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MAGA Is Not Christian
September 28, 2025 2:22 AM Subscribe

Pat Kahnke on Culture, Faith, and Politics - "I used to believe what Charlie Kirk believes. And that's why I need to speak out now."

So when I retired from ministry in 2016, I started paying attention again and I started by watching Fox News and pretty quickly I felt like they were showing me the world through a fun house mirror. They were trying to give me Donald Trump, too. And I just thought, "This is insane. This is obviously insane." But most of my Christian friends were going along with it. And again, the only difference between me and them is that I had stepped out of the echo chamber for years. So when I stepped back in, I saw how distorted their view of the world had become, you know, and maybe it had always been that distorted. And so that's how I'm here now. But I can't let myself forget where I came from. And that brings me back to Charlie Kirk...

And one more, I think, deep and important disagreement I have with Charlie Kirk. I just have no idea how he could reconcile his constant appeals to truth with his support for Donald Trump, who is the most false politician in my lifetime. I don't understand how Kirk could claim to speak for truth when he spearheaded a movement whose entire currency is lies in service to an administration whose entire foundation is lies. And no matter how far down you go with the Trump administration, it's lies all the way down.

And yet Charlie Kirk is now held up as a champion for truth. And I have no interest in tearing down his memory. But I do wish that people weren't already building him up into an idol. He was a human being. He's one whose faith, I think, was affected by the same nationalistic contaminants that mine was for many years. And to some extent, mine still is. I mean, that's one of the birthrights of American Christians. We all feed at the trough at least a little bit of that God and country slop, but it's wrong and it is a contaminant and Charlie Kirk's movement is gorging themselves on it. And that memorial service the other night was a bacchanalia of that stuff.

One Bible Verse BLOWS UP MAGA's False Version of Christian Faith - "In this video, I tackle a question I hear often: 'If it weren't for Donald Trump, would you still be open to the rest of what the GOP/MAGA movement stands for?'"

I used to think *yes*. But after 2016, the marriage between the religious right and MAGA woke me up—especially when I saw even “Christian” leaders abandon their convictions overnight.

That’s when James?1:27 broke me open:
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress *and* to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (NIV)
This verse dismantles the pseudo?Christian approach to politics—not only MAGA’s religious posture, but also my own old assumptions. It shows that real Christianity is about caring for the marginalized and preserving personal holiness—not imposing moral laws or seizing power.

Retired Pastor: It's TRAGIC That the CHURCH Supports TRUMP! - "The church in America is in deep trouble."

The church has grasped after power and it's aligned itself with corrupt rulers who promise to protect the church, specifically the white evangelical wing of the church I talk to a lot because that's where I came from. And you know, maybe these rulers will throw evangelicals a bone on a pet issue or two, if the church will just put aside their reservations about the corruption and the abuse that those leaders are visiting on the nation.

80% of the white evangelical church in America has voted for Donald Trump and his movement after everything that they've learned about him in the past three presidential elections. That's a symptom of a movement that's lost the plot on what Jesus calls his people to be in this world. As a movement, they've ceased to be a blessing, but instead they've made themselves a curse.

Rather than modeling the kingdom of God, rather than showing the world what it means to live by the way of Jesus and to show the beauty of the fruits of the spirit, this power-hungry, fearful, fleshly version of the church has drawn the rest of the country into its own dysfunction. And it's inflicting its own fear and loathing onto the rest of the world through the man Donald Trump and his movement, the MAGA movement that they more than any other group have forced on a country who recoils by and large from the world view that Trump represents. And I don't know what to do about that except to talk about it in the hopes that people will see the damage that's being done in the name of Christ.

Trump MOCKS the Words of Jesus at a 'Christian' Memorial Service - "The only way this gets better is if Christians reject Trump's words and embrace the words of Jesus."

posted by kliuless (73 comments total) 53 users marked this as a favorite

It's almost as if Prosperity Gospel were the work of a conniving pack of lying, thieving sacks of shit the whole time.
posted by flabdablet at 3:02 AM on September 28 [71 favorites]

My understanding of the “7 mountains mandate” driving all this is that the forces behind the dominionism are willing to work with anyone who will work towards their goals, whether or not that person or organisation professes to be Christian or follows “Christian values”. Wikipedia has some more reading if you have interest.
posted by mulberry at 3:21 AM on September 28 [3 favorites]

The only conclusion you can reach is that all conservatives are liars.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:23 AM on September 28 [8 favorites]

That's a little harsh. Many are simply delusional.
posted by flabdablet at 3:33 AM on September 28 [6 favorites]

I had my epiphany standing inside the Mission San Juan Bautista in a small adobe courtyard that had a tiny, unremarkable sign that read: "In this ground lies the unmarked grave of 4,000 Indians".
posted by effluvia at 3:50 AM on September 28 [31 favorites]

Belief in God is just another flavor of authoritarianism. Even a so-called Loving God is allowed to get away with "because I said so." Angels have to dance on the head of a pin to make God reasonable in the minds of theologians, but even a purportedly good God justifies a toxic dynamic.

