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Post by Admin on Jan 26, 2022 13:16:09 GMT
The Horrific Gospel Of White MAGA Christianity JANUARY 21, 2022 chriskratzer.com/the-horrific-gospel-of-white-maga-christianity/Among MAGA Christians, it’s a deeply loved story. Noahs’ Ark. Everyone’s heard it. The ideas, themes, and tenets are simple… 1) The default position of God is to kill His enemies. 2) God sees his newly-created humanity as falling short of expectations. 3) Fueled by wrath, His best idea is to mass murder all of them through a global flood. 4) The “good news” is that God saves a precious, redeemable few on an Ark. “I am going to destroy all flesh because the world is full of violence.” -Genesis 6 Oh, the irony. God’s response to violence is to commit more violence. Wonderful, isn’t it? Millions of babies, children, families, and people screaming, gasping, and drowning. God’s a murderous tyrant, but no big deal. Let’s paint murals about it in the halls of our Children’s Ministry. Indoctrinate them early. In the mind and heart of MAGA Christianity, “No need for critical thinking or discerning. We love it. As is. Every bit of it.” “Praise God for His faithfulness. He is holy, just, and good!” In fact, you’ll never hear a MAGA Christian question it or denounce it. Instead, they will even recreate it, line by line and piece by piece, and even lay down some serious cash to celebrate it and make it a tourist attraction. This isn’t just the story of Noah’s Ark. This is the horrific Gospel of white, MAGA Christianity. Sadly, it has all their treasured themes–enemies, murder, hate, violence, duplicity, hypocrisy, elitism, and privilege–all spiritualized for their viewing and doing pleasure. Enter Jesus. It’s been years since the days of Noah’s Ark. Apparently, God still hasn’t been through an anger management course. Not surprisingly, much of humanity is still pissing Him off. But this time, God decides that He won’t send a flood. Instead, He wields a hot, burning hell of fire. Threading his beard with His fingers, he chuckles to himself, “Floods are for amateurs.” But, don’t be misled, God’s not a monster, right? No, new leaves are being turned. This time, he creates a “loving” work-around to keep a larger, select group of people from becoming the next victims of his default position to kill his enemies. Pacing the halls of heaven, he conjures up his best idea yet–Jesus. God will murder His own son Jesus instead. It’s brilliant! Then, those who believe all the correct things about Jesus and follow the rules will be saved and go to heaven, gated and sealed far away from all the dirty, disgusting, unbelievers. It’s a win, win. God still gets to murder something, but keeps a larger, select group of people alive so He can sleep a bit better at night, curled up in his hell-heated blanket. Nothing to see here. Millions of people who somehow, for whatever reason, miss the MAGA Christian mark will spend eternity tortured forever in hell. That’s right, tortured in hell, forever. At least, in the flood they got to die, but in hell they are forced to live forever being tortured by demons and fire. God’s a diabolical, vindictive mass torturer who’s powerless to save all, and creates a system of winners and losers, right and wrong, saved or unsaved, heaven or hell, and calls it all “love” and the “Kingdom.” In the heart and mind of MAGA Christianity, “No big deal, no need for critical thinking or discerning. We love it. As is. Everything about it. Just act, believe, join, live, and become exactly like us and you’ll be fine.” “Holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty!” It’s the Ark 2.0 We win! Everyone else… tortured forever. Enter the Native American Indian. Minding their own business and tending to their own lives with a gentle spirit, they possess and steward their land with great care and competency. Yet, white, male Christians, intoxicated by years of being groomed by the horrific gospel of white MAGA Christianity, travel vast oceans with an ominous heart willing to take what is not their own, at any price. They arrive on the shores of Native land, ready to conquer. When greeted by the Indiginous