Note: For Evangelicals who will be butthurt by this article, I am not talking about all Evangelicals. If this post doesn’t apply to you, put some Vaseline on your chapped ass and move on. You know Evangelicalism is in crisis mode. Maybe the greater question is this: why are you still an Evangelical? Do you really think you can “save” Evangelicalism?
I have long believed that Evangelical Christians are an existential threat to the United States. Forty or so years ago, Jerry Falwell and Paul Wyrich birthed the Moral Majority. Falwell traveled the country holding “I Love America rallies, imploring Evangelicals to take back America for God. Today, Falwell’s and Wyrich’s baby is now fully grown. Drunk with political power, thanks to selling their souls to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, Evangelicals are waging “holy” war against liberal democracy and social progress. The goal is to return the United States to the 1950s, a time when abortion and birth control were illegal, LGBTQ people were hiding in the dark depths of closets, Blacks knew their place, the Bible was read and prayers were prayed by teachers in public schools, creationism was taught as science, and women were keepers of the home.
Evangelicalism’s inherent Fundamentalist and theocratic tendencies are on full display now. Successful in getting abortion banned, Evangelicals have turned their sights on banning same-sex marriage, some forms of birth control, books they disagree with, Black history, evolution being taught in science classes, and anything else that offends their religious sensibilities. They have reserved their greatest outrage for transgender people, going after minors and teenagers, using the force of law to get between transgender students and their doctors. They will not rest until the Bible is codified unto law and King Jesus sits on the iron throne in Washington D.C.
One need only look at what is going on in Florida to see what happens when Evangelicals gain the power of the state. My God, just today Governor Ron Desantis talked about making a law that would require bloggers who write about him to register with the state, under penalty of a fine if they don’t. For context, Vladamir Putin enacted a similar law in Russia last year. They are also trying to pass a law that will ban the Democratic Party! The fascism that was lurking in the shadows of Evangelicalism for decades is now on full display. We now have notable Evangelicals speaking approvingly of Christian Nationalism. Some of them are proud to admit they are white nationalists. Others say the separation of church and state is a myth. The inmates are now running the asylum.
And here’s the thing, Evangelicals own guns — lots of them. They have no intentions of giving up political and social power, even if it means sparking a civil war. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Grade A moron and idiot. She recently talked about dividing the United States into red and blue states. Silly, right? One hundred sixty years ago, nineteenth-century red and blue states fought a bloody civil war over Southern states wanting to secede from the Union. Today, those sentiments are front and center again. Greene is hardly a lone wolf. We err if we ignore the voices of extremists. They can and will destroy our Republic if left unchecked.
Evangelicals recently took over a county government in Michigan. What the fuck were voters thinking? Evangelicals can’t win at the ballot box IF people show up to vote. If voters don’t smother the life out of this multi-headed monster, we are going to wake up one morning and realize that our democracy is gone. It’s really that simple. (And to Democratic Party I say, get your head out of your collective asses. Can you not see what is right in front of your face? Yet you fiddle while Rome burns.)
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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As a transgender woman in 2023 in the United States, sometimes I feel like a Jew in Germany in 1933.
It’s not a coincidence that the most fervent anti-Semites and rabid transphobes have used their Christianity to rationalize their hatred.
As someone who has neither used birth control or had an abortion I am still upset over the blocking of the abortion pill because I had read recent research found the same drug can be used to cure autoimmune illness. So as someone who has suffered from a painful autoimmune illness for over 30 years I am angry about that.
And Clarence Thomas and the supreme court I fear far more than Trump because the supreme court are taking away women’s hardwon rights plus blocking people from medical treatments unrelated to pregnancy. If they really want people to have babies though society shouldn’t have put up some many roadblocks for the past 3 generations to have kids by making housing, medical care and childcare more affordable. Many of us worked our butts off yet still couldn’t afford to have kids because we struggled to pay for our own medical care. It’s ironic they want to force more kids to be born but they are against children getting food stamps or WIC once they are born.
It’s so worse than anyone knows…
Strategic Implications of American Millennialism
ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLL FORT LEAVENWORTH KS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED MILITARY STUDIES
2008-05-22
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA485511
I never anticipated that one day right-wing extremists (which includes numerous Evangelicals) would be criticizing Fox News for not being conservative enough and is now considered the enemy by many. These extremists now turn their attention to even more extreme right-wing TV “news” programs, such as Newsmax and OAN / One America News. That scares the crap out of me, which, I guess, is a big part of their objective.
I just spotted this over at “The Hill” website:
“Texas property tax bill excludes divorced, LGBTQ couples from getting relief”
Here’s a snippet:
Qualifying couples under the bill are entitled to annual tax relief corresponding to the size of their family, with four children equal to a possible 40 percent property tax reduction. Couples with 10 or more children may pay no property tax at all, according to the bill.
But the GOP-backed legislation does not propose granting tax relief to all Texas families, and only couples in heterosexual marriages are entitled to benefits. Couples with at least one partner who has been divorced are also ineligible. Couples who had or adopted children before they were married also can’t use those children to improve their tax liability.
“Supporting Texas means supporting Texas families,” Slaton wrote this week on social media. “Families are the building blocks of society. We must support families by making it easier for them to have and raise kids.”
See link: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3882955-texas-property-tax-bill-excludes-divorced-lgbtq-couples-from-getting-relief/
What. The. Hell.
I was going to mention that little snippet about Texas. WE have some real “winners” in our government and this guy is one of many. I sent him an email condemning his proposal and I’m sure it will never get read or it will land in file 13, but I said my peace anyway.
The only good thing is that people are starting to wake up to this existential threat. I don’t know if it’s too late…..
Just the other day I was conversing with my Northeast liberal Jewish raised friend about this. I have been her primary resource for Christian nationalism because I grew up in it. She’s read dozens of articles, but hearing me talk about the indoctrination I grew up in makes it more real. She also has a couple of friends in her town who are evangelical Christian – it’s more rare here as we’re just outside NYC, but there are some evangelicals here. They don’t hold nearly the clout of the Catholics or Jews though. Anyway, my friend said she was taking some hope in the fact that her friends are talking less about Trump and that their new pastor has declared that drinking alcohol is now OK. My friend thought it was hilarious that these folks have been told their whole lives that alcohol is bad but one pastor can come in and suddenly it’s ok….🤣🤣🤣 Anyway, my liberal friend said, maybe we pushed too hard too fast on social issues and that’s why these conservatives are fighting back so hard to overturn human rights. Maybe that’s part of it, but I told her not to discount how organized they are politically, how they’ve developed their own educational institutions to train “warriors for Christ” and how thoroughly they’ve indoctrinated their members. They’re much more organized than the Left who have taken freedoms for granted and are now losing those freedoms.