What that shows is that 1. “Christians” is not a monolithic vote; 2. the conservative / anti-abortion / anti-gay Christians are much louder.
And better organized.
You should realize that you’re talking about Christians today. You know, Christianity has been around for a while. You should realize that you’re talking about those who live in the U.S. There are a lot of countries in the world and only 4% of the world’s population are American. You should realize that you’re talking about those who are members of what are called “evangelical” churches, more specifically those who go to the large independent churches not affiliated to a denomination. You should realize that you’re talking about the white people within those churches, because if you look at similar churches with mostly black congregations, they aren’t nearly so right-wing. And even among the American churches today with mostly white congregations that are not affiliated with a denomination and which think of themselves as evangelicals, there isn’t quite as much universal political agreement as you might guess.
I’m talking about people who strongly tie their politics and Christian identity.
So folks like Raphael Warnock?
And Joe Biden?
And Joe Biden?
But that’s not what you wrote. You said that “. . . Christians are sneaky, hypocritical, and dishonest . . .” You didn’t limit it to Christians today, to Christians in the U.S., to members of evangelical churches which are often large churches unaffiliated with denominations, or to white members of such churches. And it’s not clear to me that people who seriously believe in the tenets of Christianity (even within all the distinctions I just made) are more likely to be right-wing than other people. Every denomination and church has a large proportion of members whose beliefs are, at best, very vague. Much about belonging to a church is about being with people whose sociopolitical beliefs you agree with and who you would like to hang out with socially. To defend any statement that Christian beliefs are truly more right-wing than left-wing, you’d have to examine Christian theological and moral beliefs. Perhaps the people who call themselves Christians and who espouse right-wing beliefs are more likely to be the ones who don’t really care about Christian theological and moral beliefs. Perhaps they are more likely to only belong to their churches for social purposes and because they have found in those churches fellow members in agreement with their political beliefs, which in truth they care about much more than theology.
There’s a quote function that will prevent you from misquoting others.
Some people posting in it appear to be lumping all Christians in together.
To the original question: here’s one cite, anyway:
– I came across that, by the way, with a rapid look here:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/ which is a left-wing evangelical site; has been vehemently anti-Trump all along. I find it often an interesting read, both for its take on current politics and for its discussions of the history of changes within the movement.
Again, doesn’t match up with my experience, although I don’t do jury trials myself. Two of the best Crown prosecutors I know said that their approach was to lay it all out, give the jurors all the evidence, and then rely on the jurors to put together the story that the evidence told, and rely on them to use their experience and common sense, not their passions.
I guess I’m just not seeing that as a new development the way the author of the article seems to think it is. It’s always been the case that you want jurors with an open mind, preferably who haven’t heard of the case. They’re to judge the case on the evidence presented to them, not on information that they carry into the jury room themselves.
I would want both of them off the jury as well.
The jurors are to decide the case based on the evidence led in open court by the prosecutor and defence, consistent with the rules of evidence administered by the judge, and subject to cross-examination by the other side. Cases are not to be decided based on secret facts, untested by the rules of evidence and cross-examination.
At bottom, what I’m objecting to is your characterisation of jurors who don’t know anything about the case going in as “uneducated”. Lack of knowledge of a case is not the same as uneducated or stupid.
But this is starting to sound like a hijack, so I won’t say anything more.
Asking that people try to address the topic of the thread-Thank you.
Bill Maher made a humorous and VERY astute point during his monologue last week:
He said something like:
“Let’s not confuse 5000 protesters in the street and 500 violent rioters in the Capitol---- with 74 MILLION Trump voters.
remember what we liberals like to say about Muslim terrorists”
I being originally from Pakistan know a lot of Muslims both in the US and all over the world.
I also know a lot of Trump voters both in my family and in our social circle. I live in an area with a large number of police families (“Boston Irish” who seem to almost all have a close relative in one police force or another)
After 9/11 every single Muslim friend expressed horror and revulsion toward the act and sympathy with the USA. In the aftermath of the attack on the capitol not a single Trump voter I know has unequivocally condemned it. The most common reaction has been to compare it to BLM and blame the “cheating dems” (that’s the kindest language used) and the liberal media for leaving them no choice.
I remember conservatives ignoring every condemnation by Muslims of 9/11 and making up stories of Muslims celebrating the event.
Here’s an article saying that the political (and even the religious) views of a large proportion of present-day white Americans who belong to certain churches that call themselves evangelical (and are often not affiliated with any denomination) are often quite different than anything that might be called a traditional Christian worldview; rather, those views are mostly attempts to justify their own political stances that were chosen before they made any attempt to relate them to Christian beliefs:
All Christians are not theologians. Your posts parse the definition to fit a narrow population. The reality is that Christianity consists of life styles that codify local social norms.
The congregation of the Methodist church I attend is (by my estimate) 25% hard core Trump, 50% Trump supporters/sympatiizers and 25% Progressives. Hard core would be like the lady member who brought a pistol to wednesday night quilting just to show that guns are OK for Christians. These folks have a broad diversity of religious and political belief, and all are Christian.
Evangelicals? Just a sub set that’s an easy media dog whistle. .
As often mentioned, Man making God to his likeness. In earlier threads I’ve commented, there are people to whom “Christian” is not so much about their understanding of their bond to the Divine, but about a sociocultural identity marker, as something that justifies who and what they are and believe.
In the particular case of the hardcore Religious Right’s Evangelicals/Fundamentalists, one element working against a course correction is the transposition of the notion of immutable inerrancy from scripture, to cover everything that they hold “true” and “godly”. So they become unable to say to themselves, “wait, I was wrong, that was NOT what God wanted me to do”… because if they are wrong about what God wanted them to do about X thing… then how do they know they are not wrong about what God wants them to do about anything else? To them, that is unthinkable, so the answer is to retrench harder.
I would not be surprised at all if many preachers and believers in recent years and even right now have been treading very gingerly, lest their own fellow congregants turn on them as somehow apostates.
Invalid statement SB - Not all Christians are theologians.
I definitely see this as a factor when it comes to the guidance of various Christian groups.
I have written complaints to 2 local television stations the play the Franklin Graham commercials. I don’t know if other areas get his “pray for forgiveness” commercials but they are played regularly on a couple Seattle stations. Both responded, the first stated that if Mr. Graham is charged with the alleged crime the commercials would be pulled. This issue was raised during a news broadcast a few weeks ago and they even mentioned the commercials. The second said they were not aware of any allegations against Graham. Guess what station 2, that is why I don’t watch your station for local news. That station recently spent 22 minutes of a half hour news broadcast covering a police chase in Los Angeles. Why in the hell would the people of Western Washington care about a police chase in LA?