people, they discern their beautiful, peaceful humanity, not as an opportunity for mutual respect and partnership, but rather for exploitation. Soon, they will rape, pillage, steal, and destroy the American Indian and their land, convinced they are spiritually justified in doing so. In their white, 15th century MAGA minds, they rationalize and determine that the American Indian is evil and must be colonized or killed. It’s the Ark 3.0. Manifest Destiny. Drown the Red man, long live the white man. Nothing to see here. Millions of men, women, children, and babies raped, pillaged, and murdered. Land stolen, lives destroyed, an entire people erased from the planet. In the heart and mind of white MAGA Christianity, “No big deal. No need for critical thinking or discerning. Besides, look at what God did with the flood. Murder, death, cleaning house, it’s just part of God’s glorious plan” “This land is your land, this land is my land. From California to the New York island!” Enter slavery. This new Ark 3.0 needs building. In their minds, God has bigger dreams. It’s to be a nation, not just a boat. A country, not just a colony. In the beginning, in order to do the heavy lifting, they enslaved the American Indian, but soon an even better option presented itself–the black man. Experts at using the Bible to justify their bidding, these white, male MAGA Christians personified God as creating a lessor, evil race best suited for slavery. It was an economic decision as much as it was a racial one. Money is power. Power is privilege. And, in the mind and heart of white MAGA Christianity, the white man was destined by God to lord and hoard it all. But if Ark 3.0 was going to succeed, it needed little Arks spread out everywhere. Little Arks to manage the spiritualization of slavery, stoke the hell fires, and rationalize, promote, and protect whiteness everywhere. Enter church. MAGA churches here. MAGA churches there. Patriarchal, white, privilege-promoting, and racist-ladened churches everywhere. Some protestant, some not. It didn’t matter, the horrific Gospel of white MAGA Christianty was upstairs, downstairs, around the corner, on every corner. It was baked into nearly every expression of Christianity. In fact, if early American Christianity and churches were centered on, “loving your neighbor as yourself” there wouldn’t be many early churches, and perhaps, not much of early American Christianity. That wasn’t their purpose. Instead, someone had to repeatedly spiritually justify all these evils, and MAGA churches were a critical, necessary place. Sadly, this is still true today. The desire to build Ark 3.0 is still much alive. It’s the white MAGA American dream. When it’s all said and done, this is what America means to white, male MAGA Christianity. For them, it’s a divinely created Ark where God destroys their enemies and saves them alone from the rest of the evil world. It’s uniquely blessed, privileged, and protected by God for the white man, established through the spiritually justified murder, marginalization, and demonization of millions of people. Men, women, children, and babies. Nothing to see here. “God Bless America, land that I love!’ Everywhere white MAGA Christianity goes, there you will find an enemy they must fight, violence as their solution, and white privilege their ultimate priority. History tells the tale, many more people die because of MAGA Christianity than ever live and find life because of it. It’s heaven for them, hell for the rest. Freedom for them, conformity for the rest Prosperity for them, poverty for the rest. Inclusion for them, exclusion for the rest. Divine favor for them, condemnation for the rest. Anointed biblical interpretation for them, heresy for the rest. Double standards for them, one standard for the rest. It’s Noah’s Ark 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 for them, infinite devastation for the rest. This is the horrific gospel of white, MAGA Christianity. “I am going to destroy all flesh because the world is full of violence.” -Genesis 6 God’s response to violence is to commit more violence. There is nothing more MAGA Christian than that. . Grace is brave. Be brave.
