Religion in America

[seacoaster]

"Religion" in quotes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... t-secular/

"New research linking Christian nationalism with a desire to limit voting. People citing their faith as the reason they support trucker convoys that shut down the border over covid protections. And the fact that Jesus’ name appeared all over the place during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection.

Concern about rising radicalism among a segment of White American Christians led this week to what some religious extremism experts call the biggest Congress-related event on the topic in years.

The Thursday evening briefing, called “God is On Our Side: White Christian Nationalism and the Capitol Insurrection,” was hosted by the Congressional Freethought Caucus, a group that includes Democratic House members Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Zoe Lofgren of California and Steve Cohen of Tennessee.

The Freethought Caucus was launched in 2018 to “protect the secular character of our government” and has 16 members.

The virtual briefing, which was not open to the public and included more than 50 members, staff and experts, focused on a new, 66-page report about the role of Christian nationalism in the Capitol attack, and on its “implications for the future of Democracy,” an announcement for the event read. Its goal was to bring awareness to Americans about what the caucus sees as the threats of Christian nationalism, organizers told The Washington Post.

The report was released Feb. 9 and is a project of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). It chronicles in exhaustive detail the art, signs, flags, jewelry, spoken words and even a gallows that protesters brought Jan. 6 that cited Jesus and Christianity. It also talks about various nonprofit groups, lawmakers and clergy who worked together to adorn Jan. 6 and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his electoral loss with theological fervor. It talks about the important role of race.

During coronavirus crisis, Congress’s first caucus for nonreligious belief seeks a larger role in promoting science

Andrew Seidel, one of the authors of the report and a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said he believes Jan. 6 was “the culmination but not the end. … Insurrectionists were given moral license for the attack, and since then a growing slice of Americans are justifying it.”


“I look at what’s happening now, the rhetoric leading up to the midterms, and am more worried, not less,” he told The Post before the Freethought event. “We have more brazen nationalism. The Republican Party saying that day was ‘legitimate discourse.’ We are going to see something like this again.”

Rep. Jared Huffman, (D-Calif.), a founder of the caucus, said the group has grown steadily in number since it was founded and he wanted to hold the event because White Christian nationalism “is the most important piece of this insurrection people don’t yet understand fully.”

“A lot of Americans look at that day and think: ‘A lot of crazy people acted out.’ But it was far more organized, and it wasn’t just the Trump political organization,” he said. What tied many unconnected people and groups together was a shared worldview that Christianity should be fused with civic life and that true Americans are White, culturally conservative and natural born citizens.

Seidel and other experts involved in the event said they fear Americans do not appreciate the role of White Christian nationalism in the insurrection and in current anti-democratic efforts. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature,” he said. “These folks are embedded in state legislatures, in the truck convoy spectacle. We haven’t heard the last of them.”

Christian nationalism is centuries old. The phrase, however, only took off in recent years, including among researchers seeking to understand and explain the idea that people can be sorted into distinct groups (nationalism) and that those groups are defined by, and must remain defined by, a certain expression of Christianity. People who are considered Christian nationalists do not usually see themselves or refer to themselves that way.

While concern about White Christian nationalism in America is today most commonly expressed by people on the left, it is not a partisan issue. Multiple well-known figures on the more conservative side of the aisle have sounded alarm about the danger of conflating Christianity with patriotism, or love of country.

Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore called it “heretical,” saying linking God and country is akin to idol-worship and is bad for the faith.

Paul Miller, an international affairs professor at Georgetown University who writes on religion and politics, calls it “a serious problem” because it allows one group to define who is, and who is not, part of the nation. In a piece last year in Christianity Today about Christian nationalism, Miller noted the periods when Protestantism was a quasi-official religion in America, and said it violated the value of religious freedom.

