Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore revealed this week that many evangelical pastors have become alarmed that their Trump-loving congregants have become so militant that they are even rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ.In an interview with NPR, Moore said that multiple pastors had told h…
Then maybe they should have corrected them when they were just starting out on all the crazy, rather than endorsing the dude that’s literally the closest thing this world has seen to the anti-christ.
Yeah this is a very leopard ate my face kind of moment
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I’m not surprised. I’ve heard stories as far back as 2015 or 2016 about people storming out in the middle of their pastor’s sermon because the pastor directly quoting Jesus’ sermon on the mount was too “woke.”
Mark my words: if conservatives can no longer advance their cause under the guise of Christianity, they won’t abandon conservatism. They will abandon Jesus.
This is an extremely interesting thought experiment, and one that is not without precedent. I left a comment below about the misrepresented and often repeated claims regarding Hitler’s (as well as Nazism more broadly) views on religion, occultism, and atheism.
I bring this up again here because what happened in Germany was essentially the opposite of the proposition you are suggesting. Instead of throwing Jesus out of Christianity, Hitler made a specific and distinct push to remove any perceivedly Jewish teachings from what became German “Positive Christianity”. This included the removal of the Old Testament, the Pauline epistles, and the framing of Jesus as a dogmatic Aryan ideologue who opposed the teachings of Jewish mysticism.
The notion that the modern crypto-fascist & christian-nationalist movements might take the opposite approach by throwing out or obfuscating the teachings of Jesus which they perceive as liberal or socialist in nature and therefore counter to the authoritarian hegemony they seem to be advocating for is a fascinating proposition. I also happen to believe you are correct, and that we have been seeing this happen in real time over the last several decades at least.
I am sincerely afraid that the most damaging threads of the 20th century will be repeated again, and I’m not so sure that humanity is as prepared as it should be to fight against that potentiality. The destruction of education in this country, and the tears in the facade of infinite-growth-capitalism have made the United States the perfect hotbed for this kind of ideology to rise again…
I am sincerely afraid that the most damaging threads of the 20th century will be repeated again
Looks at Uyghur camps in China
No country joined WW2 to liberate the Jews. No one is going to fight China for the Uyghurs. These are atrocities that help sell the morality of a war fought for other reasons. Defeating the Nazis was certainly a moral victory and they were a great evil, but that’s not why we fought them.
No one is coming to the rescue of the Uyghurs. Enduring sanctions is likely to be the worst consequence China faces.
While not the worst consequence, there’s also been a great destruction of culture.
Japan and Korea have been becoming more popular on the world stages, where they’re celebrated for anime and pop songs. Meanwhile, for all its money, and all its genuinely rich and interesting history, entering a forum to announce you’re Chinese might end up prompting snarky responses like “Oh hey, do they give you your own Uyghur family to treat as slaves?”
Interesting. Same with slavery and the American civil war I guess.
They won’t think they’re abandoning Jesus. They will start worshipping some different badass with the same name who brings vengeance upon his enemies with swift application of firearms. They’ll call that entity Jesus, but it will have no relationship to the Christian concept of Jesus.
Well, that’s what religious people have always done. They follow a religion until it disagrees with them, then they leave and start a new ‘slightly different’ branch which agrees with them.
You know, sort of like how Catholicism was founded about 30 years after Jesus’ assumed death date, but then 1600 years later, Baptists decided to branch off create their own flavor.
Bruh. They abandoned “conservatism” and jesus a long, long, long-ass time ago.
I suggest you check out the Conservapedia Bible Rewrite project/Conservapedia Bible Project for a good laugh.
They never accepted his teachings in the first place…
You have a point, however, there seems to be a difference in severity. It’s like how openly and aggressively racist some of these folks have gotten. Sure, they always probably harbored those feelings, but now they are more brazen about it, and the behavior is getting worse as a result.
…did the pastor just wake from a 6 year coma?
‘Christians’ switched to Cult-45 the day Trump entered into politics.
I grew up fundamentalist, and they had abandoned his teachings in the 80’s in service to Emperor Reagan.
I mean, really, when did Christians ever follow Jesus’ teachings considering how many people were converted by the sword…
It’ll be the ones you don’t hear about, for example my grandparents who are some of the kindest, most compassionate people you’d meet. They hosted refugees, consistently voted progressive, and changed church when their previous one started being more anti-LGBT. There’s just no headlines in Christians actually acting like Christians.
I wasn’t alive during the crusades, but I think that would be a pretty good starting place.
I would say when Constantine and Pope Sylvester threw in together
The leopard is still hungry
No one hates Jesus and his teachings as fiercely as a Christian. Christians would be the firsts in line to crucify Christ for his hippie, soft ideas again if he were to resurrect, this has been known for centuries.
Shouldn’t he be like the false prophet they warn themselves about? I mean, is not that I expected some of those dumbfucks to even know what the bible says, but fuck, the level of idolatry is astounding.
Well, clearly Jesus is the actual false prophet, because a long-haired dark-skinned Middle Eastern socialist who got executed as a criminal sounds like a LOSER.
This pastor seems to think so.
I am not a Christian, and don’t have a dog in this fight.
Irony is often lost on people whose primary personality trait is cognitive dissonance.
Obviously that was Obama since he was black.
Maybe the origin of their beliefs has less to do with the meanings being sacred texts, and more to do with being walking, breathing, confirmation bias machines.