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Post by Admin on Jan 26, 2022 13:18:17 GMT
Christian fascism en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fascismChristian fascism denotes the intersection between fascism and Christianity and it also encompasses the fascistic, totalitarian, and imperialistic aspects of the Christian Church. It is sometimes referred to as "Christofascism", a neologism coined by liberation theologist Dorothee Sölle in 1970.[1][2][3] Interpretation of Sölle Tom Faw Driver, the Paul Tillich Professor Emeritus at Union Theological Seminary, expressed concern "that the worship of God in Christ not divide Christian from Jew, man from woman, clergy from laity, white from black, or rich from poor". To him, Christianity is in constant danger of Christofascism, stating that "[w]e fear christofascism, which we see as the political direction of all attempts to place Christ at the center of social life and history" and that "[m]uch of the churches' teaching about Christ has turned into something that is dictatorial in its heart and is preparing society for an American fascism".[4][5] Christofascism "disposed or allowed Christians, to impose themselves not only upon other religions but other cultures, and political parties which do not march under the banner of the final, normative, victorious Christ" – as Knitter describes Sölle's view.[6][7] George Hunsinger, director of the Centre for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, regards the conception of Christofascism as being an attack, at a very sophisticated level of theological discourse, on the biblical depiction of Jesus. He equates what is viewed as Christofascism with "Jesus Christ as depicted in Scripture" and contrasts it with the "nonnormative Christology" that is offered as an alternative by some theologians, which he characterizes as extreme relativism that reduces Jesus Christ to "an object of mere personal preference and cultural location" and that he finds difficult to see as not contributing to the same problems encountered by the Christian church in Germany that were noted by theologian Karl Barth.[8] Christomonism Douglas John Hall, Professor of Christian Theology at McGill University, relates Sölle's concept of Christofascism to Christomonism, which inevitably ends in religious triumphalism and exclusivity, noting Sölle's observation of American fundamentalist Christianity that Christomonism easily leads to Christofascism, and violence is never far away from militant Christomonism. (Christomonism only accepts one divine person, Jesus Christ, rather than the Trinity.) He states that the over-divinized ("high") Christology of Christendom is demonstrated to be wrong by its "almost unrelieved anti-Judaism". He suggests that the best way to guard against this is for Christians not to neglect the humanity of Jesus Christ in favour of his divinity, and remind themselves that Jesus was also a Jewish human being.[2][9][10] American history and politics Chris Hedges and David Neiwert contend that the origins of American Christofascism date back to the Great Depression, when Americans first espoused forms of fascism that were "explicitly 'Christian' in nature".[11]: 88 Hedges writes that "fundamentalist preachers such as Gerald B. Winrod and Gerald L. K. Smith fused national and Christian symbols to advocate the country's first crude form of Christo-fascism".[12] Smith's Christian Nationalist Crusade stated that a "Christian character is the basis of all real Americanism".[12] Hedges also believes that William Dudley Pelley was another prominent advocate of Christofascism.[11]: 88 Nonetheless, some historians contend the presence of Christian fascism in the Antebellum United States.[13] By the late 1950s, adherents of these philosophies founded the John Birch Society, whose policy positions and rhetoric have greatly influenced modern dominionists.[12] Likewise, the Posse Comitatus movement was founded by former associates of Pelley and Smith.[11]: 90 The 1980s saw the founding of the Council for National Policy[12] and the Moral Majority[14][15] carry on the tradition, while the patriot and militia movements represented efforts to mainstream the philosophy in the 1990s.[11]: 90 Incidents of anti-abortion violence, including the Atlanta and Birmingham bombings which were committed by Eric Rudolph and the assassination of George Tiller at his Wichita, Kansas church in 2009, have also been considered acts which were motivated by Christofascism.