Government discrimination against non-Protestants goes back to the earliest U.S. colonies in the 1600s, when Catholics were banned and Quakers were hanged. In newly independent America, only Christians could hold office, so long as they renounced the pope’s authority. In New York, Catholics were banned from public office until the early 1800s. They had civil rights in Maryland, but Jews did not. In the mid-1800s, Mormons were expelled from Missouri, and later their practice of polygamy was legally banned.

An interpretation of Christianity also was used by the government to support slavery and segregation.

University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, another participant in Thursday’s event, has written several books about religion and politics. New research for “The Flag and The Cross,” which comes out next month, shows a powerful correlation between people who subscribe to Christian nationalist beliefs and anti-democratic beliefs.

The book, co-written by Perry and Yale sociologist Philip Gorski, lays out a scale of Christian nationalism based on agreement with seven points, including “the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” and “the success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”

Their research shows how, the higher people are on the Christian nationalism scale the more they tend to agree with the statement “we make it too easy to vote.” The same thing happens when people agree with the statements “the best way to stop bad guys with guns is to have good guys with guns,” and “authorities should be able to use any means necessary to keep law and order” and “if national security is at risk, I support torture.”

“Even after accounting for partisanship and political ideology, the more strongly White Americans affirm Christian nationalism, the more likely they were to respond to Trump’s election loss with a view that voting access should be restricted even more,” the book says.

“White Christian nationalism is not just in the people who stormed the Capitol but it’s powerfully associated and a leading predictor of whether people affirm authoritarian tactics to control populations they think are problems,” Perry told The Post.

Perry and other experts say new data does not indicate that an expanding percentage of the U.S. population hold these views. He says that is because of younger Americans being more secular and the Trump presidency heightening awareness of the issue.

However, it is wrong to see this group as “ineffective or in a dying grasp,” he said. Instead, they are becoming more angry and, he believes, dangerous. The book’s research showed that the same group more powerfully believed “it’s too easy to vote” after the 2020 election compared with before.

“They idealize a world where the right kinds of people participate,” Perry said.

“As this group of Americans — Whites who believe the country is for people like them — the more they feel marginalized, in a corner, and can lean into that, there is more potential for them to become more radical, more militant,” he says. The topic becomes wrapped up in partisanship, with followers saying: “If the liberals hate this Christian nationalism, it must be good.”

[jhu72]

"Religion" in quotes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... t-secular/

"New research linking Christian nationalism with a desire to limit voting. People citing their faith as the reason they support trucker convoys that shut down the border over covid protections. And the fact that Jesus’ name appeared all over the place during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection.

Concern about rising radicalism among a segment of White American Christians led this week to what some religious extremism experts call the biggest Congress-related event on the topic in years.

The Thursday evening briefing, called “God is On Our Side: White Christian Nationalism and the Capitol Insurrection,” was hosted by the Congressional Freethought Caucus, a group that includes Democratic House members Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Zoe Lofgren of California and Steve Cohen of Tennessee.

The Freethought Caucus was launched in 2018 to “protect the secular character of our government” and has 16 members.

The virtual briefing, which was not open to the public and included more than 50 members, staff and experts, focused on a new, 66-page report about the role of Christian nationalism in the Capitol attack, and on its “implications for the future of Democracy,” an announcement for the event read. Its goal was to bring awareness to Americans about what the caucus sees as the threats of Christian nationalism, organizers told The Washington Post.

The report was released Feb. 9 and is a project of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). It chronicles in exhaustive detail the art, signs, flags, jewelry, spoken words and even a gallows that protesters brought Jan. 6 that cited Jesus and Christianity. It also talks about various nonprofit groups, lawmakers and clergy who worked together to adorn Jan. 6 and Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his electoral loss with theological fervor. It talks about the important role of race.

During coronavirus crisis, Congress’s first caucus for nonreligious belief seeks a larger role in promoting science

Andrew Seidel, one of the authors of the report and a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said he believes Jan. 6 was “the culmination but not the end. … Insurrectionists were given moral license for the attack, and since then a growing slice of Americans are justifying it.”


