I'm not sure how it fits in with your piece, but one thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they are, by their own reckoning, extremely oppressed. Constantly on the brink of having their religion ripped from their praying hands, by secularists, humanists, progressives, LGBTQ+ people, and who knows how many others. That's an awful lot of enemies! How have they managed to somehow hang together in this unceasing onslaught?
Someone just tuning in today might think that this persecution of decent people is a recent development, perhaps a reaction to the scourge of trans kids acting in school plays, or gay couples firebombing bakers who won't supply cakes for their "weddings." But the entire 20th Century, as well as the 21st so far, is an endless stream of terror directed at Believers. The new terrors make the old ones seem so tame, that the life-or-death battles against Darwinism, where our kids were this close to becoming Communists indoctrinated to reject their parents and serve a Godless State, are now seen as "the good old days" and a time we need to get back to if America is to be "great again."
Other denominations, like Methodists (yea!), Presby's and Episcopals, don't do this. For all their faults, they believe that when Jesus speaks of the "least of these" he's not talking about them, but the people they should serve. They are more likely to be at the forefront of movements for social justice than leading a reactionary movement to oppose them.
I really can't figure what makes them tick, but personally, I'm extremely grateful not to live in their world.
Agreed. They think they’re persecuted because others don’t conform to their view of the world. They don’t understand the first thing about persecution. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church but now go to a Presbyterian church with a lesbian pastor. Needless to say most of my extended family would not consider it much of a church because not only is it led by a woman but by a homosexual one at that.
Of course, if you read the Gospels none of this comes up. But, you know what does? Be kind to your neighbor. Help those less fortunate. Those themes come up a lot.
Nov 20·edited Nov 20Liked by Holly Berkley Fletcher
As an older person now, I look back at Plato et al as something that makes little sense at all now - I read this material extensively from 1968-77. The notion of objects as ideas more or less given life or presence is the wrong approach in the face of the modern approach of data. I write this as an excellent student.. but now it just seems bonkers. For me, reality may be real but the things in the world are constantly changing (in terms of what we know about them). Not important for objects like a table, but a real problem when it comes to cellular biology. This endless change or adjustment even goes to social norms. I will share a discussion in 1989 or so among life insurance examiners concerning estates and such. The issue of gay men came up and at the time we as a group did not think that gay men formed families. It was not a mean spirited discussion but we were simply not aware of it. But now we know gay men and women do form families etc.
So nothing is fixed. The decent person evolves.
Re the Evangelicals, well contemporary life must seem an assault on all they believe. Same with white folks in rural America. But we all need to learn to adjust.
Sadly the bible far from being inerrrant is not even a single work. It is a collection of tales and letters curated by a bunch of old men and reinterpreted as a single set of ideas.
You know, Mister McKenna, back in my mid-twenties (about fifty years ago), I may have been of a mind to agree with you. But at the age of 28, I had one of those personal encounters with this 'God' and this 'Jesus' that so many people treat as if they don't really exist, and who make no bones about the fact that they don't know them. Well, sir, I do. In fact, I know them real well, and, sir, I can tell you for a fact that that Bible IS inerrant as to what God and His Spirit caused His holy men to write down at the time they wrote them down. The problem came in when copyists' were copying extra copies of the original copy Moses, Jeremiah, David, Jonah, or whoever they were had written down when God's Spirit moved (breathed upon, inspired) the men to write down what God wanted them to relate to us. At those times, every word they wrote down was pure truth. The apostle Peter informed us in 2 Peter 1:20-21: "knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
Now, when an error did develop it was when those transcriptionists were making those "hand-written" copies, that is where an error entered in, where there is one. (They did not have the luxury of modern-day typewriters, computers, photocopiers, etc.; every copy had to be "hand" copied so others could get a copy for their gathering of interested individuals). I ran from God years ago, but He deemed me for a heralder of His Word, and so He stayed after me, until I yielded to His call.... and I have ministered His Word now for over 46 years. And I could write several books on the things that have happened in and around my life like those 'old men' as you refer to them wrote about. Yes, some 40 authors wrote the 66 books in the Bible, and wrote them over several thousands of years.... which makes it even more of a miracle that it all comes together as it does.... in unity.... but, no sir, my friend, no one "re-interpreted" anything into "a single set of ideas." God "inspired" the individuals and the words they were to write on and about. Like I said, I could write a book, several of them!, about absolute miracles that I have seen (because there is no other explanation for them! Unreal situations...
