Ask Lemmy

There's a real cognitive dissonance there. Their version of Christianity takes a back seat to politics because they've been told all these visions of grandeur about how "Jesus is coming back" and how they are the "sheep" and all those godless liberals are the "goats. They've been trained to look for reasons to feel persecuted even if they don't come directly out and say it, even if they don't realize it themselves. There's a real "us vs. them" mentality in a lot of those types of churches and they'll gladly go rub one out to stuff like where Jesus said to his disciples in one of the gospels that if people aren't for him then they're against him. Nevermind that one of the other gospels says the opposite. A lot of Christians I've come across just have this persecution fetish where any slight inconvenience or call for accountability from pretty much anyone (because their church won't take them to task over things) turns into a 'righteous' cry to their lord about how the godless Philistines around them are normalizing oppression and sodomy and trans rights or whatever and these holy little Christian's are the only beacon of hope in society even though they insist on treating anyone who isn't like them like absolute garbage. I'm not a social scientist or anything like that, hopefully people smarter than me chime in. But conservatives treat equity in a community like a zero sum game, you know? If poor people are given a hand up by the government then it's interpreted by these (at best) middle class Christians as an affront to their hard earned money. They worked for their income but "these filthy poors just get handouts at MY expense?" You can tell by their actions that they have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus regardless of how they try to present themselves. They're full of crap and they deserve to be treated as such.

Source: Grew up in a very conservative farming community, did all the church stuff, then moved away and found myself.

Also, I know I abused quotation marks but my bad on any grammar or spelling errors or general incoherence. I treated myself to vodka for dinner.

Honestly, it’s because conservative politicians found a group of people who are susceptible to manipulation and uncritical support of anyone and anything that their church tells them to be.

They worship supply side Jesus https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx

Abortion and the "southern strategy".

Abortion access has been used for 60ish years as a wedge issue to drive religious people to the right wing party.

The gambit of American Christianity is just the wildest snarled mess of hair splitting bullshit one can hope to theologically take seriously (there are actual church splits over folding chairs vs pews).

"BROADLY" you can understand American Christianity as being one of two flavors, what you're observing is Evangelical Christianity, which emphasizes a "born again" experience and a "personal relationship with God", basically they all but come right out and say that they believe what's convenient to their already existing worldviews because these are the Christians that derive from trying to preach a religion that holds the story of Exodus as a core myth to slave oligarchs and also to their slaves.

The other flavor of American Christianity is "Mainline Christianity", this is not to mean mainstream, Mainline refers to how these are the denominations that found the most traction along rail towns. This is the group of denominations closest to what you consider to be what Christianity is meant to be, and they're currently having severe retention issues because the evangelicals are making the mainliners' younger members disgusted with Christianity altogether.

Right wing Christianity is aesthetically and morally performative and in practical terms, absolutely fascist. The term "bleeding heart" as in the politically perjorative "bleeding heart liberal" is a reference to the image of the crown of thorns on the heart of Christ.

You're talking about a group of people who intend to use the second amendment to destroy the first. Study the Crusades and you'll see history repeating itself.

I think the question is backwards. I think Republicans market themselves as being the 'christian' party because they rely heavily on religious and emotional arguments to support their positions ( because they're wrong )

Funny thing, Jesus was the biggest socialist world wide. He only lost his shit for real 2 times in the bible and both were because of capitalists.

Pretty ironic for the good 'ol Republicans. Evil fuckers.

As an American Christian who was a Republican as a stupid teenager, I will confirm that your description of Christianity (social justice, compassion and peace) is correct. There are a couple of factors that lead to it being the cudgel they've chosen:

• In the early 20th century, there was a fringe Christian belief called "dispensationalism" that gained power because southerners who had been solidly defeated in the Civil War thought that their defeat and the subsequent emergence of some tiny modicum of civil rights for Black people represented the end times; and the very faithful in the South pivoted from avoiding politics into being active in politics.

• In the 1970s and 1980s, a group of Republicans realized that they could use the Christian base in America to gain more power; so they created the myth of a "Christian nation" and set up Ronald Reagan as the "Christian candidate" against Jimmy Carter (who actually was a Christian, ironically).

• Republicans, as nominal conservatives, are trying to capitalize on an illusion of "restoring a lost America"—one which never existed in reality, but which has a strong nostalgia factor as a result of its presence in movies and TV shows set in the 1950s. It's very enticing for baby boomers, who were very young during that time and thus have rose-colored glasses for it. This illusion includes Christianity as a cornerstone.

