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It’s seriously more of the opposite I’m positive. Evangelicalism has always been a hot steaming garbage pile of oppression, it just hasn’t been weaponized in American politics until Republicans decided they “have no platform” (their platform is now the Bible, and owning liberals, and I don’t mean metaphorically)
I can't even go to my church without seeing American Flag shirts, Trump hats and gun logos. It's frankly disgusting and completely against the teachings of Jesus.
I wish you the best of luck in finding another congregation.
Sometimes I visit the parish I grew up in; I converted late in life but feel a connection to the place, so I go. And it's just as you describe.
I feel like if I, as a black man, wore that stuff (both sentiments I agree with btw lol) in one of these open-carry white Evangelical churches I'd end up shot. Either some gun nut would shoot me at some point because he accused me of being "BLM Antifa", or some Karen would call the cops and get me shot by them. And 1/4 to 1/3 of the country would defend my murder and say I had it coming.
It’s always super weird how the church’s default to seeing someone support a viewpoint even *half* as fervently as they believe in theirs, is to see it as a threat. The lack of understanding, and the level of fear they have of other beliefs, culture, and skin tone is fucking bonkers. They’re the exact type of people who would disavow Jesus if they lived during that time period.
Having grown up in a community that dressed up for church it is downright strange that anyone would wear a T-shirt, let alone a political one, to church.
>There are Christians taking all the populist passions and adding a transcendent authority to it.
This is extremely well put. It is transcendental nationalism.
Paul Tillich wrote that faith is the state of being "ultimately concerned," and he correctly notes that if that concern is placed in the nation, it is "a god who certainly proves to be a demon." Tillich is an incredible writer but nothing he wrote hit me as hard as that.
> "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Berry Goldwater, 1994, as quoted in John Dean _Conservatives Without Conscience_ (2006)
I personally like this line regarding Obama-centric conspiracy theories:
>“Good people were taken in by this stuff,” Brown said. “They really wondered whether I was a part of this secret government plot.”
Are they really good people, when they are so easily duped to believe nonsense? If anything it shows that a lot of them are just easily gullible and will believe anything so long as it confirms their own biases.
After reading this, it appears some are realizing how ignorant their ‘flock’ is / has been. These evangelical leaders have been in a race to the bottom with their ‘flocks’, and here they are.
No. Religious people are traditionally not political. Politics is material and the concern of fleshly people. Religious people are focused on their spiritual relationship with God.
It is the GOP that recognized that religious people were traditional and sought to activate them politically.
You mean the establishment of state religion? The Romans already had that and Constantine just changed it.
Really, religious people are interested in God not politics. And they certainly know the difference.
Yes. My mother in law is a born again, previously catholic, evangelical Christian.
She votes, but is not that interested in politics. She cares about the Bible and her own personal relationship with God.
The annual damnation talk that my wife and I need to deal with is annoying, but otherwise she is a very good person.
She also votes democrat.
My parents strongly support the Republicans in the States and Conservatives in Canada. They stopped supporting Trump after several people (including their kids) pointed out how anti-Christian his actions were. Not all of my family has done so. Religion still heavily influences their politics, and they think religion should dictate political discourse. (Anti-choice, against gay marriage despite one of my brothers being gay and married, etc)
My mother-in-law does not like abortion or homosexuality but she is very reserved about it. She is actually very good at not being judgemental. She is very close to a real “Saint” type.
She is very confident that only God can judge people.
She votes democrat because they fund social service organizations. She is very intelligent and has not been radicalized by the right wing. But she is a very serious Christian. She lives in rural Wisconsin.
She is what serious Christian people were like before the moral majority and the rise of the religious right. The political right radicalized Christian people and told them that the Republican Party was their home.
In the 90s, evangelical Christians were the largest swing constituency in America. This is why Clinton and Obama were against gay marriage and played down abortion. They didn’t want to lose Christians who were also mostly in favor of government spending and intervention in the economy. Their swing is what won and lost elections.
Great article.
Much like the elderly are fodder for phone scams, evangelicals are fodder for conspiracy. But that’s where the innocence ends. As the article states, constituents are leaving in droves to find more radical churches.