Parents understand that "because I said so" is a natural phase to keep your children from getting run over by a car or eaten by a bear, but anyone who can't grow out of it is doomed to have dumb and cruel grown children.
posted by rikschell at 4:28 AM on September 28 [17 favorites]

The church has grasped after power and it's aligned itself with corrupt rulers who promise to protect the church

This has been churches since churches were a thing. It's why churches exist at all, instead of just religion - to control the masses and align with government.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:20 AM on September 28 [11 favorites]

There was a stabbing here on the London Tube a few years ago, the culprit claiming he was somehow doing this in the name of Islam. As police handcuffed the man, someone nearby who actually understood Islam's message of peace shouted "You ain't no Muslim, Bruv." This was captured on cellphone footage, and the remark won everyone's admiration when it went viral.

The more I hear about the religious right in America, the more I find myself thinking something similar: "You ain't no Christian, Bruv".
posted by Paul Slade at 5:24 AM on September 28 [45 favorites]

I’m sorry, but I let the people who called themselves Christian define it and that’s what I see from the outside.

If Christians want to cast these people out, they’re welcome to do so. There’s ample historical precedent for it. I am not going to concern myself with these distinctions. If someone introduces himself as a Christian, I’m assuming a red hat.

When I grew up going to church, I thought Christians were a different thing and I was wrong. I suspect they were always were this and were simply lying to me and snickering as soon as I walked out the door.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 5:45 AM on September 28 [16 favorites]

Belief in God is just another flavor of authoritarianism.

Okay, if we're trading pithy hot takes, I have one to contribute: "Grand generalizations about other groups is just another flavor of fascism."

Did I win anything?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:56 AM on September 28 [43 favorites]

I liked "Letters and Papers from Prison" and commend it to you for reading.
posted by k3ninho at 5:57 AM on September 28 [2 favorites]

I'm not Christian, have never been Christian, and do not have much fondness for Christianity (understatement). I'm also not going to play the "not real Christianity" game; real Christianity has been picking and choosing what to believe from the scriptures since Christians picked what would go into the scriptures in the first place. Sometimes they pick the beautiful parts, and sometimes they pick the ugly parts, but they're all Christians.

But if Christians want to tell their fellow Christians that MAGA is not Christianity, I'm way past nitpicking their language. Because that language isn't for me, it's for them, and what they really mean is "MAGA is a contradiction to what God wants us to do." It's a religious argument for people to whom being Christian, and living in accordance with God's word, is important.

If more of them were making that argument I'd be happy. Do I care that progressive Christians "take responsibility" for all the evils Christians have committed, are committing, by admitting that they are also Christians? Not that fucking much right now, as it turns out.

I’m assuming a red hat

I assume most of the Christians you know are white.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:23 AM on September 28 [26 favorites]

Belief in God is just another flavor of authoritarianism

those quakers, real authoritarians
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 6:45 AM on September 28 [23 favorites]

"give your money to the poor"

(scratches head)

"whatever you did to the least among you, you did it to me"

(head scratching intensifies)
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:49 AM on September 28 [16 favorites]

This is a bad take on Christian voters. The Christians who vote for Trump aren’t stupid or by their own code, wrong. Many of them regard Trump as a deeply flawed person who sins flagrantly … but still find supporting him over Clinton/Biden/Harris to be obviously the right move believing, as they do, that abortion and the promotion of secularization / irreligion / alternative sexuality and family structure are paramount evils. Much the same as MeFites felt that voting FOR Harris was right despite her stance on Israel.

There’s also no one less persuasive to serious Christians than “progressive” and (worse) “prophetic” Christian insofar as they always manage to conform themselves to whatever secular leftists decide is important within a very short period of the word being handed down. There’s a lot more attention paid, even by Evangelicals, to the (politically) heterodox expression of the Catholic social gospel … if there’s something for everyone to hate in Pope Leo’s pronouncements you know he’s not trying to placate any side or logrolling for the legislative agenda he supports.
posted by MattD at 7:01 AM on September 28 [9 favorites]

that dorothy day, those berrigans, that dumbass reinhold niebuhr, what secularist losers and false prophets.

