I saw a blurb about this in the news recently but it quickly faded from view. However, when I got online this morning this article was on my homepage news feed so maybe in the lull before Trump’s GA indictments it will get the attention it should. I’m doing my part to make that happen on this Sunday morning!
Russell Moore, Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today and a former top leader of the Southern Baptist Conference says Christianity is in crisis.
It’s Sunday morning, the day and time Christians set aside for going to church to worship with others so this seems the perfect time to write about this.
I live in NC which means people are already in church or headed there or getting ready to head to church, and some have already attended an early service. In the coming hours, many tens of millions of Christians including a group that brands themselves as “Evangelicals” have already or will attend regular Sunday morning worship. It’s those Evangelicals I want to talk about.
For all that was made of his “MAGAs” (some of whom are also Evangelicals) a voting bloc essential to Trump from the beginning has been the “Conservative Christians”, the group that Reagan tapped over four decades ago. It’s true that at times they’ve been a bit discouraged, feeling they were delivering for the GOP but not getting the political rewards their effort merited but even in “off” elections they voted in droves for the GOP. Just as importantly, people other than the late Billy Graham became leaders of their political movement in addition to establishing doctrine.
Doctrine I must note doesn’t seem to bear much resemblance to what Jesus himself taught. If some conservative reading this doesn’t believe me get yourself an old bible, one of those “red letter” ones where especially in the Gospels Jesus’ own words are printed in red letters so readers know it’s straight from the Savior’s mouth. And what conservative “Christians” have been preaching and practicing for decades not does NOT square with the actual teachings of Jesus in your bibles!
Truth hurts doesn’t it? Especially God’s/Jesus’ own truth!
As my sister, herself a fairly conservative person for a long time now puts it actually practicing Christianity isn’t easy. But she (correctly) notes a Christian can’t just talk the talk, they have to walk the walk that Jesus taught people to walk. Faith through works/deeds and all that.
What Jesus himself did and taught directly conflicts with Dominionist and so-called Prosperity Gospel Christianity. By the standards of not just the mega-church TV preachers but the leaders of the Southern Baptist Conference by golly what Jesus preached IS… LIBERAL!
Apparently, in increasing numbers people like me have been challenging these conservative Christians, Evangelicals, TRUMP SUPPORTERS to actually read their bibles and what Jesus actually said and did.
And they don’t like it!
So, they seem to be going to their preachers who sometimes give sermons about this or that that Jesus said (for example) during the Sermon on the Mount but don’t “comfort” them, and claim “things are different now and it’s okay to blow off what Jesus said” AND complain that Jesus’ teachings are liberal talking points!
It’s not like there hasn’t long been some discomfort within such people. However, in 2016 it all came to a head. The leaders of their movement, the rich from donations they got from their respective flocks had a choice to make. Set aside everything they preached (not that many of them followed their own preaching – “special” rules as in no rules for THEM!) and endorse Trump or follow the teachings of Jesus and declare Trump simply hadn’t lived a Christian life and was never going to do so. We know the choice they made.
So, despite knowing all that Trump was and in their hearts knowing he’d never change (and seeing that he hasn’t) they dutifully did what their leaders told them. Instead of a “laying on of hands” they laid their votes on Trump. Here’s the thing about human nature I’ve pointed out before. None of us likes admitting even to ourselves we’ve made a mistake, much less to others. Rationalization kicks in, and often to excess to justify bad decisions or choices we’ve made.
Evangelicals worried all along that Trump hadn’t really repented, been “born again” but hoped that their leaders were right and that he had. Now, after years of seeing Trump and their leaders lied to them, that he’s remained the giant P.O.S. he’s been his entire life that they’ve been suckered. Played for fools. Ah, but rationalization…
It seems some Evangelical/conservative preachers are returning to actually preaching sermons that highlight what Jesus taught and did. But rather than reflect on their mistake of believing in Trump, that he’d become “born again” as the leaders of their movement said and resolving to get back to trying to understand the life and teachings of the Savior they claim to revere they instead are running to their preachers and complaining Jesus was liberal so they shouldn’t have to do what he said they should do!
Russell Moore is right. Christianity is facing a crisis, and I might add given his former position one he helped foment. At least he’s trying to atone, to promote a widespread movement of reflection among Christians, or in particular Evangelicals who he clearly believes have lost their way.