He’s not wrong. But what he’s leaving out is that all this is very rich coming from him personally, a bit of too little too late when he was actually well-placed in 2016 to make a real stand.
It is true that Russell Moore has been speaking out to some extent against Donald Trump for years. But it is also true that when it would have counted most, during the 2016 campaign season, Moore walked back the strength of his anti-Trump statements in order to keep his highly-positioned job as president of the internal ethics board of the Southern Baptist Convention (an organization I consider to be deeply corrupt anyway):
On June 1, 2013, Moore became President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns. . . . [Three years later,] Moore’s vocal criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election season drew a backlash from fellow Southern Baptists, triggering a crisis in which more than 100 churches threatened to withdraw donations to the denomination’s Cooperative Program in protest of Moore’s stances and leading to calls for his resignation. After Moore issued statements of apology in December 2016 and March 2017 for “using words… that were at times overly broad or unnecessarily harsh,” Southern Baptist leaders affirmed their support for his leadership and he remained in his post. (Wikipedia)
It’s hard to call upon the rules and be taken seriously when you have not taken the rules seriously yourself:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth." – Jesus
EDITED TO ADD: I am not a Christian myself, just comparing idolatry to idolatry here.
I like messiahs who weren’t crucified.
You helped create these people. You are these people.
“I never thought the leopard would eat MY face.” These people got in bed with quite possibly the most godless person on Earth, Trump is very likely one of the first true Atheist Presidents we’ve ever had. He’s probably paid multiple women for sex and abortions, cheated on all of his wives, lies on a constant and regular basis, and is just generally a shitty person on every level. This is the person they hitched their wagon to to get Roe v Wade overturned. I sure as hell hope it blows up in their face.
I think it already is blowing up in their face, and agree fully with your sentiment. While atheists dont depend on religion to define their morals, they get the opportunity to self-define their morals. A narcissistic egotisticial born-with-a-silver-spoon person like Trump is a wolf in sheep’s clothing parading as one of them. He decays or corrupts everything he touches, and the GOP and evangelical Christians have been rubbing all up on him for 7 years. Both groups are in crisis these days.
The GOP has no true platform beyond revenge politics, and the churches are bleeding congregation members… people leaving either because they aren’t on board the crazy train of their church peers or leave because they’ve allowed their beliefs and morals to twist out of whack in conflict of scripture.
Not only that, but all of that was well known prior to him winning the election.
They don’t care.
All that immoral behavior you mentioned reads much more like the behavior of an outspoken conservative Christian rather than an atheist. You know, all the “rules for thee but not for me” type stuff.
It may be true that neither of them really believe deep down, but only one is using it to look good while being shitty.
They keep saying that Jesus will return. Yet if he ever did they would dismiss him as a “dirty hippie” and cheer for the cops who beat him to death.
Then crucify him. Then glorify him for dying for their sins again.
They like the “is Lord” part. The idea of divine royalty and unquestioning loyalty. They aren’t so keen on teachings of kindness, introspection, self awareness, caring, mutual respect, humility, poverty, etc.
The last true Christian was a Middle-Eastern socialist Jew.
Peter?
I think he means The Jesus
Jesus wasn’t a Christian.
That’s the joke
Santa?
Separation of church and state was created to protect both the state AND the church. Churches are not supposed to be political organizations for their own good. Dividing into camps along political lines and shouting at each other is what happens out in the world. It’s not supposed to happen at church.
Dividing into camps along political lines and shouting at each other is what happens out in the world. It’s not supposed to happen at church.
Wait, I thought this was their main feature…
The comedian Emo Philips has a well-known joke about religion that may explain some of the decline in membership… "Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over."
Churches should be taxed though. Give unto Caesar and all that.
There’s nothing special about churches. The ACLU has the same tax breaks and associated restrictions.
It’s why the ACLU is actually 2 different organizations. There’s the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation. ACLU is a political lobbying group that is directly involved in political activities and therefore has to pay taxes and donations to it are not tax-deductible. The ACLU Foundation other is a legal services charity that is tax-exempt and donations to it are tax deductible.
Churches simply don’t have the direct political arm. If they do, then they should be taxed. I once saw a church lose it’s tax exemption when the pastor told the congregation they should vote for Obama.
If churches should be taxed then all non-profit organizations should, and you therefore shouldn’t be able to make any kind of tax-deductible donations.
If churches should be taxed then all non-profit organizations should, and you therefore shouldn’t be able to make any kind of tax-deductible donations.
That is acceptable to me. I have run two 501©3 entities, and guess what, we got audited every year and had to pay taxes if we turned a profit.
Also since those personal donations are just used by the rich to not pay their fair share, close the loopholes.
Churches literally don’t have profits. There are no shareholders or anything. There are employees, but pretty much all non-profits have staff, and paying staff (who still have to pay income tax) isn’t “profit.”
The only issue I have with auditing them is that the vast majority of small churches that are struggling to keep the doors open literally can’t afford an audit, and the big, corrupt churches enriching corrupt assholes are still technically non-profit and won’t be hurt.
Almost as if they never gave a shit about Jesus’s teachings in the first place and only cherry picked a couple of things that fit their existing desires.
Now they’re just going mask off.
It doesn’t take much. For starters “Greed” is one of the 7 deadly sins…