Spending some time in the orbit of the Catholic Worker in Boston was eye-opening - I sometimes disagreed w/them, but they took their faith and the Gospels with absolute seriousness, to the point of really "throwing everything and going to live with the poor."

They were living lives in direct contradiction to / confrontation with almost every aspect of conventional capitalist mainstream US life, often at considerable personal cost. And they absolutely were not looking to secular leftists for guidance or standards.
posted by reedbird_hill at 7:56 AM on September 28 [24 favorites]

personal belief in god is not authoritarianism, but organized religious institutions tend to be.

when I think about colonialism/imperialism and how one tiny corner of the world decided 500 years ago to go out and kill rape steal destroy a lot of the rest of the world, I ask myself how they felt justified to do so. the answer is CHRISTIANITY. manifest destiny is justified by CHRISTIANITY.

now this has fuck all to do with the message of Jesus is it is received via the bible, the original gospels whatever. it was all "feed the poor, house the destitute etc.," we know the drill. it's the antithesis of what these people stand for and believe in. and that proof is in the pudding.

having a faith-based belief in a higher power is not a pathway to fascism, but membership in a manipulative cult that justifies the worst human behavior under the guise of faith kinda seems to be...
posted by supermedusa at 8:05 AM on September 28 [10 favorites]

From "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" through Father Coughlin, the Moral Majority and now MAGA, this place has never been free from wannabe theocrats, partly because it's been afraid to give the heave-ho to anyone who would put their religion above democracy. America has always had its subset of people happy to do that, and now they're in charge, and we're all getting it good and hard.

No practice of Christianity or any other religion should be permitted to undermine equal rights and legal, social, and economic justice for all. I firmly believe that if you profess any tenet of belief that says women should be subservient to men or that their medical autonomy is the province of anyone but themselves, or that anyone should be ever put into involuntary servitude, or that people of any gender or sexual orientation or disability should be excluded from the full participation in American society and democracy, or that being brown is probable cause for ICE to sweep you from the streets, I think that should be the only criterion and avenue by which a person is disenfranchised and sent to any other country willing to take them. I'm OK with MAGA losing the right to vote. They seek to take it away from others based on any or all of the above, and I'm happy not to let my tolerance let them put an end to this flawed democracy.
posted by tclark at 8:54 AM on September 28 [3 favorites]

personal belief in god is not authoritarianism, but organized religious institutions tend to be.

A very nice summary of the problem.

Generalizations about Christians and Christianity in general -- and this is speaking from an atheist's perspective here, not someone with skin actively in that game -- are dangerous because they paint many different kinds and groups of people with the same brush.

There are millions of people who wouldn't hesitate to call themselves Christian and maybe go to church once or twice a year (if at all), who don't consult the Bible on everyday or even major decisions, who follow the general examples of the figures in the Bible without thinking about them too hard. There are millions who call themselves Christians who choose to consciously weave Biblical teachings and principles into their lives to a greater degree than that. There are millions who subscribe to a worldview in which being Christian makes you a better person than someone who is not, converting others to that worldview is important, and suppressing behaviors that don't fit into your personal standards is equally important. There are millions who wield the Bible like a bludgeon, intent on literally removing personal choice from outsiders and seizing control of everything possible in the name of Because God Says So.

Umpteen branches and denominations, all of whom have their own spin of sorts on the same founding texts, some of whom quite literally consider other denominations heretics and blasphemers. We just watched the Methodist church -- hardly some fly-by-night upstart -- fragment into two over LGBT issues within the past year or two. Some quiet suburban church in a liberal area, an evangelical church in a rural town, and a gathering of Dominionists bent on seizing control and purging the unbelievers may be nominally playing the same game with the same core rulebook... but with different jerseys, different fields and very different rules enforced.

Jack Chick, the man behind the millions of little paper tracts that litter our landscapes, once got things absolutely correct in two panels. Once and once only. There are people who spread the word of God in an attempt to help them, and there are people who do so explicitly for personal gain (urged on here by a demonic figure in minor disguise, to drive the point home with a sledgehammer). Of course, that tract immediately devolved into a diatribe as to how Catholicism was inherently demonic, but it at least demonstrated at least a momentary flash of clarity as to how religion is misused.