But, Terry, I am going to be praying for you, friend. Right now we don't know each other, but I sure do hope to see you in heaven one day; and it seems from the tenor of your letter, that it is going to take someone praying for you, asking God to overlook your obvious ignorance about Him and His realness..... before you take that last breath here on this earth, and "die" to this life you are living right now. My comment about your 'ignorance' of Him is not meant as an insult, sir, it is simply an acknowledgement that you are without a lot of knowledge that, if you had it, you would alter your understanding and views of Him. It's like the apostle Paul was led to speak to the people in the area of Athens, in Acts 17:30, "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent."
Let me suggest you check out a Substack titled "Living by Lamplight." I think you will be blessed by reading that, and will be enlightened in the real truths of God every time you read that young man's postings. Also, keep looking on the Substack, and one day soon, look for a newsletter titled, "Musings from the Pen of Brother Sid.... Nearly a Half-Century of Seeing God's Hand in Movement in the Lives of People, and In the Events of the Day." I promise you will be blessed, sir.
P.S. In here I have called you 'friend' several times. I truly would like to come to know you as a "friend" one day soon. But more than even that, I hope to come to know you as "a brother in the Lord, in the Family of God, sir."
Nov 21·edited Nov 21Liked by Holly Berkley Fletcher
You make a lot of assumptions about me. so too I make about you. I was raised in the Catholic Church in a family with one priest and 2 nuns. I studied the bible but not with the primitive sense that you have - so attribute problems to errors in transcription. Sorry but as a Catholic, I was exposed to teachers who accepted that the bible was really a collection of texts written at different times by men of all sorts. So for some the Apocrypha is in the bible for others not. But of course we have Jews who don't accept texts written by followers of Jesus.
The writers may have been inspired but God was not dictating.
So please don't pray for me. If you do, you are pissing into the wind.
I did not run from God but my encounter with modern physics made belief in a sky wizard untenable.
I have led a good life. Long married. One son who is both successful but also give of his time to others. I still am guided by Jesus as a moral philosopher. But as part of a so called triune godhead.... nope.
Again, Holly Berkley Fletcher gets to the heart of the matter. As an out of control teen, I was super attracted to an evangelical church that, frankly, saved me from myself because of its rigidity and authoritarianism. At the time, it was what I needed. But as I grew up, and learned to think critically and dialectically, I found that I was somehow a threat to the rigid fundamentalism and was considered to be a handmaiden of Satan by some of the elders (all male) and pillars (mostly female) of the church. Needless to say, we parted company. But I can well attest to the attraction to authoritarianism. It’s easy and feels secure and you don’t have to think, just obey. I’ve learned to be at home in muddy waters and to live with the I don’t know. And my faith is no longer in rigid dogma and authoritarianism, but in a sense that God is the ground of all being and is love itself and certainly cannot be reduced to my or anyone else’s understanding. It is a beautiful place to be.
You have grown as a person! That is beautiful. Sometimes a relationship, community or ideology serves you well for a time but overstaying doesn’t. Great work.
I'm part of a panel in two weeks addressing religion and the 2024 election. I've been given the task of explaining the evangelicals and have just begun forming my thoughts, but they echo yours. First, evangelicals have been fed a diet of promises of ant-Christian discrimination should democrats take power (which didn't happen when they did, but that doesn't change the attitudes). It's deeply ingrained in the subculture and regularly trumpeted by leaders in the evangelical industrial complex. Second, there are the correlations between strong Republican areas and evangelical strongholds. In other words, evangelicals may be Republican leaning because they disproportionately live in heavy R areas. Third, there is the influence of Christian Nationalism and those who have a project to Make America Christian Again. I've always thought that it's not the adherents of CN that are so dangerous but those others who grant them legitimacy. Fourth, there is the role of the independent charismatic and the role of spiritual warfare. Again, there are those outside that group that grant it legitimacy and adopt their rhetoric. Finally, I'm going to say a word about what's not a variable. I can find no evidence that evangelicals are operationalizing significant theological ideas to shape their vote.
Nov 20·edited Nov 20Liked by Holly Berkley Fletcher
Inerrancy underpinned my white evangelical college experience. We weren't taught how to grapple with existential issues; we were given answers, usually simple. Alternate perspectives and opposing views were dismissed out of hand, always with a heavy does of snark.
Being both not religious and not from an Evangelical background I appreciate explanations about this culture.
