Conservatism, the fastest-growing Evangelical Christian sect?

"Oops, we were wrong. Ah well, we had an out! Anyway, who wants a drink?"

https://www.newsweek.com/2018/12/21/evangelicals-republicans-trump-millenials-1255745.html

All three men are on the front lines of a growing movement among millennials that is reshaping the evangelical church and the nation’s political landscape. Since the 1970s, white evangelicals have formed the backbone of the Republican base. But as younger members reject the vitriolic partisanship of the Trump era and leave the church, that base is getting smaller and older. The numbers are stark: Twenty years ago, just 46 percent of white evangelical Protestants were older than 50; now, 62 percent are above 50. The median age of white evangelicals is 55. Only 10 percent of Americans under 30 identify as white evangelicals. The exodus of youth is so swift that demographers now predict that evangelicals will likely cease being a major political force in presidential elections by 2024.

hi there, for those of you who were chosen by god to belong to white evangelical families, this might help with the next time you want to try and fail for the millionth time to convince them that they're actually the fucking worst:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/christmas-feast-of-innocents.html

...The story in the Bible goes like this: Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod. In the Gospel of Matthew, Herod is described as “disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him” by the news of Jesus’ birth — he perceives Jesus as a rival. A “furious” Herod then orders the killing of all the boys 2 years and under in Bethlehem. These children are remembered by the church as “holy innocents.”

Scholars debate the historicity of the event because it was not recorded by the contemporary Jewish historian Josephus, who provides an otherwise detailed description of Herod’s reign. Nonetheless, Josephus does tell us that Herod had three of his sons killed because he saw them as threats to his power. Commanding the slaughter of children would not be beyond the pale for Herod.

The Gospel of Matthew reports that an angel warns Jesus’ family of the impending danger, and they leave the country. Jesus spends the first years of his life on foreign soil, in Egypt. When he finally returns from Egypt, his family cannot settle in their ancestral home of Bethlehem because there is still unrest.

The Bible story, then, depicts Jesus as a refugee fleeing a nation marked by political violence and being displaced within his own country even after some of the violence settles down. And though he avoids murder by Herod, he does not escape death by the state altogether — three decades later, Pontius Pilate, an official of the Roman Empire, pronounces Jesus’ death sentence. Like Herod, Pilate does so to maintain power and remove a threat.

Why is it important that the church calendar tells this story at the beginning of the Christmas season? Why should anyone care about the dates on a Christian calendar, especially in a time in which people have rightly questioned the excessive quest for power that marks some corners of the church?

The church calendar calls Christians and others to remember that we live in a world in which political leaders are willing to sacrifice the lives of the innocent on the altar of power. We are forced to recall that this is a world with families on the run, where the weeping of mothers is often not enough to win mercy for their children. More than anything, the story of the innocents calls upon us to consider the moral cost of the perpetual battle for power in which the poor tend to have the highest casualty rate.

But how can such a bloody and sad tale do anything other than add to our despair? The Christmas story must be told in the context of suffering and death because that’s the only way the story makes any sense. Where else can one speak about Christmas other than in a world in which racism, sexism, classism, materialism and the devaluation of human life are commonplace? People are hurting, and the epicenter of that hurt, according to the Feast of the Holy Innocents, remains the focus of God’s concern.

This feast suggests that things that God cares about most do not take place in the centers of power. The truly vital events are happening in refugee camps, detention centers, slums and prisons. The Christmas story is set not in a palace surrounded by dignitaries but among the poor and humble whose lives are always subject to forfeit. It’s a reminder that the church is not most truly herself when she courts power. The church finds her voice when she remembers that God “has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble,” as the Gospel of Luke puts it.

The very telling of the Christmas story is an act of resistance. This is how the biblical story functioned for my ancestors who gathered in the fields and woods of the antebellum South. They saw in the Christian narrative an account of a God who cared for the enslaved and wanted more for them than the whip and the chain. For them Christianity did not merely serve the disinherited — it was for the disinherited, the “weak things” that shamed the strong.

yes, i know that pointing this out will convince them as much as mentioning that jesus was, you know, a friend of the vulnerable and probably wouldn't support ICE. but i do often forget about this fun feature of the new testament, and the next time my parents are justifying their racism and cruelty toward refugees/immigrants, i plan to ask them how they reconcile that with the story of jesus' birth. they won't answer, which will lead to satisfying silence followed by a change in subject (local bike trails, 95% probability)

also see:

The nativity scene at Claremont United Methodist church.
HT Rev. Karen Clark Ristine. pic.twitter.com/YRIl8me63y

— Matt Rindge (@mattrindge) December 8, 2019

There was a concerted effort the last couple of days on The Twitters by right-wingers to argue that there's no Biblical evidence that Joseph was a poor, that they only stayed in the manger because of having to travel and there being no rooms available. Since he was a skilled carpenter he might actually have been rich!

