state is extremely important. THAT is dangerous! If this is what Texas needs to see the light, good luck to them on their very long journey ahead (back into reality).
They don't understand how much separation of church and state protects them. They can't grasp the idea thatbif church and state merge, the state might be someone else's church. How much blood was spilled during the last 5 centuries in fights over whether or not Protestants or Catholics should run things?
It's been a loooong time since baptists felt the negative effects of non-separation in the US. They're willing to risk it because they think they have the numbers to be the theology of political choice and because none of them alive today has any experience otherwise.
Oh they're for separation of a different church and state. We see it every time they get paranoid about "Shaira Law". They think their church should be the exception.
Seems a bit too much bendy-over-backwards for my taste. For instance, I'd rather a pastor handed me a bible that has accurate transliteration and well understood translations for vernacular phrases than a bible that language-policed out all the 'bad words' for progressive euphemisms. Theologically, philosophically, academically I think its worth grappling with what these books *actually* say rather than what we might have preferred they say.
But agree with Hemant, tempest in a teapot. Frankly the right-wing spin machine will take literally anythnig Talarico or his associates say and try and turn it into something bad. The dude could look up and say "what a pretty blue sky" and they'd crank out "OMG Talarico thinks some colors are more objectively beautiful than others!!!11!!!" or something idiotic like that.
The assumption that Christians are well-intentioned is harder to maintain when they won’t afford others that same assumption simply because they don’t share beliefs
Check me on this, but didn't Jesus consort with tax collectors and other sinners whom the Pharisees and Sadducees tended to treat as something less than human? Pastor Rigby seems to be following the same playbook, and I think that is what setting MAGA off.
Rigby wants to practice a religion of inclusion, rather than a religion of exclusion. The angry bible thumpers don't deal well with that, and I can't help but notice that their efforts to discredit Rigby are falling flat on their individual and collective faces.
Rigby likes working with atheists, and given a chance, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't mind working with him.
When a religion or politics says "only our way to X leads to success; all others lead to failure" and someone comes along and is happy and prosperous doing X a different way, it poses an existential threat to that religion's temporal power and they react viciously to it. They can't allow their followers to know options exist. This is why places like the USSR (in the past), NK, and to a lesser extent modern China limit outside information access. It's why Iran doesn't like their people listening to western media; they have based their reputation on social order on the claim that their way is the only or best way to be happy...when the outside world shows this to be false. So they must limit access to, and attack, the outside world.
Those are big cases, this is a small one, but it's the same thing: right-wing conservative evangelicals are having absolute fits that Talarico is showing southern evangelical Christians that there's a happy, prosperous, successful way to Christian liberally. They want him gone not just because he might win an election, but because his public existence undermines their claims to be the theological and civil 'best way' to be.
The Christianity I grew up with far better resembled what Rigby is promoting than the angry bible thumpers we hear about all too often. Rigby and Talarico rub against their grain, Talarico doing so publicly with his campaign for the Senate. He makes a lie of their corrosive Christianity by providing a stark contrast to it.
Why are they so afraid of Talarico? His message resonates with the electorate and threatens their stranglehold on the levers of power.
He challenges their "ownership" of Christianity.
He also practices a Christianity that is virtually 180° opposed to theirs.
By all appearances he's a decent human being, and that terrifies them.
I think it goes beyond the politics. They constantly tell their flock that the only way to be a good Christian is to be conservative. He is a very public counter-example, proving them wrong just by existing (in the public eye).
Oh man, CP has an anti-Talarico article at least once a week. Many are quite a stretch. I’ve inquired what Talarico’s veterinarian’s sister’s lawn service owner’s pastor thinks.
Talarico is showing the right wing, especially the evangelicals, that their leadership is lying to them about democrats. The whole “you can’t be a Christian and vote democrat” schpiel is being demolished by current society. Where day in and day out a Republican is being charged or convicted of heinous crimes against women children and family values, where their best candidate is a divorced predator convicted of fraud at the highest government level in the state and he’s going against a freakin Eagle Scout who is demonstrably Christian and lets no one forget it. (I expect Talarico to have some flaw, that might come out to bite him, no one is perfect [well, there was this one guy, but they killed him😜]) Reality, if one bothers to look at it, puts paid to the lie that democrats can’t be Christian. And the more the right fights to prove the lie, the more they lose the battles over it.
