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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Evangelical Christian Sounds So Much Nicer Than White Nationalist

Evangelical Christian Sounds So Much Nicer Than White Nationalist

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This post is in: 

These lyrics from Eve of Destruction have always stuck with me.

And think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
Ah, you may leave here for four days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor
but don’t forget to say grace

 

 

I saw links to this NYT article in multiple places yesterday, but I have slept since then and I don’t recall who the linkers were.

Evangelical christian sounds so much nicer than white nationalist, which at least some of your neighbors might not approve of.

What may matter more than endorsements and policy plans are Mr. Trump’s embrace of Christianity as a cultural identity — and his promises to defend it.

At a recent rally in Waterloo, Iowa, Mr. Trump cast Christians as a broadly persecuted group facing down a government weaponized against them. Catholics are the current target of “the communists, Marxists and fascists,” he said, citing a recent controversy about a retracted F.B.I. memo, and adding that “evangelicals will not be far behind.”

Read the whole thing – here’s a gift link.

If you click the link, you will see an image of a very ordinary looking woman, seemingly bowing her head as if in prayer, or as if in the presence of a deity.  It feels somehow like a mashup of a prayer and a pledge of allegiance,  I found that image very evocative, revoting in fact – it seems like we are just one step away from “Trump baptisms” at Trump rallies.  And loyalty oaths.  You just know that these people would sell out their neighbors, and their families, even their children, if it curried favor with their LEADER.

So disgusting.  Hoping the nausea will fade if I get my thoughts out there.

Bonus: for a (sad) laugh and as a palate cleanser.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Catholics are the current target of “the communists, Marxists and fascists,

    And that’s just Pope Francis!

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    The culture war has been extraordinarily successful at erasing the memory of evangelical Catholic-hate. Early Jack Chick tracts got revised so that they don’t identify the Pope as the Antichrist any more.

  9. 9.

    Matt McIrvin

    “You better watch out, fascists are coming for the Catholics! Also, Joe Biden is subhuman vermin who should burn in hell.”

  10. 10.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Fascists are coming for the good Catholics. Better watch out for them fascist Republicans.

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack

    On a lighter Trump note, check out the photograph at the top of this Philip Bump piece in the Post (🎁). It’s Trump body man Walt Nauta holding the curtain as Trump is about to go on stage for his Iowa victory party Monday night. Trump looks haggard!

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @Doug R:   That really does look good!

    One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.

    This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.

    Some of these anti- Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.

    But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.

    Lying liars who lie.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    @Anne Laurie: that was the post I mentioned this morning and was commenting on in the earlier thread, so thank you for the original link!

    This still blew my mind:

    Being evangelical once suggested regular church attendance, a focus on salvation and conversion and strongly held views on specific issues such as abortion. Today, it is as often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.

    “Politics has become the master identity,” said Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor. “Everything else lines up behind partisanship.”

    This is most true among white Americans, who over the course of Mr. Trump’s presidency became more likely to identify as “evangelical,” even as overall rates of church attendance declined. The trend was particularly pronounced among supporters of Mr. Trump: A 2021 Pew Research Center analysis found that white Americans who expressed “warm views” of him were more likely to have begun identifying as evangelical during his presidency than those who did not.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack: Trump is under pressure like he’s never seen before, and I think it’s taking its toll. He’s not a very tough man; I can tell that by the way he talks so tough.

  19. 19.

    kindness

    The MSM knows the white racists aren’t Evangelicals.  But calling them Evangelicals rather than racists makes their articles so much easier to Both Sides.  Normally I would expect actual Evangelicals to come out and defend their faith from these frauds, but they aren’t saying a peep.  Is it because they think adding the # of racists to their own population #s makes them look better or is it that they agree with the racists?

    The answer is both.

  20. 20.

    waspuppet

    It’s well done, but it’s going to get cited as “the kind of reporting that only the Times can do” when in fact any Iowa-based journalist could have done it.