[11]: 90–91 [16] The term caused controversy in 2007, when Melissa McEwan, a campaign blogger for then-presidential candidate John Edwards, referred to religious conservatives as "Christofascists" on her personal blog.[17][18] In the 2010s, the movement became linked to Objectivism, particularly in the economic sphere, in direct contravention of such Biblical passages as Luke 16:19-31 and (especially) Matthew 25:31-46, prompting allegations of hypocrisy from progressive critics. Ayn Rand's name frequently came up during the 2012 U.S. Presidential election as the inspiration for the economic policies of the Republican Party.[citation needed]
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Post by Admin on Jan 26, 2022 13:21:22 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jan 26, 2022 14:58:45 GMT
During slavery, it was illegal for Africans to read any book other than the Bible. Anyone caught reading philosophy, science, governance, history, economics or any other genre of literature, faced the death penalty. Why was this so? The slave masters understood that the Bible was a tool to limit the thinking of black Africans and to keep them perpetually subservient. They knew that to keep them in servitude they had to make them accept their lot as the will of God and have them thinking about the end of days, these things will keep them in perpetual servitude. They refused to give them anything good but they gave them Christianity and the bible. Over five hundred years later, the descendants of the slaves who were whipped, tortured, raped and murdered, now confess implicit confidence in the same Bible. (a book hurriedly put together by Emperor Constantine in 325 AD when he decreed Christianity - an infusion of Roman paganism, Greek and Egyptian mythology" as the new State religion and his troops would violently convert most of the world's populations to this newly formed order by force and through violence. The Bible was central to the success of the trans Atlantic slavery. On a trip to Cape Coast in Ghana 2010, I saw first hand the role Christianity played in slavery. Slaves were first baptized and letters (signifyng their new names such as John, Peter, Isaac and other Christian names) engraved with hot metal in their backs - this was even before they learnt English. While in chains, blood dripping from all over their bodies, they recited the Nicean creed, not knowing the meaning. Biblical Verses used by Slave Masters to Justify Slavery #Ephesians 6:5 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." lent divine credence to the predicament of slaves and consigned them to perpetual slavery. #Ephesian 6:9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. #Colossians 3:22: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. #Colossian 4:1 Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. #Titus 2:9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 1 #Peter 2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. Revolting against the oppressors, was a direct rejection of God - so they were made to believe. Today, many Africans know the Bible from the beginning to the end but they know little about themselves or ideas that can improve their lives. They can feel Jesus in their spirits and they are absolutely sure that Christianity is the only true religion. They are waiting for an apocalyptic climax to humanity where a blue eyed, blonde haired Caucasian savior would appear from the sky at the sound of a trumpet, to save them from debilitating poverty, a dysfunctional system, diseases and imbecility. 500 years later, Africans are still languishing in profuse ignorance. The damage has been done. In the words of the late scholar Dr. Henrik Clark; "To control a people, you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and history, he needs no prison walls and chains to hold you". Black/African child. Both at home and diaspora, Know Thyself. Culled from Chinasa Nworu wall.
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Post by naominash3 on Feb 4, 2022 19:58:57 GMT
