# How did Christianity get hijacked by bozos? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2008, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774 "2008-11-21T03:06:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/21 "2008-11-21T13:03:21Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > No it hasn’t. Yes it really has. At least in America. It has become an identifier for a specific subset of political and social beliefs, usually of evangelical derivation. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/22 "2008-11-21T13:15:40Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Yes it really has. At least in America. It has become an identifier for a specific subset of political and social beliefs, usually of evangelical derivation. I think I better elaborate, or else I’ll be here all day. The vast majority of people who use the term “Christian” are those who fit into the above category. everyone else would identify themselves by denomination, at least in the US where christianity is a dominant faith. They would say: “I’m a Lutheran, or I’m a Catholic.” There is a very specific meaning to the term, and it really is only used in such a general manner when dealing with people who may be unfamiliar with the faith. For example, in a heavily buddhist country, one might assert " I’m a christian", since the others would not be expected to be able to identify your denomination by name. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/23 "2008-11-21T13:18:29Z")
I think the attention and headlines the far right Christians have been getting for several years now gives the appearance of Christianity being hijacked. Most of the Christians I know and meet are very decent good people even if they do embrace some mythology about their chosen religion. Of the millions of Christians in the US alone you’ll find many of them involved in very good work. When certain Christian groups decided gay marriage and abortion were the crucial moral issues of the day, {I’m looking at you Dobson} and the GOP responded by claiming to agree they supported the attempted hijack. It got a lot of media exposure. They were loud. In several ways I think it’s been a good thing because of how others have responded. Other Christian groups such as Sojourners decided to let people know that the far right doesn’t represent Christianity as a whole and non believers decided it was time for their voice to be heard loud and clear. That’s stimulated the dialog and over time will expose the BS for what it is. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/24 "2008-11-21T13:47:56Z")
“Hijacked”? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/25 "2008-11-21T14:23:37Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > As I see it, the main themes of the Christian Bible are: God demands to be recognized, God doesn’t like bullies, God wants us to love each other, and God doesn’t like judgmental hypocrites. Really? I can see the first, heck it is the first commandment, but the others, as the main themes? Oh yeah you can find some parables to support them, but main themes? Are you talking the whole thing or just the New Testament? I speak as one with a fair amount of respect for religion but you seem to put the religion of the past up on some kind of nostalgic pedestal forgetting its warts. Religion, and Christianity is in good company here, has always had a balance of love and discipline. Religion provides a basis for rules and societies cannot exist without rules (no matter what some anarchist might say). Now which rules and how much you feel they apply to you and you alone or to those who you coexist with becomes a problem when we live in communities made up of many belief systems, some that are not, at least directly, based on religious axioms. But there have always been conflicts between those who want to enforce the rules on others and those who disagree and over which rules matter. Heck, just look at the earliest days of Christianity and the conflicts between Paul and the Jerusalem Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/26 "2008-11-21T14:32:45Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Christianity has been ruthless, power hungry, nasty and bigoted since it’s beginnings. It’s the people who try to do good in it’s name that are hijacking it, or rather trying to. Yeah. There was a time when the spokespeople for skepticism and atheism were calm rational people, too. I think I want to invoke “post proof or retract” here – and your requirement is to demonstrate that your allegation has been true since 45 AD. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/27 "2008-11-21T14:38:30Z")
You’re a reporter whose job is to bring in a story that’s **news** , every day if possible. This weekm you’ve got the religion beat. Now, looking for that story, do you go hang out around Fred Rogers or Fred Phelps? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/28 "2008-11-21T14:38:53Z")