In short, Republicans warped the religion into something they could use to exert power. Something that evil people have been doing for 2,000 years (see also: the crusades).

If you're interested in further reading about the topic, I recommend Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism

You probably don't want to read all that so here's a what I think is the important take away as far as your question is concerned. American Christians have always been a bit different from the mainstream religion elsewhere. The largest Christian group to come to America in the early colonial period were called the Puritans. They believed that the English Reformation did not go far enough. They were staunchly anti-Catholic and were very upset that the Church of England had adopted so much theology and tradition from the Catholic Church.

The Puritans believed that the Bible is the complete revelation of God rejecting the papacy, the concept of continuing revelations, and the related concept of the Divine Right of Kings. They believed that individuals forged their own covenant with God and that their belief and acceptance was all that in required for their salvation. That sin is so pervasive in our corrupt world that it was unavoidable, no person can be "good" or worthy of salvation and so salvation is only available through God's mercy. They believed that it was their role as Christians to fight against the corruption of the world by spreading their theology and enforcing their concepts of sin and redemption on each other and on the greater community. The narrative is that they fled Europe to avoid religious persecution. The persecution that they faced was that they were not allowed to make laws banning things like alcohol or "revealing" clothing that they considered sinful or forcing people to go to their churches.

They adopted most of there theology from a reformist movement called Calvinism that sought to expand the Protestant Reformation further stripping away the power of the clergy and empower believers to enforce theology. Calvinists adopted an extremely socially conservative interpretation of the Bible and supported strict adherence to their moral ideology and severe punishment for violations of their concept of morality.

The modern Christian movements that trace themselves back to that foundation are still the largest Christian groups in the US. In the 1960's the Republican party began the "Southern Strategy" which was shift of political focus to conservative social issues and attacking secular institutions. Republicans used this strategy to unite the philosophical descendants of the Puritans under a political ideology that is strongly focused on conservative social issues and on pushing their concepts of religion and morality into all aspects of society enforcing adherence through government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology

Prosperity theology is a newer theological concept that was popularized by Oral Roberts, has been embraced by the Republican party, and allowed the rise of the megachurch and celebrity preachers. Basically Prosperity theology gives an answer to the question of how you know that that someone is "living right" and a solution to the problem of evil. You know that someone is "living right" because God rewards their righteousness with material wealth. Evil exists as a punishment for the corruption of the secular world. Bad things primarily happens to the unholy but evil spills over to the righteous because secular corruption is so pervasive as to make sin unavoidable in our fallen world. Poverty is the primary form of punishment God visits upon the unholy.

You say you are from a predominantly Christian country so I assume that you are sufficiently familiar with the Gospels to recognize that this is a significant departure from the teachings of Jesus as presented in the Bible. I dare say that the departure is significant enough to be called an outright rejection of the teachings of the purported source of their morality and salvation.

Because during the Civil Rights era, the parties flipped ideologies and the new southern Republicans embarked on "the southern strategy" which led to the courting groups like hard-core Christians and racists into the fold.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

one way fascism thrives is by co-opting the aesthetics of religion to further itself, and it does not limit itself to only one religion. other commenters have noted correctly that the dichotomy you perceive isn’t real; what you identify as the “fervent” are actually just “the most loud and outspoken.”

this is not to “no true scottsman” my way out of the situation. republican christians are christians, it’s just that they are also complicit in using their religion as leverage to gain power as white nationalists.

If they actually were Christians, this would totally not be an issue. But they aren't. They are trying to "look Christian" to get gullible voters. But most of them, if not all, are CINOs (Christians In Name Only), like Trump who had a road and church closed for a foto-op in that church where he held up a bible upside down...

Conservativism is not an ideology, it is narcissism wearing the skin of a stoic. They believe they are inherently virtuous, and therefore anything the conservative thinks, does, says, or wants will be righteous.

Christianity feeds this by reinforcing the idea that the conservative is personal friends with the Almighty Creator of the Universe and Final Arbiter of Absolute Justice. They claim to speak for the divine, and therefore they are divine.

This is all the justification a conservative requires for whatever they want to do. Bigotry? No, God is the one passing judgement. Selfishness? No, it is God's plan for me to hoard wealth. Violence? My arm is the right arm of the Lord. And when I sin, I shall be personally forgiven by the only person who matters: myself.

