cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/3377375

I read an essay by a christian a while ago that pointed out that the separation of church and state wasn’t about protecting the state from religion - it was about protecting religion from the state.

The gist of the argument was that religion should be concentrating on the eternal, and politics, by necessity, concentrates on the immediate. The author was concerned that welding religion and politics together would make religion itself political, meaning it would have to conform to the secular moment rather than looking to saving souls or whatever.

The mind meld of evangelical christianity and right wing politics happened in the mid to late 70s when the US was trying to racially integrate christian universities, which had been severely limiting or excluding black students. Since then, republicans and christians have been in bed together. The southern baptist convention, in fact, originally endorsed the Roe decision because it helped the cause of women. It was only after they decided to go all in on social conservatism that it became a sin.

Christians today are growing concerned about a falloff in attendance and membership. This article concentrates on how conservatism has become a call for people to publicly identify as evangelical while not actually being religious, because it’s an our team thing.

Evangelicals made an ironically Faustian bargain and are starting to realize it.

  • Bappity@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    can we start calling these “evangelicals” for what they are? cultist recruiters

  • Bramble Dog@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    “I read an essay by a christian a while ago that pointed out that the separation of church and state wasn’t about protecting the state from religion - it was about protecting religion from the state.”

    Without knowing the author or their reasons for saying that, I would say that they have it wrong entirely. The majority of governments before the US almost always had some level of theocracy attached to it. We took our independence from a man who quite literally was pretending to be God’s representative on earth.

    Within that context, its very hard to see the constitution as intending anything other than a full divorce between politics and religion.

    • mwguy@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      At the time of the Constitution there were several states with official state religions (Pennslyvania, Maryland, RI etc…) Separation of Church and state was more of making sure that the Federal Governent didn’t impose a religion upon the states themselves.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Odd because Madison who wrote the establishment clause formed it specifically to stop his state from having government funded religious schools.

        • mwguy@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          The founding fathers had a significantly more progressive, more secular view of what the American society and government could and should be than the general population or even the general upper class.

          Additionally I believe Madison ended up using a Virginia state religious freedom law to oppose religious school in the state.

          While the language of the first Amendment should have banned state religion based solely on it’s text. It didn’t based on it’s interpretation.

      • Bramble Dog@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        Were any of those States allowed to keep their state religions after the ratification of the constution or did they immediately start following the law and separated their recognition of a church being the state religion?

        But yes, the constitution outright was outlawing the formation of theocratic arms of the state.

        • mwguy@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          All of them kept them. For example Mass had a state religion until 1833. Most kept them until the mid to late 1800s when the amount of Irish Catholic and German/Lutheran immigrants made it clear that if they kept a state religion that it wasn’t going to remain theirs.

          • Bramble Dog@infosec.pub
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            1 year ago

            It appears 1833 is when Massachusetts formally adopted their state constitution, so that is likely the reason in.that case, hut I will look more into it.

          • fubo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Most of the state churches were disestablished before the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791; Connecticut and Massachusetts being the exceptions.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      As a European, even though I know of the separation of church and state in the US, I feel that religion in politics still is very important in the states.

      I mean that most candidates are very publicly religious and I have the idea that religious affiliation is still very important in the electoral vote, more so than where I live.

      Correct me if I’m wrong, by the way, but I don’t know what religion most of our politicians abide by, except those in a religious party. Where I would think that in America, if a candidate were non religious it would affect electability.

  • maaj@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    …uhh, doesn’t that mean by their rules they won’t get into heaven anymore? “Yeah he died for our sins, but he’s a weak ass lil punk” is a wild sentiment to have and still expect to make it past the pearly gates.

    • Catma@lemmy.world
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      If I am remembering correctly the only thing needed to get into heaven is to accept Jesus as your saviour and truely believe. Most of these people believe they are saved because they said some words and attend church regularly. They dont know the scripture outside the big ones, John 3:16 and probably the one in Leviticus about not sleeping with another man. Everything else is new to them every time they hear it.

      • maaj@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Im going to keep it real with you, my focus at this point is on MasterObee’s bigoted hoe ass rn, my lil jokey joke is of litte importance. I do appreciate your input though.

      • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It would be really funny if they started paying more attention to the context surrounding the different books in the bible. Like how all Leviticus is canonically the laws of the tribe of Levi and give context for Jewish laws and how Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon were all written by an asshole who already enjoyed telling people what to do who never met Jesus - just hit his head on a rock and said he hallucinated him but went on to become his own cult leader.