That should have been Jerusalem Christians … ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/29 "2008-11-21T14:39:28Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > “Christian” has come to mean “anti-gay and pro-life.” No it has not. Merely repeating this nonsensical claim won’t make it true. Barack Obama is a Christian. Is he anti-gay and pro-life? If you say no, then you’re admitting that your claim is garbage. > [@](#): > > And as for pro-life–there is [no scriptural support](http://elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html) for the idea that abortion is murder. None. Zip. It’s a position that a reasonable person can hold, but it’s not biblical. To those who oppose abortion, the position that abortion is murder arises from logic not from scripture. > [@](#): > > As I see it, the main themes of the Christian Bible are: God demands to be recognized, God doesn’t like bullies, God wants us to love each other, and God doesn’t like judgmental hypocrites. The latter three don’t seem to be popularly associated with Christians. So what happened to you guys, or at least to your P.R. department? We do not have a P. R. department and we we never had, so that portion of your question is meaningless. As for “what happened to you guys”, we follow exactly the four guidelines that you set forth, so you have nothing to complain about. If popular culture does not reflect this fact, that speaks badly for popular culture and the people who obey it. It says nothing about Christians. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/30 "2008-11-21T14:50:02Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > –there is [no scriptural support](http://elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html) for the idea that abortion is murder. None. Zip. “None. Zip.” is an [overstatement.](http://www.slate.com/id/1005956/) > [@](#): > > If you sternly oppose abortion, you’ll point to Genesis 9:6. This verse is more of a stretch, but by Talmudic standards, it works. It reads: “He who sheds the blood of man through man [that is, through a human court of law], shall his blood be shed.” In Biblical Hebrew, “through” can also be “in,” so one Roman-era rabbi who was probably disgusted by his country’s occupiers’ practice of experimenting on fetuses re-interpreted the phrase as saying, “He who sheds the blood of man in man [that is, kills a fetus], shall his blood be shed.” That made abortion a capital crime, but for reasons too complicated to get into here, one whose penalty can only be imposed by God, not man. (Since the rabbis all but abolished the death penalty by making it impossible to enact, saying a crime was capital didn’t have much effect anyway.) So yeah it is a stretch but the support is not “none” - close but not “none.” ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/31 "2008-11-21T14:57:52Z")
> [@Ro0sh](#): > > Ah… an Andrew Jackson Democratic supporter. > > \*No idea why that thought came to my head, but it did. I think I learned about Jackson in History class and something to do with pickling, but I think it was a human head and not a penis. But still. It amused me. :shrug: Andrew Jackson pickled someone’s _head_? I knew he wasn’t the nicest guy, but holy shit… ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/32 "2008-11-21T14:58:46Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > Inspired by [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=493572) > > “Christian” has come to mean “anti-gay and pro-life.” Now homosexual acts, like building a skyscraper or not screwing your late brother’s wife, may be disparaged here and there in the Christian Bible, but I’d hardly call any of these a major theme of the book. And as for pro-life–there is [no scriptural support](http://elroy.net/ehr/abortion.html) for the idea that abortion is murder. None. Zip. It’s a position that a reasonable person can hold, but it’s not biblical. Actually, your cite itself offers several Biblical verses that could support the idea that abortion is murder… and then argues that each of them shouldn’t be interpreted in that way. So it’s not true that there’s “zip” evidence – it’s true that the claim is not grounded on the black-and-white text of the Bible in the same way that, say, “Honor thy father and mother,” is. But even then, while “Honor they father and mother” is in there, it’s unclear what, precisely, “honor” means. Must we defer to them on what music to listen to, who to marry, or what career to undertake? Or must we merely treat them with civility while we merrily do as we please? In other words, like almost everything associated with the Bible, it’s wholly a matter of interpretation. It’s not true to say there’s NO scriptural support for the idea that abortion is murder, just as its equally untrue to say the Bible is unequivocal in its condemnation of abortion. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/33 "2008-11-21T14:59:04Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > Depends who you listen to. I’ve read C.S. Lewis, too, but he’s not running for office or begging on cable tv. The people who do while loudly proclaiming their “Christian values” are pandering to _somebody._ There are somewhere around 2,000,000,000 Christians. How many of them are running for office or begging on cable TV? Given your answer to the previous question, what justification can you offer for judging all Christians based on that group? ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/34 "2008-11-21T15:14:16Z")