For the record, although I was raised as a person of faith I became agnostic decades ago. Still, I remember what I was taught and even if I don’t believe in God, or that he sent his son Jesus to live among us and show us the path to heaven there is much in what Jesus is credited with teaching I find worth of trying to live in my own life. Like so many others I fall short. Increasingly so in recent years because I can’t find it in my heart to forgive an increasing number of people for the damage they’ve done to others. In fact, there are times I wish I WAS still a person of faith and believed in heaven and hell because from where I sit, not just the “Christian” leaders who politicized their faith on behalf of the GOP and put it on steroids for Trump should suffer in Hell for all eternity.
And so should these rank and file Evangelicals for saying they shouldn’t have to follow Jesus’ teachings because… Jesus’ talked like some LIBERAL.
If they tell me to go to Hell, or that I’m destined for Hell my response is “I’ll see YOU there a$$hole!
The one think you can absolutely count on from xtians is their hypocrisy. They will not care about this one iota.
One of the ways I make decisions is to ask myself “What would Jesus do?” Anyone who claims to be a christian, yet does not want to “follow Jesus’ teachings” is a fake christian/christofascist! We must remember that God did not create religion, man created religion to manipulate and control his fellow man!!
You just described my in-laws in GA to.a,T. The meanest person I have ever met who isn’t a,terrorist or serial.killer is my evangelical.Niece From.Hell. She speaks,about Trump in the same hushed, reverent tone she uses for Jesus.
Hypocricy is the only conclusion. Ministers standing in front of church doors to prohibit blacks from entering; everything about George Wallace; forgiveness of racism; forgiveness of Trump, the serial rapist who brags about grabbing women by the pu$$y; the denial of recidivism.
One answer to hypocritical Evangelicals–Jesus was a man of color.
As a Tarheel, born and bred, I have always seen Southern Baptists as the parents of today’s evangelicals, and their detachment from the reality of Christ’s teachings is nothing new. Neither is their hypocrisy. I remember when the hottest debate in North Carolina was over liquor by the drink. Sometime in the mid-1070s, the News & Observer had a rather provocative editorial, prompted by the SBC very public objection to the measure. I’ll never forget the opening of the op/ed. “Ninety percent of Baptists in North Carolina don’t drink. The other ten percent buy their liquor for them.”
The upshot was regarding the hypocrisy of the SBC position, given the rather humorous excuses that inevitably popped out when a someone encountered a Southern Baptist buddy coming out of the ABC store. “Oh, I just stopped on to pick up something as a favor for my next-door-neighbor.” Or words to that effect.
As forerunners to the current evangelical mob, the idea of being appalled at having to follow the actual teachings of Jesus is not new. All we have today is decades of practice at being Christians in name only while trying to control the morality of everyone but themselves.
You are correct. Back in the 70s a handful.of SBC preachers got together and plotted a takeover of the denomination. They rose through the ranks, taking it in a,sharp.right direction. They taught how to “seed” churches,gain power and run those slightly less insane churches. Daily Kos has some excellent articles on how they did it Clarkson is particularly good.
then there are crew who follow,Rushdoony David Barton is one of them at the Chance don’t group; he has written the revisionist history taught in Christian high schools.
I was educated in 7different Catholic schools. Catholics get readings from the Old and New Testament every day. We were encouraged to read the Gospels,,and to.discuss how they applied to.the news. I was a child of Vatican 2 when we were hooeful.and progressive. That dream didn’t last long under Paul V and his succesors. At 20, unable to.believe in doctrine about sex,,birth control, abortion and homosexuality, I left the church and became a Wiccan, because it recognizes the divine in all genders and all.sexual.preferences and doesn’t require women to be uteri on feet. I.married two.men who share my beliefs.
I found GA to be the most I Christian place I have ever been.
Sounds a bit like Utah. If you’re going fishing, invite two Mormons. Invite one and he’ll drink all your beer.
There are three truths in religion:
1) Jewish people do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
2) Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.
3) Baptists don’t recognize each other in the liquor store.
I’m actually elated to see this. Because the evangelical bullshit I have seen, the “prosperity consciousness” grift and the idea that Trump is, was, a “baby Xian” is all utter nonsense. It would be refreshing if the evangelicals decided to declare themselves something other than Xian. My opinion has always been that Jesus either 1) cringes; 2) weeps; 3) both when he hears his name uttered in these absurd and even blasphemous contexts.
The funniest bit I ever heard Bill.Maher do.was,about Jerry Falwell being greeted at the gates of heaven by Jesus. JC is wearing Burke stocks with socks, gold lame nuthuggers,,a hot pink muscleshirt withba,rainbow flag ,and hairvto.his waist with am or hid tucked behind one ear. He says to Jerry,”I am so not talking to you. Go away. Come back when you understand my father loves all.his children.”