And this idle thought: what is it about conservative religious movements (Christian, Islamic, Jewish) and beards? For at least some of these groups there are mandates for men to have beards; some even proscribe the length.
I increasingly feel like I live in an alternate universe. I've never felt this alienated from my fellow Americans. Very thankful to live in a city where I feel the things I value are, for the most part, valued by my fellow citizens. Not so much in my state, but as my favorite quote from Hilly on Twitter says, "Cincinnati existed for years before Ohio. Cincinnati has almost nothng in common with Ohio. Ohio just happened to Cincinnati."
Clearly distinguishing and separating the sexes is important in these cultures, all of them. These are fear based religions that use control to compensate.
Love, love, love your stuff, Holly. Almost thou persuadest me to become a believer again, said somebody once, probably in the Quran. I grew weary of bashing evangelicals since 2016 since, anyways, I'm a Canadian and therefore a so-shall-ist-a! Keep up your important work, friend!!
I'm not an evangelical (or even a Protestant) but I've spent part of the last year listening to liberal/intellectual-type evangelical podcasts, the subject matter of which is usually 'trying to get everyone to realize that Trump/Christian nationalism/W supremacy is poison.' It's been fascinating, if depressing, and a window into a somewhat alien world.
A complication is that Black Protestants believe in inerrancy comparably to white evangelicals. In terms of general pop, U.S. blacks are more likely than whites to believe in inerrancy.
Great point. They do, but in my experience it’s held more loosely, more “checked” by experience (such as justice issues), and isn’t as tied up with power. In the white evangelical church, inerrancy has been used (actually was honed in the first place) to reinforce order and authority. Anyway, the history and application is very different.
But any fundamentalist religion is susceptible to authoritarian leaders—you see the corrupt pastors in black and white churches—i just think they’ve been more trump resistant bc of deeper grounding in a justice ethic. And yes, trumps racist appeals do register for whites bc it taps into the long history there.
Also, a lot of what you outline corresponds with what Jonathan Haidt writes (or, at least, my memory of what he writes) in The Righteous Mind, which does a nice job of describing this value system.
My goodness, Terry, that was good to hear from you! Especially so quickly. Hey, listen, I wasn’t making judgment on you, and passing any kind of sentence out. Not at all, friend! If I did say something that offended you, I certainly didn’t mean too. It’s just that I once too was an unbeliever, and didn’t think that there was a God. But I did find out differently. Now, that you have enlightened me somewhat more, I can see how some of your thoughts and beliefs were gained. It does sound like you have had a pretty good life; it looks like one son, and a fairly long marriage. That is great! I have been married this coming January 3rd for 56 years, and we have two sons, a daughter by her marriage to our oldest son, three grandchildren, and now three great grandchildren, and so I too have had a pretty good life. Another great blessing in my life was when I became a born again Christian in 1978. From that time I have witnessed a number of movements of God in peoples lives. And that was primarily what my first text to you was addressing…. and what I saw l knew the opposite to be facts. Granted, you may not have experienced such, but I have personally witnessed events that were clearly, miraculous movements of a higher power, and I knew that action, quite often, was in answer to ‘specific’ prayer. My own wife, for example, was one of those miracles. The surgeon made a mistake, she went into septic shock, she was in a hospital that was not equipped with the equipment, yet all the others on the major centers for more than a hundred miles radius from us were all full in their ICU’s. The sepsis was killing her, and hours went by, finally a bed 45 miles away came available, and a helicopter was called in; yet her blood pressure dropped off completely, and she had zero pressure for so long that the doctors gave her zero chance, but if she did make it, her quality of life would be no more as she would have to be institutionalized with no control of her body and body functions again.
Nearly 29 years married at that point, you can imagine how devastated I was to learn that I would never have my bride at home ever again! But God heard my agonized, pleading prayers, and when in the greatest despair anyone could imagine, He spoke to me, and said, “Remember who you are.”
I questioned, “Sir, what are you saying?” He replied with the same clearly audible voice in my conscious mind, with emphasis on each word, ‘Remember… Who… You… Are.” To which I again replied, “Sir, I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
And He replied, “Remember that you are a son of the Living God; and remember what His Word says, that you can ask whatsoever you will, and if you have faith, though it might be as small as a grain of mustard seed, that you can have whatsoever you ask for. Remember that, son.”
