At this point, it seems that traditional understandings of the Bible, especially of the gospels, and right- wing understandings are so different that people who call themselves Christian actually seem to be in two very different religions. The diffences are far greater than those from different translations. I read two articles this week touching on this. I hope the gift links work as I would like to know your reactions to these articles. What does being Christian in America actually signify these days?
Couldn’t get into the Atlantic without surrendering my information but I get it. There were “two Christianities” in Nazi Germany, the official go-along-and-get-along churches and the Confessing Church with Niemüller and Bonhöffer. I’ve seen FB posts from my relatives fawning all over and canonizing Charlie Kirk, calling him a great Christian. And I can’t see a single Christian thing in him. This type of moral inversion is one of the most frightening capabilities of human beings. Wolves in sheep’s clothing is the description. I think Charlie Kirk may have actually believed what he was saying, especially because he was well rewarded by donors, especially zionist donors. I think it’s usually the minority in every community that doesn’t go for the simple, self-serving, self-congratulatory answers, those who go through the narrow gate.
ReplyDeleteMy eldest sister was fawning over him so much it made me feel sick - literally. I stopped reading her post before I finished it because I found it so disheartening.
DeleteBoth articles were good. I thought the one by Peter Wehner did the best job of getting to the heart of the matter. This paragraph stated the contradiction well:
ReplyDelete"Politics, especially culture-war politics, provides many fundamentalists and evangelicals with a sense of community and a common enemy. It gives purpose and meaning to their life, turning them into protagonists in a great drama pitting good against evil.... They consecrate their resentments."
Unfortunately we have to include many Catholics in this group. It's not really a new problem, we see a lot of examples in history, of people mixing politics and religion, to the detriment of religion. It goes back to what we were discussing in the previous posts, that you can't serve both God and Mammon. Or as it was also stated, you can't serve two masters. But people keep on trying to.
To your question, "What does being Christian on America actually signify these days?" Preachers, teachers, and parents have to do the best they can at conscience formation. But in the end people have to decide for themselves, amid all the seductive influences they face. Which is both hopeful and discouraging.
Peter Wehner’s articles are always worth reading. The WaPo article was interesting because it was written by someone observing Christianity in the US from the outside of Christianity.
DeleteThe WaPo article was also very good. The author states that there are two competing versions of Christianity. But there are more than two, there is a multiplicity of versions.
DeleteUnfortunately it seems that as soon as people or groups get power, they abuse it. For the greater good, of course.
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ReplyDeleteSorry, there is a paywall blocking me from reading the Atlantic article. I agree the WaPo article is pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhen Donald Trump stood up at Charlie Kirk's funeral and contradicted Erika Kirk's admonition to forgive, I don't think anyone, including he, thought he was speaking on behalf of Christianity. I don't see Trump as a Christian leader. I see him as a political leader.
It is true, though, that the Christianity of the first martyrs is the same Christianity of the Crusades. The tension the WaPo writer is pointing out, has been there for centuries.
The tension in history might have been there in earlier eras, but I don’t remember anything like this current situation in America in my lifetime.
DeleteI too did not read the Atlantic article because of the paywall. The days of a few free articles are disappearing. Even Commonweal has reduced its five free articles a month to three.
ReplyDeleteThe Prosperity Gospel of American Protestantism has already reversed the clear teachings of Jesus. So, reversing the pacifist heritage of the Gospels and early Christianity is nothing new. Ironic that so many Protestants should reject the clear teachings of Scripture for the teaching of their contemporary church leaders. And they have the nerve to call us Papists. They have created their own popes and have included Trump as one! They aspire to spiritual as well as secular authority.
Of course, Catholicism has always been ill at ease with the Gospel of nonviolence and the preferential option for the poor. We got around it by allowing the laity but not priests to wage war and execute people, and the laity but not priests and religious to accumulate money (especially if they gave a lot of it to churches run by clergy and religious).
Reading the martyrology each morning, a lot of the martyrs and confessors were people who died or suffered a great deal because they were persecuted by corrupt church officials and/or Catholic rulers.
While Jesus died at the hands of Roman officials, the Jewish leadership collaborated with them. Clearly Jesus had disagreements with the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Of course, one of his own betrayed him, and the rest fled or denied him. If we want to be faithful to the Gospels we will not expect much of religious leadership!
The link I provided for The Atlantic was a “ gift” article link. Katherine was able to read the story. Perhaps the algorithm only permits it to be opened once. They got me to sign up as a subscriber because I read a few articles before the paywall went up. They frequently have good articles. David Brooks wrote one recently. Did he leave the NYT? We don’t go out much - our entertainment budget now goes to Netflix, and magazines and newspapers online. My husband reads some paper magazines still related to his career days.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I was able to read the Atlantic article is that I am a subscriber. My oldest son always gives me a subscription for my birthday. David Brooks is still with the NYT. He has an article this week which I haven't read yet. I will try and post about it later. I had better try and remember when my cheap intro subscription to NYT runs out before they start charging me full price, LOL.
