I tried reading one of Dobson's books once. The man could not go more than about two pages without referencing the Old Testament. If you look to the Old Testament for moral guidance, you're not moral. In fact, if you need religion to find a moral compass you're just a bad person on a leash. Few things could better demonstrate the disconnect between religion and morality any better than America's religious right.
Also, how one treats animals is a good judge of character. Dobson is a man who wrote about how he beat his little dog to establish dominance, and man who beats a dog that is not attacking him and threatening his life is a moral degenerate piece of shit.
It does not help that the way white Evangelicals read the Old Testament is not from a place of oppression and exile who were trying to maintain their cultural identity in the face of pressure to assimilate, but from a place of power, of whiteness in America, dominance.
And it is impossible to draw any correct moral lessons from the Old Testament if your focus in on dominance and your own continued power and completely ignore the parts condemning those with power and dominance over others.
The evangelicals can talk about their loving Jesus from now on, but if they ever attained the power they crave, the blood-thirsty monster of the OT would be the model they would build the world of their dreams around.
Hard to say, but the Old Testament is a horror story and I find it appalling. I have no more respect for Judaism than I do any other religion. I don't think we need to go back to the Bronze Age in search of moral guidance.
I went for a time to a parochial school--Lutheran--and was taught that the Old Testament was just "a shadow of things to come" and not to pay much heed to its strictures except for the ten commandments. It nevertheless is popular among many (if not all) Christians because it justifies their bigotry.
Before I had heard of Dobson a colleague* had pressed a cassette tape** of his into my hands at a troubled time in my life and urged me to listen to it. I was repulsed by it.
*She was literally one of the dumbest people I have ever known.
"Journalists don’t sufficiently distinguish Christian nationalists from conservative evangelicals who simply and reasonably want to bring their faith to bear on public life."
The GOP-fueled impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas (who's done nothing worthy of impeachment) now moves to the Democratically-controlled Senate where it will be presided over by my own state's senator Patty Murray. Look for her and them to put an end to this petty partisan time-wasting farce.
See? Wouldn't surprise me. There's virtually no chance Mayorkas will be convicted, so the Rethuglikkkans efforts to get revenge for the rightfully twice-impeached Donald "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" Trump have come to naught.
I read that too. The Senate would have to be REALLY PISSED at the House to do such a thing.
Like if Johnson had just cut the legs out from under a bipartisan immigration bill both parties agreed on and voted for. Or leave for a two week vacation without passing the Ukraine/Israel funding.
Man, that would be sweet, but I don't think the Republicans have the balls to do it.
<---See my smile. Mitch is going to drag this out as long as possible. Because otherwise Senate Republicans will have to deal with unimportant stuff, like governing.
The pathetic irony of all this is that nearly all the helpless people crossing into the US are poor, oppressed, uneducated Catholics who obey what the Church tells them to do without question. Exactly the kind of constituents Republicans want and need.
Their own god in their own book tells them not to mistreat foreigners. It even says that foreigners living among them must be treated as native-born and loved.
I know a lot of immigrants and first gen Mexican Americans, and they are a lot more conservative than most people think, because of their Catholicism. Most of the Hispanic families that have been here for generations are very conservative. A couple of BIG Trumpers there.
And this? This is exactly the sort of garbage I'm sick of dealing with from the current white supremacist/Republican/MAGA/Christian nationalist movement. If they can't get the votes the first time, they'll just keep pushing the issue over and over until they get their way: All too often they've managed to force something through the second, third, or fiftieth try.
Mayorkas doesn't deserve this. I'm sure there's some legal reasoning, but it seems to me like Double Jeopardy should apply here. (Not a lawyer!) These white supremacist/Republican/MAGA/Christian nationalist people won't stop here, and it's becoming disturbingly clear that rule of law isn't something they care about.
"Their church may run a food pantry and host Mike Flynn, or someone like him, the following week."
I was shanghaied into attending Pinellas Park Wesleyan Church for awhile. Before then, I had seen lists provided by social service agencies listing food pantries in south county. PPWC was not listed, even though I found out that they did have a food pantry. It was for their congregants only.
They provide charity to someone down on their luck, that person is grateful and sees a benefit to the religion because it helped them, they start telling everyone they know about it, provides a service to someone else down on their luck to bring them into the fold. The charity is designed to bring more people in, not to help the less fortunate.
