Opinion: Trump should fill Christians with rage. How come he doesn’t?
By: Michael Gerson
An interesting essay, along the lines of the quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi :
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In many American places on a pleasant Sunday afternoon it is possible, as I recently did, to have coffee in the city at a bohemian cafe draped with rainbow banners, then to drive 30 or 45 minutes into the country to find small towns where Confederate and Trump flags are flown. The United States sometimes feels like two nations, divided by adornments defiantly affirming their political and cultural affinities.
Much of cosmopolitan America holds to a progressive framework of bodily autonomy, boundless tolerance and group rights — a largely post-religious morality applied with near-religious intensity. But as a religious person (on my better days), what concerns me are the perverse and dangerous liberties many believers have taken with their own faith. Much of what considers itself Christian America has assumed the symbols and identity of white authoritarian populism — an alliance that is a serious, unfolding threat to liberal democracy.
From one perspective, the Christian embrace of populist politics is understandable. The disorienting flux of American ethical norms and the condescension of progressive elites have incited a defensive reaction among many conservative religious people — a belief that they are outsiders in their own land. They feel reviled for opposinggender ideologythat seems to have arrived just yesterday, or forstating views on marriagethatBarack Obama once held. They fear their values are under assault by an inexorable modernity, in the form of government, big business, media and academia.
Leaders in the Republican Party have fed, justified and exploited conservative Christians’ defensiveness in service to an aggressive, reactionary politics. This has includeddeadly mask and vaccine resistance, thediscrediting of fair elections, baseless accusations ofgay “grooming” in schools, thesilencing of teachingabout the United States’ history of racism, and (for some) a patently false belief that Godlessconspiracieshave taken hold of political institutions.
Some religious leaders have fueled the urgency of this agenda with apocalyptic rhetoric, in which the Christian church is under Neronian persecution by elites displaying Caligulan values. But the credibility of religious conservatives is undermined by the friends they have chosen to keep. Their political alignment with MAGA activists has given exposure and greater legitimacy to once-fringe ideas, includingConfederate nostalgia,white nationalism,antisemitism,replacement theoryand QAnon accusations ofsatanic child sacrificeby liberal politicians.
Surveying the transgressive malevolence of the radical right, one is forced to conclude: If this is not moral ruin, then there are no moral rules. The division between progressive and reactionary America does not fall neatly along the urban-rural divide. There are conservative megachurches in liberal strongholds, and Democratic-leaning minority groups in parts of rural America. But the electoral facts reveal a cultural conflict worsened by geographic sorting.
For decades, population density has been increasingly associated with partisan identification — the more dense, the more Democratic; the less dense, the more Republican. America might be united by its highways, but it is politically split along its beltways. Islands of urban, liberal blue dot a vast sea of rural, conservative red. And because the mechanisms that produce U.S. senators andelectoral collegeelectors skew in favor of geography over population, rural and small-town America starts with a distinct political advantage — the ability totransform fewer votes into better outcomes.
All this leaves portions of the nation boiling with righteous resentment. Many progressives feel cheated by a political system rigged by the Founders against them. Many religious conservatives feel despised by the broader culture and in need of political protection. In the United States, grievance is structural and is becoming supreme.
Anxious evangelicals have taken to voting for right-wing authoritarians who promise to fight their fights — not onlyDonald Trump, but increasingly, hismanyimitators. It has been said that when you choose your community, you choose your character. Strangely, evangelicals have broadly chosen the company of Trump supporters who deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue. In the place of integrity, the Trump movement has elevated a warped kind of authenticity — the authenticity of unfiltered abuse, imperious ignorance, untamed egotism and reflexive bigotry.
This is inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure. Yet the discontent, prejudices and delusions of religious conservatives helped swell the populist wave thatlapped up on the steps of the Capitolon Jan. 6, 2021. During that assault,Christian bannersmixed with theiconography of white supremacy, in a manner that should have choked Christian participants with rage. But it didn’t.
Conservative Christians’ beliefs on the nature of politics, and the content of their cultural nightmares, are directly relevant to the future of our whole society, for a simple reason: The destinies of rural and urban America are inextricably connected. It matters greatly if evangelicals in the wide, scarlet spaces are desensitized to extremism, diminished in decency and badly distorting the meaning of Christianity itself — as I believe many are.
To grasp how, and why, it’s important to begin at the beginning.
"The Miracle of Christ on the Sea of Galilee," engraving by Herman Müller, 1574. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
History can be a strange and foreign place to visit. But Palestine in the first century A.D., when Jesus gathered his movement, holds a mirror to our times: It was a period of social unrest in which relatively minor provocations could lead to mass protests and violence — and when Christianity (initially the Jesus movement within Judaism) was founded as a revolt against the elites.
The Holy Land was riven by a culture war. On one side were Greek cultural imperialism and Rome’s brutal occupation. On the other was a Jewish people committed to preserving its identity but divided between accommodation and violent resistance. Conflict often played out along an urban-rural divide. Cities were relatively cosmopolitan. The countryside was religiously conservative. And it was from the latter — the Galilean cultural backwater — that Jesus emerged.
Residents of Galilee, who spoke their native Aramaic with a distinct accent, weresometimes dismissed as hicks. More sophisticated Jews thought them ignorant of the Torah. But Galileans were highly religious and respectful of the temple cult in Jerusalem. Most were peasants who engaged in agriculture and fishing and lived in small villages. Jesus’ hometown, Nazareth, probably counted400 residents. When the future disciple Bartholomew first heard about Jesus, his response was revealingly dismissive: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
The lower classes in Galilee, according to recent studies, were routinely exploited by the wealthy, creating an undercurrent of economic discontent. The people resented the tribute paid to Rome, the Jewish officials paid to collect it, and the whole idea of being dominated and defiled by a pagan power.
Roman officials, as elites are wont to do, fed these resentments by arrogantly, or stupidly, violating local and religious customs. Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea — whom we know from the criminal sentencing of Jesus — brought military standards decorated with images of the Roman emperor into Jerusalem in the dead of night, inciting a throng of offended Jewish protesters tobare their necks for executionrather than live to see such sacrilege. Pilate alsostole moneyfrom the treasury of the Jerusalem Temple to build an aqueduct — and dispersed an angry, unarmed crowd withbloody blows.
Full-scale, armed rebellion by the Jewish people was still decades away. And during this period, the rule of Rome’s proxy in Galilee, Herod Antipas, was relatively benign. Yet before and after Jesus, a line of holy men and malcontents gathered supporters to challenge Roman control. They usually got quashed by marching legions. But most Jews lived in aching longing for Israel’s national restoration, brought about by a revolutionary leader or a messianic king.
Put another way: People were primed for a militant, populist uprising to take back the Holy Land for God. This was the milieu entered by Jesus, inabout 28 A.D.
Jesus did not spend any time (according to the records we have) spreading his message in the Romanized cities. This might have reflected a desire to avoid immediate conflict with Roman authorities and their Jewish proxies — the kind of clash that cost Jesus’ prophetic predecessor John the Baptist his head. Yet Jesus also preached in the countryside because it was where He received his most enthusiastic reception. Rather than cultivating connections to the wealthy, He sought the company of people of low social status. And they appreciated it.