But the fight isn’t over. We need to make a real statement in November, and then we need to hold our politicians’ feet to the fire and not let up ever. Not being vigilant is what got us here in the first place.
Except that Talarico is not a Real Christian (TM). And neither are Dems. I’ve seen it in CP comments that anyone who votes for a Dem is not a True Christian.
And the bagpipes just keep on bagpiping! 😁
The Highlands Festival never ends.
Would that i could toss a caber onto them...
Bet they don’t even wear their kilts in the true Scots tradition.
𝑅𝑖𝑔𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑎𝑦.
And this, more than anything, is what has conservative panties in a twist. To them, language matters because of the patriarchal authoritarianism they espouse. They hate preferred pronouns because using them prevents them from forcing others into their narrow little boxes. God must be male, because men are always at the top of their power structure. "[I]t is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is". And that's the takeaway these conservatives want girls to get. That they are less than.
They are mad that Rigby welcomes atheists because the atheists aren't coming to their churches for high pressure conversion. They are going to Rigby's church because of shared values.
Hi Joe,
While my worldview doesn't include a "Christian God", those in the church I go to know I'm not Christian as they are: no public prayer (but I can bow my head), no communion (just creepy), and I wear jeans, a "message shirt" and sneakers, and I'm VERY political. (And NO ONE wants me to sing....)
But I love the responsiveness in this majority-Black church! It's so much fun to yell out in public! And clap! An hour, and it's time to go home for another week. It really is wonderful!
So, why aren't all churches like the one I go to, where I don't think people could be more supportive? They see me as a human being, not someone who exists solely to support their bigoted viewpoint.
The evangelical crowd only wants to associate with people they agree with. Everyone else is part of the out-group to be feared and scorned. I'm a Texas resident who will vote for Talarico if for no other reason Ken Paxton is an awful human being. That said, I do not like politicians of any stripe putting their religiosity forward as something that qualifies them for public office.
“…Talarico once saying “God is non-binary” because God shouldn’t be defined by a gender. (That, by the way, is something many conservative Christians believe, too.)”
Well… they say they believe this, this is something that is supposed to be cannon, however, the church is and always has been male centric and therefore god is more male than female. I mean, Adam was created first and Eve as an afterthought (and apparently a second draft, hi Lilith) so of course god is a man since he created Adam in his image and Eve from Adam’s rib. Let’s not forget Christianity’s history, and Jewish and Islam, is patriarchy with an omnipotent leader.
These are nice words this preacher, but they are not really supported in reality. There’s a lot that Christians believe that they do not practice.
Virtually nothing of Christianity is based in reality, but Rigby at least thinks that being inclusive rather than exclusive is more productive and more positive.
I'll sign up for that everyday of the week.
To test them on how strongly they believe God shouldn't be defined by a gender, refer to God using she/her pronouns within earshot. Time how long it takes for their heads to explode.
When I comment at CP I always structure my sentences to say “your god” or “the Christian god” etc. That way I am using proper English by not capitalizing a non-proper noun. This irks some people there who think I should be writing “God”. And when they admonish me, I refer them to a grammar guide.
OT:
“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”
-Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
[Mr. Rigby does not use male pronouns for God, for example, because it is a kind of “violence” to imply to a girl that her brother is more like God than she is, he said in an interview after the service. He does not use the word “Lord,” because it conjures a wealthy, European, male God, he said.]
Those are the exact reasons why conservative fundamentalists need God to have a gigantic godly mega-cock.
So that men are superior to women and rich and white men are superior to everyone else.
They worship power. Brute force power. They want a cruel, powerful tyrant who orders murder of anyone defined as "Them" and not "Us." They want a king with a massive penis and balls who build an eternal medieval torture chamber for the people defined as enemies, people who refuse to recognize the superiority of "Us" and obey "Us".
They are the angry, bitter, hateful, resentful son from the story of the Two Prodigal Sons. The one who gets angry at God for welcoming "Those" people into the house and throwing a party for Them. The story ends with that son still being petulant and hateful refusing to go into the party and enjoy himself.
To humble themselves is terrifying to them. Giving up unearned power terrifies them. Giving up their core identity as a superior being in the hierarchy they've inherited and maintained terrifies them.
They don't play well with others, either!
They see the others as the toys to play with and not the fellow players to share with.
Anytime they do humble themselves, it is to god only, and it is performative rather than true humility.
if there's one thing that makes Jesus a grumpy Gus it's people who read his dad’s book and assume he's Mexican.
Names and links, please.....
