The problem isn’t limited to US Evangelical Christianity (neither term is limiting), and it doesn’t include all Christians who call themselves “evangelical” any more than it includes all religious people. If I ever come up with a more precise handle I’ll let you know, though.
The question I’d ask is why in the US the very sick combination of
conmen who act at the macro level rather than moron-by-moron,
control-obsessed bigots who paint the world in tones of “you’re totally with me or I’m against you”,
and easily-conned or cowed people
has (a) gelled and (b) become identified with that particular religious group.
Perhaps part of the answer is in looking at where do those same people congregate elsewhere. And, in places where those tend to congregate elsewhere, do they also get attracted by groups calling themselves “evangelical churches”? For example,those 9 guys who recently caused a panic in a subway in Valencia (Spain) by yelling “you’re all going to die”, “you’re all going to burn”, “this place stinks of alcohol and sin” were evangelicals from Germany, hellbent on converting Spain because them Catholics aren’t Christians and bikinis are the devil’s tools (very bad at marketing, too, as the stunt ended with them in jail awaiting trial). Where would you normally have expected to find that kind of asshole, in Germany?
I can tell you that Spanish evangélicos don’t do that kind of thing; our Iglesia Evangélica (singular) is a Roma-originated mixture of Lutheran structures with Catholic symbolism, and the other iglesias evangélicas are imports from Latin America with long speeches and a tendency to name their children Cristian: none of them feel the need to yell “you’re all going to die” at the neighbors. As for where you’d look for people like that? The noisy ones, in radical soccer fan clubs and radical political groups; the mass-conmen, trying with better or worse success to climb political and corporate structures; and the sheep, following anybody who speaks in tones of authority but staying very far from the noisy ones.
That would be an interesting exercise. Off the top of my head, what about Russia? One gets the impression that much of the Orthodox leadership tends to similarly authoritarian attitudes and daft conspiracy theories, and lends a lot of credence to Putin and his control systems, notwithstanding all that might be said about him and his oligarchs.
In France, there are Catholic equivalents (Protestants hardly figure politically), but the erstwhile association with anti-democratic/republican (in the European rather than US sense) ideologies seems much less in evidence; though Islamophobia has become a proxy for much broader racial prejudices - it is usually couched in terms of defending official state secularism rather than prioritising the ideas and status of the Church. A similar trick is often employed by the equivalent sort of political movements in the Netherlands and the UK - often, it can be couched in terms of liberal acceptance of homosexuality and women’s rights, for example. The Bible and significant religious organisations just aren’t in evidence as part of those movements. Moreover, such movements tend to have their own political parties; capturing one of the major existing parties is either impracticable or just not taken to be the way to success for them.
Because they know they are ordained by God, and everything they believe i the absolute truth. People who confuse beliefs with facts are extremely dangerous people. And they all know there is a god and only their religion is right.
And one of my beliefs is that most of the rah-rah’s know that the Straight White Christian Men should be running everything because they are better than everyone else.
Not quite that, but because God has ordained that men be the leaders of their families and in life. It isn’t just the evangelicals who are responsible for institutional misogyny; they seem to have inherited it from the Catholics and Mormons. The white part is implicit in the European and European-American origins of even mainstream Christianity, and was formerly explicit for the Mormons.
I would call that a distinction without a difference.
I think most people would agree that Middle Eastern monotheism is not very good for women and those in the defined under classes, but US Evangelicals are surprisingly fanatical. They manage to redefine one of the basic foundations of the country as its exact opposite, religious freedom means freedom to force others to adhere to one’s own religious beliefs.
So would I. But I’d go further and say it’s using a claim about God’s will to relieve oneself of responsibility for one’s own hatreds. Why, it even makes those hatreds required!
Interesting thread. Nava makes a good point: we really don’t understand this phenomenon if we don’t know why it happened in the US, but not in other high income countries.
Here’s some info consistent with the above quote. Over at 538, they are working on their election model. They find that non-evangelical whites are the key swing voters. [INDENT]As a general principle, the swingiest districts tend to be those with lots of white voters who do not identify as evangelical Christians. (By contrast, white evangelical voters are overwhelmingly Republican, while nonwhite voters — with a few exceptions like Cuban-Americans in South Florida; note the presence of Florida’s 25th and 26th districts in the top 10 — are overwhelmingly Democratic.) These voters are plentiful in the Northeast, and in the Upper Midwest, where they were vital to President Trump winning states such as Ohio and districts such as Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. [/INDENT]
It’s been noted that movement conservatism is to some extent a grift insofar as Infowars is a front for snakeoil vitamin supplements, overpriced gold coins are endorsed by multiple RW celebrities, and donating to conservatives tends to fill your mailbox full of investment scams (the oil field in the placenta) while donating to liberals fills your mailbox with… more appeals to liberal and charitable causes. The Long Con | Rick Perlstein
What I’m wondering is what sub-profile of conservatives are most susceptible to ripoffs. Just trying to get a handle on the OP from another angle.
Older, uneducated, incurious, provincial?
How did Antebellum slave holders get the non-slave owning majority of Southern whites to fight? From what I’ve read, it seems to have been based on the idea that they (Southern WASPs) were under attack and had to rally together to save their way of life and tribe.
From the beginning of the Civil Rights era, there was an alliance between the “business wing” composed rich or rich wanna-bes and the “social wing” rural whites against the federal government, blacks/women/gay civil rights and the welfare state.
For decades, the business wing used fear, xenophobia and conspiracy theories to enlist social wing members as foot soldiers but the Tea Party seems to have been an awakening of the social wing; They realized they could seize most of the power within the GOP.
Luckily for us. But the story I learned in school was about the Pilgrims and Puritans fleeing religious oppression. What I didn’t learn was about their religious oppression. Except marginally about the founding of Rhode Island.
I did a little digging. Scammers tend to favor the elderly. This study investigated a sample of elderly folk without dementia. They found that the following factors were related to scam susceptibility:
A diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.
Fewer years of education
higher age.
Interestingly, gender was insignificant.
Over Hispanics and blacks were found to be more susceptible to fraud. But after controlling for age, level of education, and “degree of comfort with one’s debt” race became insignificant. Those saying they have “More debt than they can comfortably handle” are more likely to be victims of fraud. Interestingly, for the types of fraud investigated in the survey, those over 65 were less likely to be victims. Gender was still insignificant.
tl;dr: Data is contradictory. Aside from education, I’m not seeing a clean story popping out. More research necessary.
as well as the link between Alex Jones and Logan Paul:
tl;dr: say dumb shit to attract attention, convert some of it into followers and sales, isolate your followers from the rest of society in a clique/cult-like way by making them think they have access to something special and are unfairly treated by the majority of people who don’t buy the dumb shit you say to attract attention.
I was amused to read in another thread Nava reporting that Spanish newspapers have been publishing articles to explain to their readers such concepts as Intelligent Design, Young Earth Theory, and Inerrant Bible.