In the present day, the frightening fervor of our politics makes it resemble, and sometimes supplant, the role of religion. And a good portion of Americans have a fatal attraction to the oddest of political messiahs — one whose deception, brutality, lawlessness and bullying were rewarded with the presidency. But so it is, to some extent, withallpolitical messiahs who make their gains by imposing losses on others and measure their influence in increments of domination.
Jesus consciously and constantly rejected this view of power. While accepting the title “Messiah,” He sought to transform its meaning. He gathered no army. He skillfully avoided a political confrontation with Rome. He said little about history’s inevitably decomposing dynasties. He declared instead a struggle of the human heart — and a populist uprising, not in the sense of modern politics, but against established religious authorities.
His rhetorical sparring partners were often the Pharisees, who sometimes don’t get a fair shake in the Gospels. They were part of a lay movement teaching that the piety and purity expected of priests should apply to the whole Jewish people. According to the Gospels, they occasionally invited Jesus to their homes for an evening of dinner and debate. One gets the impression that Jesus argued so adamantly with them because they had so many convictions in common: They shared beliefs in the importance of the Torah, in outreach to average people and in the eventual resurrection of the dead. But it was Jesus’ reinterpretation of these commitments that eventually (many years later) split Christianity from Judaism.
Jesus tested the boundaries of his faith. He intensified the moral demands of Jewish law by teaching that God expected the full transformation of inner motives. At the same time, He de-emphasized the ritual distinctives of the law, including Sabbath observance and dietary restrictions. “The Sabbath was made for man,” He said, “not man for the Sabbath.” And: “A man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of it.”
Jesus was an observant Jew, but one who redirected the meaning of observance. Rather than emphasizing the elements of his faith that set God’s people apart from other nations, He focused on the elements of Judaism with universal application: to love God, to love one’s neighbor, to love enemies and strangers. These themes were previewed by Hebrew prophets such as Isaiah; Jesus pressed them further. This was not the abandonment of Israel’s God, but an unmediated, intimate way to understand and approach Him — one that circumvented the Temple and its burnt offerings.
This earned Jesus the enmity of the religious establishment and the Roman administration, both of which feared the social and political dislocation that often accompanies religious reform. It was enough to secure for Jesus a shameful execution in the company of thieves. But the inclusive faith He taught went on to resonate with people throughout the centuries and across the globe.
The ethos of the Jesus movement was anti-elitist. But it is the substance of its critique that mattered (and still matters) most:
- Jesus preached against religious hypocrisy — the public display of piety that hides inner corruption and imposes a merciless virtue on others. The Pharisees, at one point, were subjected to seven “woes” by Jesus, in the spirit of this one: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.” The idea was not only that religious figures should practice what they preach. It was that religious observance could divert them from God’s true priorities, convincing them they were righteous even when they missed the main points of their faith.
- Jesus welcomed social outcasts whom polite society rejected — people with leprosy, prostitutes, the mentally disabled, tax collectors and those in the catch-all category of “sinners.” He elevated the status of women, who traveled with Him throughout Galilee. And He commended religious and ethnic outsiders — Romans, Samaritans, Canaanites — who displayed genuine faith. In one of his vivid parables, the town’s most “respectable” people are invited to a wedding feast. When they beg off en masse, the host fills the banquet hall with “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind” — a dramatic, even offensive, inversion of social status. The insiders were locked out. The outsiders joined the party. This was not only the announcement of a new age but of a new order, in which the last shall be first. And the reverse.
- Most important, Jesus proclaimed the arrival of a kingdom — the Kingdom of God — demanding first loyalty in the lives of believers. The word “kingdom” led to immediate misunderstandings, even among Jesus’ closest followers, who expected a messianic kingdom that would liberate the Holy Land. The disciples even argued over who among them would be given greatest precedence in this earthly realm, provoking a firm rebuke from Jesus: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.” Like other Jews, Jesus believed in a future age in which God’s sovereignty would be directly exercised on Earth. But He came to believe that his life and ministry had inaugurated this kingdom in an entirely novel way.
Jesus rejected the role of a political messiah. In the present age, He insisted, the Kingdom of God would not be the product of Jewish nationalism. It would not arrive through militancy and violence, tactics that would contribute only to a cycle of suffering. Instead, God’s kingdom would grow silently, soul by soul, “among you” and “within you,” across every barrier of nation or race — in acts of justice, peacemaking, love, inclusion, meekness, humility and gentleness.
When we act according to this counterintuitive conception of influence, a greater power achieves its aims through our seemingly aimless lives. But such a countercultural path, Jesus warned his followers, might lead to persecution or even death. And this was the path Jesus took as He walked, step by step, toward Jerusalem and the cross.
A man holds a Bible on Jan. 6, 2021, outside the U.S. Capitol. (John Minchillo/AP)
What brought me to consider these historical matters is a disturbing realization: In both public perception and evident reality, many White, conservative Christians find themselves on the wrong side of the most cutting indictments delivered by Jesus of Nazareth.
Christ’s revolt against the elites could hardly be more different from the one we see today. Conservative evangelicalism has, in many ways, become the kind of religious tradition against which followers of Jesus were initially called to rebel. And because of the pivotal role of conservative Christians in our politics, this irony is a matter of urgency.
Having known evangelicals who live lives of moral integrity and serve others across lines of race and class, I have no intention of pronouncing an indiscriminate indictment. But all conservative Christians must take seriously a sobering development in America’s common life. Many who identify with Jesus most loudly and publicly are doing the most to discredit his cause. The main danger to conservative churches does not come from bad laws — it comes from Christians who don’t understand the distinctives, the demands and the ultimate appeal of their own faith.
This development deserves some woes of its own:
- Woe to evangelical hypocrisy. Given the evidence of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, the corruption and sexual scandal at Liberty University, the sex scandal in the Hillsong ministry, the sexual exploitation revealed in Ravi Zacharias’s ministry, and the years of sexual predation at the (Christian) Kanakuk summer camps, Americans increasingly identify the word “evangelical” with pretense, scandal and duplicity. In the case of the SBC, victims (mostly women) were ignored, intimidated, dismissed and demeaned. Many of the most powerful Southern Baptist leaders betrayed the powerless, added cruelty on top of suffering and justified their coverup as essential to Christian evangelism. How can hearts ostensibly transformed by Christ be so impervious to mercy?
- Woe to evangelical exclusion. In their overwhelming, uncritical support of Trump and other nationalist Republicans — leaders who could never win elections without evangelical votes — White religious conservatives have joined a political movement defined by an attitude of “us” vs. “them,” and dedicated to the rejection and humiliation of social outsiders and outcasts. From the start, the Trump-led GOP dehumanized migrants as diseased and violent. It attacked Muslims as suspect and dangerous. Even when evangelical Christians refuse to mouth the words of racism, they have allied themselves with the promoters of prejudice and white grievance. How can it be that believers called to radical inclusion are the most hostile to refugees of any group in the United States? How can anyone who serves God’s boundless kingdom of love and generosity ever rally to the political banner “America First”?
- And woe, therefore, to Christian nationalism. Evangelicals broadly confuse the Kingdom of God with a Christian America, preserved by thuggish politicians who promise to prefer their version of Christian rights and enforce Christian values. The political calculation of conservative Christians is simple, and simply wrong.