“I look at what’s happening now, the rhetoric leading up to the midterms, and am more worried, not less,” he told The Post before the Freethought event. “We have more brazen nationalism. The Republican Party saying that day was ‘legitimate discourse.’ We are going to see something like this again.”

Rep. Jared Huffman, (D-Calif.), a founder of the caucus, said the group has grown steadily in number since it was founded and he wanted to hold the event because White Christian nationalism “is the most important piece of this insurrection people don’t yet understand fully.”

“A lot of Americans look at that day and think: ‘A lot of crazy people acted out.’ But it was far more organized, and it wasn’t just the Trump political organization,” he said. What tied many unconnected people and groups together was a shared worldview that Christianity should be fused with civic life and that true Americans are White, culturally conservative and natural born citizens.

Seidel and other experts involved in the event said they fear Americans do not appreciate the role of White Christian nationalism in the insurrection and in current anti-democratic efforts. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature,” he said. “These folks are embedded in state legislatures, in the truck convoy spectacle. We haven’t heard the last of them.”

Christian nationalism is centuries old. The phrase, however, only took off in recent years, including among researchers seeking to understand and explain the idea that people can be sorted into distinct groups (nationalism) and that those groups are defined by, and must remain defined by, a certain expression of Christianity. People who are considered Christian nationalists do not usually see themselves or refer to themselves that way.

While concern about White Christian nationalism in America is today most commonly expressed by people on the left, it is not a partisan issue. Multiple well-known figures on the more conservative side of the aisle have sounded alarm about the danger of conflating Christianity with patriotism, or love of country.

Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore called it “heretical,” saying linking God and country is akin to idol-worship and is bad for the faith.

Paul Miller, an international affairs professor at Georgetown University who writes on religion and politics, calls it “a serious problem” because it allows one group to define who is, and who is not, part of the nation. In a piece last year in Christianity Today about Christian nationalism, Miller noted the periods when Protestantism was a quasi-official religion in America, and said it violated the value of religious freedom.

Government discrimination against non-Protestants goes back to the earliest U.S. colonies in the 1600s, when Catholics were banned and Quakers were hanged. In newly independent America, only Christians could hold office, so long as they renounced the pope’s authority. In New York, Catholics were banned from public office until the early 1800s. They had civil rights in Maryland, but Jews did not. In the mid-1800s, Mormons were expelled from Missouri, and later their practice of polygamy was legally banned.

An interpretation of Christianity also was used by the government to support slavery and segregation.

University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, another participant in Thursday’s event, has written several books about religion and politics. New research for “The Flag and The Cross,” which comes out next month, shows a powerful correlation between people who subscribe to Christian nationalist beliefs and anti-democratic beliefs.

The book, co-written by Perry and Yale sociologist Philip Gorski, lays out a scale of Christian nationalism based on agreement with seven points, including “the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” and “the success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”

Their research shows how, the higher people are on the Christian nationalism scale the more they tend to agree with the statement “we make it too easy to vote.” The same thing happens when people agree with the statements “the best way to stop bad guys with guns is to have good guys with guns,” and “authorities should be able to use any means necessary to keep law and order” and “if national security is at risk, I support torture.”

“Even after accounting for partisanship and political ideology, the more strongly White Americans affirm Christian nationalism, the more likely they were to respond to Trump’s election loss with a view that voting access should be restricted even more,” the book says.

“White Christian nationalism is not just in the people who stormed the Capitol but it’s powerfully associated and a leading predictor of whether people affirm authoritarian tactics to control populations they think are problems,” Perry told The Post.

Perry and other experts say new data does not indicate that an expanding percentage of the U.S. population hold these views. He says that is because of younger Americans being more secular and the Trump presidency heightening awareness of the issue.

However, it is wrong to see this group as “ineffective or in a dying grasp,” he said. Instead, they are becoming more angry and, he believes, dangerous. The book’s research showed that the same group more powerfully believed “it’s too easy to vote” after the 2020 election compared with before.