During slavery, it was illegal for Africans to read any book other than the Bible. Anyone caught reading philosophy, science, governance, history, economics or any other genre of literature, faced the death penalty. Why was this so? The slave masters understood that the Bible was a tool to limit the thinking of black Africans and to keep them perpetually subservient. They knew that to keep them in servitude they had to make them accept their lot as the will of God and have them thinking about the end of days, these things will keep them in perpetual servitude. They refused to give them anything good but they gave them Christianity and the bible. Over five hundred years later, the descendants of the slaves who were whipped, tortured, raped and murdered, now confess implicit confidence in the same Bible. (a book hurriedly put together by Emperor Constantine in 325 AD when he decreed Christianity - an infusion of Roman paganism, Greek and Egyptian mythology" as the new State religion and his troops would violently convert most of the world's populations to this newly formed order by force and through violence. The Bible was central to the success of the trans Atlantic slavery. On a trip to Cape Coast in Ghana 2010, I saw first hand the role Christianity played in slavery. Slaves were first baptized and letters (signifyng their new names such as John, Peter, Isaac and other Christian names) engraved with hot metal in their backs - this was even before they learnt English. While in chains, blood dripping from all over their bodies, they recited the Nicean creed, not knowing the meaning. Biblical Verses used by Slave Masters to Justify Slavery #Ephesians 6:5 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." lent divine credence to the predicament of slaves and consigned them to perpetual slavery. #Ephesian 6:9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. #Colossians 3:22: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. #Colossian 4:1 Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. #Titus 2:9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 1 #Peter 2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. Revolting against the oppressors, was a direct rejection of God - so they were made to believe. Today, many Africans know the Bible from the beginning to the end but they know little about themselves or ideas that can improve their lives. They can feel Jesus in their spirits and they are absolutely sure that Christianity is the only true religion. They are waiting for an apocalyptic climax to humanity where a blue eyed, blonde haired Caucasian savior would appear from the sky at the sound of a trumpet, to save them from debilitating poverty, a dysfunctional system, diseases and imbecility. 500 years later, Africans are still languishing in profuse ignorance. The damage has been done. In the words of the late scholar Dr. Henrik Clark; "To control a people, you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and history, he needs no prison walls and chains to hold you". Black/African child. Both at home and diaspora, Know Thyself. Culled from Chinasa Nworu wall. Many African Americans are Christian. Are we stupid? Wasn't the Bible used to justify the horrors of slavery? Let's go back to the abolitionist movement. Who fought to end slavery? What did they believe? Well, they were Christian. According to Wikipedia, American and British Quakers started the movement to end slavery in the 18th century. Notable abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was Christian. He was one of the founders the American Anti-Slavery Society. Famous African-American Abolitionist Frederick Douglas identified as Christian. He writes "What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of "stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in." From the appendix of The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglas If former slaves Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington were smart enough to recognize the difference between real Christianity and slave-holding hypocrisy, then I don't see a problem with the countless other African Americans who believe. I'm also reminded of William Wilberforce, who after becoming an evangelical Christian, led a Parliament campaign for the abolition of slavery in Britain. In great part due to his activism, slavery was made illegal in Britain by the Slave Trade Act in 1807. He wrote "If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large." Slavery had been a global accepted practice among various empires, cultures, and people groups for centuries(and for some groups to this day). The fact that slavery was ever questioned is a testament to Christianity's uncanny ability to break down walls and emphatically declare equality amongst all people.