I guarantee most if not all of these people are so far off the teachings of Jesus and those of the others in the Bible that it would be like they are reading from a different book if you sat through their sermons. Now, I got nothing against Christianity and or true Christians. But they are few and far between these clowns. And I have studied the Bible off and on for years. I can’t find mine right now and keep threatening to go buy one. I have a friend that knows the Bible well. His mother demanded they read so many scriptures every night and would test them on them to make sure they had read them.
Now the bad thing is that when he gets a buzz on he starts to preaching and that’s when I usually find the door. Anyway you are talking about God, Trump and these clowns because I don’t call them anything but religious zealots trying to profit off their flock. You see them in their big, ornate churches with the fancy gold and silver decorations just dripping down to the floor. And when they travel, they travel in their own private jets because the airline might not go to the city they want to visit. Bullshit!
What Jesus taught about the church was a little different. He said anywhere two people gather and talk and pray in my name is a church. The church is what is in your heart. You don’t need a fine, fancy place to pray to me. I will hear you no matter where you are if it comes from your heart to mine.
Like I said. Most of these people are reading a different book. I don’t fault them, it’s what they have been taught for centuries. The ones I do fault are the ones that stand up and address Trump like he’s come to save them. They dam well no better but they also know they don’t want to pass on a cash cow to fill the old donations bucket as it is passed from hand to hand in their heathen establishments.
I have commented on the WIDESPREAD ignorance and hypocrisy the people of ‘faith’ in all religions promote. Studying with Biblical scholars who taught at Ivy League schools, lays bare the fact that most people have claimed to have fervent belief systems that they have learned from family, peers, and the various bureaucracy of churches, temples, mosques, etc. Most just reach for opinions that support what makes them feel comfortable. I have to point out denis the collection of texts in the Bible were written by unknown authors. To claim Jesus’ actual words are in red in the new testament is false. I read a 500 page book written by scholars from the best universities in western civilization, studying the languages, the known scholarship, etc., and using a weighted voting system that contained 4 categories: 1) there is ample proof to believe Jesus taught this message; 2) there isn’t definitive proof, but enough to believe he likely said this; 3) there is some evidence he didn’t teach this; and 4) it is provable these words are things he did not say but the unknown authors put in their agenda. It came down that, and I don’t remember the exact percentage, but what could be proven was about 15% of what is in red in the new testament. My professors challenged all the believers to study, question, and never stop learning. I was a religion major & anthropology minor, but I took ALL the sciences and calculus. With the advent and progression of science, we now know much more than the ancients about our place in time and space. It doesn’t negate the mystery, it only adds more mystery. The Bible, and other sacred texts, repeat that ‘God’ is a mystery. Faith, true faith, is a mystery. This life is a mystery. Death is a mystery. I remind myself that even if I WAS THERE, I might have been as perplexed as I am now about Jesus. After all, can any of us definitively claim we understand EVERYTHING about ourselves, our family, our neighbors, or anything else. Only a fool believes that, much less events that happened thousands of years ago. Being certain is the death of true faith in my opinion. I could have gone to Duke or Harvard Divinity school, but I knew I wouldn’t last in any bureaucracy claiming ‘truth’. Jesus did reportedly teach the two greatest commandments were: to love God with all your heart, MIND, and soul. I would love someone to define those concepts to me that everyone would agree on. Not gonna happen. Then he reportedly said the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the golden rule, and it exists in every tradition. Fact. If we just followed those ideas, the world would be a much more loving place. You don’t need to be a scholar to understand that great teaching. As Forest Gump said to Jenny, ” I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is”. Don’t we all.
I have frequently, as you’re probably aware been criticized for digging too much into the weeds, making articles/”diaries” (from my DK days) way too long an boring. I’ve tried to stop doing that so much and to keep things more simple and to the point. I don’t like writing what Jeff Goldblum’s character referred to in The Big Chill articles the average person can read during the average crap but I simple don’t have the stature with readers that they will sit and read a lengthy piece – one say where I get into what you’ve just written. But I’m well aware of the fact that, as the line from The DaVinci Code says “the bible didn’t arrive by fax from heaven.” The bible as we know it was compiled centuries after Jesus is said to have lived and conducted his ministry. There are actually surprising few written records, not even Roman ones of the time. The Gospels, like so much of the New Testament were passed down orally for at least a couple and perhaps three or four generations before written versions were made. And, we all know what happens with stories when people pass them along – the old exercise of people sitting in a circle and the leader whispering a short tale into the ear of the person next to them, who then whispers it to the next person and so on until it gets back to the person who started it. Often it changes enough during the process the end product bears little resemblance to the original version!