    And the Politico Magazine piece is also good, but I’ve been reading that for at least five years.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    also this:

    Mr. Trump himself has become a model for embracing evangelicalism as an identity, not a religious practice. In 2020, he announced he no longer identified as a Presbyterian but as a “nondenominational Christian,” a tradition closely associated with evangelicalism. He is rarely seen in church, but a poll by HarrisX for The Deseret News found that more than half of Republicans see Mr. Trump as a “person of faith.” That’s more than any other 2024 Republican presidential candidate and substantially more than President Biden, a lifelong Catholic who attends Mass frequently*

    *I would loooooooove for the media to put mics in front of the trumpies, note this…’disparity’…to them, and let them flounder their way through why none of it matters to them anyway.  Not to change their minds…to let the rest of America see pro-trump “logic” in action.

    An increasing number of people in many of the most zealously Trump-supporting parts of Iowa fit a religious profile similar to the former president’s. “Iowa is culturally conservative, non-practicing Christians at this point,” Mr. Burge said. “That’s exactly Trump’s base.”

  22. 22.

    Tony G

    The almost-2000-year history of Christianity (like the history of almost all organized religions) includes plenty of racism, murder, torture and warfare — so it’s not unreasonable for these white supremacist fascists to call themselves “Christians”.  If, however, we had news media with any honesty and integrity, the media would be identifying correctly these people as white supremacist fascists.

  23. 23.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jeffro: Iowa is culturally conservative, non-practicing Christians at this point,” Mr. Burge said. “That’s exactly Trump’s base.”

    Lapsed is a good word.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Did you check out the post from 2006 that someone linked to in the DougJ thread yesterday?  It was a fun read and it was nice to be reminded that DougJ was giving Cole the what for in the comments for 2 or 3 years before he started writing on the front page.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    I think political media promoting the idea that Trump won a “crushing” or “dominating” victory in Iowa is good for us. It just isn’t true that 51% is a strong showing. Half of Republican primary voters chose someone other than Trump. He’s weak and we can beat him. That’s the reality but not the narrative. But I’ll take our reality over their reality – I’d rather be us than them :)

    Our biggest problem will be reassuring Democrats that media is wrong and he’s not inevitable. Normie Democrats don’t follow Twitter or read Substack. They get their news from network news shows or cable. All they’re going to hear on those shows are how Trump is dominating, because all those shows operate in lockstep and repeat the dominent narrative. Biden needs to convince normie Democrats he will win.

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    Inorite. They’re just captured moments, and I know that photographers and editors can skew the presentation, but I don’t remember seeing pictures like these of Trump before. Ugly and orange, yes, weird hair-o-dynamics, sure, but not old, frail and worn down. I’m here for it! I hope his legal problems and his need to constantly be in public to raise money is grinding his ass down.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    @waspuppet:

    And the Politico Magazine piece is also good, but I’ve been reading that for at least five years.

    The Politico piece is from 2014, which might help explain things.

  37. 37.

    catclub

    @WaterGirl: Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.

     

    Took them four paragraphs to get to this. Burying the lede.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: Before I taught my first few classes at the university,  my strategy was to pretend that I was the teacher.  I was able to leave my uncertainty at the door and act like I was the teacher, and after a few days I actually was the teacher.  Not faking it anymore.

    Maybe Trump looks pathetic when he’s back stage and then somehow turns on some fake I”m the all powerful Oz thing when he’s in front of an audience?

  40. 40.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @WaterGirl: Do all these people think that being a Christian is just a fucking label, and has nothing to do with, you know, actions???

    Umm…yeah!!!

    I recall a pharmacist I used to work with. She was very openly “Christian” and often highly judgmental. I didn’t dare raise my dedicated homosexual relationship I was with around her at the time. Once she shamed me for choosing a Unitarian service over a Catholic one for Christmas.

  41. 41.

    Captain C

    @waspuppet:

    the kind of reporting that only the Times can do

    Which brings up the question of why they choose not to do it with so many of their front page articles.