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Post by Admin on Feb 4, 2022 20:02:33 GMT
If former slaves Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington were smart enough to recognize the difference between real Christianity and slave-holding hypocrisy, then I don't see a problem with the countless other African Americans who believe. I'm also reminded of William Wilberforce, who after becoming an evangelical Christian, led a Parliament campaign for the abolition of slavery in Britain. In great part due to his activism, slavery was made illegal in Britain by the Slave Trade Act in 1807. He wrote "If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large." Slavery had been a global accepted practice among various empires, cultures, and people groups for centuries(and for some groups to this day). The fact that slavery was ever questioned is a testament to Christianity's uncanny ability to break down walls and emphatically declare equality amongst all people. Ah - the what is True Christianity - a True Christian, argument.
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Post by Just visiting on Feb 6, 2022 1:25:54 GMT
podcast.gospelinlife.com/e/authentic-christianity-1562113895/Hi, just reading this thread and thought this was apt. The Narrow Way 13“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. You Will Know Them by Their Fruits 15“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Therefore by their fruits you will know them. I Never Knew You 21“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Build on the Rock 24“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
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Post by Admin on Feb 6, 2022 6:07:28 GMT
podcast.gospelinlife.com/e/authentic-christianity-1562113895/Hi, just reading this thread and thought this was apt. The Narrow Way 13“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. You Will Know Them by Their Fruits 15“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Therefore by their fruits you will know them. I Never Knew You 21“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Build on the Rock 24“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” If we are going by the Bible & to be as Christ - 99.999% of people are off straight to Hell.
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Post by Admin on Feb 21, 2022 19:32:07 GMT
Evangelical minister: Christian nationalism is a bizarre, misogynist fantasy — and totally un-Christian www.alternet.org/2022/02/pray-for-president-trump/During my time as a boy attending an evangelical church and then later, when I attended an evangelical seminary, it was hard not to notice an underlying misogyny that seemed consistently present. As a man, I would be the head of the household. I was like Christ to my future wife. In fact, I once heard a sermon by prominent evangelical minister Tony Evans where he declared that wives must refer to their husbands as "Lord." In my church youth groups, we were separated by sex and the boys had bizarre discussions on the type of men we should become. There was a strong emphasis on being what they considered to be manly and tough, whereas young girls, of course, were encouraged to be nurturing, submissive and, most important, sexually pure. When contemporary evangelical leaders push a message around Christian nationalism, I can promise you it always refers back to a time when the "traditional" roles of American households held fast. Making America "great again" is truly about bringing back a time when women were subject to their husbands' wills and whims, and the husbands were lords of the house. Someone recently wrote to me, in response to one of my previous articles, wondering why so many evangelicals chose Donald Trump, a vulgar misogynist who shows no understanding of any element of the Christian faith, over other candidates who were much closer to the evangelical movement. The difficult answer is that most evangelical men long for the days when misogyny was cool, when women were under the thumb of their husbands and sexual harassment was almost universally accepted. Trump exemplified that approach — and a great many evangelicals loved him for it. Trump remains the favorite of the evangelicals not because any commitment to Christ or the Christian way of life — since he has none — but because of the widespread desire among evangelicals to take back control over their lives, and their wives. One of the major ways this has been expressed lately is through the ideology known as Christian nationalism. As I understand it, Christian nationalism is an idea now widely accepted within the evangelical church that the U.S. is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles — no matter what it may say in the Constitution. This commitment to the Christian faith, as a nation, is the reason God blessed the U.S. as the greatest nation that ever existed. God will only continue to bless this nation, however, as long as it remains a Christian nation. As America becomes more progressive and increasingly secular in terms of politics, culture and faith, then in this view God will remove his blessing and protection and great evils will befall our nation. This remarkable theory has no connection to any of the teachings of Jesus Christ or his followers, and is completely irrelevant to the Christian faith. I will certainly admit that I have a heart for American idealism. I have officiated at numerous Veterans Day and Memorial Day services, and I have felt the love of country enormously, on those days and all the days in between. None of that, however, has anything to do with Christianity. God does not play favorites when it comes to nations, people or cultures. That entire idea is morally and theologically absurd. In truth, Christian nationalism is based not in the Bible or the teachings of Jesus Christ, but on the idea of the traditional American family. As roles for women have changed, as divorce becomes more common, as same-sex marriage gains a firmer footing, and now with the movement for transgender rights and visibility becoming more public, the panic of the Christian nationalists becomes ever more desperate. This is where all that rage among evangelicals is coming from. Understand, most people are motivated politically based on how they perceive policy decisions affecting their day-to-day life. Nothing affects our lives more than what is happening to our families. When things fall apart at home, it can feel helpful — even if it's not healthy — to blame someone or something besides ourselves. For myself, I know that all my personal failures are mine alone. I can't blame MTV or Eminem or the LGBTQI population, the evangelical church, Trump, Biden, Obama, my mom, my dad or anyone else. The problem is in the mirror, as it is for everyone. Any effort to pass that blame along to others is quite human, and quite wrong. My final point on Christian nationalism is around all the macho tough-guy stuff that seems to be on the lips of every right-wing leader. Being "tough" seems to be the only thing conservative commentators and evangelical leaders care about. Trump is supposedly the epitome of that and his little posse loves him for it. I won't pretend to understand it. After I graduated middle school, being tough just didn't seem that important. But for people like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jerry Falwell Jr. (before his fall) and of course Trump himself, it's important to keep pretending that they are a bunch of tough guys, even though they also claim to stand with Jesus Christ, a humble, meek and homeless teacher. I'm no tough guy but I am happy to offer a challenge to any of these fake tough guys. Debate me anywhere, anytime. I am truly blue-collar, a member of the American working class. I am a Bible-believing minister and a flaming liberal. I believe that the Christian nationalist message comes from the devil himself. I am trying to save the name of the Christian faith and to stand up for American idealism. I oppose every part of the hypocritical, fake-populist agenda of the Christian nationalists and their enablers. I double-dog dare any of them, here and now, to stand up and take me on in public debate. Odds are they never will.