But the religious folks that got together at Constantine’s order to create a “Christian Bible” talked, debated and even at times argued things out and what emerged would become what, with of course some revisions over time become the Bible that’s been more or less standard for some centuries now.
I COULD have written about all this but it would have missed the point – which is that Christians and even “Christians” know about and believe in the whole “red letter bible” thing even if their own copy isn’t a “red letter” one. It’s what’s believed now, and the basis for modern Christianity so I kept things simple and left it at that rather than delve into a lesson on how the Bible as we know it came about. Yes, I probably sound defensive but tell me I was wrong in my approach, or that the so far decent number of people who’ve read the article (it is generating comments) would have bothered to read it through and think about it, and refer it to others had I gotten into these details of how the Bible came about and how accurate it is or how much historical record there is to back it all up.
They live and practice their lie. They are a hypocrite to themselves. They are a hypocrite to others. They are practiced in the art if hypocrisy. They knowingly rubbed shoulders with that fake and troubled false idol Thor in the White House, during Trump’s Jan 6 stochastic attempt to illegally retain his own version of power. They are a troubled and troubling mix of petulant hypocrites and hypocrisy.
There is a very sound psychological reason why forgiving others is good for you. It takes away their power over you. It takes energy and thoughts to hate or carry a grudge. Once you forgive them, the power is gone, and the draining energy and negative thoughts are gone. You become at peace.
Just like Christ said.
holding on to anger/resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
In my heart I know you’re right. Yet the anger I feel towards those have done, continue to do and intend to do fuels me. I had already broken down physically to the point of being forced into early retirement on disability before Trump was elected. Still, given I take after my dad’s side of the family I expected to live at least into my late eighties if not longer. I felt I was at a crossroads, I could simply complain and do some extra work on voter turnout and stuff like that. Or I could figure out a way to become more of an activist. I’d given too much to communities I’d lived in and even my country to effing give in. I wanted to fight for what we SHOULD be. One way was advocacy via writing on social media and/or political blogs. I came to realize my best work, that which resonated the most with people almost always sprang from when I was really pi$$ed off. Angry, Even bitter.
So, I chose to use that as a weapon against those who want turn us into a fascist state. As I said, the hatred and anger fuel me. I know it will take years off my life. I’m okay with that. There was a time when I proudly wore a uniform and was willing to lay down my life on a battlefield or in some other less obvious form of harm’s way. How I am now is no different. It’s a cost I’m willing to bear. A price I’m willing to pay. I never had kids, and my life shrank considerably after I became disabled so not that many people will miss me whenever my time is up – hopefully still many, many years from now. I’d like to make it to at least eighty but if I stress myself into an earlier death then so be it.
BUT, the a-holes who hate us so much require some of us will to hate them back every bit as much and to take them on biker-bar fight style. If holding onto my hate helps me knock them down, or at least back and stun them then as I said it’s worth it.
There are a lot of more loberal (i.e. more Jesis-like) Christians who aren’t crazy about Russell Moore – and frankly, it’s been along time coming to the point where he coud see it. But he is absolutely right.
If they are not going to follow the teachings of Jesus, theycannot truthfully call themselvesChristians and they need anothername. I would suggest Randians or Gorpkkonians they both insisted greed/selfishness was good.) But “Christians” just doesn’t worj as a description for them anymore (IMO hasnot for decades.)
You cannot serve two masters…you will love one and hate the other. Very practical advice.
I have always marveled at how these people could follow both Jesus and Trump. Now when I was younger I had a hankering to follow the good book. That in itself intrigues me. Out of the millions of books that have been published all you have to say is the good book and instantly everyone knows what book you are talking about. Of course there are some idiots with issues with their education that don’t get it. Many do but like to act stupid thinking it gives them some sort of power over those smarter than them.
You all are right though. In general you will find that these so called Christians are anything but that except where they can claim superiority over the rest of us heathens. I learned a long time ago I wanted nothing to do with these people. I had a friend that was in this and that poor boy was a likable fellow but he down right had a fear of God. Now after some long conversations I learned that God was the strap that dad had hanging in the shed for the times when God caused him to have to deliver his vengeance on the sinners in his house. Sometime after that I decided that maybe i needed to look elsewhere for my salvation.
Now if you think real hard about it you might get how these clowns could accept Trump as their Lord and Savior.
notice…not a single pastor has come forward to support Moore’s claims? notice that Moore has not provided 1 single example of a sermon where these alleged comments came forth?
interesting huh?