Many perceive that their convictions and institutions areunder assault by “woke” liberalism. Despite a judicial environment generally favorable to religious freedom, some view this tension as a death struggle for American identity. Their sources of information (such as conservative talk radio and Fox News) make money by inflating anecdotes into the appearance of systematic anti-religious oppression. And this led religious conservatives to seek and support a certain kind of leader. “I want the meanest, toughest SOB I can find to protect this nation,” Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffressexplainedin his 2016 defense of Trump.
This view of politics is closer to “Game of Thrones” than to the Beatitudes. Nowhere did Jesus demand political passivity from his followers. But his teachings are entirely inconsistent with an approach to public engagement that says: “This Christian country is mine. You are defiling it. And I will take it back by any means necessary.”
By assaulting democratic and religious pluralism, this agenda is at war with the constitutional order. By asserting self-interested rights, secured by lawless means, this approach has lost all resemblance to the teachings of Christ. A Christianity that does not humanize the life of this world is not Christianity.
The theological roots of this error run deep. Evangelicals often think that being a Christian means the individualistic acceptance of Jesus as their personal Savior. But this is quite different from following the example of Jesus we find in the Gospels. “He never asks for admirers, worshipers or adherents,” Soren Kierkegaardobserved. “No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.”
Attendees pray during an Evangelicals for Trump campaign event as they await the arrival of Donald Trump on Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
What might an outbreak of discipleship look like? It would not bring victory for one ideological side or to one policy agenda. Christ did not deliver a manifesto or provide a briefing book. He called human beings to live generously, honestly, kindly and faithfully. Following this way — which the Apostle Paul later called “the Way” — is not primarily a political choice, but it has unavoidable public consequences.
Imagine if today’s believers were to live out the full implications of their faith.
Instead of fighting for narrow advantage, they would express their love of neighbor by seeking the common good and rejecting a view of greatness that makes others small.
Instead of being entirely captive to their cultural background, they would have enough critical distance to sort the good from the bad, the gold from the sand. This might leave them uncomfortable within their own tribe or their own skin — but the moral landscape is often easier to see from the periphery.
Instead of being ruled byanger and fear, they would live lightly, free from grudges and ready to offer forgiveness — thus preserving the possibility of future reconciliation and concord.
Instead of turning toviolence in word or deed, they would assert the power of unarmed truth. They would engage in argument without slander or threats — demonstrating not wokeness or weakness, but due regard for our shared dignity.
Instead of being arrogant and willful, they would approach hard issues with humility, recognizing that even the most compelling principles are applied by fallible men and women. They would know that people who esteem the same ideal can come to different policy conclusions — and be open to the possibility of changing their own mind.
Instead of ignoring the cries of the ill, poor and abused, they would honor the unerasable image of God we see in one another. Believers don’t accept a society divided by rank or dominated by the illusion of merit — they seek to subvert such stratification in constructive ways, to prioritize justice and common provision for people in need.
Instead of giving in to half-justified despair, they would assert that there is hope at the end of a twisting road. Even when their strength is drained by long struggle and the bitterness of incoming attacks, they would live confidently rather than desperately, with faith in God’s mercy and hope for a tearless morning.
Other noble religions and ethical systems come to similar conclusions. But for a Christian, one moment near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry draws the distinction between B.C. and A.D. Jesus stood up in a Nazareth synagogue andread from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
These are some of the most hopeful words in history. Jesus thought He could implant a new way of life on Earth. Defying most historical practice and precedent, He sought to reform human affairs in ways that privilege the poor, the prisoner, the blind, the oppressed. He wanted to put the joy, freedom and healing of outcasts at the center of a new era. At least trying to live under the inspiration of this good news lends purpose to our days and nobility to our failure.
This call is not merely political. Many are haunted by Jesus’ words, are drawn to emulate his person and find Him mysteriously present in their lives. Billions of human beings — Roman emperors and Celtic tribesmen, Byzantine artists and medieval peasants, Puritan settlers and enslaved Africans, Honduran farmers and Chinese house church leaders — have claimed to feel Christ’s comfort in their suffering, his guidance in their confusion, his company in their loneliness and his welcome at the hour of their death. If this is not the work of God, it is among the strangest developments in the human story.
But the soul’s trust is only the beginning of the heart’s quest: to value those whom Jesus valued, and to serve those whom Jesus served.
I know that people inspired by this vision have done great things in the past — building hospitals for the poor, improving the rights of women and children, militating against slavery, caring for the mentally disabled, working for a merciful welfare state, fighting prejudice, improving global health. But precisely because these things have happened, it is difficult for me to comprehend why so many American evangelicals have rejected the splendor and romance of their calling and settled for the cultural and political resentments of the hard right. It is difficult for me to understand why so many believers have turned down a wedding feast to graze in political dumpsters.
Are churches failing to teach an authentic Christian vision to Christian people? Have pastors domesticated the Christian message into something familiar, unchallenging and easily ignored? Do the dark pleasures of resentment and anger simply have a stronger emotional appeal than the virtues of compassion and self-sacrifice?
Or maybe it just feels impossible to judge your own upbringing and cultural background. It is hard to question the aggressive, predominant views of your community or congregation. It is far easier to seek belonging, even if it means accepting a lie or ignoring a wrong. Thus moral courage is often a solitary stand.
What I am describing, however, is not a chain or a chore. When we are caked with the mud of political struggle, and tired of Pyrrhic victories that seed new hatreds, and frightened by our own capacity for contempt, the way of life set out by Jesus comes like a clear bell that rings above our strife. It defies cynicism, apathy, despair and all ideologies that dream of dominance. It promises that every day, if we choose, can be the first day of a new and noble manner of living. Its most difficult duties can feel much like purpose and joy. And even our halting, halfhearted attempts at faithfulness are counted by God as victories.
God’s call to us — while not simplifying our existence — does ennoble it. It is the invitation to a life marked by meaning. And even when, as mortality dictates, we walk the path we had feared to tread, it can be a pilgrimage, in which all is lost, and all is found.
Before such a consummation, Christians seeking social influence should do so not by joining interest groups that fight for their narrow rights — and certainly not those animated by hatred, fear, phobias, vengeance or violence. Rather, they should seek to be ambassadors of a kingdom of hope, mercy, justice and grace. This is a high calling — and a test that most of us (myself included) are always finding new ways to fail. But it is the revolutionary ideal set by Jesus of Nazareth, who still speaks across the sea of years.
Tags
Who is online
91 visitors
From the article:
One cannot speak realistically about Trump's election to office in 2016 without any reference to Hillary, just as one cannot speak realistically about Biden without reference to Trump.
Yeah. This. It's easy to say that Joe Blow is a shitty choice for president when you compare him to the rest of the human race. But the rest of the human race isn't running for president.
“One cannot speak realistically about Trump's election to office in 2016 without any reference to Hillary, just as one cannot speak realistically about Biden without reference to Trump.”
Only in reference to who won and who lost.
To extrapolate any further is a purely political expedition and serves no purpose other than to further delude the delusional.
Well, how about the article?
Are you saying that Hillary was so bad that they, Christians and evangelicals in particular, had to vote for Trump?
The article explores the disconnect between the morals pushed by the Christians who support Trump and the morals betrayed by that support.
I have no clue how anyone can support this 'man'
Absolutely no reason to on morals or lack thereof alone
It seems that a fair amount of twice Obama voters felt that way.
