# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/61 "2008-11-21T19:12:12Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > “Christian” has come to mean “anti-gay and pro-life.” I’d change this to Christian has come to mean anti-gay and anti-abortion. There’s a stark difference. I don’t believe the element of Christianity that’s usually called ‘pro-life’ is pro life at all. They’re pro-birth if they’re pro anything, as what happens after the baby is born is of absolutely no concern to them. And if that causes the parent(s) or even the child to be left in abject poverty, or other undue or horrific circumstances, sometimes dependent upon medical attention for the rest of their lives, then so be it. At least the baby was born. ---
**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, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/62 "2008-11-21T19:45:28Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > If Republicans loved free will so much homosexuals would be able to get married everywhere, women would have complete control over their biology, non-Christians wouldn’t be constantly compared to and treated as evil incarnate, our immigration policy wouldn’t have a decidedly racist scent to it, and we wouldn’t start ridiculous and illegal wars to take what’s not ours and attempt to justify the killing of people who didn’t do a damned thing to us. You forgot the part about them being the bogeyman, and taking candy from little kids. ---
**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, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/63 "2008-11-21T19:51:47Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > No. It’s because religiosity, specifically Christian religiosity, has become a litmus test by which all candidates are judged. > > Color me as one of those unhappy that the Democrats have fallen into the trap of trying to out-religious the Republicans So, you feel that Obama and/or Biden are not as spiritual as they claim? Do you think that they feel that they need to be “god fearing” to be successful in an election? If they are putting on an act, who are they putting it on for? (The Religous Right? The moderates?) ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/64 "2008-11-21T20:05:21Z")
> [@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. > > 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? Perhaps it was the people who chose _willful ignorance_ of what the bible actually says, took the little they actually knew and them followed them in an ala carte fashion, distilled the 66 books, 27 authors, and 1600 +/- year time span into a few “main themes”, and then threw in a whole bunch of humanistic reasonings. That might be it. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/65 "2008-11-21T20:21:19Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > So, you feel that Obama and/or Biden are not as spiritual as they claim? > > Do you think that they feel that they need to be “god fearing” to be successful in an election? > > If they are putting on an act, who are they putting it on for? (The Religous Right? The moderates?) To be honest, yes, I believe there is some of that going on. Let me clear though. I believe Democrats can genuinely be just as religious as Republicans, but it’s not Democrats’ inclination to wear it on their sleeves and take positions influenced by religion, at least it hasn’t been until very recently. Democrats are much more laissez-faire about religious expression than Republicans and if the Republicans hadn’t been so successful for the last 30 years in wielding the spear of religion and measuring their opponents by it, you’d hear nary a peep about Democrats’ personal religious beliefs during their campaigns for political office. However, they’ve allowed themselves to be sucked into the terrible practice of professing their religion loudly and often in an attempt prove to the hypnotized electorate that “See? I’m okay. I believe in your sky god too, in fact, you should vote for me because I believe more strongly than my opponent, even though I’m a member of the Heathen party…and, oh yeah, God bless America.” I believe Obama believes in the Christian God. I also believe he played up that belief because he wanted to get elected. I believe Biden is religious like many Catholics in America; he goes to church on Sunday and doesn’t think about religion or God again until the following Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/66 "2008-11-21T21:15:23Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > if the Republicans hadn’t been so successful for the last 30 years in wielding the spear of religion and measuring their opponents by it, you’d hear nary a peep about Democrats’ personal religious beliefs during their campaigns for political office. :: counts back 32 years, to when Jimmy Carter openly discussed being a “born-again Christian” during his Presidential campaign :: ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/67 "2008-11-21T21:23:06Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > :: counts back 32 years, to when Jimmy Carter openly discussed being a “born-again Christian” during his Presidential campaign :: Nitpik, nary doesn’t mean none. Buuuuuut, you’re absolutely correct. Jimmy Carter didn’t try to hide his religiosity. However, you must agree that his religion had almost nothing to do with him being elected, or being considered viable, other than the unspoken requirement that candidates be some flavor of Christian. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/68 "2008-11-21T21:35:37Z")