DeleteI can copy and paste parts of the Peter Wehner article here if anyone would like to read it.
DeleteKatherine if it runs out just keep canceling until they come up with a new subscriber price - which they did with me.The WaPo too.
DeleteI’m trying to support better publications like The Atlantic and The Economist because there is so much “ fake” news and superficial reporting and analyses out there. Trying to do my small part to keep the sane publications going.
DeleteI went to the Atlantic website to see if I could access the article there, but I could not find it. Maybe it is just in some newsletter?
DeleteHere is a somewhat shortened version of the Wehner article:
Deletehttps://www.alternet.org/trump-jesus-gop/
It doesn't seem to be paywalled.
Jack, they refresh what is on the landing page of the website regularly. It’s there somewhere but no longer featured. I’m unhappy that the gift link didn’t work though.
DeleteTrump is not just a Christian leader to many evangelicals, they literally believe (and he says it) that he was chosen by God to lead the country, and that America is the “chosen” nation, as Israel was in ancient times.
ReplyDeleteI guess he thinks he is a "Cyrus" figure. For all that the MAGA base is fed up with so-called elites, their standard bearer grew up as a spoiled rich kid, who never had to worry about making a living, and got to have anything and do anything he wanted. Go figure.
DeleteBoth my evangelical brother in law and our evangelical friends pulled out the Cyrus story back in 2016. The only other evangelicals we know are the parents of one of our sons. They are among the 18% of evangelicals who don’t support trump. He is a retired writer- for most of his career he wrote for Christianity Today. Now he has a blog. I wish I had saved it because last year he wrote a lengthy and detailed article highlighting the fallacies in the Cyrus defense. Cyrus is the go- to justification for trump support -SOP - in the evangelical world apparently.
DeleteNevermind that Cyrus in the Biblical story plays a quite different role than the narrative they're morphing Trump into.
DeleteI see that EJ Dionne has transferred over to NYT.
ReplyDeleteI think he was among those who chose to leave the WaPo after Bezos issued his censorship orders about what they could write about.
DeleteI don't keep up with all the NY Times opinion writers, but before Dionne joined, did they have any Catholic writers in the regular line-up besides Ross Douthat?
DeleteI don’t know as I don’t know the religious backgrounds of all their opinion writers, unless they make a point of it. David French is evangelical - one of the rare coherent members of that group. Douthat makes a big deal out of his Catholicism (casting it in a rather sad light), Dionne usually did not make it a big deal, just now and then. French mentions his because of the outsized role evangelicals have played in the rise of trump - French tries to show that his coreligionists are off base. I think Maureen Dowd is Catholic. She’s been there for years but doesn’t appear as often as Douthat. I usually don’t read his columns. I always read David French. Most of the others I read only if the subject catches my attention as offering a genuinely new slant on the awfulness of our current situation in the country and this administration especially. I didn’t subscribe to the NYT until trumps first term- did so because of his threats to them specifically. Now he’s intimidating or silencing all non- trump media with lawsuits ( paid by our taxes) or threats of lawsuits. Using the same shake down techniques on law firms who dare to represent one of his “ enemies”.
DeleteI’m disgusted by what has happened to the WaPo with Bezos - not only in the opinion section but in the reporting, now very slanted towards trump. I read the Guardian more frequently because their reporting is still pretty independent of trump. But he knows that few Americans read it. For more In depth - the Economist and The Atlantic. WSJ went downhill once Murdoch bought it. I no longer subscribe but apparently even they get fed up with trump now and then. I stopped National Review decades ago. Read it for ten years or so when I was young and still dumb. Finally got fed up. An uber right wing friend put us on the Imprimis mailing list years ago. I get their stuff monthly - it’s free. They try to provide “intellectual” arguments to support trump and Libertarianism but it usually goes into the trash after a few sentences.
"What does being Christian in America actually signify these days?"
ReplyDeleteIt means nothing.
Most people who identify as Christian are on a spectrum between saints (loving God and neighbor with your whole heart) at one end and those using religion as cover for personal prejudices (against LGBT people, women, other races and faiths, liberals, etc.) at the other.
I suspect most of us are in the middle or toward the latter end of the spectrum. It certainly gives me a little shiver of pleasure when the Pope or a bishop seems to confirm my personal opinions. The best I can do is to recognize that little thrill for what it is and not confuse it for what the Almighty thinks.