So what? Do you see a relationship between your comment and the subject of the article, namely, Christians who talk the talk but then don't want to walk the walk?
So I tried to partially answer your previous question.
OK. Are you feeling all typed out or can you entertain the next question?
Go for it.
The article is yet another person who dislikes Trump ignoring massive reasons why he was elected because it's inconvenient to their disdain for "deplorables".
I'm saying they absolutely thought that. Yes. Without question.
The article ignores the fact that they perceived Hillary Clinton as a far greater threat to their morals than Trump. It needs to be said, they were not wrong. Imagine the current makeup of the Supreme Court if Hillary had appointed three angry liberal justices.
Thomas, it is this kind of attitude that is making me consider ignoring our conservative 'brethren'-clearly they choose Trump because he has told them that no matter what he won't let liberals 'succeed' or have any peace in his lifetime. And so it speaks to the heart and breadth of the supporters of Trump: When you see Trump you see them.
How, exactly, is anyone interfering with you "succeeding"?
I've asked you that several times before, but you never seem able to answer the question. How is it you are never able to describe your supposed oppression?
It is rather shortsighted for conservative Christians to think that God is interested in fundamentalism alone (if at all). So, conservative Christians 'run around' trying to make civil society operate like religious society by 'smashing' the two spheres into one and crying foul when their "expression" is touched by outsiders who otherwise may not even know they existed—but for the ad-nauseam political "up-chuckings."
Now, if you intend that I should sit down and draw you a tedious, protracted, list of fundamentalist meddlings in the civil rights and subjugation of others, my question would be along a stream of consciousness of WHY? Don't you know what's happening in the political arena?
But at your insistence, let's start with this if you care to engage it: Why does your religious expression of necessity need control over civil government and those outside of the walls of a/ny 'reach' of religion?
Says a fundamentalist Christian, no doubt? Tell me, why do you crave control over the lives of others not like you? Oh, I just noticed that was addressed to Jack_TX. 'My bad.'
Weak conveying of not a thing! And so nothing advances. . . .
Or, is it hard to advance anything when evangelical Christians need subordinates instead of equals?
Tell us again—yet a(nother) conservative is here for what good purposes? And you can bet on this, I am an 'expert' on evangelical conservatism so none of you will be 'owning' this liberal today!
So you still can't identify anyone, or any tangible interference with your "success".
On the contrary. It's quite liberating.
You're never responsible for your failure and any success is magnified, as it was supposedly achieved against all odds.
A person who continually claims they are a victim never has to face their own inadequacy. That's why they all fight so hard to protect the idea.
Please. Spoken like a privileged . . . whatever. . . likely stuck in a white-centric conclave surrounded by largely white majority and diversity is defined as holding a white standard. Did I get any of that right, Jack_TX? Is any of this real or is it all academic to you?
And don't even try to tell victims how they should feel about being subjugated to white rule and control, when all you all can speak about is taking more and more and more rights and privileges away when your own constitution (in spirit anyway) aspires to and declares civil rights for all!
Crybaby ass Southern Baptists can't be content in their own churches with their own version of God without trying to persuade (or compel) the rest of the believing and unbelieving world that they should live life as "southern baptist" too!
The word you're looking for is "skeptic".
Yet again, you cannot describe how you are actually a "victim". Why is that? It's almost as though you only think you're a victim because white liberals have told you so, but none of you bothered to note any of the specifics.
NOPE. The word I wanted there was "ASS," (as in "privileged ass") but was being gentlemanly not to enter it, thus the placeholder. Thanks for the opening to clarify my true meaning.
Yet again, white evangelical conservatives choose to overlook, dismiss, ignore, or just play dumb when it comes to the rights and privileges of those they harm. In keeping with this article's theme:
1. Why does religious freedom and religious expression exist outside the walls of any temple, church, or mosque? That is, why should a civil society have to 'answer' to what so-called believers value in their personal sacred places?
2. Why should any state, conservative or liberal, hold up policy positions—fight for them infinitely as national "wedge issues"— which deny marital rights (and its traditional fidelity) to otherwise law-abiding citizens?
3. Why does this nation's courts hold to the so-called, "Doctrine of Discovery" a religious doctrine, to this day; used to deny American Indians the return of their proper rights of a homeland?
4. Why should any girl or woman have a child/ren simply to suit any religious organization's 'edict'?
5. Why should liberals not be able to vote expeditiously. liberally, and accurately as a civil expression of duty; without regard to conservative who choose a different way to vote civilly?
Respond the 'list' or piss off!
And yet again, you cannot describe how you are actually a "victim". Now you resort to personal attacks. Niiiice.
Well....if you think of any way you've actually been impeded from "being successful", please do let us know.
Again, such bull manure from some elitist conservatives. I knew it. Obfuscation, inculcation, and non-responsiveness is a game for pretenders. This is a case of "Non-NewsTalkers."
It was for Jussie Smollett.
You had to look it up.
My usage: Repetitiveness; droning on and on; trying to INSTILL (or 'paint') members with a negative conservative talking point!
But some conservatives know this already. It is what this group vainly attempts daily. . . and throughout the nights here.
Texan1211, I will give you this: You are diligent.
Can you return to the topic now? Or, will we have to endure incessant obfuscation and inculcation?
To suspect otherwise would border on delusional.
[Deleted]
Victim Story would be a movie for our times.
“Victimhood means never having to read opposing views…”
…or simply looking in the mirror, ignoring the reflection, and blubbering on.
[Deleted]
By mirror image, you mean the reverse?
“Thanks for the help!”
Helping the hopeless. Helping the hapless…
“…if everyone is still alive!”
…death wishing, tex? The President, VP, and an elected Congresswoman?
Here’s what you actually wrote, tex:
”By that time, maybe AOC will be available for a cameo appearance, along with Joe and Kamala, if everyone is still alive!”
‘Asinine’ enough on its face.
And just what do you mean to infer with this statement?
I liked the Movie Love Story, but perhaps its because I was around 18 at the time I saw it. I never read the book, but I found the characters in the movie believable and it was a tragic tale of two lovers. from, very different backgrounds separated by an early death. Was that narrative fair? I don't see life as fair, so it was realistic.
I've lived with tremendous advantages as a white male, born in the mid 50's in the USA compared to many in the world. I suffered a rare stage 4 cancer that spread from my appendix 2 years ago. Neither are "fair", but both are life.
Life goes on, until it doesn't.
“…oh well, I am sorry.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
“I am always sorry when people seem to have trouble comprehending simple English when I know they are versed in it.”
Are you, tex? Or are you so, so desperate to get in the last word that you continue down the hole you have dug with no end in sight?
Let us see if you indeed comprehend?
Too, too funny.
I thought Mitt Romney was the last.
You still haven't answered the question. You still haven't even made an attempt to answer the question.
The accusations of obfuscation and non-responsiveness are hilarious. I do love irony, even when it's unintentional.
Anyway, back to the point. Yet again, you cannot describe how you are actually a "victim". Why is that? Is any such description on the horizon? What sort of time frame should we expect here?
[removed]
As far as evangelical conservative adherents are concerned: Hell may freeze over first. This has been a(nother) gross mismanage of time and space; and electronic digits, in my opinion. Yawn. And while all this bull manure is being passed on as so-called, "discussion"—no mention of Pastor Jeffries, Southern Baptist Convention, world religions, churches, or Jesus has entered into a proper discussion of the topic! This is disgusting on so many levels.