  42. 42.

    RevRick

    @WaterGirl: The white Evangelical churches are the literal or spiritual descendants of those who vociferously defended slavery, advocated for secession and Civil War, and supported Jim Crow and its violence. They have always been grounded in white supremacy.

    Dr. Robert P. Jones, who was raised Southern Baptist, recalls his great shock when he got hold of his family Bible and discovered ancestors who owned slaves. It began his journey which led to the writing of White Too Long. He found, not to his surprise, that about 85% of white evangelicals hold great degrees of white supremacist beliefs.
    No matter what they may publicly say about what they believe, they actually center whiteness at the heart of their religion.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    What has me a little rattled about the “Trump dominates!”narrative is we seem to be moving into a new level of unreality, where elections themselves – the numbers- don’t matter.

    51% is a bad number for a de facto incumbent and Party leader and that’s the caucus result. That  isn’t analyzed- instead there’s this kind of stubborn insistence on ignoring it and analyzing….something (anything) else. We’ve also seen this with the careful, thorough ignoring of Democratic overperformance in specials and midterms. Elections should matter. Elections are the information about the electorate this is most reliable and real. And that’s the part that looks good for us. So, I’ll take it :)

  44. 44.

    Captain C

    @WaterGirl:

    If they are non-practicing Christians, they aren’t Christians!

    Or they’ll just sound really bad at the Christian recital. (/musician joke)

  45. 45.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    I learned about this yesterday in an article about (I think) Nick Fuentes or some other Nazi.

    Wikipedia:

    De-banking, also known within the banking industry as de-risking, is the closure of people’s or organizations’ bank accounts by banks who perceive the account holders to pose a financial, legal, regulatory, or reputational risk to the bank.

    Examples of this include the enforcement of anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering laws, the closing of bank accounts of sex workers, and people considered to be politically exposed persons.

    And of course now Trump and his minions are telling the masses that they, too, are in imminent danger of being de-banked.

  46. 46.

    cain

    @Jeffro:

    *I would loooooooove for the media to put mics in front of the trumpies, note this…’disparity’…to them, and let them flounder their way through why none of it matters to them anyway.  Not to change their minds…to let the rest of America see pro-trump “logic” in action.

    They are unhinged – many will simply say that Catholicism isn’t real Christianity and the Pope and Biden are part of Satan’s crew. The American hard right Catholics will agree with them! They hate Biden and hate this Pope!

  47. 47.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Kay: Elections should matter. Elections are the information about the electorate this is most reliable and real. And that’s the part that looks good for us. So, I’ll take it :)

    Exactly. The narrative blows and it’s probably still hurting us in elections.  But as long as we keep winning, we’re good.

    Maybe a true drubbing in a Presidential year will finally make the media see the light on Republicans. “Landslide” is the order of the day.

  49. 49.

    Geminid

    I see the aircraft carrier Gerld R. Ford finally made it back home Wednesday. It deployed from Norfolk to the Mediterranean last May, and was held over a couple months because of the war that broke out October 7.

    I bet Sage, the yellow Lab who came along as a morale booster, was glad to get her paws back on the ground and return to her Virginia Beach home. She’s probably telling her kennel mates at Mutts With a Mission about what it was like serving as the Navy’s first Extended Operational Stress Reduction Canine.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    I think he’s lost weight and that’s why he looks more frail. Thinner men of Trump and Biden’s age look older than men who are overweight. Trump’s bulkiness made him appear younger as compared to Biden.

  51. 51.

    Ken

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Once she shamed me for choosing a Unitarian service over a Catholic one for Christmas.

    Which circles around to the 1970s, when evangelicals didn’t include Catholics as Christians.

    (In fairness, that’s still true for a lot of them, but they don’t say it out loud. As much.)

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    @RevRick:

    No matter what they may publicly say about what they believe, they actually center whiteness at the heart of their religion.

    Jesus, who most likely was not white, would be rolling over in his grave.  If he had one.