  • style99@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Evangelicals have been a lost cause since the mid-80s. They store everything on earth, not in heaven.

    • bufordt@sh.itjust.works
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      They were already lost by the late 60s, early 70s. The proliferation of evangelical schools was in direct response to integration. They didn’t want their precious little children to have to go to school with black kids so they pulled them out of public schools and put them in segregation academies. Now they want to pull all the money from the public schools they abandoned out of racism and divert it into their segregation academy system.

      They also shut down a lot of public pools because they didn’t want to swim with black people.

    • thecodemonk@programming.dev
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      The closer I got to Christ, the less republican I became. I had to actually stop going to church because my views changed so drastically, the other church members were attacking me. It’s certainly crazy to discover that mainstream Christianity today is anything but.

      • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I remember in jr high relgion class and learning about how jesus was fighting against corupt religious authority. In a Catholic school

    • stereofony@lemm.ee
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      There’s an old Margaret Cho joke about how if Jesus were to return today, he’d be screaming, “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”

  • Jordan Lund@lemmy.one
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    Wow! This is literally a case of Poe’s Law in action!

    I was ready to discount this as satire, especially when they ran the quote from Russell Moore speaking to NPR, but failing to quote the source…

    So I ran it down, sure enough!

    https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity

    "On why he thinks Christianity is in crisis:

    It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis."

  • havokdj@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “They hated Jesus, because he told them the truth”

    There is nobody more pretentious and judgemental than an evangelical.

  • sndmn@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    These are the same people who are protesting at libraries while their children are literally raped by clergy.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    Did they want to only hear the part about the fig tree? Jesus has wrath unimaginable. He whipped people for selling merchandise in a church.

    “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (verse 22, KJV). Jesus was a bad ass, and he would have whipped the entire GOP and ran them from his house had he been alive now.

  • downpunxx@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    protip: evangelicalizing was always smokescreen for racists, baptists same, catholics same. christianity is racism, always has been, always will be.

    • LanternEverywhere@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Sorry but no, that’s way too broad of a brush. There definitely ARE sects of christianity that are good, kind, and loving. They might be the minority (or at least seem to be the minority) but they do exist, and there are millions of those congregants.

      • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Quakers, Episcopalians, UUs generally seemed on the decent side, at least with what they claim to believe and based on my personal anecdata.

        And what’s their reward? A dying denomination.

        The only growing Christian populations are the hateful ones. I have to deal with the Christians that actually exist.

      • Jerkface@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I always try to keep in mind that when talking about groups to which I am not a member, they are likely more diverse than their representation would suggest. Examples like this really help clear things up. These are people to whom I would be proud to be an ally.

        • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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          Now look at what the Jesuits were up to 3/400 years ago and see whether you still want to be associated with them.

          • LanternEverywhere@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I don’t care what they did hundreds of years ago. I judge people on who they are, not on who their grand parents were.

            • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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              Joining a club is different from who your parents were, one is a deliberate choice.

              But yay child-abuse-enabling religion I guess.

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Not once have they spoke out of denounced their radical brethren.

        By the logic of ACAB, it’s not just bad apples it’s the whole damn bunch.

              • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
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                1 year ago

                Don’t say that. It’s good to be optimistic. We just have to be willing to accept reality if it violates our expectations.

                Like say aliens turn out to be benevolent (or at least very good at pretending they are). That would violate my expectations, and I would honestly welcome it. It’s good to be wrong sometimes.

  • InLikeClint@kbin.social
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    The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That means Jesus and I are now cool with each other, even though his whole story is sus AF.

    • Jerkface@lemmy.world
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      Did you ever watch Black Jesus? Everybody thought he was loony as fuck but they appreciated the spirit in which he went about things, so instead of revering him they just help him out like they would any other friend. I’d chill with Jesus.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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      The enemy of your enemy is by no means necessarily your friend. They may be useful to you, but don’t take your eyes off your valuables or your kids around a preacher.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    Wait until they find out what colour he would have been.

    And if God made man in his image, know that the first men were from Africa. If he were real he’d be pissed as fuck at these people.

    • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldOP
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      Their Jesus is white and speaks English. If their was an actual person fitting the profile they would have a Mediterranean complexion.

    • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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      Dude might look like homo erectus. Or just a full on ape man like planet of the apes type shit and he’s fully on-board with evolution. “yea man, those are the laws of nature I created. You spent how long denying it in my name? Wtf man.”