It is not possible to be a hypocrite, because whatever the conservative does is justified by their identity. When they do something, it is good, and when they do not adhere to their own stated ideology, it is good. When the "other" does anything, it is bad because the other is not the self and the self is good. So therefore the other is evil.

When the other does the same thing as the self, it is bad when the other does it and good when the self does it.

You don't have to be religious to be a conservative, but it helps.

Christianity sounds to me a lot more like socialist utopia.

A lot of atheists end up with that impression, maybe from unfamiliarity. That Jesus was just a dope socialist who loved everyone.

But the religion has been absolutely shitty for pretty much as soon as he was dead (at least).

For example, the other day I saw someone cite Acts 4 as an example of how Christianity was a commune, where people pooled their assets.

It conveniently left out the part where Peter had an older couple who didn't pay him everything they owned who were both struck dead after meeting privately and being confronted (allegedly killed by God). Which was a reference back to the book of Joshua where a guy kept some loot for himself and was outed and killed.

Women were told to be silent and subservient (in spite of 'heretical' sects and texts of Christianity where Jesus was instructing female disciples and they were acting as teachers - ironically the only extant sect that claimed Jesus was talking about Greek atomism and naturalism was one of these).

The religion was canonized right after the emperor of Rome converted, so guess what was canonized? A bunch of shit about how patriarchal monarchy is the divine plan. The saying attributed to Jesus about how someone who succeeded in life should rule and should only hold power temporarily obviously gets excluded and eventually the collection of sayings is punishable by death for even possessing it.

Even a lot of that stuff about "blessed is the poor" was probably from Paul who was separating fools from their money. Originally there's sayings about how those ministering shouldn't collect money, but this gets straight up reversed in a later edition of Luke and you can see Paul in 1 Cor 9 arguing that he is entitled to make a living off ministering and encouraging donations "for the poor in Jerusalem." But then elsewhere we see Paul was accepting expensive fragrant offerings from people. But that's ok, as then in the gospels you see Jesus keeps an expensive fragrant offering and yells at the people who criticize him for not selling it and giving the proceeds to the poor.

It's a bunch of feel good BS to con people out of their money. I don't think it was always that from the very start, and probably even had some interesting things going on initially, but almost immediately after Jesus is out of the picture the errant early tradition gets morphed into a traditional cult where power and wealth consolidates at the top and it preaches subservience and obedience and self-hatred so you beg for the idea of salvation and trade all that you have for a promise the people you turn everything over to can't fulfill.

So why would a group that wants power and wealth concentrated and to destroy democracy in favor of patriarchal authoritarianism be attractive to Christians? Because they've been being fattened up for that slaughter going on near two thousand years at this point.

They aren't. Most are just just cosplaying as Christians.

If you look closely you'll notice republicans are only fervent about certain things that they have linked to the christian religion but the link is usually tenuous, sometimes the subject not mentioned specifically in the bible at all. Jesus supposedly said "live by the sword, die by the sword" - those were not instructions but a warning. And other things in the christian religion they fully ignore. I posit that they are not fervent christians at all but rather wolves in sheeps clothing.

If you want to see really fervent christians, there are many in Africa and Asia. Being actually persecuted, or even just poor in education tends to ratchet up the ferventcy in true believers.

They're not. But they're leaching off of Christians money

Because Religion is the ultimate tool of self-righteousness.

It can be used and twisted to justify their every behavior, no matter how vile.. While conversely being used to demonize everything they hate, no matter how righteous.

Thats why most fervent right wing christians dont even know whats in the bible, they are only capable of regurgitating the hate and vague justifications for it that they hear from their cohorts, their extremist evangelical leaders, and their politicians. Because they don't care about the actual tenants of the religion they've co-opted, They only care about the authority claiming ti be faithful gives their words and actions in their own eyes and opinions. . They are addicted to it, like a drug.

I've seen both kinds of people from both parties. Joe Biden and John F Kennedy were the only two Catholic presidents, the other forty-four have been Protestant. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did communion on the moon. Every talk show host has spoken about holding faith. Most singers and football players blend their divine devotion with who they are in public. There is no strict dichotomy like you describe.

I think the main principle behind it is what conservatives call "virtue signaling" - associating with things that make them appear pious, strong or respectable to signal to others how virtuous they themselves are.