“They idealize a world where the right kinds of people participate,” Perry said.

“As this group of Americans — Whites who believe the country is for people like them — the more they feel marginalized, in a corner, and can lean into that, there is more potential for them to become more radical, more militant,” he says. The topic becomes wrapped up in partisanship, with followers saying: “If the liberals hate this Christian nationalism, it must be good.”

... this is where the real fascists threat in this country comes from. It has been very clear for years! The question is what is to be done about it.

[seacoaster]

More “religion” in public life:

https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/the ... %3A36%3A38

“ But the Ginni Thomas texts were not the most alarming aspect of Woodward and Costa’s story. There was a text in the chain that disturbed me more than anything Ginni Thomas wrote. It came from Meadows, and here’s what it said:

This is a fight of good versus evil . . . Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the effort to overturn the election was the extent to which it was an explicitly religious cause. January 6 insurrectionists stampeded into the Senate chamber with prayers on their lips. Prominent religious leaders and leading Christian lawyers threw themselves into the effort to delay election certification or throw out the election results entirely. In the House and Senate, the congressional leaders of the effort to overturn the election included many of Congress’s most public evangelicals.”

[RedFromMI]

More “religion” in public life:

https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/the ... %3A36%3A38

“ But the Ginni Thomas texts were not the most alarming aspect of Woodward and Costa’s story. There was a text in the chain that disturbed me more than anything Ginni Thomas wrote. It came from Meadows, and here’s what it said:

This is a fight of good versus evil . . . Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the effort to overturn the election was the extent to which it was an explicitly religious cause. January 6 insurrectionists stampeded into the Senate chamber with prayers on their lips. Prominent religious leaders and leading Christian lawyers threw themselves into the effort to delay election certification or throw out the election results entirely. In the House and Senate, the congressional leaders of the effort to overturn the election included many of Congress’s most public evangelicals.”

A great example of Dominion Theology/Dominionism in practice. The belief that the nation should be governed by Christians (like themselves, not certain "other" Christians) based on biblical principles.

And I think the situation after the November 2020 election results was that having been so successful in installing like minded individuals (like Meadows here, but Ginni Thomas would certainly be a part of this belief set) and thinking they were so close to achieving their goal of "Christian" control of government they felt their control slipping out of their hands and felt cornered and in need of a revolt to overturn an election that could not be legitimate as only their victory could be seen as one supported by God.

This sort of thinking was once more of a minority view (in the sense of completely making the nation one based on their theology) but has grown especially as Trump, unlike his Republican predecessors, gave the movement more of a vital role in government as he knew that was the biggest fraction of his base as he was "selling" them a notion of taking the nation back to their values. Previous R presidents paid lip service, but never allowed the real participation of the dominionists.

[ardilla secreta]

Yeah baby

A3E3F39F-37D6-4153-9E0D-804B2F3C2866.jpeg (129.85 KiB) Viewed 768 times

[youthathletics]

clever.

[runrussellrun]

Will Smith is a lunatic....a violent one at that. What he did, was so disturbing. on many levels.

one level IS the "religious " acceptance speech Mr. Smith shoved in your face.....

dude.....you LAUGHED at the gijane 2 "joke"......


or, is this all just to drum up ticket sales for Chris Rock ?

apparently, what Mr. Smith did appears to be a normal thing. Has it been discussed on fanlax? on any thread

[runrussellrun]

Yeah baby
A3E3F39F-37D6-4153-9E0D-804B2F3C2866.jpeg

I clicked on one of those "you should see them now" clickbaits......oh my mahn.....does she look HOT now. She found yoga too, if you know what I mean. She still talks to god, usually preceeded with "OH" first.......

check her out, not joking.

[jhu72]

Nothing really new, but nice summary. Evangelicals as a group have the intellectual and emotional maturity of two year olds.

[youthathletics]

You clearly do not understand and are far too trigger happy.