An MLM sells a product to a customer, the customer likes the product and is convinced they too can sell the product, so they get involved and markets the product to their friends, but they don’t make money by selling the product but getting their friends to sell the business to other friends. The business is designed to bring more people in, not to sell a product.
Oh, you see, but it's okay to overlook the perspectives of those hurt by Christianity with a dismissive, "Well, you weren't REALLY a Christian" or "Just look at Jesus, Hon, not the church" or "Why did you go alone anywhere with the pastor, are you sure you weren't leading him on?" or "Love the sinner, hate the sin" or to go all the way back to the original sin of America, "Well, he's better here than he was in Africa."
So much love! So much good! #sarcasm
White Evangelicalism was born in the oppression and domination and demeaning of Black people. It was born in white supremacy and whether or not one is personally white supremacist (whatever that means) the theology was tainted with it from the beginning and a little leaven leavens the entire loaf. The outlook, the politics, the theology is all corrupted.
"… For all the bad that’s come out of this movement, there are still countless stories of personal transformation leading people to become better parents, better spouses, and better members of their communities."
This struck a nerve, so please bear with me for a moment.
Those 'stories' have been around for 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠. Seriously, they're as old as the New Testament at least, and full of little more than hot air. Sure, okay, some of the people sharing those stories probably do honestly mean well and may have experienced something vaguely like what they're saying; but my experience has long been that those individuals haven't changed to speak of. The Christian echo chamber is rife with stories like that, and from what I've ever been able to tell, they're mostly BS.
So far as I know, nobody's serious trying to argue that no Christian ever does good things. What the public sees is that most Christians are attempting to claim to be better people than the average most of the time; something Christian leaders have consistently failed at. Then, when the opportunity to show the world that being a Christian is the right choice presents itself, the world sees things like January 6th, 2021; an unruly mob of semi-rioting Christians attempting to overthrow the government and install a new dictator over the fairly determined president-elect. If evangelicals aren't happy with the way they're presented in the media, then they need to clean up their own messes and stop blaming the world for their problems, not criticize the individuals pointing out their flaws.
The other thing that Christians and especially evangelical Christians need to acknowledge is that non-Christians do good things as well, and generally aren't as obsessed with drawing attention to what they're doing. Long story short, they don't have a monopoly on charity or empathy, and that deserves to be recognized.
After all, it takes a special kind of narcissism to think the creator of a universe at least 93 trillion light-years across gives a damn what you do with your genitals with consenting adults.
I have never found any deed done by religionistas that cannot be done by ordinary humans with NO gods.
ETA: IF some religionut claimed some god told him to do something how would he/she prove it? There is a reason "God told me" is not a defense in courts.
Christian Nationalists are selfish hypocrites, zealots who would sell out this democracy and foist their narrow, illogical ideology on everyone else. They back some of the worst, fascist billionaires controlling the RNC—the Mercers, the DeVoss-Prince’s, etc. They perpetrate fraud, using their churches to shield income (and why, exactly, does Mike Johnson have no need of a bank account or mortgage?); they violate the separation of Church-State with absolutely NO understanding its Constitutional roots. They promote ignorance and attack our schools, libraries and women’s rights —and no wonder! So many of their make-believe pastors and leaders are involved with fraud, pornography, pedophilia and sex slavery. You need only look to their Dear Leader, Donald Trump and his pals, Jeffrey Epstein & Maxwell, Matt ,Clarence & Ginni Thomas as prime examples of utter corruption in the name of religion.
Then, they rabidly support the Gun industry and foster movements to arm teachers instead of enacting gun laws. Christian Nationalists are liars and traitors in every conceivable way.
> "...evangelicals who simply and reasonably want to bring their faith to bear on public life."
Aye FAITH, and there's the problem. I grew up going to church and although our church didn't have "Faith" in the name (Trinity Presbyterian) many churches did and our minister certainly extolled the value of faith. And that was one (just one) of the reasons I began doubting the minister and the whole God/religion thing. We were taught the biblical line that "faith without works is dead". That pretty much tells you that faith is the useless part of the equation. What is needed is "works" and that has value whether faith is involved or not. So then what good is faith? I looked around, examined the situation, took into account my education and my life experiences, and determined that "FAITH" was actually a bad thing. Ergo, bringing faith into government is a bad thing.