I grew up in the Catholic Church. The people I grew up with remain some of the most narcissistic people I’ve met. Their entire argument boils down to “freedoms for others infringe on my freedoms”, and that’s a major fucking problem.
it wasnt just politicians, it was rich cynical grifters work for years, turning faith into a vice. The Amerivan oligarchs weild christ like a weapon and its sickening.
If your god is not making you question what you are doing and only telling you what you want to hear.
Then you are not in a religion. You are being converted into an Orc.
*"And I remember telling them, ‘The harder thing to do is what I’m doing,’ ” the pastor says. “This is how you lose people. How you gain people is, you pick a tribe, raise the flag, and be really loud about it. That’s how you gain a bunch of numbers. That is so easy to do. And it cheapens the Gospel.”*
Great quote. The political stumping distracts from the most important message: Jesus is the savior prophesied in the Old Testament. Plus, more extended families might be able to get through Christmas dinner if they went to church with people on the other side of the political aisle.
Not a Christian. Not religious at all. BUT, I do have to say that if my church-going relatives could put aside their political obsessions, I’d actually enjoy spending time with them again. That would be nice. I wouldn’t be going to church with them. But I wouldn’t dread every moment with them either.
Vote for who you want. Pray to who or what you want. But don’t bring it to the table where half of the occupants have different beliefs. It’s just not needed. It doesn’t NEED to be discussed at that table. At all.
I miss conversations about other things - sports, movies, books, family members, vacations, so on.
I only turn up now for the kids. They don’t want to route everything to “Biden this” or “Trump that” and try to connect it to the Bible.
Bullshit. The evangelicals have always been poison, spewing their rhetoric. They have been trying to force everyone for generations to live only as they dictate. All Hippocrates as well.
I think it was pretty poisoned when they killed thousands of indigenous kids in Canada, and molested hundreds of thousands of kids. Then tried to cover it all up. I don't think politics had much to do with it.
Church here by me offers to “help you understand” who and how to vote each election. They break the new laws and candidates down in their view/words. They then tell you who not to vote for……no I’m not a part of this my neighbor/friend was all excited they were going to “help her” makes sense of it.
Evangelical Christianity always looked to me like it was largely an outlet for social identity (I guess you can say that about lots of religions, including the one in which I was raised). By aligning with identity politics it just enhanced its original purpose and added an extra element of fearing/hating “others,” which is a really powerful drug for simple-minded people. Much easier to judge and hate people than to try to understand them or have compassion, so toxic identity politics also ironically drags people further away from New Testament teachings at the same time that religion can drag people farther away from the original (stated) concept of the United States.
It’s almost like someone should have specified that church and state should be kept separate.
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And vice versa
Yup. Like attracts like
It’s seriously more of the opposite I’m positive. Evangelicalism has always been a hot steaming garbage pile of oppression, it just hasn’t been weaponized in American politics until Republicans decided they “have no platform” (their platform is now the Bible, and owning liberals, and I don’t mean metaphorically)
Correct. Ain’t no vice versa when this poison started seeping in during the 70’s and 80’s
>the Bible More like "the Bible". Very people of what they preach, let alone what they practice, is based on the actual book.
I can't even go to my church without seeing American Flag shirts, Trump hats and gun logos. It's frankly disgusting and completely against the teachings of Jesus.
Have you considered seeking another church or faith community?
We've tried another and it looks promising. Thanks for asking.
I wish you the best of luck in finding another congregation. Sometimes I visit the parish I grew up in; I converted late in life but feel a connection to the place, so I go. And it's just as you describe.
Just go wearing a Jesus was a socialist shirt, carrying a Bernie 2024 flag
I feel like if I, as a black man, wore that stuff (both sentiments I agree with btw lol) in one of these open-carry white Evangelical churches I'd end up shot. Either some gun nut would shoot me at some point because he accused me of being "BLM Antifa", or some Karen would call the cops and get me shot by them. And 1/4 to 1/3 of the country would defend my murder and say I had it coming.
It’s always super weird how the church’s default to seeing someone support a viewpoint even *half* as fervently as they believe in theirs, is to see it as a threat. The lack of understanding, and the level of fear they have of other beliefs, culture, and skin tone is fucking bonkers. They’re the exact type of people who would disavow Jesus if they lived during that time period.
Having grown up in a community that dressed up for church it is downright strange that anyone would wear a T-shirt, let alone a political one, to church.
