Remember those bracelets that were so popular some years ago–the ones that had “WWJD” on them? It stood for “What Would Jesus Do?” Granted, I’m not a Christian (and I certainly don’t play one on TV), but I’m pretty sure the White Supremicists and Nationalists posing as Christians are definitely not doing what Jesus would do.
I’ve previously posted about the book “The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory,” written by Tim Alberta, an authentic and clearly devoted Evangelical who spent two years visiting Evangelical congregations and interviewing pastors. I’ve also posted about the film “Bad Faith,” a documentary which traces the takeover–and transformation– of American Evangelical Christianity by the (very) far Right. Those investigations are being joined by a number of other inquiries into a movement that has been some fifty years in the making, but has only recently become too obvious, too powerful and too frightening to ignore.
Persuasion recently published an essay by Jonathan Rauch focusing on the dilemma faced by the pastors who are clinging to their convictions about the centrality of Jesus message to their religion in the face of congregants who reject Jesus’ “wokeness.” As Rauch explains, in his conversations with these pastors, the words have varied “but the tune is the same. Christian witness is in trouble in white evangelical America. And the biggest challenge is not from the secular world; it is sitting in the pews.”
Many prominent evangelicals (and some ex-evangelicals) believe the same thing. Writes Peter Wehner: “In important respects, much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism has become antithetical to authentic Christianity. What we’re dealing with—not in all cases, of course, but in far too many—is political identity and cultural anxieties, anti-intellectualism and ethnic nationalism, resentments and grievances, all dressed up as Christianity.”
I have long believed that the rise of the MAGA Christian Nationalist movement is rooted in fear. As American demographics have shifted and the broader culture has become more accepting of women, gays, and people of color, White Christian males have panicked over their perceived loss of dominance and status. As the author notes,
Don’t be afraid is one of the Bible’s most frequently repeated commands. Yet today’s white evangelical world seems consumed by fear. There is fear of the left: “Fear,” as historian Paul Matzko has said, “that if Donald Trump doesn’t win in 2016, isn’t reelected in 2020, that is the end of American Christianity as we know it, that the godless humanists and feminists and civil rights activists are going to swamp America and destroy what makes us great.” There is fear of cultural change. More than three-fourths of white evangelicals say the country is in danger of losing its identity and culture—by which they mean their identity and culture.
Above all, there is fear of loss of status. “They realize they no longer have numbers on their side,” the historian Kristin Du Mez told me. “They see that the democratic process will not secure their aims for them. We’ve lost the culture; they’re coming for us; we’ve got to defend the right to live as obedient, faithful Christians.”
Christians have been told to emulate Jesus, but the pastors interviewed for the article report that the transformation of their religion into a political movement has caused their parishioners to ignore Gospel messages. Exhortations to love the marginalized, love the foreigner, “Those words, said one, fall on deaf ears.”
The essay describes a new wall of separation, but it notes that this wall isn’t between church and state, but between what Rauch terms “personal Christianity and public Christianity.”
This wall rationalizes political conduct whose cruelty Christians would abhor in their church lives; it sets up two incommensurable moralities, an absolute one in the personal realm and an instrumental one in the political realm.
Roush quotes one Southern Baptist pastor for the belief that the next great “mission field” will not be abroad or among nonbelievers, but within the American evangelical church and its members.
Given the transformation of much of the Evangelical church into a MAGA political cult, Rauch asks the obvious question: has White Evangelical Christianity, in its embrace of MAGA values, repudiated itself? It certainly seems that way, and if that is the case, can we expect the secular world not to notice?
MAGA “Christians” no longer ask what Jesus would do, because the answer is obvious. And very inconvenient.
My wife’s family is full of MAGA evangelicals. When I recently expressed admiration for Bishop Budde, my SIL told me I’d been duped by Satan and needed to repent. I think that it’s the other way around.
The evangelicals have committed the greatest crime of Identity Theft by claiming the name of Jesus Christ as their leader and passing laws to force this country to live by their christian leadership. This latest denomination of christianity goes by the name of MAGA and/or White Nationalist and shames true Christians into fearing they will be considered MAGAs and White Nationalists if they claim to be a Christian.
Meanwhile, as a nondenominational Christian, I am keeping my prayerful yard sign “For the love of God, anyone but Trump” posted in my front flowerbed.
Thank you Sheila, once again your post hits the cross on the head.
How did Donald Trump win the endorsement of prominent evangelistJerry Fallwell Jr.?
Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen said he blackmailed Falwell with compromising sexual photos to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Campaign,
“I actually have one of the photos,” Cohen said, “It’s terrible.”
How could it not be?
See my blog post for more on Trump-Falwell.
Everything is fact-checked.
https://drchrislamb.com/only-the-best-people-jerry-falwell-jr/
Twiiter:@16campaignbites
Bluesky:
@professorlamb.bsky.social
Religious persecution drove people away from Europe and to America. Religious persecution lives on fear of … pick your topic/person/bogeyman. It’s really all they have. The well-intended Christians are going the way of all religions based on fear: They are being replaced by fear-mongers because fear is what keeps the coins clinking into the plate.
Our founders understood that separating church from government was the only way to manage complex societies, but it sure wasn’t easy. How, for example, did 19th century American Christians justify slavery? Oh, and before that how did the Dutch Christians justify their idiotic “sons of Hamm” bullshit in South Africa?
It’s always the same. One prejudice is used to justify another. As I’ve said many times before, religion keeps coming to the rescue of sanity. Religion worships hypocrisy no matter how well-intended.
Church charitable activities are now being swamped by the shift toward hate, fear and bigotry – now openly practiced on the evening news. I think that something very dramatic is coming soon, and it ain’t the second coming. The result will be that the MAGA morons will find themselves with no place to go.
I realize everyday how fortunate I am and yet I’m still depressed because of the rage that is coming out of people right now and how tempting it is to respond back with rage. I guess I need to just “give it to god” to handle as they say. Some people right now seem outright under demonic possession to me and I haven’t ever felt that way so strongly before. And not only that… but they claim to be Christians or are using the Christian faith to manipulate people to their own sick ideas.
Humans have traditionally lived suspended between two worlds.
Reality, which we experience through our five senses, is the world we have come collectively to understand well, captured in knowledge by language.
DNA prepares most of us with a similar overall body structure “wired” with neurons that do our sensing. These neurons compare every constantly changing pattern of inputs to memories of past events in our lives, then direct a pattern of contractions of our 600 muscles to do what our past experiences have prepared us to do to avoid threats and pursue opportunities.
That is the tangible us.
But we each also populate a unique world of intangibles, including our beliefs—what could be but is beyond sensing but not imagining. In these times, it would be helpful to use more precise language. Inquire of others “What do you know?” or “What do you believe or imagine?” instead of “What do you think?”
We also need to adopt more precision in considering what is shared by how many other humans different from us by culture or education because we are each unique in those ways
According to the Investigative Post:
“For starters, fewer people voted this year (145 million) than four years ago (158.5 million) despite an estimated growth of 8 million age-eligible citizens. The turnout of registered voters also dropped slightly from four years ago.”
“This helps to explain why Donald Trump won with fewer votes this year (73.6 million) than he garnered in losing (74.2 million) four years ago. He won because Harris received far fewer votes (69.3 million) than Biden (81.3 million) did four years ago.”
“Put another way: Trump did not grow his base. Harris lost a chunk of Biden’s.”
Unfortunately, by the mix of what we each know and believe, 22% of the 335 million of us who reside within the borders of the formerly united States of the continent North America have evolved away from a usefully functional form of governing ourselves as specified by our Constitution to a dysfunctional misapplication of corporate accounting rules and that directed them to vote for Donald Trump.
Governing everyone within our borders differs entirely from producing goods and services for competitive local and global markets. That’s the sum of what is known relevant to this past election.
But then, what we believe versus what we know led us to vote as we did last November. For that, we will watch the tapestry of governing the formerly United States of America unravel over the next four years.
To all Christians, you do realize that you are being led by a Jewish boy, don’t you?
like congress being vague in making the line of the bills and laws, (and we see where the lawyers prey between words and quotes) theology in any religion is reliant upon the mind and ears of ones own beliefs,beyond your upbringing. the social media magaphone is the outcome today. spray em like flowers and watch them reproduce. seems misinfo and a fantasy world of kingdom and free fruit gets the ones who think only about god and not the ground under them. maybe one see that a temp issue whereas the kingdom is forever. con game in my book. I may be dark here in my stand and see it as my own words and many years rubbin shoulders with the working class folk. ive heard it all from that sect/cult. i tend to forego mincing words. no offence to all here, but religion is a sham that now is used to take the ordinary mind and use it to kill off the rest. Laws are made,governments led,and people duped into a sense of some comfort over god. I feel human morals rank supreme. but the maggot class is not that. you are not born to hate. you are taught to hate. the maggot phone of right wing news,media etc, is no more than a hate filled world of mind control. as one looks over to that tube blaring away in any cafe,store here in NoDak, its a paid nationalist telling you how to think.. these are easier minds to prey on when they can hate easier than love thy neighbor. close the door, turnaway and ignore anyone or anything until it come for you.. obviously we lost the civic side of education for a long winded voice condemming your own brother.. test at 11..