Is he? Well I'd appreciate any guidance you might be willing to offer.
The original question was: How, exactly, is anyone interfering with you "succeeding"?
How should I be phrasing that to make it easier to understand?
…and Drinker feels compelled to answer for CB…with the obligatory third party postscript….
“I need to hear…”
You need? Too, too funny.
Is Robert Jeffress impeding your success? How, exactly?
Or is it Jesus? How does that work?
Read the article and the proper comments under it. I won't cater to members who trash proper discussions for their private whimsical agendas and purposes.
So not even Pastor Bob Jeffress.
Who, then?
Some evangelical conservatives continue in willful ignorance or in playing the fool. Additional information at 1.1.89 below.
Who is the bigger fool... the one who asks a simple question or the one who can't answer it?
—The ones' willfully ignorant or "the fools." Now, I am done wasting this article's space on another member's meaningless banter. When you choose to return to the article discussion, perhaps I will reply. Salutations.
OK. Well... if you think of any actual human beings who have actually impeded your success in some way, do let us know.
They're phony hypocritical small c 'christians'
Christians have already fallen for one big lie. That son of god thingy.
Pretty sure that they'll fall for any lie that comes down the pike as a result
That makes christians and trump a perfect match.
How did Biden, Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton avoid the match?
Not all Christians support Trump or white conservative evangelicals who are among his staunch supporters. Like any group that has been in the belly of power for too long, conservatives Christians are sucking at the 'pump' that once was their power, but now is only giving back vapors. I look upon conservative Christians as a lot to be pitied and their version of a towering, warring, power-hungry, greedy, insufferable, God as disgusting.
invention of the telescope and microscope have rendered religion obsolete.
Hillary and Joe never got the message.
Science may have shown ancient texts to be incorrect and merely allegorical, but the majority of the world's population still follows some form of religion, and as such, we all still need to accept that not everyone believes the same way.
So, it may be obsolete to some of us, but others still hold to the teachings of religion. Those teachings may have a deeper meaning to some, and should therefore be more preeminent in their lives. Basically, I am just pointing out hypocrisy.
There is nothing wrong with belief in God whatsoever. Nor , in theory, is there anything wrong with organized religion. Religious principles have been abused throughout history by unscrupulous and power hungry people. "God" allows this under the theory of free will.
I have no problem with private religious beliefs, it's the n'er do well hypocrites that point out how much more despicable they would be in society without it and insisting that I join them, or else.
Who say he doesn't? There are plenty of liberal Christians in this country who don't have much use for Trump and say so out loud.
But there is a lot more to be concerned about than just Trump. To the extent that he even has his own political or moral standards, Trump has never really been very conservative. There are reasons he could spend part of his adult life as a Democrat. He is only invested in the conservative agenda to the extent that it can win him power. If he could be president as a Democrat, he would do it in a heartbeat.
If you're a liberal Christian, you're a lot more concerned about actual conservative politicians like Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, et al.
I believe that the article was aimed more at the supporters of Trump who are also practicing Christians. That is to say, if you are a Christian and at the same time a Trump supporter, how do you square the two.
They don’t. They don’t even try. I’ve spent some time around those people. They’re like psych patients with extreme phobias or OCD - that kind of thing. There’s no logic to the decisions they make or the issues that concern them. So trying to access their sense of logic is pointless.
These are people who will tell you the Bible says this or that, and is inerrant in spite of it being one of many English translations of Renaissance English, Medieval Latin, Ancient Koine, Ancient Hebrew, and Ancient Aramaic. But by golly, when they crack open the NABCQRST translation of the Bible, it says right there, plain as day, that God agrees with them 100%. And if you question it, Satan is using you.
They’re nuts. That’s how you square it.
I would tend to agree, but then again I am never quite sure of just what is crazy.
At the end of it all, then, you sound as if you actually agree with the main theme of the article?
Oh yes
It is because these people are fundamentalist Christians and they hold Donald Trump up as (get this, and I was appalled and disgusted when Pastor Jeffries is said to have stated this) a 'King David for our age.'). Jeffries sees Trump as a warrior, like King David, who went about killing, pillaging, and 'rampaging' on behalf of God (as God's right hand)!
So Trump is a 'man's man' in Jeffries eyes. And he and white evangelical conservatives simply overlook that through it all David did not intentionally defraud. . . Israel while doing his famous deeds.
The time has come to call a pack of 'dogs' what they are: 'Doggish' people. I look with disgust on such people who only 'live' to make life miserable for people outside their circle. Our lives, our years on this Earth, have been lost to their endless questing battles to take something away—keep it away—from outsiders. Who toil in the 'down and dirty' of this country just as they do and yet are demonized ceaselessly.
There is a one word answer - RACE
Open-wheel, stock, drag...?
If only more atheists would join government, we could eliminate the structural racism plaguing our country.
Figure 8.
Infinity upended?
www.nbcnews.com /think/opinion/racism-among-white-christians-higher-among-nonreligious-s-no-coincidence-ncna1235045
Opinion | Racism among white Christians is higher than among the nonreligious. Here's why.
Robert P. Jones, author of "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity" 10-12 minutes 7/27/2020
Over the last several weeks, the United States has engaged in a long-overdue reckoning with the racist symbols of the past, tearing down monuments to figures complicit in slavery and removing Confederate flags from public displays. But little scrutiny has been given to the cultural institutions that legitimized the worldview behind these symbols: white Christian churches.
In public opinion polls, a clear pattern has emerged: White Christians are consistently more likely than whites who are religiously unaffiliated to deny the existence of structural racism.
A close read of history reveals that we white Christians have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the nation's dominant cultural power, we have constructed and sustained a project of perpetuating white supremacy that has framed the entire American story. The legacy of this unholy union still lives in the DNA of white Christianity today — and not just among white evangelical Protestants in the South, but also among white mainline Protestants in the Midwest and white Catholics in the Northeast.
For more than two decades, I've studied the attitudes of religiously affiliated Americans across the country. And year over year, in question after question in public opinion polls, a clear pattern has emerged: White Christians are consistently more likely than whites who are religiously unaffiliated to deny the existence of structural racism.
For example, surveys conducted by PRRI in 2018 found that white Christians — including evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics — are nearly twice as likely as religiously unaffiliated whites to say the killings of Black men by police are isolated incidents rather than part of a pattern of how police treat African Americans.
And white Christians are about 30 percentage points more likely to say monuments to Confederate soldiers are symbols of Southern pride rather than symbols of racism. White Christians are also about 20 percentage points more likely to disagree with this statement: "Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class." And these trends generally persist even in the wake of the recent protests for racial justice.
As a white Christian who was raised Southern Baptist and shaped by a denominational college and seminary, it pains me to see these patterns in the data. Even worse, these questions only hint at the magnitude of the problem.
To determine the breadth of these attitudes, I created a "Racism Index," a measure consisting of 15 questions designed to get beyond personal biases and include perceptions of structural injustice. These questions included the three above, as well as questions about the treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system and general perceptions of race, racism and racial discrimination.