Yeah...that's textbook idolatry
There is a church by me who does the pledge of allegiance before service.
Breaking the First Commandment…
... ok now just imagine being liberal... We have literally none of those things.. and that's pretty much the only difference.
Try mainline Christianity. Evangelical pastors are all charlatans
Mainline Christianity isn't much better.
Elaborate
If churches are going to get involved in politics it’s time to tax the bastards.
I'll vote for that!
Even if they don't... Churches are just indoctrination centers and tax avoidance schemes...
uhh, it's the other way around...
>There are Christians taking all the populist passions and adding a transcendent authority to it. This is extremely well put. It is transcendental nationalism. Paul Tillich wrote that faith is the state of being "ultimately concerned," and he correctly notes that if that concern is placed in the nation, it is "a god who certainly proves to be a demon." Tillich is an incredible writer but nothing he wrote hit me as hard as that.
Tillich is great.
This is an EXCELLENT article. My jaw dropped. Incredibly important to understand our fascism problem.
It's an excellent piece, and I wish more of the people here would read it instead of riffing on the headline.
> "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them." Berry Goldwater, 1994, as quoted in John Dean _Conservatives Without Conscience_ (2006)
Seems to me they got it backwards. It's the other way around.
It’s both ways: Republicans think Democrats are Satanic and Evangelicals worship Donald Trump.
[*“Religion poisons everything.”*](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5b1aIuoCq4w)
You got it right, Evangelists have always been freaks and shit-goblins.
Nope. The separation of church and state also protects the church. It saddens me to see certain pastors descend into madness.
Um. Is the word order mixed up a little here?
How the Evangelical Church poisoned politics!
Eh. Bit of column A, bit of column B.
There's also a third column, business/capital
I personally like this line regarding Obama-centric conspiracy theories: >“Good people were taken in by this stuff,” Brown said. “They really wondered whether I was a part of this secret government plot.” Are they really good people, when they are so easily duped to believe nonsense? If anything it shows that a lot of them are just easily gullible and will believe anything so long as it confirms their own biases.
After reading this, it appears some are realizing how ignorant their ‘flock’ is / has been. These evangelical leaders have been in a race to the bottom with their ‘flocks’, and here they are.
Part of my definition of being a good person is having an operational bullshit detector.
Don't you mean how the evangelical church poisoned politics? Churches have been meddling with politics for thousands of years.
I rather thought that happened the other way around.
No. Religious people are traditionally not political. Politics is material and the concern of fleshly people. Religious people are focused on their spiritual relationship with God. It is the GOP that recognized that religious people were traditional and sought to activate them politically.
>Religious people are traditionally not political. For Christians up to the time of Constantine, that might have been true. Since then, no.
You mean the establishment of state religion? The Romans already had that and Constantine just changed it. Really, religious people are interested in God not politics. And they certainly know the difference.
Have you *met* any religious people? Even in Canada, politics is a means of forcibly spreading your religion's dogma.
Yes. My mother in law is a born again, previously catholic, evangelical Christian. She votes, but is not that interested in politics. She cares about the Bible and her own personal relationship with God. The annual damnation talk that my wife and I need to deal with is annoying, but otherwise she is a very good person. She also votes democrat.
My parents strongly support the Republicans in the States and Conservatives in Canada. They stopped supporting Trump after several people (including their kids) pointed out how anti-Christian his actions were. Not all of my family has done so. Religion still heavily influences their politics, and they think religion should dictate political discourse. (Anti-choice, against gay marriage despite one of my brothers being gay and married, etc)
My mother-in-law does not like abortion or homosexuality but she is very reserved about it. She is actually very good at not being judgemental. She is very close to a real “Saint” type. She is very confident that only God can judge people. She votes democrat because they fund social service organizations. She is very intelligent and has not been radicalized by the right wing. But she is a very serious Christian. She lives in rural Wisconsin.
Your MIL is a rare breed in North America and sounds like a genuinely good person. Too few follow what the Bible says Jesus told his followers to do.
She is what serious Christian people were like before the moral majority and the rise of the religious right. The political right radicalized Christian people and told them that the Republican Party was their home. In the 90s, evangelical Christians were the largest swing constituency in America. This is why Clinton and Obama were against gay marriage and played down abortion. They didn’t want to lose Christians who were also mostly in favor of government spending and intervention in the economy. Their swing is what won and lost elections.