Against all odds, against what every single one of her doctors said (that she would not leave that highly skilled hospital alive, or if she did, it would only be to transfer her to an institution where she would have to be provided 2; hour care… due to the length of time she had been without ANY blood pressure on that flight down there, and getting her connected to all the life support systems in the ICU and the respirator breathing for her)….
Well, less than five weeks later I brought her home, 100% whole, with no side effects, and 27 years later she is sitting over there in her recliner across from mine…. And today our family has grown to include a total now of 13 at the moment…. and in the morning she is heading over to babysit one of our three great grandchildren!
Friend, God is Great, and He does still work in powerful and miraculous ways in peoples lives everywhere and all the time.
But life does come to an end one day. And the day we die we do find out to which eternity we leave for, alive in our soul and spirit although the body does cease to exist, so friend, forgive me, but I will be praying for you. And, hope that, as you were molded by a great deal of what you grew up around in your early formative years, I will be praying that my Heavenly Father’s Holy Spirit will bring into your path some things that will truly introduce you to Him, and to His Son Jesus, the Savior of all who will come to place their faith in Him…. and to trust Him to deliver them from the power of the soul-damning sin in their life. I do sincerely wish you the best, Terry.
P.S. I just learned when I started this response that you have a Substack. I look forward to learning more about you. God Bless You, sir.
It is a puzzle to me as to why so many Christian people hold out such support for a man like Trump. The only thing I can gather is that these folks are like the Pharisees people when Jesus walked this Earth Himself. They said they were people of God, yet they were trying to trip Him up; even to kill him as they didn't agree with some of the things which He was teaching. But Jesus spoke truth to them; He called them people of the devil because of their desire to kill Him (and He was the Son of God personally, yet they took offense at Him). Trump is an incorrigible liar, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt! He is a wicked vile fornicator, adulterer, fraudster, and I could go on and on with his long list of depraved wicked features of him and the crooked ways he lives his life.... which we, who are real, true believers in God and Jesus, are NOT to touch, NOT to be involved with, and that we better not support and encourage in their 'nonconformities' with the teachings of God and His Son Jesus, or we would suffer the same punishment as God will render upon them when they are judged. (Read it in 2 John 9-11).
I'm not sure how it fits in with your piece, but one thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they are, by their own reckoning, extremely oppressed. Constantly on the brink of having their religion ripped from their praying hands, by secularists, humanists, progressives, LGBTQ+ people, and who knows how many others. That's an awful lot of enemies! How have they managed to somehow hang together in this unceasing onslaught?
Someone just tuning in today might think that this persecution of decent people is a recent development, perhaps a reaction to the scourge of trans kids acting in school plays, or gay couples firebombing bakers who won't supply cakes for their "weddings." But the entire 20th Century, as well as the 21st so far, is an endless stream of terror directed at Believers. The new terrors make the old ones seem so tame, that the life-or-death battles against Darwinism, where our kids were this close to becoming Communists indoctrinated to reject their parents and serve a Godless State, are now seen as "the good old days" and a time we need to get back to if America is to be "great again."
Other denominations, like Methodists (yea!), Presby's and Episcopals, don't do this. For all their faults, they believe that when Jesus speaks of the "least of these" he's not talking about them, but the people they should serve. They are more likely to be at the forefront of movements for social justice than leading a reactionary movement to oppose them.
I really can't figure what makes them tick, but personally, I'm extremely grateful not to live in their world.
Agreed. They think they’re persecuted because others don’t conform to their view of the world. They don’t understand the first thing about persecution. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church but now go to a Presbyterian church with a lesbian pastor. Needless to say most of my extended family would not consider it much of a church because not only is it led by a woman but by a homosexual one at that.
Of course, if you read the Gospels none of this comes up. But, you know what does? Be kind to your neighbor. Help those less fortunate. Those themes come up a lot.
As an older person now, I look back at Plato et al as something that makes little sense at all now - I read this material extensively from 1968-77. The notion of objects as ideas more or less given life or presence is the wrong approach in the face of the modern approach of data. I write this as an excellent student.. but now it just seems bonkers. For me, reality may be real but the things in the world are constantly changing (in terms of what we know about them). Not important for objects like a table, but a real problem when it comes to cellular biology. This endless change or adjustment even goes to social norms. I will share a discussion in 1989 or so among life insurance examiners concerning estates and such. The issue of gay men came up and at the time we as a group did not think that gay men formed families. It was not a mean spirited discussion but we were simply not aware of it. But now we know gay men and women do form families etc.
So nothing is fixed. The decent person evolves.