Charlie Kirk misused religion. There's no other way to put it. His ideal world, his goal, was an America in which the non-religious, the lesser races, the sexual Other, the female gender, everyone outside of the preferred group go back to knowing their place, acknowledging their inferiority, and going along with whatever the straight WASP conservative males decide is best for everyone. He chose that path and desired to remove that choice from others, and worked hard to try to make that a reality and roll back decades of social and cultural and political progress in the name of Jesus.

If there is a greater sin, I'm not sure what it is.
posted by delfin at 8:55 AM on September 28 [15 favorites]

those quakers, real authoritarians

At least some of them.
posted by TedW at 9:02 AM on September 28 [2 favorites]

For people in the right-wing bubble, "Christian" is just another label without content. They don't care about theology or ideological consistency. It's just another checklist item to show you're in the in-group. It's all cosplay, much like exurban mid-level bank managers who wear cowboy hats and drive oversized pickups have never been on an actual ranch in their lives.

Arguing over theology or doctrine with such people is a waste of time. They don't care. Or if you'd like a New Testament reference, see "pearls before swine" in Matthew 7:6.
posted by gimonca at 9:20 AM on September 28 [12 favorites]

Parents understand that "because I said so" is a natural phase

No, that's just because we excuse being authoritarian towards children. Declarative language is both more ethical and more effective. I learned this the hard way as a parent, you can learn it the easy way by reading a book.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:23 AM on September 28 [7 favorites]

nice. +1.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:26 AM on September 28

I think a bigger problem than what any individual Christian promotes, is that the Evangelical wing has managed to define themselves politically as the Christian position. This is partly because of their willingness to be evangelists, eg, to go out in the world. Many of the more progressive Christians prefer quiet action to rabble-rousing. They need to step up and reclaim the brand, as it were.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:42 AM on September 28 [11 favorites]

here’s also no one less persuasive to serious Christians than “progressive” and (worse) “prophetic” Christian insofar as they always manage to conform themselves to whatever secular leftists decide is important within a very short period of the word being handed down.

ah yes like mister fuckin rogers
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 10:14 AM on September 28 [10 favorites]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and state that Mister (fucking) Rogers was an exception to many rules. if only we had more like him.
posted by supermedusa at 10:20 AM on September 28 [1 favorite]

I don't talk about my faith in the open all that often, not out shame, but out of a belief that it is here to help guide my own direction and effort, rather than here for me to dictate to others how to live their lives. I try not to judge people's faith. We don't know what's in people's hearts.

But it seems to me, for many, Christianity is defined by the later, using lines from the Old Testament that help in that, rather than the words of Jesus and the Gospels, from the New Testament, that stand in contrast to them.

And yes, the world needs more people providing examples like Mr. Rogers.

More love, more kindness, more compassion. We need to love our neighbors.
posted by kmartino at 10:26 AM on September 28 [14 favorites]

I attend a Presbyterian church in a purplish city in Florida. The congregation has a lot of young blue families and some aging lefties, balanced almost evenly by a lot of deep red senior citizens who are the biggest financial donors.

When he came here in mid-2022, our pastor, knowing this, walked a fine line. But since Gaza and then increasingly during the ramped-up snatch-and-grab deportations, he's been pushing back more and more. Today he went into the Presbyterian version of DGAF mode.

The gospel reading was from Luke 16, the "no servant can serve two masters" verse that leads into the parable of the story of the rich man who goes to hell because he ignored the suffering of homeless Lazarus. (Different Lazarus from the usual one.)

In his sermon, the pastor eventually pivoted to the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. He quoted Kirk's wife saying she would forgive the killer (I know, oversimplifying), and quoted Trump saying "That's where I differ from Charlie. I hate my opponents and I don't want the best for them."

The pastor noted that the memorial service crowd clapped for *both* lines. And so then he said (I'm quoting from the recorded stream):

"You and I have two very different choices as citizens, and particularly as Christians: Will we choose the path of love, or will we choose the path of hate? Will we choose the path of forgiveness or will we choose the path of revenge? Will we choose the path of compassion... or will we choose the path of contempt? ... If we are to take this parable seriously, if we are to take Jesus seriously, the path we decide to take matters -- not only for this life but for the life to come."

"So the question before you, before this whole country, is, how are we going to move forward? What is our choice going to be? And the thing that we all need to remember is, whatever choice you are going to make, you can clap for one or the other, but you don't get to clap for both -- at least, not in Jesus' name."

OK, not the rafters-rattling of a Baptist sermon, but in the reserved Presbyterian faith that's a lot. His message was clear: Follow Jesus and be compassionate and go to heaven, or follow Trump and hate people and go to hell.