I wondered on seeing the thread title what this would be about. You know, Xtianity was hijacked by worse than bozos in its first few centuries, right? And then there were all the bozos running things for 1000 years thereafter. Maybe the bozos we have now are just what’s left after the rise of unbelief in the last 200 years. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/69 "2008-11-21T21:49:34Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Nitpik, nary doesn’t mean none. Buuuuuut, you’re absolutely correct. Jimmy Carter didn’t try to hide his religiosity. However, you must agree that his religion had almost nothing to do with him being elected, or being considered viable, other than the unspoken requirement that candidates be some flavor of Christian. I beg to differ with this. It’s my understanding that evangelicals and fundamentalists backed Carter because of his born-again Christianity, then were terribly disappointed when he actually governed like a Christian. So they turned to the casually agnostic divorced former actor Reagan in 1980. And thus did the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists trade their faith for a pot o’ message… ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/70 "2008-11-21T22:06:15Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I beg to differ with this. It’s my understanding that evangelicals and fundamentalists backed Carter because of his born-again Christianity, then were terribly disappointed when he actually governed like a Christian. So they turned to the casually agnostic divorced former actor Reagan in 1980. > > And thus did the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists trade their faith for a pot o’ message… I don’t remember it that way, and I followed Carter since he was on What’s My Line in 1973, but you may be right. My memory from that time is a little foggy. I was a little too busy trying to get through high school at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/71 "2008-11-21T23:40:05Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Christianity has had the same policy toward homosexuality for over two thousand years. The specific attitude toward abortion has not been quite as consistent for all that time, but the church has always opposed abortion. What has changed is that some people realized it is easier to get judges to issue rulings than persuade people to vote for your preferred policies. Christians then thought that since the US is a democracy they should engage with the political process to try to get politicians who agree with them elected in order to change the policies back to ones which agree with their values. Those who oppose them have preferred to call disagreement hate and to call names rather than debate or engage in the political process to achieve compromise. You cannot and should not compromise with tyrants and bigots and sadists. And their “disagreement” with homosexuality and women’s ownership of their bodies is called hate because it is. > [@Sinaijon](#): > > 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. No. They just want to either take from society and never give back ( “Trust us, we’ll give back as much or more without it being taxed out of us !” Yeah, right ). Or, they want to use it as a tool of extortion and religious propaganda; “No baptism, no food. Listen to the preacher or you’re out on the street.” ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/72 "2008-11-22T04:03:56Z")
> [@the raindog](#): > > Perhaps it was the people who chose _willful ignorance_ of what the bible actually says, took the little they actually knew and them followed them in an ala carte fashion, distilled the 66 books, 27 authors, and 1600 +/- year time span into a few “main themes”, and then threw in a whole bunch of humanistic reasonings. > > That might be it. Naaaaa ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/73 "2008-11-22T04:09:17Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > No. It’s because religiosity, specifically Christian religiosity, has become a litmus test by which all candidates are judged. > > Color me as one of those unhappy that the Democrats have fallen into the trap of trying to out-religious the Republicans I don’t see that happened or is happening. The thing I appreciate about Obama is that he says in discussions of faith that believers have to use a common language for their positions. If your values and principles are connected to your beliefs, when you enter a a civil discourse about issues within a diverse society you need to use language that everyone understands when discussing those values and principles. That means “It’s in the Bible so there” isn’t useful communication. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/74 "2008-11-22T17:31:52Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You cannot and should not compromise with tyrants and bigots and sadists. As far as I can tell, you are the only SDMB member who is allowed to hurl those kinds of personal insults at a large group of fellow SDMB members in the forum of Great Debates. From others, it isn’t tolerated [even when couched in code or hypothetical language](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10483120&postcount=51). So, since I can’t return your rhetoric in kind, just let me say that I’m neither a tyrant nor a bigot nor a sadist, and I would appreciate it if you would name precisely which Christians who post here are people you believe to be those things. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/75 "2008-11-22T21:59:57Z")