  53. 53.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Ken: Catholics may be Catholics, but they’re still Christian. God knows what foreign ideas I may pick up at a Unitarian service, like the awesomeness of bell choirs.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WaterGirl:

    Do all these people think that being a Christian is just a fucking label, and has nothing to do with, you know, actions???

    Yes, that’s explicit Evangelical Protestant doctrine. Everyone regardless of their actions deserves to burn in Hell and salvation is by faith alone, not by works. The only thing that matters is your personal relationship with Jesus, which has to do with mental attitudes and thoughts.

  55. 55.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: Ugh. I read an excerpt from a Foreign Affairs article that Adam had in his post last night to the effect that foreign governments are now factoring a Trump Effect into their calculations on dealing with the Biden Administration, and I pretty much had to go straight to bed after that with an Agatha Christie novel because I was so depressed.

    Trump’s WEAK, dammit! There is no fucking way that he should be able to come back to haunt us from beyond the grave of his “public” career! Let’s put a stake through it and kill it again!

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Just nutty analysis. 51% in a GOP caucus means he’s an unstoppable juggernaut? Bullshit. 51% is still 51% no matter what the NYTimes says. Half of the most devoted Republicans rejected Donald Trump. That’s a good indication for us. Republicans have a problem and it isn’t going away and is more liely to get worse than better the more coverage Trump gets. He’s nasty and mean spirited and half of the GOP base reject him.

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    51% is a bad number for a de facto incumbent and Party leader and that’s the caucus result.

    And in a caucus where not many people showed up.

  61. 61.

    Bill Arnold

    I’d go with White Christian Supremacists or maybe Christian White Supremacists in some contexts, optionally with scare quotes around “Christian”.
    It’d be a lift to get (parts of) the media to start using “Christian Supremacists”, but worth it.
    E.g. the “The Guardian” has been using “global heating” as an alternative to “climate change” for years, and have struggled to get traction, though “global heating” is much more accurate.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @Matt McIrvin: I hadn’t thought about that for long time, but you’re right.  That’s why I kind of reject all the religions that say they are the “one true faith”.

    Any god that saw a person living a good life … trying to do the right thing, being good to others… and said “nah, you bet on the wrong horse, chose the wrong religion to follow, you are going to the bad place.”

    Any god that would do that makes no sense to me.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @Miss Bianca:

    Well, they’rw wrong a lot, so take heart. Remember the Red Wave? Or how voters would all rally around an anti trans and book banning message and Democrats had to be VERY VEY afraid of the “anti woke” vote? Or how women didn’t care about rights or agency so would sit down, shut up and meekly accept a loss of fundamental rights to bodily autonomy?

    They have made a LOT of bad calls. They’ve made huge errors every cycle since 2016.

  66. 66.

    catclub

    @WaterGirl: obligatory.
    “What the hell are you getting so upset about?’ he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrive amusement. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in God.’
    I don’t,’ she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. ‘But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him to be.’

  67. 67.

    JoyceH

    @Jeffro: “rarely seen in church “? How about never? Can anyone point to a single instance, just one, where Trump went to church, not for a funeral or wedding or political event, but simply to attend the church service?

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    Trump has also been campaigning for the last 4 years. He never stopped. Result? 51%. It’s a weak showing. 20% of caucus goers went for Haley although they know she won’t win and will never win a GOP primary. A pure protest vote. Futile. Stil, they chose that rather than backing Trump. 20% is a lot!

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WaterGirl: It is really toxic.

    Of course, these churches believe that if you DO have the right mental attitudes, it’ll manifest in participating in their activities and giving them your money. But the “personal relationship with Jesus” is the key thing.

    They prey on people’s concern for their friends and family by pushing them to proselytize to them: wouldn’t you want your friends to escape Hell? Doesn’t matter if they’re decent people–“There are a lot of good people in Hell” is a common saying. And they’ve convinced themselves this is all right and proper behavior on God’s part. There’s a lot of apologetic literature that is really aimed not at being all that convincing to unbelievers (it’s not), but at supplying believers with arguments that they believe will convince unbelievers.