[Andersen]

Please clarify and help us understand. I'd truly like to know.

[youthathletics]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

[Typical Lax Dad]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Not this:

A significant subset of the U.S. evangelical community, particularly white conservatives, has been developing a political and emotional alliance with Russia for almost 20 years. Those American believers, including prominent figures such as Graham and Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, see Russia, Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as protectors of the faith, standing against attacks on "traditional" and "family" values. At the center is Russia's spate of anti-LGBTQ laws, which have become a model for some anti-trans and anti-gay legislation in the U.S.

[MDlaxfan76]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Actually, could have been either.
Not sure why you'd assume either was more likely.

The issue for Franklin Graham is that he hadn't bothered to offer any prayers for those who would most likely suffer...and this is, indeed, in the context of those who have thought of Putin as a "Christian"...is he, really?

Graham ain't his father...

[youthathletics]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Actually, could have been either.
Not sure why you'd assume either was more likely.

The issue for Franklin Graham is that he hadn't bothered to offer any prayers for those who would most likely suffer...and this is, indeed, in the context of those who have thought of Putin as a "Christian"...is he, really?

Graham ain't his father...

B/c the headlines goal was to paint a negative....seems they succeeded, at least for the typical people that are looking to judge and find it.

But Graham is a son to our Father.

[MDlaxfan76]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Actually, could have been either.
Not sure why you'd assume either was more likely.

The issue for Franklin Graham is that he hadn't bothered to offer any prayers for those who would most likely suffer...and this is, indeed, in the context of those who have thought of Putin as a "Christian"...is he, really?

Graham ain't his father...

B/c the headlines goal was to paint a negative....seems they succeeded, at least for the typical people that are looking to judge and find it.

But Graham is a son to our Father.

Straight question: Do you think Putin is a Christian?

[youthathletics]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Actually, could have been either.
Not sure why you'd assume either was more likely.

The issue for Franklin Graham is that he hadn't bothered to offer any prayers for those who would most likely suffer...and this is, indeed, in the context of those who have thought of Putin as a "Christian"...is he, really?

Graham ain't his father...

B/c the headlines goal was to paint a negative....seems they succeeded, at least for the typical people that are looking to judge and find it.

But Graham is a son to our Father.

Straight question: Do you think Putin is a Christian?

No clue.

[jhu72]

A republiCON candidate finally says it out loud.

"Don't talk to me about separation of church and state," she said. "Church and state was written because the state has no business in our church. But we are the church. We are the church, and we run the state."

[MDlaxfan76]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Actually, could have been either.
Not sure why you'd assume either was more likely.

The issue for Franklin Graham is that he hadn't bothered to offer any prayers for those who would most likely suffer...and this is, indeed, in the context of those who have thought of Putin as a "Christian"...is he, really?

Graham ain't his father...

B/c the headlines goal was to paint a negative....seems they succeeded, at least for the typical people that are looking to judge and find it.

But Graham is a son to our Father.

Straight question: Do you think Putin is a Christian?

No clue.

Really?
Do you think that a war criminal can be a Christian?
A follower of Jesus' teaching?

[cradleandshoot]

Which one is from an actual Christian.....you make the call.

~ "pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost."
~ "Ukraine war is testing evangelicals’ love of Putin as a conservative hero"

Actually, could have been either.
Not sure why you'd assume either was more likely.

The issue for Franklin Graham is that he hadn't bothered to offer any prayers for those who would most likely suffer...and this is, indeed, in the context of those who have thought of Putin as a "Christian"...is he, really?

Graham ain't his father...

B/c the headlines goal was to paint a negative....seems they succeeded, at least for the typical people that are looking to judge and find it.

But Graham is a son to our Father.

Straight question: Do you think Putin is a Christian?

No clue.

Really?
Do you think that a war criminal can be a Christian?
A follower of Jesus' teaching?

If he is born again then all sins are forgiven, so my born again friends preech.