I happened to witness the “Reagan Revolution” from the inside of a Baptist church/school. Yes, there was preaching from the pulpit, the collection of funds during church, the overt promotion of Reagan as the “Christian” candidate, they even took us on a field trip to hear him speak (I still have the button) It was one of the main experiences which led me to abandon organized Christianity (that and the murder of Lennon, whom our teacher and pastor said of; “he’s now burning in the hell he didn’t believe in” and refused to say a prayer for him or his family.) I learned later that the Reagan campaign had focused strongly on the “Christian” vote, sending out the largest ever mass mailing targeted at this demographic and portraying Reagan and the Republican party as the “Christian” one. It paid off big time, despite offending many Christians who didn’t consider the platform nec. “Christian” or even the opposite of those principles. The irony was that Reagan was not, by most accounts, all that fundy in his beliefs (neither is McCain, but he allowed himself to be marketed the same way, even choosing Palin to appease that demographic) This association has stuck. I think this was the origin of the current affiliation and the Repubs continue to attempt to exploit it and a great many fund. Christians continue to blindly support Repubs. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/76 "2008-11-22T22:03:38Z")
Note that the following is my hypothesis based on my current knowledge: To some extent, the very beginning of Christianity caused this. It’s had a (very understandable at one point) persecution complex since day one and some factions have never really grown out of it. This influences them to paint their enemies with an apocalyptic brush and insist that they are the last bastion of civilization. This kind of thinking also feeds the growth in political power, since they must fight or die. Thereby causing the burrowing of certain Christian groups and mindsets into the structure where they can resist the foe from the ramparts. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/77 "2008-11-22T22:11:02Z")
Let me interpret the OP in a very narrow sense and answer it. I take the OP as asking when, in the view of many Americans, did it begin to seem that the only spokespeople for Christianity in the public sphere were members of the religious right. The answer to that question is about 1980. Before that point, the prominent religious figures in the U.S. who were frequently quoted in the media were spread all over the political spectrum. There were many very conservative Christian leaders before that time, but there were also a lot of liberal ones. During the Vietnam war, for instance, many of the anti-war leaders were religious figures. The Religious Right, according to Garry Wills in his recent book _Head and Heart: American Christianities_, ought to be considered as a historical period like three other major religious movements in American history, the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and the creation of Fundamentalism. These four movements seem to follow about a 90-year cycle. They peaked in 1730, 1820, 1910, and 2000, approximately. Whether Christianity as a whole is a conservative force or a liberal one can’t possibly be answered in GQ. I think it’s too complicated even for GD. It’s not clear to me that one can define conservatism and liberalism consistently over the past two thousand years to make that judgment. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/78 "2008-11-22T22:11:33Z")
Too late to edit, but I wanted to add that prior to 1979-80, I don’t ever recall encountering such a widespread assumption among Christians that the Democrats were the spawn of Satan or that the Republicans were the only option for God-fearing Americans. You could be a “good Christian” and vote Democrat. No-one even gave it a second thought. Most Christians I knew were die-hard Democrats. All of a sudden, being a Democrat became suspect, and being a Republican became assumed in Christian circles. It was, imo, a carefully manufactured idea…marketing at it’s best/worst. ---
**Author:** ![Charger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/79 "2008-11-22T22:47:32Z")
I think part of the problem is that Jesus left a message of peace, meekness, and “love your enemies.” That’s just too _passive_ for many people. They got frustrated and decided to become “active” in their faith. Most people feel empowered while being preachy and aggressive. A sense of righteousness serves as a catalyst for that. These are the type of people who see Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. as “wimps” for leading examples of non-violence and non-aggression. Also, if you have someone behind a podium telling the masses to stand up and take action, especially in a boisterous crowd, people are going to charge out and act like the “warriors” they see themselves as. Pastors have a lot of power to get a lot of people to do their own will. I think many of them don’t even know that they are stroking their own ego, and they believe that they are doing the will of God. There is a lot of power in the implication that if someone doesn’t act, they aren’t being “good Christians.” Jesus would have been seen, in the modern age, as a terrible Christian. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774/80 "2008-11-22T23:02:21Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > 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? Yes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-christianity-get-hijacked-by-bozos/473774.md?page=5)