    Then the pushback people get for this obnoxious behavior is just taken as proof that the world is a bad place (much as with smaller cults).

  72. 72.

    cain

    @WaterGirl:

    @Omnes Omnibus: Did you check out the post from 2006 that someone linked to in the DougJ thread yesterday?  It was a fun read and it was nice to be reminded that DougJ was giving Cole the what for in the comments for 2 or 3 years before he started writing on the front page.

    That was the good ol days when we had both conservative and liberal commentators. John would get attacked quite often. lol. Look at him now – all settled, probably has a lot of tied dyes :D

    Fun comment by DougJ:

    “I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.”

    –Britney Spears/John Cole

    https://balloon-juice.com/2006/03/19/the-futility-of-anti-war-protests/

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    What has me a little rattled about the “Trump dominates!” narrative is we seem to be moving into a new level of unreality, where elections themselves – the numbers- don’t matter.

    Well, Trump did his damnedest to convince us that the 2020 election results didn’t matter, and to make them not matter.

    One effect of the narrative, whether or not that’s its intended purpose, will be to convince people that any result in which Trump loses is somehow illegitimate, that it can’t be right.

  76. 76.

    p.a.

    Church?  Community?  Hah!

    “… the so-called “sinner’s prayer.” Found at the end of gospel tracts, it’s also frequently used by pastors and evangelists as part of an altar call to usher the penitent into the Kingdom.

    It goes something like this: “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I believe that you died for my sins so I could be forgiven. I receive you as my Lord and savior. Thank you for coming into my life. Amen.”

    … an almost superstitious disposition towards the sinners prayer. Frequently when I ask if a particular person is a Christian, the response I hear is, “Well, they prayed the prayer.” It’s as if the words were magic, and if we can just get someone to recite them we’ve accomplished our goal.

    I fear we’ve inoculated a whole generation of people who got a partial injection of Christianity and are now resistant to the real thing. They prayed the sinner’s prayer, got their “fire insurance,” and then disappeared, never to be seen again.”- 3/22/2013 The Magic Prayer

  77. 77.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @WaterGirl: Paul in Ephesians said “by faith you are saved, and not by works lest anyone should boast,” which is fine as far as it goes: you can’t buy your way to salvation.  But a lot of people forget James 2:14-26.  Won’t quote it all, but I like the way it ends: “A person’s body without their spirit is dead. In the same way, faith without good deeds is dead.”

    Way too many Xtians out in the word, thinking that talking the talk is enough.

  78. 78.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @waspuppet:

    And the Politico Magazine piece is also good, but I’ve been reading that for at least five years.

    If Politico Magazine wants to rerun “old news,” I say take the win. This history clearly needs to be repeated in as many venues as possible because so many people have no idea that we got here. Arguably it’s becoming even more important today to get this out to the masses than it was 5 years ago.

  80. 80.

    evodevo

    @Ken:  Yes…if my talibangelical neighbors are any indication, they are still virulently anti-idolatry, “Catholics violate the Second Commandment”, only they say so in private…

  81. 81.

    scav

    @JoyceH: Relax!  Trump understands how it works.  See, Jesus is the name of the bouncer at the Heavens Discotheque.  Whisper his name in his ear, tell him you know his dad, slip him a fifty and BOOM! You’re in, no matter if you’re not dressed according to code.

    Life is so much simpler if you remake god in your image and announce to the world who he has damned and how you’re forgiven.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @cain:

    “I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.”

    –Britney Spears/John Cole

    That was one of my top two of his from that thread!

  84. 84.