I often catch up with him after to talk about the sermon and more about the writing process. He texted me a little while ago to say that it went over well at the early contemporary music service (which I attend) but it made the older and redder people at the later service uncomfortable-- but "only one scolding so far." Progress, I guess?
posted by martin q blank at 10:56 AM on September 28 [39 favorites]

Too little too late. I'm so tired of these people who have brought us great harm and now it's a bit late for their come to Jesus moment.

He was a human being. He's one whose faith, I think, was affected by the same nationalistic contaminants that mine was for many years.

He was a bully who used his faith as an excuse to bully. Talk is cheap and the damage done.
posted by kokaku at 11:09 AM on September 28 [5 favorites]

I mean, I hope the Christians who aren't into MAGA can maybe carve off a few MAGA votes with this kind of talk, but historically I'm pretty sure MAGA is in line with Christian traditions.

The first person on record as saying some variant of "kill them all and let God sort it out" was Arnaud Amalric, Pope Innocent III's legate, and the guy who ordered the massacre at Béziers way back in 1209. He's almost certainly not the first person to express that sentiment, but he is the first one we have on record.

Amalric said it because the Cathars they meant to massacre were difficult/impossible to distinguish from the orthodox Catholics. So he ordered that everyone be killed on the grounds that God would welcome the martyred to Heaven so it wouldn't really hurt them in the long run.

You'll note that predates Trump and MAGA by quite a bit.

And that's just the first example that springs to mind.

We could equally talk about Torquemada, or Heinrich Kramer, or Peter the Hermit, or Martin Luther, or J. W. Tucker.

There have always been at least two Christianities, and the MAGA version has been dominant for most of the history of Christianity. I'd like it if the not-MAGA version of Christianity was the prevailing one, but it mostly hasn't been.

And, I'll note, the MAGA Christians say the not-MAGA Christians aren't the ones who aren't real Christians. And they've got the weight of history on their side.

I hope the not-MAGA Christians can emerge victorious and win the PR campaign to label the MAGA Christians as not actually Christian. But I'm doubtful that will work, it hasn't before.

I'm glad that people get some solace out of more or less anything they can. If Christianity is your go to source for solace, I'm not saying you should stop. But I am saying that expecting anyone to agree that a) there actually IS one singular true Christianity, and b) it's the not-MAGA variety, is probably futile and a bit irksome to the people being asked to accept that proposition.
posted by sotonohito at 11:22 AM on September 28 [9 favorites]

Medieval History has entered the chat (thank you, sotonohito!)

yeah. Christians wholesale killing other Christians (even if heretical ones) does seem like it should be off-brand but the examples just line themselves up for centuries. Christianity (as an institution) has always been a death cult. The message that Jesus is supposed to have delivered got overwritten pretty quickly. I guess it's difficult to win the fight by turning the other cheek and being compassionate when the MAGAs are bringing their auto da fé game.
posted by supermedusa at 11:29 AM on September 28 [4 favorites]

mulberry, that perfectly describes New Zealand right now. The PM is Seven Mountains (the stupid right wing voters believed his denials and lies), and the deputy PM is outwardly secular, but is also Atlas Network - and tried to honour Charlie Kirk in Parliament last week. Our foreign minister (a racist QANON type) you all know of by now as he denied Palestine's existence at the UN a few days ago.

Seven Mountains Mandate - a project of the New Apostolic Reformation is a nightmare that will probably need hard medicine to excise. They are currently working on reducing the ability to vote.
posted by unearthed at 11:53 AM on September 28 [6 favorites]

And, I'll note, the MAGA Christians say the not-MAGA Christians aren't the ones who aren't real Christians. And they've got the weight of history on their side.

Yup, if your idealistic movement has at some point in the past achieved some sort of political power it's going to have a seriously comprimised moral history. Sometimes it can have one even if it didn't. Who are the real progressives -- folks who are anti-US imperialism or pro? Historically it's the latter (see both Roosevelt presidents, JFK, LBJ, etc.), so I guess that means when people say invading other countries isn't progressive they're not taking that history seriously. Who are the real feminists? The ones who are interested in addressing intersectional injustices or the ones just interested in furthering the cause of white, cisgender women? The latter seems to have been in the driver's seat for a lot of the history of the movement, so I guess saying that leaving trans folks and people of colour behind is anti-feminist just doesn't take history seriously enough. We're smart enough on Metafilter to distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive speech acts, right?