So, you see, despite every recorded word that Jesus spoke on the topic, being wealthy is Good, Actually.

And what about Mary being knocked up by someone other than her husband?

Not a problem for evangelicals, because if God does it, it means it's moral and legal and wholly praiseworthy. I want to know if Mary made a joyful noise unto the Lord.

https://annehelen.substack.com/p/jesus-and-john-wayne

John Wayne wasn’t evangelical, but he came to embody a sort of retrograde white masculinity that stood tall against liberalism and feminism and communism and all of the things that evangelicals believed to be existential threats. He was a man who would do what needed to be done. He was also racist; onscreen and off, he embodied and promoted the ideal of the heroic white man who brings order through violence—usually violence against non-white peoples. (Onscreen this included Native Americans, Mexicans, Japanese, and Vietnamese, and offscreen this included his advocacy of law and order politics and sentiments such as those expressed in the now infamous 1971 Playboy interview.) He was thrice-married, twice-divorced, and hardly the poster boy of “family values.” Except in some ways he was, if we recognize that the assertion of white patriarchal authority was always at the heart of evangelical family values.

The fact that evangelicals were drawn to pop culture warriors like John Wayne and William Wallace is significant because evangelicals like to insist that their values are based on the Bible. They self-identify as “Bible-believing” Christians and they define themselves over against other Christians as the ones who “take the Bible seriously.” Yet when it comes to their ideals of Christian manhood—and ultimately, I argue, of Christianity itself—they are deeply shaped by extra-biblical influences. In this case, by secular warrior heroes.

This makes sense, because it turns out that men formed through traditional Christian virtue—men who model their lives on a suffering servant, who exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control—tend not to embody the ruggedness or ruthlessness that conservative evangelicals insist this moment requires. And by “this moment,” I mean whatever particular moment they find themselves in. So they find models of rugged masculinity and then baptize them as Christian warriors — as models of Christian masculinity.

When I first started this project, I was working with the unexamined assumption that the militancy evangelicals exhibited was largely in response to fear—that’s certainly how they presented things. Fear of communists, secular humanists, feminists, Muslims, Democrats, fear of demographic decline, losing their religious liberty. But when I looked at the history, more often than not I saw that the militancy came first. Leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr. and Mark Driscoll actively stoked fear in the hearts of their followers in order to consolidate their own power. This was true in churches, and it was especially true in political organizations. It was a tried and true method for raising funds and enhancing the power of evangelical leaders.

gloria in excelsis John Wayne

William Wallace?!?!?

yes

my dad owned a william wallace braveheart sword, and it was one of the only dvds we had

Wallace: Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace.

Young soldier: William Wallace is 7 feet tall.

Wallace: Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds, and if he were here he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse. I AM William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What would you do with that freedom? Will you fight?

Veteran soldier: Fight? Against that? No, we will run; and we will live.

Wallace: Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!!!

He lost and ended up with his head on a spike at the Tower of London! Good choice, Christians! That's a relatively recent phenomenon then? I confess I don't know when Braveheart was made.

a certain kind of evangelical man sees this as the ultimate way to die (which is a very important obsession of a certain kind of evangelical man). to die early in life, perceived as a persecuted martyr and also as a violent rambo, and get to skip all the worldly misery and get an early promotion to eternal bliss? of course

Mel Gibson has a lot to answer for. I prefer this version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cjSHTBHejg

i'm sensing a strong anti-Braveheart sentiment here. william wallace is an american hero and the historical events depicted in Braveheart is part of fabric of our country.

:)

I'm trying to remember what I knew about William Wallace when I was growing up - some guy who fought the English, though I can't remember whether I knew if he'd won or lost. I think I had him mixed up with Rob Roy and I'm still not sure what Rob Roy is famous for. Whereas everyone knew about Robert the Bruce because he actually won - setting Scotland up for the 400 years of peaceful and uneventful co-existence with their English neighbours which followed.

ah yes, i remember robert the bruce from his supporting role in helping braveheart defeat communism

rob roy was also a major motion picture in the US, sometime around the braveheart years. the united states had developed a case of proto-american-scottish history fever

How soon we forget the 19th Century mania for Ivanhoe in the American South!