Another informative book is “From Jesus to John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation” by Kristen Kobes Du Mez
After Bishop Budde’s sermon I was heartened to find that most of the Episcopal priests I know, would like to have given that same sermon. Christians who follow regular Jesus need to do more to take back Christianity from Orange Jesus and his followers. Their beliefs and practices are antithetical to the gospel.
At my church, the office got a call from someone who said that our rector had to refute the sermon or he would regret it. The woman who spoke with him said she would pass the message to her. She then called the Sheriff’s office. We were advised to lock our doors. I thought that was a bad idea. My thought was that you can’t change a mind or a heart without confronting the mind or heart you seek to change.
Churches are made up of people. Ministers are the church leaders. Religious politics can be the most ruthless and cruel. It can inhibit the service work of any religion.
All great posts this morning!
As I tell my daughter (who’s being taught by her mother what “Christianity” is), there is a reason religion is taught in the philosophy department at major universities. It’s a man-made myth. Nothing more. She asked me this week, “What’s the point of living if we are all going to die and then live with each other in Heaven?”
The one theme I picked up from reading the posts this morning is that too many Christians believe the principles of their “faith” should be practiced by others but aren’t. This hypocrisy is all too common among humans.
I am pretty sure that mass murder is against the Jewish faith, but they’ve been murdering the Palestinians for decades right along with the Christians in the White House. Biden claimed to be Catholic and was mentored by the Pope. Does anybody believe that the Pope was mentoring a genocidal maniac? Trumpolini is no different, and he “claims” to be Evangelical.
It’s all farcical. Religion is all about control and oppression and has been used by conquerors for eons. It’s 100% manipulation based on people’s fears. In fact, all of our propaganda (thanks to Edward Bernays) is based on the irrational mind and our fears. 5th Avenue and the CIA were both created based on fear since it is the easiest way to manipulate humans.
I have never walked into a house where people were watching Fox News on cable TV who weren’t angry. It’s all fear-based anger. Murdoch has one heck of a media model. He must have learned it from prosperity religion. When I was younger, I would question my grandma’s religion (First Baptist), and she would always say, “You’ve got to have faith, Todd!” That is the go-to response for people who believe all kinds of fairy tale mythology. 😉
“Religion destroys everything,” said Christopher Hitchens, and he was right. And, now it is working to destroy what was a, fairly, great country. Oh, am I being “Woke” with that “fairly?” Well, despite the “Life is great” logos, it has never been great for far too many of us.
Religions try to speak to existential questions, but it’s all just stories hoping to ease our existential anxiety. The Jesus story, and the virgin birth, are just the newest iterations of still more ancient myths.
Nothing changes from discussions about religion unless it drives the listener in the direction of deeper belief but, to do that, the authority being heard must be firmly established by costuming, ritual, and place including architecture, art and scripture.
That is just how humans believe.
The “theo-bros” – Vance and his ilk are just as scary.
Trump’s long range strategy is to start a war. He doesn’t really care if it is a race war, an economic war or an international war. Then he can declare a national emergency, declare martial law and become the dictator he has always longed to be. Sadly, he is pretty close to his goal without even needing the war because because he has a bunch of oligarchs and a woefully undereducated mass of MAGA Americans on his side. Of course, the oligarchs see him as their useful fool and will discard him as soon as they can. Then they will hold all the reins of power. The only way to stop this accelerating train wreck is for the non-MAGA people to rise up in resistance. But how do we do that without engaging in exactly the war he wants? Through nonviolent protest. That will require personal sacrifice. That will require people who are willing, not to kill but to die for their beliefs. Are we up to the task? Time will tell. We will either live free or as slaves to megalomaniacs like Musk and Trump.
We have a perfect example right here in Riv.., er, Indiana. Our out and proud lt. gov. Becktwit, showed his true christian colors for the world to see in the General Assembly yesterday when he posted on public media about the outcome while the bill was still being debated. He serves as the President of the GA Senate. He was chosen as the candidate for the office over Braun’s own choice by the Republican convention of bigots, racists, misogynists, xenophobes and white christian nationalists. (See the link below for details of his hate.) Their choice is now running things in this state much as the KKK ran things back in the early 1920s.
