this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Trump didn’t transform shit. His views are as old as conservatism. Maybe there was a lull in speaking out about them from about 1975-2001, but they didn’t go away. Trump literally just stumbled ass-first into a convenient landscape with his more plainly outspoken bigotry and hate.
To attribute all of this to the last 6-8 years is beyond stupid and misses the entire problem.
And if these people can’t see that, their blind spot to hatred is so big that they can’t see it until someone screams it in their face. Yeah, it’s great someone in the evangelical community is speaking out, but it’s too little way too late. The fascist ideology has firmly rooted its way into American life over the last 30 years. Now that that tree is bearing fruit and it’s falling on people’s heads, speaking out now is like trying to cut down that tree with pruning shears. You assholes that fostered this for so long needed to cut it off way sooner.
I appreciate your attempt to bring a longer timescale into conservative christofascism in America but 30 years is still about 300 years too short.
Remember our earliest colonies were totalitarian theocracies with extreme racial purity beliefs
Many people don't realize that the first colonies were founded by Christians that believed the churches in their home county were not being authoritarian enough. The wanted religious freedom, sure, but they wanted the freedom to be theocratic like you said.
The views and beliefs were always there, trump just galvanized and rallied those with those beliefs.
But it’s bc of him that the Republican Party is as openly fucking nuts. Some of the Florida GOP congresspeople are fucking wild.
Trump just enabled people to be proud of their bigotry.
I think "just" downplays the effect this has had on society for the past several years.
Fully agree. As an ex-Christian, the crusades used to be unimaginable to me. Now I see them as an easy trend line from current events.
We already did two crusades this century.
Our correct and just way to live means that when we invade other countries, kill their civilians and take their stuff, it's for their own good because we're bringing ~~the light of christ~~ freedom and democracy. That's totally a crusade.
I'm quite a fan of freedom and democracy - I wish we had some in the US - but using our noblest ideals to justify bloody wars of plunder is the most christian thing I can imagine.
Didn't Bush Jr call his Iraq war a crusade? Yes, he did.
One of the most eye opening historical events for me as a christian was the Children's Crusade
Happened right before the 5th crusade. Basically a bunch of kids and teens got together and believed that God would part the dead sea for them, like Moses did, and allow them to take Jerusalem. Which at the time was considered a reasonable idea.
They believed in the cause so much, they only sent them with enough supplies to make it there, not a return trip.
Some of the kids made it to the dead sea, and the sea did not part.
It is said out of the thousands of kids they sent, only a few returned. With the rest suffering starvation, thirst, drowning, disease, and slavery.
I still believe in God, and I do have some faith in him, if at the very least like the idea of a Good God being in control of everything.
Kind of like Santa.
Not in the sense that I would drink a vat of Kool-aid for him. Warning: Not Safe For Work
But that I will question my religion and see what I got wrong first, before I challenge the scientific proof. Because if the moral of the story is anything, it's that God works in mysterious ways, but he doesn't part the dead sea anymore.
I've read at least three commentaries by [priests/deacons/whatever their particular church calls them but I'm using the generic "priests"] priests who 'nourished' and 'tended' to their 'kind' and 'caring' flocks for decades, who no longer agree with their flock's views and have either left voluntarily or were ousted. Tellingly, all three have relocated to liberal states from the South.
And all I can think is how "Southern charm" partially rose up after the Civil War, when they just really couldn't tell the Yankees what they actually thought of them, so they went overboard with the faux politeness ('bless your heart'). And the fact that these 'liberal' priests just either never heard or never understood exactly why people were saying their people were bigots indicates a lack of the introspection that they're supposed to have.
Picking and choosing what parts of the Bible they want to follow is nearly as old as the religion itself. The first council of Nicea was the first large attempt for Christianity to define itself and create a canon. That happened in 325 AD. Even if we talk only about protestants, denominations are all about what parts of the bible they follow and how they translate the word to doctrine.
To attribute it to one man is so disingenuous. Christians have been interpreting the Bible in whatever way suits them best for over a millenia.
Seriously. This is not in any way new - it's just that now people feel more comfortable saying the quiet part out loud.
They don't actually believe in the teachings of their religion. It's just a convenient armor they can cloak themselves in to deflect criticism.
Yeah thank God mainstream christians realize they actually hadn't been following the Bible for decades. Centuries.