• Running around with "God Wins" flags and spouting bible quotes online both gives them an edge in discussion (in the "if you disagree with me you're going against god" sense) and makes them appear pious
• Similarly, carrying around guns and posting pictures of their guns and tacticool gear is an attempt to appear strong and dangerous
• Same with flags or flag-themed clothes, calling themselves patriots and so on once again hits into the same notch.

From my PoV your observation seems spot on. A good portion of Amerca's religious community these days is just appropriating religion for the respect and authority it brings while practicing almost none of its virtues.

I think, as a big picture view, any religion is very prone to drift. If you demand utter reverence and obedience to a god that is at the same time also the weakest possible being (one that doesn't exist), you get a plaything that stands for everything and for nothing - aka whatever the general mood of the population wants or what those who are most adept at assuming its authority want it to be.

Consider "Prosperity Theology,," popular in Nigeria, for example, where an entire subculture has assumed the belief that the god from Christianity rewards the pious with material wealth, thus, the richer one is, the more faithful and holier they must be.

They're not, in fact the typical conservative 'Christian' despises what Jesus taught: Care for the poor and sick, and hospitality to the stranger in your land.

Christianity, at its heart, is incredibly socialist and the first 'churches' after Jesus's crucifixion operated a lot like communes, with shared group meals and living communally.

I'm not entertaining any 'no true scotsman' replies today, that will just get you blocked.

If you say you are vegan and eat meat, you are not vegan.

If you say you are Christian and despise the poor, the sick, and the foreigner, you are not Christian.

A lot of people are answering half of your question: offering theories about why conservatives are Christians, or vis versa.

I've always been curious about the "fervent" part: why do the liberal Christians out there (statistically there are lots) seem to be so much less passionate and outspoken about their religion and its tenets?

A group of people raised from birth to not question what they believe and why is going to be incredibly susceptible to being lied to.

They like that they can use Confession to clear their concious of all their crimes every week. As if it were a super hideout in Grand Theft Auto

So, there is a lot of history here, but basically back in the day, there was an extreme sect of christanity known as the Puritans, and they were basically chased out of England, facing religious persecution and ran to the (at the time) new colonies in North America. This underpins why there is a separation of church and state in the US, but also why an above average number of the christians over here are insane.

For the same reason that the January 6 protesters call themselves "patriots", dumb anti-vaxxers call themselves "smart", violent people call themselves "peaceful", naive conspiracy theory believing idiots call themselves "woke", etc. It is easy to think that you know the answer, and really, Really, REALLY hard to acknowledge how little we truly know. Likewise we all want to think of ourselves as the "good" people, and it's a super tough pill to swallow that we are not.

Which ironically is what many people say that Christianity is truly about:

There is no one who does "good", no, not one single one. All have missed the mark, and fallen short.

- Jesus

Religion isn't about what it preaches, it's about what it does.

Christianity pretty much only ever pushes conservative bullshit and rigid social structures, so conservatives like it.

I wouldn't call their brand of Christianity, Christian. They're idolators, they worship Trump, money, and guns. The praying to God is just a smokescreen.

Because they're actually very bad at Christianity and the teachings of Jesus, they're not informed, and they have something to prove.

There are all kinds of people who are Christian. Their worldviews and interpretations are as varied as anyone else. Most of the ones I know aren’t the type to go cherry picking passages to use as an excuse to mistreat others. Many quietly lead their lives as an example of Christian faith. It’s often acknowledged among Christians that no one - Christian or otherwise- is perfect and no one but God can judge others.

There are others who didn’t get that memo. They take it all very literally. It’s like they completely missed the point of the four gospels in which one of the themes is Jesus at odds with the Pharisees who are so stuck on the Old Testament that they forget love and compassion. It’s not that the New Testament contradicts the Old Testament so much as it’s teaching that going through the motions and following the rules exactly as written is not the same as living with God and showing humanity towards others.

In my experience, this latter group is often comprised of people who grew up being taught strict adherence to the Bible, with a particular focus on the Old Testament, and born again types whose rigid compliance keeps them on the straight and narrow.

Not all Christians are Republicans or conservative. You really have all types, from the ones you’re talking about to some pretty liberal, polar opposite ones. Some identify with conservative politics because of their Christian views and others are avowed liberals for the same reason.

Most of the Christians I know are good people, and their happiness and just how they live their lives is something you want for yourself. They lead by example. I’ve been around the other ones too and I’m not particularly fond of hanging out with them. Ironically, those were the ones whose outward attitudes and behavior in private were completely contradictory. Basically, they were the kinds of people you probably don’t want to be around regardless of religion.