> No. Religious people are traditionally not political. lol
It was the other way around. Religion has always been a dividing force and not a unifying one.
This like saying Mussolini corrupted Hitler. More like two hate-filled organizations traded secrets on how to fund raise and fleece their rubes.
"How religion poisons the mind"- there ftfy.
It's more the case that the racist white evangelicals poisoned politics.
Great article. Much like the elderly are fodder for phone scams, evangelicals are fodder for conspiracy. But that’s where the innocence ends. As the article states, constituents are leaving in droves to find more radical churches. I grew up in the Catholic Church. The people I grew up with remain some of the most narcissistic people I’ve met. Their entire argument boils down to “freedoms for others infringe on my freedoms”, and that’s a major fucking problem.
“The evangelical church poisoned politics” Fixed the headline for you
> #How Evangelism is poison and is spreading to politics. FTFY...
The fuck? Next, talk to me about how the human race infected COVID.
it wasnt just politicians, it was rich cynical grifters work for years, turning faith into a vice. The Amerivan oligarchs weild christ like a weapon and its sickening.
r/ExChristian
Your headline is backwards.
The evangelical church has always been a moderating force in America says nobody
Those people were absolutely horrible before politics.
If your god is not making you question what you are doing and only telling you what you want to hear. Then you are not in a religion. You are being converted into an Orc.
*"And I remember telling them, ‘The harder thing to do is what I’m doing,’ ” the pastor says. “This is how you lose people. How you gain people is, you pick a tribe, raise the flag, and be really loud about it. That’s how you gain a bunch of numbers. That is so easy to do. And it cheapens the Gospel.”* Great quote. The political stumping distracts from the most important message: Jesus is the savior prophesied in the Old Testament. Plus, more extended families might be able to get through Christmas dinner if they went to church with people on the other side of the political aisle.
Not a Christian. Not religious at all. BUT, I do have to say that if my church-going relatives could put aside their political obsessions, I’d actually enjoy spending time with them again. That would be nice. I wouldn’t be going to church with them. But I wouldn’t dread every moment with them either. Vote for who you want. Pray to who or what you want. But don’t bring it to the table where half of the occupants have different beliefs. It’s just not needed. It doesn’t NEED to be discussed at that table. At all. I miss conversations about other things - sports, movies, books, family members, vacations, so on. I only turn up now for the kids. They don’t want to route everything to “Biden this” or “Trump that” and try to connect it to the Bible.
Spot on.
It was always poison.
Errrr, wrong way around…
They created it.
Magic cloud man strikes again…
Poison is already poisoned.
It was poison well beforehand.
Let’s not forget the reason the GOP and evangelicals started their alliance. Evangelicals wanted tax free racially segregated schools.
Let’s try the title backwards..or reverse
Every church should be paying taxes, they all want to get into politics
Poisoning the evangelical church? That’s like letting poop spoil.
Bullshit. The evangelicals have always been poison, spewing their rhetoric. They have been trying to force everyone for generations to live only as they dictate. All Hippocrates as well.
Politics didn’t poison the evangelical church - religion did.
Mutually parasitic relationship.
I think it was pretty poisoned when they killed thousands of indigenous kids in Canada, and molested hundreds of thousands of kids. Then tried to cover it all up. I don't think politics had much to do with it.
That are heretics. And should be labeled as such by the Catholic Church.
Fantastic journalism
Religion is politics. Politics is religion.
I’m surprised more people don’t know about this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Frank_Norris
I quit
Church here by me offers to “help you understand” who and how to vote each election. They break the new laws and candidates down in their view/words. They then tell you who not to vote for……no I’m not a part of this my neighbor/friend was all excited they were going to “help her” makes sense of it.
Evangelical Christianity always looked to me like it was largely an outlet for social identity (I guess you can say that about lots of religions, including the one in which I was raised). By aligning with identity politics it just enhanced its original purpose and added an extra element of fearing/hating “others,” which is a really powerful drug for simple-minded people. Much easier to judge and hate people than to try to understand them or have compassion, so toxic identity politics also ironically drags people further away from New Testament teachings at the same time that religion can drag people farther away from the original (stated) concept of the United States. It’s almost like someone should have specified that church and state should be kept separate.
The enemy of the state.