Re the Evangelicals, well contemporary life must seem an assault on all they believe. Same with white folks in rural America. But we all need to learn to adjust.
Sadly the bible far from being inerrrant is not even a single work. It is a collection of tales and letters curated by a bunch of old men and reinterpreted as a single set of ideas.
You know, Mister McKenna, back in my mid-twenties (about fifty years ago), I may have been of a mind to agree with you. But at the age of 28, I had one of those personal encounters with this 'God' and this 'Jesus' that so many people treat as if they don't really exist, and who make no bones about the fact that they don't know them. Well, sir, I do. In fact, I know them real well, and, sir, I can tell you for a fact that that Bible IS inerrant as to what God and His Spirit caused His holy men to write down at the time they wrote them down. The problem came in when copyists' were copying extra copies of the original copy Moses, Jeremiah, David, Jonah, or whoever they were had written down when God's Spirit moved (breathed upon, inspired) the men to write down what God wanted them to relate to us. At those times, every word they wrote down was pure truth. The apostle Peter informed us in 2 Peter 1:20-21: "knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
Now, when an error did develop it was when those transcriptionists were making those "hand-written" copies, that is where an error entered in, where there is one. (They did not have the luxury of modern-day typewriters, computers, photocopiers, etc.; every copy had to be "hand" copied so others could get a copy for their gathering of interested individuals). I ran from God years ago, but He deemed me for a heralder of His Word, and so He stayed after me, until I yielded to His call.... and I have ministered His Word now for over 46 years. And I could write several books on the things that have happened in and around my life like those 'old men' as you refer to them wrote about. Yes, some 40 authors wrote the 66 books in the Bible, and wrote them over several thousands of years.... which makes it even more of a miracle that it all comes together as it does.... in unity.... but, no sir, my friend, no one "re-interpreted" anything into "a single set of ideas." God "inspired" the individuals and the words they were to write on and about. Like I said, I could write a book, several of them!, about absolute miracles that I have seen (because there is no other explanation for them! Unreal situations...
But, Terry, I am going to be praying for you, friend. Right now we don't know each other, but I sure do hope to see you in heaven one day; and it seems from the tenor of your letter, that it is going to take someone praying for you, asking God to overlook your obvious ignorance about Him and His realness..... before you take that last breath here on this earth, and "die" to this life you are living right now. My comment about your 'ignorance' of Him is not meant as an insult, sir, it is simply an acknowledgement that you are without a lot of knowledge that, if you had it, you would alter your understanding and views of Him. It's like the apostle Paul was led to speak to the people in the area of Athens, in Acts 17:30, "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent."
Let me suggest you check out a Substack titled "Living by Lamplight." I think you will be blessed by reading that, and will be enlightened in the real truths of God every time you read that young man's postings. Also, keep looking on the Substack, and one day soon, look for a newsletter titled, "Musings from the Pen of Brother Sid.... Nearly a Half-Century of Seeing God's Hand in Movement in the Lives of People, and In the Events of the Day." I promise you will be blessed, sir.
P.S. In here I have called you 'friend' several times. I truly would like to come to know you as a "friend" one day soon. But more than even that, I hope to come to know you as "a brother in the Lord, in the Family of God, sir."
Brother Sid
You make a lot of assumptions about me. so too I make about you. I was raised in the Catholic Church in a family with one priest and 2 nuns. I studied the bible but not with the primitive sense that you have - so attribute problems to errors in transcription. Sorry but as a Catholic, I was exposed to teachers who accepted that the bible was really a collection of texts written at different times by men of all sorts. So for some the Apocrypha is in the bible for others not. But of course we have Jews who don't accept texts written by followers of Jesus.
The writers may have been inspired but God was not dictating.
So please don't pray for me. If you do, you are pissing into the wind.
I did not run from God but my encounter with modern physics made belief in a sky wizard untenable.
I have led a good life. Long married. One son who is both successful but also give of his time to others. I still am guided by Jesus as a moral philosopher. But as part of a so called triune godhead.... nope.