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Post by Admin on Mar 19, 2022 23:12:32 GMT
Researchers warn that Christian nationalists are becoming more radical and are targeting voting By Michelle Boorstein Yesterday at 2:00 p.m. EDT www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/03/18/white-christian-nationalism-raskin-tlaib-democracy-freethought-secular/New research linking Christian nationalism with a desire to limit voting. People citing their faith as the reason they support trucker convoys that shut down the border over covid protections. And the fact that Jesus’ name appeared all over the place during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. Concern about rising radicalism among a segment of White American Christians led this week to what some religious extremism experts call the biggest Congress-related event on the topic in years. The Thursday evening briefing, called “God is On Our Side: White Christian Nationalism and the Capitol Insurrection,” was hosted by the Congressional Freethought Caucus, a group that includes Democratic House members Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Zoe Lofgren of California and Steve Cohen of Tennessee. The Freethought Caucus was launched in 2018 to “protect the secular character of our government” and has 16 members. The virtual briefing, which was not open to the public and included more than 50 members, staff and experts, focused on a new, 66-page report about the role of Christian nationalism in the Capitol attack, and on its “implications for the future of Democracy,” an announcement for the event read. Its goal was to bring awareness to Americans about what the caucus sees as the threats of Christian nationalism, organizers told The Washington Post. The report was released Feb. 9 and is a project of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). It chronicles in exhaustive detail the art, signs, flags, jewelry, spoken words and even a gallows that protesters brought Jan. 6 that cited Jesus and Christianity. It also talks about various nonprofit groups, lawmakers and clergy who worked together to adorn Jan. 6 and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his electoral loss with theological fervor. It talks about the important role of race. During coronavirus crisis, Congress’s first caucus for nonreligious belief seeks a larger role in promoting science Andrew Seidel, one of the authors of the report and a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said he believes Jan. 6 was “the culmination but not the end. … Insurrectionists were given moral license for the attack, and since then a growing slice of Americans are justifying it.” “I look at what’s happening now, the rhetoric leading up to the midterms, and am more worried, not less,” he told The Post before the Freethought event. “We have more brazen nationalism. The Republican Party saying that day was ‘legitimate discourse.’ We are going to see something like this again.” Rep. Jared Huffman, (D-Calif.), a founder of the caucus, said the group has grown steadily in number since it was founded and he wanted to hold the event because White Christian nationalism “is the most important piece of this insurrection people don’t yet understand fully.” “A lot of Americans look at that day and think: ‘A lot of crazy people acted out.’ But it was far more organized, and it wasn’t just the Trump political organization,” he said. What tied many unconnected people and groups together was a shared worldview that Christianity should be fused with civic life and that true Americans are White, culturally conservative and natural born citizens. Seidel and other experts involved in the event said they fear Americans do not appreciate the role of White Christian nationalism in the insurrection and in current anti-democratic efforts. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature,” he said. “These folks are embedded in state legislatures, in the truck convoy spectacle. We haven’t heard the last of them.” Christian nationalism is centuries old. The phrase, however, only took off in recent years, including among researchers seeking to understand and explain the idea that people can be sorted into distinct groups (nationalism) and that those groups are defined by, and must remain defined by, a certain expression of Christianity. People who are considered Christian nationalists do not usually see themselves or refer to themselves that way. While concern about White Christian nationalism in America is today most commonly expressed by people on the left, it is not a partisan issue. Multiple well-known figures on the more conservative side of the aisle have sounded alarm about the danger of conflating Christianity with patriotism, or love of country. Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore called it “heretical,” saying linking God and country is akin to idol-worship and is bad for the faith. Paul Miller, an international affairs professor at Georgetown University who writes on religion and politics, calls it “a serious problem” because it allows one group to define who is, and who is not, part of the nation. In a piece last year in Christianity Today about Christian nationalism, Miller noted the periods when Protestantism was a quasi-official religion in America, and said it violated the value of religious freedom. Government discrimination against non-Protestants goes back to the earliest U.S. colonies in the 1600s, when Catholics were banned and Quakers were hanged. In newly independent America, only Christians could hold office, so long as they renounced the pope’s authority. In New York, Catholics were banned from public office until the early 1800s. They had civil rights in Maryland, but Jews did not. In the mid-1800s, Mormons were expelled from Missouri, and later their practice of polygamy was legally banned. An interpretation of Christianity also was used by the government to support slavery and segregation. University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, another participant in Thursday’s event, has written several books about