They aren't. They claim to be. But their words and actions prove otherwise.

Republicans have no morality or ethics whatsoever. The entire Party is in service to the billionaire oligarchy that funds them. Their job is to do a denial of service attack to prevent legislation from passing that would close the loopholes that the billionaires exploit. They do this by trying to control the conversation in the legislature using divisive and offensive bills and stances. The USA has a tenth of the laws and protections in other advanced economies.

Anyone with half a brain can see that nothing Republicans do is for the benefit of the public or average person. So if they can't attract the attention of intelligent humans they must develop their power base from the imbeciles. The best source of imbeciles is within religion. Religion's underlying power mechanism is isolationist social networking and institutionalized rejection of an evidence based ethos. These religious teachings are learned at a very young age when humans are the most gullible, they then exist in little social isolated networks that reject outside influences as some equal but opposing system. Even many intelligent people that realize how religion is a myth still can't break away from it because if they do, they will lose their entire social network and support system. Collectively, this is how you institutionalize stupidity on a large scale. This is how the Republican party exists, it is a party of the billionaire oligarchy, that uses the institutionalized stupidity of collective imaginary friends and magic to operate. There are some well intentioned convenient idiots thrown into the mix, but those are no excuse.

And I was always wondering how come Republicans are perceiving themselves as devout Christians while the political party they support is openly opposing those virtues and if this doesn’t make them hypocrites?

That's exactly what it makes them. By the Biblical definition of a hypocrite. Jesus literally talks about what that means.

Because moral values don’t come from religious texts. They are transmitted socially and economically. The texts are then used to justify whatever belief system the believer subscribes to.

The real origin of these right-wing beliefs is an interesting question. They arise from a complex cultural and historical process that stems from the material conditions of both ancestral and present-day cultural groupings. My suspicion is that they arose because in these societies, the most successful reproductive and political strategies center around dominance hierarchies. Materially successful people are able to out-compete, out-reproduce, kill, or otherwise coerce people in their societies to adopt values and norms that justify and protect their social dominance and oppression. Even those on the bottom of these hierarchies, like women or the poor must adopt such values or be excluded or attacked.

There are also competing groups that either oppose such hierarchies or have adopted them to a lesser extent. It is from these groups that many Christian ideas originated. In general they tend to originate in urban areas—I suspect this is because there are more opportunities for people to escape from others who wish to dominate them as compared to agrarian societies where access to land or livestock can be monopolized by the powerful. Anonymity and cultural diversity in cities also allow the weak to more easily inflict violence on their dominators without suffering social consequences.

But over time, Christianity spread widely enough that people with different values adopted them. In other cases, the descendants of these anti-hierarchical Christians adopted hierarchical values for various reasons listed above. As the economic and political conditions of society change, people must adapt or die. Unfortunately, some of these adaptations can be harmful to society as a whole even as they benefit their adopters.

Because if you wear your religion on your sleeve and are highly observant then that means you are conservative and rules focused by nature. People who belong to liberal Christian denominations, like Unitarianism, are rarely heard from because they aren't vocal by nature.

People who are very religious also want to believe that what they follow is the truth but the very existence of nonbelievers casts doubt on this either consciously or subconsciously. "If my beliefs are self evident then how can so many nonbelievers exist?" So they rationalize this as either thinking of you as a sinner who deliberately refuses to accept the "truth" or a poor lost soul in need of saving. Christianity, and some other faiths, is also missionary minded in nature. They are called upon in the New Testament to "spread the word". If you want to grow your numbers and/or your income (i.e. Mormon church) then you are aggressive with missionaries and hunting for converts.

People are also very good at rationalizing their views and cherry picking data to force things to fit their emotionally driven beliefs. Look at conspiracy theorists who dismiss anything that contradicts them as "lies" and "propaganda" but their sources are never questioned.

There’s also a lot of very religious African American voters on the left, politically. Black churches, I know for sure, focus on social justice and non-violence. (I’m white but I’ve only lived in majority black cities so I’m well aware of their organizing.) You’ll notice many civil rights leaders, both today and in the past, are or were preachers and so have the Reverend title (obvious example: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. but modern civil rights leaders are very often preachers).

This is an aside but Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was the reverend at Ebenezer Baptist Church, MLK’s former church. He also has a Ph D and now I want to know what title formal invitations use for him.