Did this article talk about how Dobson kicks off his book with a charming little story about how he abuses a tiny dog... and then suggests that this provides a really good lesson about how parents should treat their children? Because if you read that story and you think Dobson is anything but a moral monster, I don't see how we have anything to talk about.
True story: a man in my old neighborhood had his mustache ripped off by his dog. Turned out the dog had numerous scars on his muzzle and other body parts. The bastard was beating the shit out of the poor animal who was actually very sweet.
It's also a cult of patriarchy, of misogyny and homophobia which a considerable portion of the evangelical community have taken as indisputable truth. What it is NOT is a cult which regards all of those who might otherwise be regarded as God's Children™ as 𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗟𝗦. That being the case, evangelical Christianity will continue to be at odds not just with American democracy and liberalism but that same attitude which is, slowly but surely, spreading across this planet. Indeed, I just read this morning that Greece is now getting ready to approve of same-sex marriage.
Christianity in general and evangelical Christianity in particular are anachronisms to freedom and reason ... and they deserve to be treated as such.
".. a narrative—perpetuated by scholars, memoirists, and journalists—that evangelicalism is bad for America."
Mindless adherence to ANYTHING is bad for America. Taking ANYTHING on nothing more than faith (no facts needed — or even desired) is bad for America. Disparaging critical thinking is bad for America. All 3 of those are unavoidable, inherent features of evangelicalism.
I think to get a more complete picture when talking about the damage modern evangelicalism is doing to our politics and our culture it’s important to note that we are mostly talking about white evangelicals.
“The same data in 2020 show that Black evangelicals (62%) are twice as likely as all Americans (33%) and three more times as likely as white evangelicals (20%) to identify as Democrats, while only eight percent of Black evangelicals identify as Republicans (compared to 51% of white evangelicals), which explains Trump and Biden’s favorability ratings during 2020. Only 22% of Black evangelicals reported a favorable opinion of former President Trump, while 80% favored President Joe Biden.”
I personally think Evangelicalism alone has a lot of silly beliefs that make it an easy target for derision. But it doesn’t HAVE to be theofascist. I can remember a time decades ago when separation of church and state was a key Baptist principle. The fact that white evangelicalism is now the Church of the Proudboy TikTok is tragic.
Black evangelicals are so different from white evangelicals that I think we need a new term. Evangelicalism as an idea has been so corrupted by (white) Christian Nationalists that the term itself may be irredeemable.
My Grandfather was a Baptist and I imagine him spinning in his grave at how modern Christians WANT the government in their religion. Granted they SAY they want religion in the government but they really don't seem to understand what that would entail.
There are tons of cases where people are far WORSE off than before in spite of them being converted to Christianity at the urging of their parents, preachers, and other evangelical leaders. Does Fea knows about this? Apparently not. That's what every Christian media and literature deliberately leave out when they focus on winning converts to the group.
I tried reading one of Dobson's books once. The man could not go more than about two pages without referencing the Old Testament. If you look to the Old Testament for moral guidance, you're not moral. In fact, if you need religion to find a moral compass you're just a bad person on a leash. Few things could better demonstrate the disconnect between religion and morality any better than America's religious right.
Also, how one treats animals is a good judge of character. Dobson is a man who wrote about how he beat his little dog to establish dominance, and man who beats a dog that is not attacking him and threatening his life is a moral degenerate piece of shit.
There is no horror that cannot be justified in the name of religion.
https://img.ifunny.co/images/9fbd7a75b8b8e3b7e7a9038d98b3c5bf0f0641708e67a57ee8239be96af79ef7_1.webp
𝐼𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑠.
-- Leo Wolf
There’s also
“ Morality is doing what’s right regardless of what you are told
Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what’s right”
Love it. And Trump is a psychopath about to be put on a leash.
It does not help that the way white Evangelicals read the Old Testament is not from a place of oppression and exile who were trying to maintain their cultural identity in the face of pressure to assimilate, but from a place of power, of whiteness in America, dominance.
And it is impossible to draw any correct moral lessons from the Old Testament if your focus in on dominance and your own continued power and completely ignore the parts condemning those with power and dominance over others.
The evangelicals can talk about their loving Jesus from now on, but if they ever attained the power they crave, the blood-thirsty monster of the OT would be the model they would build the world of their dreams around.
Look at how they act now.
They never try to get the Beatitudes posted in government buildings. Always the Ten Commandments.
They never stop trying to mark their territory in the public square.
