this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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Don’t do that, these people are very much Christians. They are the worst the religion has to offer, and I won’t accept this “not real” Christian bullshit. Christians don’t get to brush away the shitty people within the religion and literally say they aren’t real. Yes they are, they are part of your religion, own it and fix it, don’t brush it away
I mean, yes and no.
This is the same logic as "don't do that, Fetterman is very much a real liberal" – like, self-attested membership of a group that is defined by a core set of beliefs while also denying that core set of beliefs is not a reflection on that core set of beliefs.
To pick another example, "don't do that, the DPRK is very much a democratic republic" – and yet...
I think the problem in this case is the source material. It has too many contradictions, leaving much up to personal interpretation, which results in people all over the spectrum that fall into the category of Christian.
The tests that Trump fails are some of the most consistent themes, repeated by Jesus and not contradicted (but rather reinforced) by other passages: pride, greed, selfishness, oppression of the poor and the needy, lying, adultery, rape – all of these are continuously, explicitly condemned by the Bible without any "mixed messages" there.
The only way to "interpret" the Bible as okay with those things is just to claim it doesn't mean exactly what it explicitly, repeatedly, directly says.
Like, without getting into the "let's debate contradictions" game, the claim that the Bible is too contradictory to identify that people like Trump aren't actually following Jesus's teachings is akin to saying "I blame the EPA guidelines: there are too many contradictions on where the blinkers get put or what the in-dash entertainment system is, so it leaves people to pick and choose what counts as an internal-combustion-engine vehicle." The core definition is pretty clear, even though the secondary features may vary — and claiming that there's no way you can apply the core definition because those secondary features vary is just epistemological surrender, rather than a fault in the core definition itself.
I refer you to my answer to yesman making the same objection.
No True Scottsman was born and lived in France.