    Bunter

    @Steeplejack: ​
      I have a small business with a friend and the checks I write to cover business expenses from my personal checking account where I get my day job salary deposited are being held for anywhere from 5 to 10 days (and we’re talking $5k, not tens of thousands of dollars). When my business partner asked at Chase what was going on, she was told that “the algorithm” decides what accounts to make wait and then he added that “it” also decides what accounts to close based on who knows what and the account holder isn’t notified ahead of time. The NYT or WSJ have done a few article and said the same thing that people and businesses are having accounts closed with no explanation nor ability to reopen and the money being disbursed two or more months later. It seems that it’s not as clear cut as what Wikipedia says.

  86. 86.

    RevRick

    @Matt McIrvin: It all stems from their screwed up substitutionary atonemepartnt theology. Jesus died for your sins, so if you get right with Jesus, you’re good to go for all eternity.

    Dig into that theology and you see an ugly view of God and what that means for our participation in this world.

    You gotta wonder about the morality of those who look with glee upon the suffering of countless others.

  88. 88.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kay:

    It just isn’t true that 51% is a strong showing. Half of Republican primary voters chose someone other than Trump. He’s weak and we can beat him.

    But it’s extremely unlikely that the 49% that “voted” for the three other fucked-in-the-head assholes will vote for anyone but Trump in the general. Now, some percentage might stay home (hopefully), but I don’t see the 51% as a harbinger of the promised dawn.

  89. 89.

    jimmiraybob

    I’ve been following the rise of white Christian Nationalism for the last decade and a half or so.  They broadcast the agenda but who actually hears?

    It’s pretty interesting what you’ll find if you Google “German Christians Rise of Nazism.”

    One such find, and it has considerable implications for America during this election year, is from an organization called Christian History Institute.  The article title is “The Church of the Bystanders.”

    “IN 1998 Israeli scholar Yehuda Bauer was invited to speak before Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag. “I come from a people who gave the Ten Commandments to the world,” he told the legislators. “Time has come to strengthen them by three additional ones, which we ought to adopt and commit ourselves to: thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.”

    “During the 12 years of the [NAZI] Third Reich, Christians broke each of Bauer’s commandments. A few—both too many and not enough—sacrificed life or liberty to resist Nazi iniquity [Dietrich Bonhoeffer comes to mind]. But the vast majority of German Christians fell along that complicated spectrum between perpetrator and bystander.”

    I don’t usually post links in comments so I have fingers crossed.

    https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/the-church-of-the-bystanders

  90. 90.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @WaterGirl:

    Do all these people think that being a Christian is just a fucking label, and has nothing to do with, you know, actions???

    C’mon, man! You know the answer to that.

  91. 91.

    Bill Arnold

    @Steeplejack:
    Yeah, and that wikipedia de-banking article is new (2023) and is mostly about some incidents in the UK, notably with Nigel Farage.
    Who was in Iowa for the caucusing and (almost) certainly talked with DJT. (I recall him being invited(/plain flight) by some notorious RW rich person but did not find it in a quick search.)

  94. 94.

    jonas

    @WaterGirl: Weyrich and others starting using Roe v. Wade as a way to unite Protestant and Catholic conservatives — who had previously viewed each other with considerable suspicion if not outright hostility — against liberals. Up until the 70s, even a lot of fundamentalist Protestants viewed their acceptance of birth control and even abortion in certain cases as a sign that they were more progressive and enlightened — even “American” — than their papist counterparts with their weird mummery and third world-esque, 10-child families. It was quite a feat, but it turns out right-wing Catholics and evangelicals found that, deep down, it *was* possible after all to hate feminists and hippies more than each other.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @RevRick: When people like a certain trollish commenter here start railing about religion I can’t help but come back to the thought that the metaphysics of someone’s faith matters very little–it’s what your religion, or lack thereof, tells you to do.

    But these particular flavors of religion have ended up with such an otherworldly focus that what they tell you to do is either useless or actively harmful. Some would argue that they are even heretical, but that argument isn’t for me to pursue.

  96. 96.

    TBone

    Darn I’m sorry I missed this thread, I got engrossed by Denver Riggleman on The Search for Q (Vice channel) S1, ep. 3.

  98. 98.