And before that, Ossian.

Hey, you'd never have got the Ku Klux Klan and the Confederate flag without us.

I saw Rob Roy in the theater, but it was definitely overshadowed by Braveheart

both out in 1995!

by 1996, the united states was dealing with a second british invasion of famed scottish rebel michael flatley, who danced his way into millions of tvs tuned into PBS via the smash musicals riverdance and lord of the dance

I also saw Rob Roy in a theater when it came out, and chuckled loudly at the indignant older man in front of me who bolted up when Liam Neeson was bested in a sword fight by Tim Roth and yelled "any real man would have cut that fop in half!"

Was Tim Roth actually supposed to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, or just a stand-in for him? I can't remember

I guess we're digressing

i feel like we're getting closer to something important though

Indignant Older Man in front of me at the theater would have definitely been on the John Wayne train.

Was Tim Roth actually supposed to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, or just a stand-in for him? I can't remember

I thought he played The English Bastard Called Edward in "Rob Roy". I actually thought he was The English Bastard Called Edward in "Braveheart" - there obviously was one. Every Englishman was called Edward then, whereas in Tudor times every Englishman was called Thomas, apart from Henry VIII.

yeah, that sounds right... he superficially resembled a Charles Stuart-like dandy but it was the redcoats that burned and raped across the highlands

From an article in the Federalist that I hate-read while absolutely cackling the entire time:

Blaming people for contracting a catchy virus has been one of many widely deployed COVID manipulation tactics. That has shifted into blaming people for dying of a catchy virus after they decided their risks from taking the vaccines outweighed their risks from catching the disease.

Shaming people for dying by accident is a bit twisted, but it might make sense if you believe life is over once a person stops breathing, and so cling to the illusion of human control over death to avoid the terror of acknowledging that’s impossible. It’s such pagan assumptions driving the ridiculous number of news articles with fear-porn titles like these: “Kansas City area official who died from COVID was unvaccinated, ‘felt he was immune’”; “Unvaccinated husband and wife die of COVID-19 leaving 5 children behind“; “Unvaccinated Father Inspired Other Family Members to Get Shot Before Dying From COVID“; “Bride Planning Funeral Instead of Wedding After Unvaccinated Groom Dies From COVID.”

Christian teaching diametrically opposes the underlying theology pushed in such articles and in many other popular COVID narratives. That’s true despite the appearance generated by the majority of Western churches prioritizing obedience to men instead of to God by shutting themselves down over COVID-19. Doing so contradicts numerous clear commands of scripture.

It’s a mark of the weakness of the Western church that more church leaders have not proclaimed this to the world by now. They’ve left standing for basics of the faith to the far too few strong pastors such as John MacArthur and Mark Dever. Let’s go through a few of these clear biblical teachings that even this theologically basic laywoman knows thanks to parents who read the Bible to her growing up and excellent pastoral instruction since then.

God Decides When We Die, Not COVID
For one thing, Christians believe that life and death belong entirely to God. There is nothing we can do to make our days on earth one second longer or shorter: “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” says the Psalmist. “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s,” says Saint Paul in Romans 14:8.

For another thing, for Christians, death is good. Yes, death is also an evil — its existence is a result of sin. But, thanks be to God, Jesus Christ has redeemed even death. In his resurrection, Christ has transformed death into a portal to eternal life for Christians. What Satan meant for evil, God has transformed into good.

Verse three of the 1540 Dutch hymn, “In God, My Faithful God,” beautifully expresses this timeless theology:

If death my portion be,
It brings great gain to me;
It speeds my life’s endeavor
To live with Christ forever.
He gives me joy in sorrow,
Come death now or tomorrow.

The Christian faith makes it very clear that death, while sad to those left behind and a tragic consequence of human sin, is now good for all who believe in Christ. A Christian funeral is a cause for rejoicing, albeit understandably through tears from those of us temporarily left behind.

“Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord,” says 2 Corinthians 5:8. This is not a small or unclear doctrine. It is repeated over and over again in scripture. It flatly rejects the heathen idea that death is to be avoided at any cost.

‘To Live Is Christ; To Die Is Gain’
Our Christian heritage also rejects the avoidance of death at any cost by venerating the millions of martyrs we honor precisely for choosing to confess Christ despite the indescribable costs to them of comfort, health, and life itself.

Still today, our brothers and sisters are routinely martyred in countries like Communist China. In the Middle East, Christians are raped and ethnically cleansed to punish their beliefs. It’s time for we comparatively comfortable Westerners to despise the shame and get back to running our race like their fellow Christians, not cowards.