WELL, somebody got ratioed....
That's why they call me Fraction Man. Three and one over two fifths of an ordinary human!
I don't understand your mathematical terminology.....
So you must have an IQ of at LEAST 100! (Tri-Dig)
Ah, it's my old foe, Integer Man!
Another OT on point:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdgsJ1Mxsxv/?stkn=MWhscjlyM2Q0N2s5bA==
I will take a guess and say that the Islamic temples that accepted you were not of the Wahhabi / Salafist ilk, and the Judaic and Christian houses of worship were of a similarly liberal bent.
Just spitballing here. 😁
I appreciate Talarico’s inclusive flavor of Christianity. I still don’t want to be any part of it. Anyone with the slightest bit of sanity left understands that they hate Talarico because he believes the separation of church and state is extremely important. THAT is dangerous! If this is what Texas needs to see the light, good luck to them on their very long journey ahead (back into reality).
They don't understand how much separation of church and state protects them. They can't grasp the idea thatbif church and state merge, the state might be someone else's church. How much blood was spilled during the last 5 centuries in fights over whether or not Protestants or Catholics should run things?
It's been a loooong time since baptists felt the negative effects of non-separation in the US. They're willing to risk it because they think they have the numbers to be the theology of political choice and because none of them alive today has any experience otherwise.
Unfortunately we all have to suffer through their f**k around and find out phase via fascism. Unforgivable
Oh they're for separation of a different church and state. We see it every time they get paranoid about "Shaira Law". They think their church should be the exception.
💯 It’s absolutely mind boggling
Seems a bit too much bendy-over-backwards for my taste. For instance, I'd rather a pastor handed me a bible that has accurate transliteration and well understood translations for vernacular phrases than a bible that language-policed out all the 'bad words' for progressive euphemisms. Theologically, philosophically, academically I think its worth grappling with what these books *actually* say rather than what we might have preferred they say.
But agree with Hemant, tempest in a teapot. Frankly the right-wing spin machine will take literally anythnig Talarico or his associates say and try and turn it into something bad. The dude could look up and say "what a pretty blue sky" and they'd crank out "OMG Talarico thinks some colors are more objectively beautiful than others!!!11!!!" or something idiotic like that.
Internecine warfare. Bring out the artillery! 💣💥
...and leave me out of it.
The assumption that Christians are well-intentioned is harder to maintain when they won’t afford others that same assumption simply because they don’t share beliefs
Non-binary? According to the the Jews, YHVH doesn't have a physical form at all. Christians came up with that.
And pronouns? You're not even supposed to pronounce the Jewish god's name (hence YHVH).
Parker (of "Parkergetajob") just made that very point in a YouTube Short, not that long ago. If I can find it, I'll post it.
Check me on this, but didn't Jesus consort with tax collectors and other sinners whom the Pharisees and Sadducees tended to treat as something less than human? Pastor Rigby seems to be following the same playbook, and I think that is what setting MAGA off.
Rigby wants to practice a religion of inclusion, rather than a religion of exclusion. The angry bible thumpers don't deal well with that, and I can't help but notice that their efforts to discredit Rigby are falling flat on their individual and collective faces.
Rigby likes working with atheists, and given a chance, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't mind working with him.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." Rigby and Talarico have good fruit. Paxton's fruit was rotten before he harvested.
When a religion or politics says "only our way to X leads to success; all others lead to failure" and someone comes along and is happy and prosperous doing X a different way, it poses an existential threat to that religion's temporal power and they react viciously to it. They can't allow their followers to know options exist. This is why places like the USSR (in the past), NK, and to a lesser extent modern China limit outside information access. It's why Iran doesn't like their people listening to western media; they have based their reputation on social order on the claim that their way is the only or best way to be happy...when the outside world shows this to be false. So they must limit access to, and attack, the outside world.
Those are big cases, this is a small one, but it's the same thing: right-wing conservative evangelicals are having absolute fits that Talarico is showing southern evangelical Christians that there's a happy, prosperous, successful way to Christian liberally. They want him gone not just because he might win an election, but because his public existence undermines their claims to be the theological and civil 'best way' to be.
The Christianity I grew up with far better resembled what Rigby is promoting than the angry bible thumpers we hear about all too often. Rigby and Talarico rub against their grain, Talarico doing so publicly with his campaign for the Senate. He makes a lie of their corrosive Christianity by providing a stark contrast to it.
And it's WORKING.