Great way of putting it! I'm going to use that from now on.
Good ol' Judeo-Christian values once again providing a moral foundation for every atrocity and act of selfishness.
They never met a right wing dictator they didn't love.
You either were very courageous or very bored that day.
Their deity could have banned slavery, instead it banned pork....yet i don't see them protesting hog confinements.
I'm wondering if your comment on the "Old Testament" is a slap in the face to Jews?
Hard to say, but the Old Testament is a horror story and I find it appalling. I have no more respect for Judaism than I do any other religion. I don't think we need to go back to the Bronze Age in search of moral guidance.
Christianity is a slap in the face to Judaism.
Christianity is really more of a 'fuck you' than a slap in the face.
"If you think about it." -- Donald Jesus Trump
I went for a time to a parochial school--Lutheran--and was taught that the Old Testament was just "a shadow of things to come" and not to pay much heed to its strictures except for the ten commandments. It nevertheless is popular among many (if not all) Christians because it justifies their bigotry.
Before I had heard of Dobson a colleague* had pressed a cassette tape** of his into my hands at a troubled time in my life and urged me to listen to it. I was repulsed by it.
*She was literally one of the dumbest people I have ever known.
**This was a long time ago.
"Journalists don’t sufficiently distinguish Christian nationalists from conservative evangelicals who simply and reasonably want to bring their faith to bear on public life."
That's because they are the same thing.
Evangelicals are perhaps the most in need of humility but the least capable of recognizing this need.
OT
The GOP-fueled impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas (who's done nothing worthy of impeachment) now moves to the Democratically-controlled Senate where it will be presided over by my own state's senator Patty Murray. Look for her and them to put an end to this petty partisan time-wasting farce.
I read an article that suggested the Senate might just shelve it.
See? Wouldn't surprise me. There's virtually no chance Mayorkas will be convicted, so the Rethuglikkkans efforts to get revenge for the rightfully twice-impeached Donald "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" Trump have come to naught.
An eye for an eye, that's what the Bible says.
"Any eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind."
--Ghandi
Attributed to him, but he didn't originate it.
I read that too. The Senate would have to be REALLY PISSED at the House to do such a thing.
Like if Johnson had just cut the legs out from under a bipartisan immigration bill both parties agreed on and voted for. Or leave for a two week vacation without passing the Ukraine/Israel funding.
Man, that would be sweet, but I don't think the Republicans have the balls to do it.
<---See my smile. Mitch is going to drag this out as long as possible. Because otherwise Senate Republicans will have to deal with unimportant stuff, like governing.
Mitch isn't in charge.
No, he's definitely not.
The pathetic irony of all this is that nearly all the helpless people crossing into the US are poor, oppressed, uneducated Catholics who obey what the Church tells them to do without question. Exactly the kind of constituents Republicans want and need.
Their own god in their own book tells them not to mistreat foreigners. It even says that foreigners living among them must be treated as native-born and loved.
Why do Rethuglikkkans hate and disobey their god?
Because being 'murican and being Christian are one and the same. Our pastor said so, and he talks to God himself. Every day.
I know a lot of immigrants and first gen Mexican Americans, and they are a lot more conservative than most people think, because of their Catholicism. Most of the Hispanic families that have been here for generations are very conservative. A couple of BIG Trumpers there.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐍𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐚𝐬 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/senate-disgraceful-mayorkas-impeachment.html
And this? This is exactly the sort of garbage I'm sick of dealing with from the current white supremacist/Republican/MAGA/Christian nationalist movement. If they can't get the votes the first time, they'll just keep pushing the issue over and over until they get their way: All too often they've managed to force something through the second, third, or fiftieth try.
Mayorkas doesn't deserve this. I'm sure there's some legal reasoning, but it seems to me like Double Jeopardy should apply here. (Not a lawyer!) These white supremacist/Republican/MAGA/Christian nationalist people won't stop here, and it's becoming disturbingly clear that rule of law isn't something they care about.
https://tenor.com/view/kill-it-with-fire-the-simpsons-gif-9628835
I still prefer to call them nationalist Christians, because the abbreviation nat-Cs is so apt.
I call them nast-Cs.
I wish I could “like” this a thousand times over.
Basically, if you don't become an evangelical Christian, you will burn in the EVERLASTING FIRES OF HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY.....because God loves you....