Again, Holly Berkley Fletcher gets to the heart of the matter. As an out of control teen, I was super attracted to an evangelical church that, frankly, saved me from myself because of its rigidity and authoritarianism. At the time, it was what I needed. But as I grew up, and learned to think critically and dialectically, I found that I was somehow a threat to the rigid fundamentalism and was considered to be a handmaiden of Satan by some of the elders (all male) and pillars (mostly female) of the church. Needless to say, we parted company. But I can well attest to the attraction to authoritarianism. It’s easy and feels secure and you don’t have to think, just obey. I’ve learned to be at home in muddy waters and to live with the I don’t know. And my faith is no longer in rigid dogma and authoritarianism, but in a sense that God is the ground of all being and is love itself and certainly cannot be reduced to my or anyone else’s understanding. It is a beautiful place to be.
You have grown as a person! That is beautiful. Sometimes a relationship, community or ideology serves you well for a time but overstaying doesn’t. Great work.
I'm part of a panel in two weeks addressing religion and the 2024 election. I've been given the task of explaining the evangelicals and have just begun forming my thoughts, but they echo yours. First, evangelicals have been fed a diet of promises of ant-Christian discrimination should democrats take power (which didn't happen when they did, but that doesn't change the attitudes). It's deeply ingrained in the subculture and regularly trumpeted by leaders in the evangelical industrial complex. Second, there are the correlations between strong Republican areas and evangelical strongholds. In other words, evangelicals may be Republican leaning because they disproportionately live in heavy R areas. Third, there is the influence of Christian Nationalism and those who have a project to Make America Christian Again. I've always thought that it's not the adherents of CN that are so dangerous but those others who grant them legitimacy. Fourth, there is the role of the independent charismatic and the role of spiritual warfare. Again, there are those outside that group that grant it legitimacy and adopt their rhetoric. Finally, I'm going to say a word about what's not a variable. I can find no evidence that evangelicals are operationalizing significant theological ideas to shape their vote.
So interesting. Following your work!
Inerrancy underpinned my white evangelical college experience. We weren't taught how to grapple with existential issues; we were given answers, usually simple. Alternate perspectives and opposing views were dismissed out of hand, always with a heavy does of snark.
Being both not religious and not from an Evangelical background I appreciate explanations about this culture.
And this idle thought: what is it about conservative religious movements (Christian, Islamic, Jewish) and beards? For at least some of these groups there are mandates for men to have beards; some even proscribe the length.
I increasingly feel like I live in an alternate universe. I've never felt this alienated from my fellow Americans. Very thankful to live in a city where I feel the things I value are, for the most part, valued by my fellow citizens. Not so much in my state, but as my favorite quote from Hilly on Twitter says, "Cincinnati existed for years before Ohio. Cincinnati has almost nothng in common with Ohio. Ohio just happened to Cincinnati."
Facial hair looks more manly i guess?
Clearly distinguishing and separating the sexes is important in these cultures, all of them. These are fear based religions that use control to compensate.
Love, love, love your stuff, Holly. Almost thou persuadest me to become a believer again, said somebody once, probably in the Quran. I grew weary of bashing evangelicals since 2016 since, anyways, I'm a Canadian and therefore a so-shall-ist-a! Keep up your important work, friend!!
I'm not an evangelical (or even a Protestant) but I've spent part of the last year listening to liberal/intellectual-type evangelical podcasts, the subject matter of which is usually 'trying to get everyone to realize that Trump/Christian nationalism/W supremacy is poison.' It's been fascinating, if depressing, and a window into a somewhat alien world.
You raise a good point which is that there is more discussion of the problem than solutions. There aren’t easy ones, that’s for sure
A complication is that Black Protestants believe in inerrancy comparably to white evangelicals. In terms of general pop, U.S. blacks are more likely than whites to believe in inerrancy.
Two excellent sources on the subject:
https://scholar.umw.edu/cpr_books/2/
https://nyupress.org/9780814722763/blacks-and-whites-in-christian-america/
Great point. They do, but in my experience it’s held more loosely, more “checked” by experience (such as justice issues), and isn’t as tied up with power. In the white evangelical church, inerrancy has been used (actually was honed in the first place) to reinforce order and authority. Anyway, the history and application is very different.
But any fundamentalist religion is susceptible to authoritarian leaders—you see the corrupt pastors in black and white churches—i just think they’ve been more trump resistant bc of deeper grounding in a justice ethic. And yes, trumps racist appeals do register for whites bc it taps into the long history there.
Maybe the Black Protestants are, despite their belief in inerrancy, using their brains and remembering their history. Good for them.
So good and so shareable. Thank you.
Also, a lot of what you outline corresponds with what Jonathan Haidt writes (or, at least, my memory of what he writes) in The Righteous Mind, which does a nice job of describing this value system.