    Tony G

    @Chief Oshkosh: I grew up as a Catholic, before abandoning all religion at age 17.  For most of the Catholics in my town (northern New Jersey, sixties and early seventies) their “faith” was just a label, a club that they belonged to.  Some were good people, some were horrible people, most were in between.  None of it had much to do with the doctrines of their “faith”.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @TBone: Interesting. I don’t usually think of “engrossed” and “Denver Riggleman” occurring in the same sentence. But Riggleman’s not such a bad guy, and he can be kind of interesting on topics in his “wheelhouse” of intelligence fusion. He sometimes pops up on the local radio station as their security expert.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    But it’s extremely unlikely that the 49% that “voted” for the three other fucked-in-the-head assholes will vote for anyone but Trump in the general.

    This is true now, but it might change as Trump continues to face legal problems. More GOP voters might tire of the Orange Menace.

    CNN, I think, had a panel of 10 Iowa Republicans. Nine said that they would vote for Trump anyway. One said he would vote for an independent like Joe Manchin.

    Now, some percentage might stay home (hopefully), but I don’t see the 51% as a harbinger of the promised dawn.

    The political stories were all about how Trump kicked ass. Very few asked people why they voted for DeSantis or Hayley. One thing we know is that Hayley did well in Johnson county with voters who acknowledge that Biden beat Trump in 2020. Maybe these people can be reached.

    I have never seen any reliable reporting on what makes registered voters stay home or the numbers on discouraged vs “don’t care” people.

  103. 103.

    The Lodger

    @Kay: “Dominated” is used here as a synonym for “barely escaped total fucking embarrassment.” The NYT should know better than to do that, just to demonstrate their journalistic vocabulary.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @jonas: Using religion as cover for their racism and discrimination.  Whatever god they all worship must be so proud.

    *Not saying that there aren’t sincere evangelical christians who do believe in god and in doing good works.

  106. 106.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @The Lodger: Imagine my surprise after years of considering my agnosticism alongside academic study of religion that the ideas I was forming already had a name and a history.

    It all started with one thought after several years of thinking, “someone must have thought of this before I did.”

  109. 109.

    TBone

    @Geminid: I don’t usually but I was flipping through channels and he caught my attention as one of the good commenters on that whole SNAFU.

  112. 112.

    Citizen Alan

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The only thing that matters is your personal relationship with Jesus, which has to do with mental attitudes and thoughts.

    I would only add that said “personal relationship with Jesus” is established when you get dunked in the magic bathtub, usually sometime around 8 or 9, after your family subtly pressures you into it so that you can become a member of the tribe. Among white evangelicals  I would bet that less one in ten was baptized for the first time after the age of eighteen and in a church other than the one their parents attended.

  113. 113.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @p.a.:

    Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has been on the “it was segregation not abortion” beat for years.

    Clark also quoted Wilhoit’s Law in one of his posts. He’s one of the good evangelicals.

  114. 114.

    Citizen Alan

    @evodevo:

    Meanwhile, mandatory pledges of allegiance to the flag are perfectly fine and do not violate the second commandment at all.

  115. 115.

    trnc

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    Neither looks like someone who should even take a walk around the block by themselves.

    I wouldn’t expect Melania to look much better, since she did just lose her mother.

  116. 116.

    trnc

    @Kay: 51% is a bad number for a de facto incumbent and Party leader and that’s the caucus result.

    Not to mention the low turnout. I realize that may have been affected by the weather, so we should know more about that after the next couple of primaries.

  117. 117.

    lowtechcyclist

    ‘Evangelical Christian’ is all but an oxymoron. There might be a few souls remaining in the overlap between evangelicalism and Christianity, but damned few anymore.

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    @trnc:  That was careless writing on my part.  In “Neither looks like someone who should even take a walk around the block by themselves” – the neither was neither photo of Trump  The one I had posted and the one that was discussed earlier, where someone was holding the curtain for Trump so he could walk on-stage.

    I really dislike Melania, but I would never criticize her for anything related to her mother’s funeral.

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