this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024

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Letter: Trump seems more like the false prophet in the Bible than the “Anointed One” (www.sltrib.com)

submitted 11 months ago by CantaloupeLifestyle to c/politics

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[–] yesman 61 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Just for some context here. In the US, Christianity is everyday, more an identity than a religion. The "evangelicals" that support Trump overwhelmingly don't attend services, don't read the Bible, and don't pray unless they're in trouble. The evangelical movement has been cooped by the Republican party so thoroughly, that there isn't much difference between conservative politics and Christian belief in the average worshiper's mind. Christianity is the justification for having power, not the ethic of how to wield it.

I'm not playing "true Scotsman", or trying to define what a Christian ought to be. I'm just posting this for the people who are mystified at the disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the support for regressive and hateful politics.

It's ironic that apotheoses of the individual, so central to modern conservative thought is antithetical to patriotism, faith, and family values.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as "liberal talking points."

[+] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] yesman 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I would argue that Christianity has moved much further toward reactionary politics than the other way round. Evangelicals in the 70s were pro-choice for example. I'd also point out that reactionary politics is at a high water mark while Christianity is in decline.

There's a trap in being a critic of religion that one tends to overestimate the power of faith.

[+] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Passerby6497 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No, its true. Evangelicals have been massively radicalized by the right ever since the 80s. This Politico article goes over the history of the rise of the radical right, and they discuss how abortion was only used because it was more convenient than their actual goal. Some choice quotes (emphasis mine):

The history of that movement, however, is more complicated. White evangelicals in the 1970s did not mobilize against Roe v. Wade, which they considered a Catholic issue. They organized instead to defend racial segregation in evangelical institutions, including Bob Jones University.

The historical record is clear. In 1968, Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, organized a conference with the Christian Medical Society to discuss the morality of abortion. The gathering attracted 26 heavyweight theologians from throughout the evangelical world, who debated the matter over several days and then issued a statement acknowledging the ambiguities surrounding the issue, which, they said, allowed for many different approaches.

“Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed,” the statement read, “but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.”

Two successive editors of Christianity Today took equivocal stands on abortion. Carl F. H. Henry, the magazine’s founder, affirmed that “a woman’s body is not the domain and property of others,” and his successor, Harold Lindsell, allowed that, “if there are compelling psychiatric reasons from a Christian point of view, mercy and prudence may favor a therapeutic abortion.”

Meeting in St. Louis in 1971, the messengers (delegates) to the Southern Baptist Convention, hardly a redoubt of liberalism, passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, a position they reaffirmed in 1974 — a year after Roe — and again in 1976.

When the Roe decision was handed down, W. A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas and sometime president of the Southern Baptist Convention, issued a statement praising the ruling. “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” Criswell declared, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”

Hell, as noted later in the article, Falwell didn't even start bitching about abortion until like 5 years after Roe.

[–] blazeknave 1 points 11 months ago

GOP is appropriating evangelical culture. In this timeline, Michael Rapaport is king.

(I know it's a stretch but one person out there has to get this one, eh?)

[–] Passerby6497 4 points 11 months ago

I’m not playing “true Scotsman”, or trying to define what a Christian ought to be. I’m just posting this for the people who are mystified at the disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the support for regressive and hateful politics.

I literally got called a communist by family members for actually acting the way they raised me, because apparently its communist to want to care about less well off people than yourself (and we weren't even doing that well to start with....)