> [@](#): > > All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Christianity got hijacked by the bozos because no one stopped them. I know lots of Christians who are just average people: not evil, no better than most, just existing. They aren’t the ones that change Christianity, they just go along with it. It’s ironic Jesus compares his followers to sheep. It’s the people who try to bend it to their purposes, or the real nutjobs, that get heard. There’s a few hundred or so leader types with a power base of 2 million. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/35 "2008-11-21T15:17:26Z")
It’s far more general than scriptural references; the Conservative mindset is to maintain a set continuity of society through time, religion is only a part of it, as is tradition. Change is therefore the enemy, change will alter our very fabric and possesses an undeniable threat to who we are. Abortion and outspoken discussion of homosexuality are just the topics de jour. In a hundred years Christians are going to be picketing the Sexbot factory, despite having no specific biblical passages condemning it. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/36 "2008-11-21T15:19:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Of course, that’s because there isn’t any “timeless truth” or “word of God”; just a religion evolving to survive, spread and dominate as the social environment changes. Well, that’s rather beside the point. I wasn’t speaking of religion as a social construct but as something some people believe to be actually true, given from God, and hence, in their eyes, timeless. Unless, of course, they actually believe that God is evolving alongside Man, which is a novel concept but probably blasphemous to most Christians. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/37 "2008-11-21T15:30:25Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > I think religion, like most ideologies, is subject to being used for whatever purpose people want to use it for. > > But, in the US specifically, we have a certain segment of the Christian population which is very vocal, politically organized, and media savvy. And on top of that, they’ve managed to become an integral voting bloc for a major political party. So, we tend to get a view of Christianity that’s very specific to that group bandied about in the press as if they represent everyone. I’m mildly curious. If the above is true (that the Religous Bloc of the voting public are all Republican), why does the _other_ political party candidates continue to express their spirituality in a public manner? (Both Obama and Biden both express holding religious beliefs this campaign year.) I think they did it _not_ because they were trying to appeal to the opposing voter bloc, but because the _majority_ of the voting bloc is religious, and feels that they’re beliefs have some positive value. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/38 "2008-11-21T15:38:02Z")
> [@MidnightRadio](#): > > Andrew Jackson pickled someone’s _head_? I knew he wasn’t the nicest guy, but holy shit… Hey, **Lib** ’s been telling us about old Andy J. for **years**!! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/39 "2008-11-21T15:47:39Z")
Maybe the op is somehow conflating the Religious Right’s last decade or so of co-opting Christianity for their political ends and success in branding “family values” and morality according to their definitions with Christianity as a whole? The question may be better phrased as how did the fundamentalist Right succeed in owning the Christian brand name in the political sphere for the last couple of decades? And that was not a failure of Christian PR; it was a success of the RR to brand itself as “the voice” of morality. Not hard to do, since the Democratic tent includes more who are less comfortable with the imposition of specific religious POVs upon the whole and have not found a clear sound bite way to articulate the simultaneous personal embrace of faith with an embrace of secular axioms and tolerance as the basis for our society at large. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/40 "2008-11-21T15:59:51Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’d say that the Democratic party, in the US, more accurately reflects Christianity. While the Republican party claims to be the Christian party, almost nothing they preach has anything to do with that Christ guy. I’m sure it’s useless to bother explaining this, but this isn’t true at all. Most of the difference in values between the two parties aren’t as stark as you’d like to think. Republicans favor charity, social work and responsibility just as much as the Democratic party does, it’s just that they feel it should be done at a personal level, not forced by the government. It’s kinda like the whole Free Will thing. [http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm](http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm) Other examples of the same behavior abound. Look at the two candidates from the past election. McCain hired women in the highest posts, and payed them more than their male counterparts. Obama hired men for the highest positions and payed them more than their female counterparts. But what do you think their public positions were? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774.md?page=3)