"Seeing the good in evangelicalism is essential to understanding its appeal to millions of Americans."
More likely, they were brainwashed from birth into it.
"Their church may run a food pantry and host Mike Flynn, or someone like him, the following week."
I was shanghaied into attending Pinellas Park Wesleyan Church for awhile. Before then, I had seen lists provided by social service agencies listing food pantries in south county. PPWC was not listed, even though I found out that they did have a food pantry. It was for their congregants only.
Jesus forgives you for this sin.
The Mormons are just as Christian…food and clothing, but only for those who meet the 10% tithing fee.
It’s advertising or an MLM.
They provide charity to someone down on their luck, that person is grateful and sees a benefit to the religion because it helped them, they start telling everyone they know about it, provides a service to someone else down on their luck to bring them into the fold. The charity is designed to bring more people in, not to help the less fortunate.
An MLM sells a product to a customer, the customer likes the product and is convinced they too can sell the product, so they get involved and markets the product to their friends, but they don’t make money by selling the product but getting their friends to sell the business to other friends. The business is designed to bring more people in, not to sell a product.
Oh, you see, but it's okay to overlook the perspectives of those hurt by Christianity with a dismissive, "Well, you weren't REALLY a Christian" or "Just look at Jesus, Hon, not the church" or "Why did you go alone anywhere with the pastor, are you sure you weren't leading him on?" or "Love the sinner, hate the sin" or to go all the way back to the original sin of America, "Well, he's better here than he was in Africa."
So much love! So much good! #sarcasm
White Evangelicalism was born in the oppression and domination and demeaning of Black people. It was born in white supremacy and whether or not one is personally white supremacist (whatever that means) the theology was tainted with it from the beginning and a little leaven leavens the entire loaf. The outlook, the politics, the theology is all corrupted.
"… For all the bad that’s come out of this movement, there are still countless stories of personal transformation leading people to become better parents, better spouses, and better members of their communities."
This struck a nerve, so please bear with me for a moment.
Those 'stories' have been around for 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠. Seriously, they're as old as the New Testament at least, and full of little more than hot air. Sure, okay, some of the people sharing those stories probably do honestly mean well and may have experienced something vaguely like what they're saying; but my experience has long been that those individuals haven't changed to speak of. The Christian echo chamber is rife with stories like that, and from what I've ever been able to tell, they're mostly BS.
So far as I know, nobody's serious trying to argue that no Christian ever does good things. What the public sees is that most Christians are attempting to claim to be better people than the average most of the time; something Christian leaders have consistently failed at. Then, when the opportunity to show the world that being a Christian is the right choice presents itself, the world sees things like January 6th, 2021; an unruly mob of semi-rioting Christians attempting to overthrow the government and install a new dictator over the fairly determined president-elect. If evangelicals aren't happy with the way they're presented in the media, then they need to clean up their own messes and stop blaming the world for their problems, not criticize the individuals pointing out their flaws.
The other thing that Christians and especially evangelical Christians need to acknowledge is that non-Christians do good things as well, and generally aren't as obsessed with drawing attention to what they're doing. Long story short, they don't have a monopoly on charity or empathy, and that deserves to be recognized.
After all, it takes a special kind of narcissism to think the creator of a universe at least 93 trillion light-years across gives a damn what you do with your genitals with consenting adults.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/789ab6837f1011ebc720125793292a8dfa1a843ce5e2357e826ffcfe18cb4891.jpg
I have never found any deed done by religionistas that cannot be done by ordinary humans with NO gods.
ETA: IF some religionut claimed some god told him to do something how would he/she prove it? There is a reason "God told me" is not a defense in courts.
Given their penchant for unrepentant lying, I’d take those stories with a double dose of skepticism.
Christian Nationalists are selfish hypocrites, zealots who would sell out this democracy and foist their narrow, illogical ideology on everyone else. They back some of the worst, fascist billionaires controlling the RNC—the Mercers, the DeVoss-Prince’s, etc. They perpetrate fraud, using their churches to shield income (and why, exactly, does Mike Johnson have no need of a bank account or mortgage?); they violate the separation of Church-State with absolutely NO understanding its Constitutional roots. They promote ignorance and attack our schools, libraries and women’s rights —and no wonder! So many of their make-believe pastors and leaders are involved with fraud, pornography, pedophilia and sex slavery. You need only look to their Dear Leader, Donald Trump and his pals, Jeffrey Epstein & Maxwell, Matt ,Clarence & Ginni Thomas as prime examples of utter corruption in the name of religion.