Even at a glance, the Racism Index reveals a clear distinction. Compared to nonreligious whites, white Christians register higher median scores on the Racism Index, and the differences among white Christian subgroups are largely differences of degree rather than kind.
Not surprisingly, given their concentration in the South, white evangelical Protestants have the highest median score (0.78) on the Racism Index. But it is a mistake to see this as merely a Southern or an evangelical problem. The median scores of white Catholics (0.72) and white mainline Protestants (0.69) — groups that are more culturally dominant in the Northeast and the Midwest — are not far behind. Notably, the median score for each white Christian subgroup is significantly above the median scores of the general population (0.57), white religiously unaffiliated Americans (0.42) and Black Protestants (0.24).
This disparity in attitudes about systemic racism between white Christians and whites who claim no religious affiliation is important evidence that the common — and catalyzing — denominator here is religious identity. This consistent perception gap was the central research finding that launched the work on my new book, " White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity ," out on Tuesday.
When confronted with unsettling results such as these, many of my fellow white Christians tend to explain them away with two objections. First, they assert that it is not white Christian identity itself but other intervening variables that account for such correlations. Second, they argue that even if white Christian identity is implicated, the results are muddied by the inclusion of people who have no real connection to actual churches, folks who are "Christian in name only."
But even when controls are introduced in a statistical model for a range of demographic characteristics, such as partisanship, education levels and region, the connection between holding racist attitudes and white Christian identity remains stubbornly robust.
The results point to a stark conclusion: While most white Christians think of themselves as people who hold warm feelings toward African Americans, holding racist views is nonetheless positively and independently associated with white Christian identity. Again, this troubling relationship holds not just for white evangelical Protestants, but also for white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.
The legacy of this unholy union still lives in the DNA of white Christianity today — and not just among white evangelical Protestants in the South.
Moreover, these statistical models refute the assertion that attending church makes white Christians less racist. Among white evangelicals, in fact, the opposite is true: The relationship between holding racist views and white Christian identity is actually stronger among more frequent church attenders than among less frequent church attenders.
I suspect many of my fellow white Christians will be appalled by these findings, asking with genuine dismay: "How can this be?" Haven't white Christians created charities of all kinds, built the infrastructure of much of our civil society and provided leadership on a host of social reforms, including the abolitionist movement, which was led in part by Christians moved by their faith?
But when we allow ourselves to cast our gaze beyond the rosy stories we tell about ourselves as champions and representatives of all that is good in America, a terrifyingly troubled alternative history emerges.
While it may seem obvious to mainstream white Christians today that slavery, segregation and overt declarations of white supremacy are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, such a conviction is, in fact, a recent development for most white American Christians and churches, both Protestant and Catholic.
The unsettling truth is that, for nearly all of American history, the light-skinned Jesus conjured up by most white congregations was not merely indifferent to the status quo of racial inequality; he demanded its defense and preservation as part of the natural, divinely ordained order of things.
Consider the cultural context in which American Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, was born. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as Protestant churches were springing up in newly settled territories after Native American populations were forcibly removed, it was common practice — observed, for example, at the Baptist church that was the progenitor of my parents' church in Macon, Georgia — for slaveholding whites to take enslaved people to church with them.
The practice had it that whites sat in the front while enslaved Blacks sat in the back or in specially constructed galleries above. In late 18th-century Maryland, one-fifth of those included in a Catholic census were enslaved people owned by white Catholics or white Catholic institutions. And as late as the 1940s, urban Catholic parishes in major cities such as New York still required Black members to sit in the back pews and approach the altar last to receive the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
Moreover, the content of what was preached confirmed that white supremacy was part of the Christian worldview. Sermons, by necessity, tended to be light on the themes of freedom and liberation in Exodus, for example, and heavy on the mandates of obedience and being content in one's social station from the New Testament writings of Paul.
In these seedbeds of American Christianity, an a priori commitment to white supremacy shaped what could be practiced (a slave master could not share a common cup of Christian fellowship with his slaves) and preached (white dominance and Black subservience were expressions of God's ideal for the organization of human societies). Such early distortions influenced how white Christians came to embody and understand their faith and determined what was handed down from one generation to the next.
Our fellow African American citizens, and indeed the entire country, are waiting to see whether we white Christians can finally find the humility and courage and love to face the truth.
The plain testimony of history is that, alongside what good we white Christians have done, white Christian theology and institutions have also declared the blessings of God on the enslavement of millions of African Americans, the construction of a brutal system of racial segregation enforced by law and lynchings, the resistance to the civil rights movement and the mass incarceration of millions of African Americans. When the patterns in the current public opinion data are seen in this light, they seem unsurprising and, indeed, inevitable.
As monuments to white supremacy are falling all across America, a great cloud of witnesses is gathering. Our fellow African American citizens, and indeed the entire country, are waiting to see whether we white Christians can finally find the humility and courage and love to face the truth about our long relationship with white supremacy and to dismantle the Christian worldview we built to justify it.
The Racism Index? I have to shake my head in amazement at the things self righteous people think they can measure. Even worse, they publish their measurements as if they represented objective truth.
Good point!
When Enlightenment rationalism began becoming a source of authority, science was used or misused to justify systematic discrimination against specific racial groups:
Well, instead of gufawing the concept, critically analyze and identify just where you see the flaws in his analysis. Then you can posit whether and why Mr. Jones is incorrect in his analysis of the data.
The survey that he started with is here .
I will respond to your post the same as Tacos!
Well, instead of gufawing the concept, critically analyze and identify just where you see the flaws in his analysis. Then you can posit whether and why Mr. Jones is incorrect in his analysis of the data.
The survey that he started with is here .
Just because avenues have been shown to be a mis-application of the scientific method, it takes rigor to distinguish between the correct and the incorrect.
The author of that piece is an expert on white supremacy and religion.
Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity , which won a 2021 American Book Award. Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic online, NBC Think, and other outlets. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. He is also the author of The End of White Christian America , which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Jones writes weekly at , a newsletter for those dedicated to the work of truth-telling, repair, and healing from the legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity.
Why do you that's what I did?
No doubt.
There is no objective standard of racism.
People can’t even agree on what it is. They can’t agree on what is or is not racist.
It cannot be measured. He cannot prove it can be measured.
How do we know 15 questions is an adequate measurement? Psychologists develop personality profiles based on hundreds of questions, but this genius purports to identify racism with mathematical certainty in only 15. How do we know these questions measure what he claims they measure? Where is the double blind experiment? How do we know people answer the way they do because of racism and not some other factor?
So? A survey exists, therefore all his conclusions are true?
Here’s my scientific declaration: Racism exists, for sure, but people who stake their professional reputations on finding it are successful 100% of the time.
Cuz he says so, right?
Racism is animosity toward a group of people based on race. In the United States it has historically been whites racist towards non whites.
I’m sorry, but that is not correct - at least according to some. At best, it is incomplete. I have seen other definitions.
The Dictionary Definition of Racism Has to Change
I apologize, I am writing this on my phone. Sometimes my thoughts race out beyond the capacity of my fingers and I leave some words out.
Well, then let's define the word right here for the purposes of discussion. From the Oxford Languages
You said:
Well, he can try. It would be helpful if he gave those questions, but he is trying to sell a book. It might be easier to buy the book. Your opinion is noted. I will reserve judgment till I know more about his questions and the answers that produced his measurement.