Read “A Fever in the Heartland” by Timothy Egan. The takeover of the state by KKK members was rooted in the religious organizations of the time. Intimidation and violence were the tools of their fear of the “other”. It is the same now.
My question to bigots has always been, “What are you so afraid of?”
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2025/02/07/indiana-senate-oks-anti-dei-bill-that-takes-aim-at-state-agencies-schools/
Thank you for today’s post. Especially for writing it as a non-“Christian”.
Jesus, of course was a Jew all his life, and was seeking to have fellow Jews live a better way. He was never intending to leave his faith and create some kind of “new” religion. For myself, as a flawed human who attempts to be a follower of The Way, I totally agree with Bishop Budde’s sermon, and your ending thought, i.e. WWJD, if it were still in fashion to ask, would convict and condemn those who used to love to wear those wrist bands. I am usually silent on such topics in public, but maybe it’s beyond time for those of us who are the opposite of MAGA so-called Christians, to speak out.
“Resentments and grievances all dressed up as Christianity.” Intentional and offensive to practicing Christians, but very effective.
HWJV (How Would Jesus Vote)?
I’m late to the party today, but wanted, as an also non-Christian, to add my two cents worth: My new mantra is WWBBD—What Would Bishop Budde Do?
She truly is a profile in courage.
I just happened to catch a documentary I found on Youtube that historically looks at Evangelical church and Southern Baptist and what is going on today. “American Heretics: The Untold Truth About Faith in America’s Most Conservative State” really worth the watch; because it does address how this type of Christians is not Christ like.
Also, one that I will send my father is Stephen Fry on the Catholic church. He argues the Catholic Church is NOT a Force for Good on some Intelligence Squared forum I think several on this site would appreciate what he says
Evangelical means to preach the gospel and convert others. I read stories of the nuns and priests who were single minded in that endeavor to “save souls” since they believed their Christian way of life was the only way to be saved from the fires of hell. When authoritarian ways are used to reach that end (conversion) it causes problems that are antithetical to WWJD. I love the work of J. Campbell who studied myths from all cultures and times. Prescience word of mouth stories was a way to bring cohesiveness among people along with some comfort about major life events i.e. birth, life, death and the forces of the earth and nature. Campbell claims that the mid-eastern stories/religions were imposed on Europe when actual western thinking was influenced by Roman, Greek, Germanic and Gaelic thought and myths. Campbell especially benefited from studying western Indian culture of Spirit and nature.
Seems were all in a different place in our search for truth in our lives and that the freedom of Democracy is the best way to allow people to find their way.
If you want a little break with an unexpected visit down memory lane, listen on You Tube to Captain and Tennille’s: Muskrat Love. It’s on the #1 playlist at Mar a Lago. 😇. Hey, good posts today. Sheila, the best tour guides in The Holy Land are the licensed Jewish guides. They know the Bible better especially when citing Scripture relevant to iconic places and interpreting meaning.
While watching that movie “Bad Faith” I had flashbacks of the evangelicals that I hung out with in late 1974- early ’75. It’s a great documentary about putting religion in the government “movement” that was started back then. When my dad died of heart failure in the spring of 75, I quit going to the church and I slowly but surely, questioned everything. I proudly stand by my faith of knowing, “I don’t know” anything about some higher power and I’m not looking for it either.
Thanks for reminding me of those flashbacks. Folks, these people are cowards underneath all of those “by gawd” words they speak. You can tell 45/47 isn’t an evangelical because they (the evangelicals) can’t complete a sentence or paragraph without invoking the lord’s name.
I’m starting to lose sleep over the daily outrage and I am so disgusted and depressed about what Elon is doing to our personal data. He broke into our networks and stole everything. Also, if you think Trump won this election, you’re kidding yourself. Elon didn’t just come up with these “college age programmers” last week, they have been doing his bidding since last summer or last year. That’s why trump tells you exactly what’s he’s doing. He said last summer, he needed the votes, but he already had the votes. Bragging about Musk and knowing computers. He’s the most transparent candidate ever and guess what? Nobody will believe a word I say. But our democracy is dead. We have an IT coup happening and nobody is arresting the criminals. damn.
JoAnn, I wished I had that sign in my front garden, lol.