Then, they rabidly support the Gun industry and foster movements to arm teachers instead of enacting gun laws. Christian Nationalists are liars and traitors in every conceivable way.
KKKristers HATE persecution. Until they have enough power to persecute others, that is. Then they suddenly LOVE persecution. Of others, not them.
> "...evangelicals who simply and reasonably want to bring their faith to bear on public life."
Aye FAITH, and there's the problem. I grew up going to church and although our church didn't have "Faith" in the name (Trinity Presbyterian) many churches did and our minister certainly extolled the value of faith. And that was one (just one) of the reasons I began doubting the minister and the whole God/religion thing. We were taught the biblical line that "faith without works is dead". That pretty much tells you that faith is the useless part of the equation. What is needed is "works" and that has value whether faith is involved or not. So then what good is faith? I looked around, examined the situation, took into account my education and my life experiences, and determined that "FAITH" was actually a bad thing. Ergo, bringing faith into government is a bad thing.
Did this article talk about how Dobson kicks off his book with a charming little story about how he abuses a tiny dog... and then suggests that this provides a really good lesson about how parents should treat their children? Because if you read that story and you think Dobson is anything but a moral monster, I don't see how we have anything to talk about.
True story: a man in my old neighborhood had his mustache ripped off by his dog. Turned out the dog had numerous scars on his muzzle and other body parts. The bastard was beating the shit out of the poor animal who was actually very sweet.
My Rhapsodie would have taken it without protest, I am not sure for Aria but Fidèle*, my first dog, didn't take shit from anyone.
* Hyper dominant doggess. Thanks DM.
𝑊𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢, ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑟𝑒 𝐷𝑎𝑚𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒.
-- Sam Harris
It's also a cult of patriarchy, of misogyny and homophobia which a considerable portion of the evangelical community have taken as indisputable truth. What it is NOT is a cult which regards all of those who might otherwise be regarded as God's Children™ as 𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗟𝗦. That being the case, evangelical Christianity will continue to be at odds not just with American democracy and liberalism but that same attitude which is, slowly but surely, spreading across this planet. Indeed, I just read this morning that Greece is now getting ready to approve of same-sex marriage.
Christianity in general and evangelical Christianity in particular are anachronisms to freedom and reason ... and they deserve to be treated as such.
Freedom is only for them.
".. a narrative—perpetuated by scholars, memoirists, and journalists—that evangelicalism is bad for America."
Mindless adherence to ANYTHING is bad for America. Taking ANYTHING on nothing more than faith (no facts needed — or even desired) is bad for America. Disparaging critical thinking is bad for America. All 3 of those are unavoidable, inherent features of evangelicalism.
Bad for the world. Christianity is alive, well, and actively destroying all 168 nations as we speak. (So is Islam and Judaism, too.)
I think to get a more complete picture when talking about the damage modern evangelicalism is doing to our politics and our culture it’s important to note that we are mostly talking about white evangelicals.
“The same data in 2020 show that Black evangelicals (62%) are twice as likely as all Americans (33%) and three more times as likely as white evangelicals (20%) to identify as Democrats, while only eight percent of Black evangelicals identify as Republicans (compared to 51% of white evangelicals), which explains Trump and Biden’s favorability ratings during 2020. Only 22% of Black evangelicals reported a favorable opinion of former President Trump, while 80% favored President Joe Biden.”
I personally think Evangelicalism alone has a lot of silly beliefs that make it an easy target for derision. But it doesn’t HAVE to be theofascist. I can remember a time decades ago when separation of church and state was a key Baptist principle. The fact that white evangelicalism is now the Church of the Proudboy TikTok is tragic.
Black evangelicals are so different from white evangelicals that I think we need a new term. Evangelicalism as an idea has been so corrupted by (white) Christian Nationalists that the term itself may be irredeemable.
My Grandfather was a Baptist and I imagine him spinning in his grave at how modern Christians WANT the government in their religion. Granted they SAY they want religion in the government but they really don't seem to understand what that would entail.
There are tons of cases where people are far WORSE off than before in spite of them being converted to Christianity at the urging of their parents, preachers, and other evangelical leaders. Does Fea knows about this? Apparently not. That's what every Christian media and literature deliberately leave out when they focus on winning converts to the group.