We don't know that they do or do not. Perhaps Google knows......
The reason that I gave the link to the survey is so that whomever could delve deeper into the results and hopefully the data to determine whether his analysis is flawed in some obvious manner.
Is he selling snake oil? Not sure right now. I do know that the figures he gives make sense to me, but that might just be an artifact of my own experiences.
I am sorry if I mischaracterized your response. Did I?
I don’t think that you characterized my post one way or another.
So you are now quoting the murderer OJ Simpson?
Huh?
I have nothing to add.
This just needed repeating.
That's a bit like attempting to critically analyze whether Superman and Gandalf would have been able to defeat Thanos.
Really? He presented an argument with a posit and evidence to back up his position.
The standard way of arguing is to show why the posit is wrong in its formulation or the backing evidence is wrong or misinterpreted.
No he didn't. He decided on his opinion, interpreted selected data in such a way as to appear to validate that opinion, and then declared any deviation from his interpretation "racism".
Well then, prove your assertion. Because right now it is bare.
This is like proving water is wet.
If you disagree with his blanket acceptance of every white liberal guilt mantra, he labels you a racist. He gives you points for anything on his dogma list you dare to question, and the more you accumulate, the deeper in the gulag you belong.
He uses the well-established "bullshit definition" method to create bogus data, which he then attempts to launder with basic statistics. It works because Americans in general are terrible at math, and mathematically illiterate but otherwise educated liberals will accept any math any liberal with an advanced degree offers them, especially if it confirms their hatred of white conservatives.
Is it? My physical chemistry teacher used to love to rant about this.
You could start by proving that his initial thesis is incorrect. Or argue that the questions asked to determine the validity of the statement are skewed towards a particular answer.
No, he doesn't. Here is a thematic statement from the article.
And he is asking Christians in particular to examine their institutions and themselves for clues as to why this is.
Bullshit. Nice rant and I agree that Americans are not well rounded as far as mathematics, but your argument is still more along the lines of "Nuh-uh! Because.... Mathematics! And uhh.....Liberals!"
So this is ONE persons "reasoning" that Christians should be "filled with rage" over the former POTUS.
Yes, this article was written by one person who was raised in an Evangelical Christian family. Can you find any flaws in his reasoning?
That's easy. And you stated the flaw - Evangelical Christian. This is ONE person who still believes in a deity from a book that has more edits than a Tom Clancy novel. And I'm supposed to take him seriously? Sorry. Not going to happen.
That is not a very convincing argument.
Lots of great people have had "faith" as a cornerstone of their lives and been brilliant mathematicians, scientists, authors, philosophers, etc. Their faith apparently did not hamper their ability to reason. When constructing a cogent argument about how they feel the precepts of their religion should be transferred to real life, showing how certain activities fit or don't fit within the framework of their religion, which is what the author is doing, it is actually more credible coming from someone who knows the faith. Therefore, when one makes the statement that one does not believe that religious persons should opine on religious matters because they are religious... well, that just doesn't make any kind of sense at all and is illogical at its core.
Since Tom had a character take the safety off of a revolver I haven't read him.
[deleted]
I guess you don't get the whole logical argumentation thingy. You can stop posting on my seed now.
That's funny you are trying to insert logic into religion / beliefs.
Apologetics can twist the Bible into fitting whatever narrative that they want to support.
I googled "Christianity is a racist religion" and found an interesting article that might give food for thought about how Christianity is actually based on racism.
Well, that is interesting. How do you feel this fits with the topic of the article that I posted?
Christianity has largely promoted and/or supported racism until it is politically expedient to pretend it hasn't or doesn't.
Christianity is divisive. Otherwise, there wouldn't be thousands of sects trying to be top dog.
Christianity is political. Review its history.
Christianity is violent. At one time, the Vatican had its own army. Eventually, it managed to control the heads of governments and used their armies to control the populace.
Christians have followed violent leaders forever and a day even in the US. Has there ever been a time in US history that our nation was not either actively involved in war or looking for one? Haven't all US presidents pledged to protect US citizens and their interests? How is Trump any different in making those kinds of promises to US citizens? Has a President ever been elected by campaigning on open borders and sending all the jobs possible to other countries?
Christianity and peace are strange bedfellows when a person looks at the issue critically.
See my opening paragraph.
It is not me you need to convince that a whole lot of bad has been done in the name of Christianity. But that isn't the main theme of the article, is it?
I found the main theme of the article to be the difference between what the teachings of Jesus actually are (peace, humility, showing love to those who want to and do you harm, etc.) and the outward display of certain people who call themselves Christian yet seem to not live according to those teachings vis-a-vis their support for DJT, a person whose actions before he was president should have made them run away screaming.
Trump was a leap beyond any previous president in a purely bad way. He has no respect for the constitution or the country beyond what they can do for him personally. I can sympathize with your antipathy for Christianity, but I do not think that all Christians are bad, any more than all of any group believes and behaves in any particular manner. (They are not monolithic) To some (not I. I am not Christian) the act of being a Christian bears with it responsibilities to fellow people. Trump felt no responsibilities towards anyone else, as far as I can tell. Maybe there is a tiny bit of care in there somewhere, but I have never seen a hint of it.
My critique of the history of Christianity is based on facts not emotion.
I evidently have miscommunicated my stance on people who identify as Christian. The majority of the people that I have loved and admired most in life have claimed to belong to some sect of Christianity. Some abused me thoroughly physically and mentally under the guise of "saving" me from eternal damnation and trying to force me into becoming a meek, mild-mannered woman who would be acceptable to Yahweh/Yeshua. I have forgiven them for mistreating me (and other children). They knew not what they were doing.
Yeshua is not about peace, humility and love unless one cherry picks the words attributed to him in the NT. Yeshua came to divide, not unite.
I was raised in the Bible Belt. I don't remember anyone teaching that the Christians in the US had a duty to feed, clothe and shelter the world.
Do Christians in the US have a duty to feed, clothe and shelter the world? If so, on whose authority is this a mandate? Or is this just political rhetoric being disguised as a Christian mandate?
How about ending poverty in the US? Shouldn't that be the first concern of Christians in the US?
I am seeing politicians trying to use religion as a tool to manipulate people into doing many things that are against the best interests of the US citizens.
As far as Trump, he is among the least likable of the narcissists in government in the US. But, underneath it all, likeable or not, all narcissists are incapable of caring about the interests of anyone except themselves. Who was the last US president that wasn't a narcissist? Jimmy Carter is the only one that I would even classify as being a president who actually cared about the well-being of others.
Anybody who believes in mythology and superstition I worry about. That is why I carry a gun.
You did not know my mother. She was Christian and quite devout, which would fit your definition of believing in "mythology and superstition." Never would you have had reason to "...carry a gun..." when in her presence.
Further, everyone believes in myth to some extent. I would direct your attention to Joseph Campbell . Myths are harder to avoid than you may realize.
I studied various aspects of science for most of my life.
The nice thing about science is that it can evolve over time
Kind of like my old girlfriends.
Exactly, nothing like the consistency of the cold, hard steel you're packing.
I studied various aspects of science for most of my life.
Great. So have I. Got a degree, went to graduate school. Whoopie! That does not automatically discount the influence of myth on/in our lives nor the attitudes of those who may follow a course different than our own.