My goodness, Terry, that was good to hear from you! Especially so quickly. Hey, listen, I wasn’t making judgment on you, and passing any kind of sentence out. Not at all, friend! If I did say something that offended you, I certainly didn’t mean too. It’s just that I once too was an unbeliever, and didn’t think that there was a God. But I did find out differently. Now, that you have enlightened me somewhat more, I can see how some of your thoughts and beliefs were gained. It does sound like you have had a pretty good life; it looks like one son, and a fairly long marriage. That is great! I have been married this coming January 3rd for 56 years, and we have two sons, a daughter by her marriage to our oldest son, three grandchildren, and now three great grandchildren, and so I too have had a pretty good life. Another great blessing in my life was when I became a born again Christian in 1978. From that time I have witnessed a number of movements of God in peoples lives. And that was primarily what my first text to you was addressing…. and what I saw l knew the opposite to be facts. Granted, you may not have experienced such, but I have personally witnessed events that were clearly, miraculous movements of a higher power, and I knew that action, quite often, was in answer to ‘specific’ prayer. My own wife, for example, was one of those miracles. The surgeon made a mistake, she went into septic shock, she was in a hospital that was not equipped with the equipment, yet all the others on the major centers for more than a hundred miles radius from us were all full in their ICU’s. The sepsis was killing her, and hours went by, finally a bed 45 miles away came available, and a helicopter was called in; yet her blood pressure dropped off completely, and she had zero pressure for so long that the doctors gave her zero chance, but if she did make it, her quality of life would be no more as she would have to be institutionalized with no control of her body and body functions again.
Nearly 29 years married at that point, you can imagine how devastated I was to learn that I would never have my bride at home ever again! But God heard my agonized, pleading prayers, and when in the greatest despair anyone could imagine, He spoke to me, and said, “Remember who you are.”
I questioned, “Sir, what are you saying?” He replied with the same clearly audible voice in my conscious mind, with emphasis on each word, ‘Remember… Who… You… Are.” To which I again replied, “Sir, I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
And He replied, “Remember that you are a son of the Living God; and remember what His Word says, that you can ask whatsoever you will, and if you have faith, though it might be as small as a grain of mustard seed, that you can have whatsoever you ask for. Remember that, son.”
Against all odds, against what every single one of her doctors said (that she would not leave that highly skilled hospital alive, or if she did, it would only be to transfer her to an institution where she would have to be provided 2; hour care… due to the length of time she had been without ANY blood pressure on that flight down there, and getting her connected to all the life support systems in the ICU and the respirator breathing for her)….
Well, less than five weeks later I brought her home, 100% whole, with no side effects, and 27 years later she is sitting over there in her recliner across from mine…. And today our family has grown to include a total now of 13 at the moment…. and in the morning she is heading over to babysit one of our three great grandchildren!
Friend, God is Great, and He does still work in powerful and miraculous ways in peoples lives everywhere and all the time.
But life does come to an end one day. And the day we die we do find out to which eternity we leave for, alive in our soul and spirit although the body does cease to exist, so friend, forgive me, but I will be praying for you. And, hope that, as you were molded by a great deal of what you grew up around in your early formative years, I will be praying that my Heavenly Father’s Holy Spirit will bring into your path some things that will truly introduce you to Him, and to His Son Jesus, the Savior of all who will come to place their faith in Him…. and to trust Him to deliver them from the power of the soul-damning sin in their life. I do sincerely wish you the best, Terry.
P.S. I just learned when I started this response that you have a Substack. I look forward to learning more about you. God Bless You, sir.
Brother Sid
It is a puzzle to me as to why so many Christian people hold out such support for a man like Trump. The only thing I can gather is that these folks are like the Pharisees people when Jesus walked this Earth Himself. They said they were people of God, yet they were trying to trip Him up; even to kill him as they didn't agree with some of the things which He was teaching. But Jesus spoke truth to them; He called them people of the devil because of their desire to kill Him (and He was the Son of God personally, yet they took offense at Him). Trump is an incorrigible liar, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt! He is a wicked vile fornicator, adulterer, fraudster, and I could go on and on with his long list of depraved wicked features of him and the crooked ways he lives his life.... which we, who are real, true believers in God and Jesus, are NOT to touch, NOT to be involved with, and that we better not support and encourage in their 'nonconformities' with the teachings of God and His Son Jesus, or we would suffer the same punishment as God will render upon them when they are judged. (Read it in 2 John 9-11).