As the Apostle Paul proclaimed, “Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” He, of course, himself went on to make good on that statement with a martyr’s death.

If he can do that, we can go to our safe, air-conditioned churches and worship. We can even go to the hospital rooms and bedrooms of those dying with infectious diseases and love them to the end, like the imitations of our Master Christians have boldly shown themselves to be for centuries, putting pagans to shame.

The Path to Destruction Is Very, Very Popular
The Christian church has always faced a stronger prospect of suffering and death because “the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.” We are instructed to be, not driven by “consensus” and social comfort, but the truth as God has given it to us in His Word.

Christ our Lord says in the 10th chapter of Matthew, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” It is this commanded, holy fear of God before all others that motivates not just the noble martyrs but all Christians today who decline to obey the rulers whose commands contradict God’s.

Jesus is direct about what obeying Him, rather than men, can cost. He endured the worst of this cost Himself. “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you,” Jesus says in John. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”

A bit later in that gospel, Jesus again emphasizes: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” To put it simply, people who want an effort-free, comfort-filled life need to fight that to be Christians.

Christians are explicitly called to spurn pagans’ approval, advice, and beliefs for the sake of our souls: “Enter by the narrow gate,” Christ says in Matthew. “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Where Is Hope in Crisis? Give Me Jesus!
In a time of crisis, what do people need most? Christians believe the answer to that is: Jesus. Not food, not water, not even health. First and foremost, we need Jesus.

This is why, for example, it has been the historic practice of the Christian church for pastors to bring the Sacraments to the sick and dying. Our faithful fathers and mothers knew that, while God certainly works through doctors and scientists, the most important work, one that belongs utterly to Him, is the “medicine of immortality.”

It is this medicine that we sacramentalists crave and receive each Sunday. It is why there is for us no such thing as “Zoom church.” Church is not church without Jesus, and where has Jesus promised to be? “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Where else has Jesus promised to be? In his Word and Holy Communion. We can’t get those at home by ourselves. That’s why we’re commanded to “not forsak[e] the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Hebrews 10:25).

To forsake assembling for worship also breaks the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” We break this commandment, says Martin Luther’s catechism, when we “despise or neglect God’s Word,” which means “failing to gather together in worship to receive God’s Word and Sacraments” and “rejecting or disregarding God’s Word.”

Repent Now, Because We All Could Die Any Moment
“How few are we within Thy fold, Thy saints by men forsaken! True faith seems quenched on every hand, Men suffer not Thy Word to stand; Dark times have us oe’rtaken,” laments Luther in one of his Reformation hymns. “…May God root out all heresy And of false teachers rid us.”

Sin destroys faith. It is time for Christians individually and corporately to repent for the way we and our institutions responded to the COVID-19 outbreak. Our refusal to preach and obey the clear teachings of the Bible amid the world’s panic have betrayed Our Lord.

Thanks be to God, there’s a way out for us. It’s the same as for Saint Peter, the coward Christ transformed into a lion. That way out is repentance! Then let us rejoice and sin no more.

The author is the EXECUTIVE EDITOR of the publication lol

These people are fucking absolutely twisted.

honky death cult ahoy

Christians are explicitly called to spurn pagans’ approval, advice, and beliefs for the sake of our souls

The "beliefs" I can see as having a Biblical basis. Where the fuck does it say that advice from a non-Christian is automatically to be spurned as bad advice? And "approval"? This pure 'guilt by association' thinking.

Next, by what twisted logic are all doctors, epidemiologists, medical researchers and nurses consigned to the category of pagans? Because they advise people to take the vaccine?

This guy obviously thinks he's some hot shit theologian, but all he's doing is a bunch of legalistic special pleading for a position that he wants us to consider as specially sanctioned be Christian. He's clearly not seeking to align himself with the truth that "loving your neighbor as yourself" is a Christian's greatest obligation.

by the title of the story/headline, i thought this was going to be a story about a christian apologizing for using religion as a reason to act selfishly re: covid. but instead, it's about how christians should be repenting for the sin of not being even worse on covid before, and that then provides lots of things to support christians dying early as martyrs and how that's a good thing, then advises readers to repent (of not sucking worse on covid, earlier) and then live without sin (re: die)

not parody or even The Onion https://t.co/AjdKrrB0YL

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 21, 2021

anyway, it's rare when christians in that position say the quiet part loud (we want to die early, and we don't care about anyone else), but there it is

Then why even bother with invermectin or whatever?

https://i.imgur.com/CrUXvsn.gif