And yet, my fundamentalist Christian brethren did not have to fail their "high calling': though, it is clear they are doing so as even now with their petty lying, hypocrisies, reliance on rogues, and self-interest agendas.
And the biggest insult to the faith of all: Conservative Christians, called to unify in one spirit with their liberal Christian brethren chose to split off and demonize fellow believers to their own damnation. What? Can God not tell the different between right and wrong? Are all God's children. . . conservatives? Does God not distinguish between deceivers and those fighting deception?
Oh foolish evangelical conservatives why are you so stiff-necked? Why do you think this land is given to you alone? Why do you think God favor you and ill-gotten political gains? It is now true and the whole country and world can see it: you are "infinitely" corrupted your organizations.
He doesn't fill them with rage because he is an open version of what they are always hiding, an amoral prick. The christian right has always been a group of completely amoral assholes who will do anything with anyone to get what they want, social and financial power. Anything is acceptable and nothing is off the table for them, the ends ALWAYS justify the means, hence why they will follow Satan himself if it means they can buy another car.
Here is an interesting article that will add to the fire.
Yep. Disgusting. Self-righteous religious thugs, pretending that God is for them, in order to hold people in place through fear and intimidation.Time's coming and is here for good Christians and people of goodwill—not wanting to live in a lie—to speak up and vote their consciences. As though their lives, sanity, and the life of their children depend on it! This self-deluding action has been done before in United States history. Always to serve a purpose of exercising power over minorities.
These. . . people. . . want people of goodwill to be subservient to them and their visions of power infinitely. They do not see this country as free: It is for them to enjoy while others subsist at their pleasure/whims.
Resolution On Racial Reconciliation On The 150th Anniversary Of The Southern Baptist Convention
Event(s): 1995 Annual Meeting
Topic(s): racial reconciliation , racism
WHEREAS, Since its founding in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention has been an effective instrument of God in missions, evangelism, and social ministry; and
WHEREAS, The Scriptures teach that Eve is the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20), and that God shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him (Acts 10:34-35), and that God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth (Acts 17:26); and
WHEREAS, Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention; and
WHEREAS, Many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery; and
WHEREAS, In later years Southern Baptists failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans ; and
WHEREAS, Racism has led to discrimination, oppression, injustice, and violence, both in the Civil War and throughout the history of our nation ; and
WHEREAS, Racism has divided the body of Christ and Southern Baptists in particular, and separated us from our African-American brothers and sisters ; and
WHEREAS, Many of our congregations have intentionally and/or unintentionally excluded African-Americans from worship, membership, and leadership ; and
WHEREAS, Racism profoundly distorts our understanding of Christian morality, leading some Southern Baptists to believe that racial prejudice and discrimination are compatible with the Gospe l; and
WHEREAS, Jesus performed the ministry of reconciliation to restore sinners to a right relationship with the Heavenly Father, and to establish right relations among all human beings, especially within the family of faith.
Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That we, the messengers to the Sesquicentennial meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, assembled in Atlanta, Georgia, June 20-22, 1995, unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin ; and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we affirm the Bibles teaching that every human life is sacred, and is of equal and immeasurable worth, made in Gods image, regardless of race or ethnicity (Genesis 1:27), and that, with respect to salvation through Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for (we) are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28); and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest, and we recognize that the racism which yet plagues our culture today is inextricably tied to the past ; and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime; and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously (Psalm 19:13) or unconsciously (Leviticus 4:27) ; and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our own healing is at stake; and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we hereby commit ourselves to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry ; and
Be it further RESOLVED, That we commit ourselves to be doers of the Word (James 1:22) by pursuing racial reconciliation in all our relationships, especially with our brothers and sisters in Christ (1 John 2:6), to the end that our light would so shine before others, that they may see (our) good works and glorify (our) Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16); and
Be it finally RESOLVED, That we pledge our commitment to the Great Commission task of making disciples of all people (Matthew 28:19), confessing that in the church God is calling together one people from every tribe and nation (Revelation 5:9), and proclaiming that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only certain and sufficient ground upon which redeemed persons will stand together in restored family union as joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17 ).
Seminary presidents reaffirm BFM, declare CRT incompatible
By George Schroeder , posted November 30, 2020
WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP) – In recognition of the 20 th anniversary of the adoption of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 , the Council of Seminary Presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention has reaffirmed “with eagerness” the BFM’s status “as the doctrinal statement that unites and defines Southern Baptist cooperation and establishes the confessional unity of our Convention.”
In a statement adopted in the council’s annual session, the seminary presidents assert that as “confessional institutions,” the SBC’s six seminaries stand “together in this classic statement of biblical truth.” Additionally, the statement declares that while condemning “racism in any form,” the seminaries agree that “affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message . ”
Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and current chairman of the Council of Seminary Presidents , said those specific issues were addressed in light of concerns raised by Southern Baptists, including resolutions on the topic adopted by several state conventions at their annual meetings this fall.
“We felt that because our brothers and sisters in various state conventions have concern about this issue, they would also want to know what their seminaries actually think, and what we are teaching and not teaching,” Akin said.
The statement noted that SBC seminary professors “must agree to teach in accordance with and not contrary to the Baptist Faith & Message,” adding: “This is our sacred commitment and privilege, and every individual faculty member and trustee of our institutions shares this commitment. We are thankful for the theological commitments of the Southern Baptist Convention, standing against the tide of theological compromise and in the face of an increasingly hostile secular culture.”
See more at the link:
who-is-robert-jeffress-a-guide-to-the-dallas-pastor-s-controversies/
There is an interesting tidbit about these Southern Baptist leaders: Pastor Jeffries has two children. Just two?
November 29, 1955 (age 66)
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary ( DMin )
Dallas Baptist University ( DDv ) [1]
I find it questionable that Wikipedia nor any quick search sites point out when Jeffries married his wife of two children. No matter, really. Clearly, he was married to have his daughters, right by his wife(?)
Moving on.
Here is what is interesting: Doctor Jeffries and his wife have (2) children and three grandchildren. Is it obvious that birth control/contraceptives/abortion? is being utilized to keep the number of 'rampant' births under control? Where am I wrong?
Well, she could have him on a short leash...
I know. I did think about that (one)! I want to be clear here, and I think it is important to issue a disclaimer of sorts: I am not against Jeffress or white evangelicals personally; I wish them the freedom to have as many children or less as they desire. But, when the same purveyors of "pro-life" rhetoric and activities against pro-choicer purveyors are operating in plain sight of not having their biblical "quiver-full" of children. . . it is self-evident that some form of birth control (or abstinence in marriage) is occurring. Otherwise, sexual relations would make conservative women (and those 'holier than thou') church members prolific indefinitely!
"Short leash" makes me think about a song I've heard - here's a song break:
Bruno Mars - Locked Out Of Heaven (Official Music Video)
Of course, I am sharing this specific song with 'poetic license' and not for its debauchery or excess. It won't make the self-righteous understand me better, nevertheless!
Protestants have no prohibition on contraception. That's a Catholic thing.
I'm not exactly sure when that slipped from the body of common knowledge.
|
I dunno. I'm still shaking my head at the inverse correlation between "fervency of belief in an opinion" and "basic shit known about the topic".
I don't guess I should be surprised anymore, but fuck me the level of abject ignorance is astonishing sometimes.