religion and politics. New research for “The Flag and The Cross,” which comes out next month, shows a powerful correlation between people who subscribe to Christian nationalist beliefs and anti-democratic beliefs. The book, co-written by Perry and Yale sociologist Philip Gorski, lays out a scale of Christian nationalism based on agreement with seven points, including “the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” and “the success of the United States is part of God’s plan.” Christian nationalists seek a ‘parallel’ digital world to skirt the power of Big Tech Their research shows how, the higher people are on the Christian nationalism scale the more they tend to agree with the statement “we make it too easy to vote.” The same thing happens when people agree with the statements “the best way to stop bad guys with guns is to have good guys with guns,” and “authorities should be able to use any means necessary to keep law and order” and “if national security is at risk, I support torture.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2022 20:47:14 GMT
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Post by Admin on Apr 3, 2022 18:07:19 GMT
Christopher Hitchens once observed: “Fascism, the original 20th century totalitarian movement, is really, historically, another name for the political activity of the Catholic right-wing. There is no other name for it: Francoism, Salazarism, what happened in Croatia, in Austria, in Bavaria, and so on. The church keeps trying to apologize for it, but can’t apologize for it enough. It’s the Catholic Right.” Today, the Russian Orthodox Church- under the malign spell of Patriarch Kyrill- has taken over the reigns. Here, Kyrill speaks in front of the Russian army in the “Army Central Cathedral”, urging the destruction of Ukraine: “We have broken the fascists backbone once, we will do it again”. I found this an interesting read (from 2018): link.medium.com/syh9ZmfKVob
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Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2022 16:53:28 GMT
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Post by Admin on May 11, 2022 13:51:21 GMT
"Ten years ago, if one had told Evangelical Christians that a man would come who would sow discord in the church, who would cause people to flee to churches who spread conspiracy theories about politics and health, they would have said, "Well, that'd be the AntiChrist, tearing apart the church, so that he could easily prevail over them." However, now they all ARE split, by a man who takes pride in his "sinful" sexual proclivities, his 30,000+ lies told in four years (nearly 21 EVERY SINGLE DAY), who embraces the "axis of evil," who attempted to overthrow the US electoral system, and they believe he is sent by God. This man has provoked a massive move toward increasing hatred in a religion that was lead by a man who taught only love. It has turned into a factory producing justifications for every breach of the law, "Love your neighbor as yourself." If the purpose of religion is to provide a counterbalance to power and all it yields, where will that balance now come from? While it's true that religion has almost never actually done that, it has maintained teachings geared toward that. However, at present it has conflated the teachings of Love with so many actions of hate that teasing apart the threads of Love and hatred may be nigh to impossible; in any case we just don't have the time to do it left in our world. Though it may not be as John predicted, it's eerily similar; we live in the end times."
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Post by Admin on May 14, 2022 23:22:31 GMT
How did German Christians react to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis?
In the 1930s, many Germans aligned with Hitler’s antisemitic zeal and this had very serious implications for Jews living in Germany. Some churches became so infected with antisemitism that they discriminated against the very ethnic group to which their Saviour - Jesus Christ - belonged. For example, the German Evangelical (Lutheran) Church decided to exclude Jews (who had converted to Christianity) from participating in their congregations, a measure they codified in an edict that became known as the “Aryan Paragraph.”
But other Church leaders rejected this intrusion of Nazi ideology, including a young pastor and theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He and some of his ministry colleagues formed a parallel fellowship of churches that refused to submit to it. They became known as the “Confessing Church” because they “confessed” Christian orthodoxy, specifically its commitment to racial equality in the body of Christ.
Bonhoeffer’s stand meant that he had to contend with enemies in both the Nazi regime and church leadership. The latter wanted him to cooperate with the government, as they thought that Hitler could bring about spiritual renewal in Germany. But Bonhoeffer saw through these church leaders’ perversion of Christian doctrine. He insisted on conforming to God’s eternal truths as revealed in holy scripture, rather than to the world around him. (Rom. 12:2) Bonhoeffer’s rejection of Nazi ideology also meant that he opposed the military aggression of the Nazis and their violence against minorities across Europe. He correctly understood that believers in Jesus had to resist such evil regimes.
This conviction eventually cost Bonhoeffer his life. On April 9, 1945, only one month before the end of World War II, he was hanged by Nazi authorities. The experience of Christians in Nazi Germany presents a lesson for today. It serves as a warning about the dangers of looking to a political “saviour” to redeem one’s country. It also shows that when the church trades biblical beliefs for the latest societal trends – even those that are couched in noble terms – the results can be catastrophic. __________________ Worldview Summit: Explore the ultimate questions of life from a Christian worldview. If you liked this post, check out the website: worldviewsummit.org
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