History is a giant garbage dump of people failing to live up to their ideals, failing to think through the logical implications of what those ideals entail, choosing power over consistency, and using the language of their ideals to justify horrors. Christianity has a particularly long history and an accompanying warehouse of all of the above to choose from. If you do enough historical theology sometimes you even get to watch in real time as Christian theologians realise they're doing it and forge ahead anyway -- a particular favourite of mine being Vitoria finishing up his De Indis with a, 'Huh, to be consistent I'm going to have to say Charles V has to give up this whole overseas colonialism thing, but that doesn't work financially so... guess I'll be inconsistent!' But just because history is littered with these sorts of failures doesn't mean its not worth continuing to fight to define what is and isn't Christian, just as it's worth fighting over what is and isn't American, feminist, progressive, etc.
posted by nangua at 12:39 PM on September 28 [7 favorites]

"My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:39). QED.
posted by blue shadows at 12:42 PM on September 28 [1 favorite]

(18:36, sorry)
posted by blue shadows at 12:48 PM on September 28

Belief in God is just another flavor of authoritarianism

those quakers, real authoritarians

I grew up Quaker. Our history is plenty bloody, with more than a hint of fascism. We came out of Puritanism, after all.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 12:49 PM on September 28 [8 favorites]

that's exactly why my family came from England to Canada to America. the anti Quaker sentiment. so they came here, resettled, decided that the evil of slavery was unacceptable, well you know the rest of the story.

about 6 hours ago someone shot a bunch of people and burned down a Mormon church about a mile and a half where I grew up, helicopters everywhere, checkpoints, and 100 FBI agents. the FBI has taken charge of the investigation it seems to be the lead story and I have no doubt that the administration will seize upon this tragedy for their own ends.

,
posted by clavdivs at 1:25 PM on September 28 [3 favorites]

"...I have no doubt that the administration will seize upon this tragedy for their own ends."

Right now he's busy with Portland.

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/09/why-is-trump-sending-troops-to-a-war-ravaged-portland-that-local-officials-say-doesnt-exist-5-takeaways.html
posted by aleph at 1:37 PM on September 28 [1 favorite]

and the governor of Texas just made a statement doubling down on protection of places of worship as is New York City.

that's portland, I love portland, but this ioccurred in a deep republican City allegedly by an Iraqi War veteran whose house I happened to drive by on the way to work and I had to take a detour on the way home because so many police and FBI are according off the street.
the elder of the LDS church died yesterday.
apparently there was a bomb threat yesterday a quarter a mile from the shooters home whether that's connected or not I don't know.

so for the sake of argument that this guy was maga, why do he shoot up a house of worship.
posted by clavdivs at 2:58 PM on September 28

Christianity (as an institution) has always been a death cult.

Indeed it has. The underlying moral framework - which holds that a human sacrifice can, let alone should, pay off a collective debt of other people's sins - is one I've always found deeply weird and disturbing. I'm with Patti Smith on that score.
posted by flabdablet at 3:24 PM on September 28 [5 favorites]

I’m sorry, but I let the people who called themselves Christian define it and that’s what I see from the outside.

If Christians want to cast these people out, they’re welcome to do so.

More accurately, what you see from the outside is what the massive right-wing media operation keeps in front of you. It’s not a surprise that you’ve confused the two as billions of dollars have been spent over the last century promoting business-friendly Christianity as a way to roll back the New Deal, but that doesn’t mean other denominations don’t exist. Here in occupied territory, there are an awful lot of people whose faith is motivating them to help immigrants, homeless, and poor people being targeted by the followers of Republican Jesus. The contrast always reminds of the warnings about false prophets and the devil quoting scripture: the Kirks of the world should’ve paid more attention to those parts.
posted by adamsc at 3:30 PM on September 28 [8 favorites]

so for the sake of argument that this guy was maga, why do he shoot up a house of worship.

In the eyes of some Christians, Mormonism is not part of Christianity and is instead a heretical offshoot of it.

I have no idea if that is what motivated the shooter, but I promise you that houses of worship are only positive places to many if they're their houses of worship. Kind of like how people are still freaking out about the presence of mosques anywhere near their town.

As for Portland, some are speculating that Fox News intermingling footage of small protests outside ICE headquarters with clips of larger 2020 protests spurred Trump to confuse the two and order immediate action until the concepts of recordings and object permanence were re-explained to him.
posted by delfin at 3:32 PM on September 28 [4 favorites]

but I promise you that houses of worship are only positive places to many if they're their houses of worship

huh, is that many other worshipers from surrounding churches went to the scene including one reporter who was on the scene until now or probably still is.
is that indicative of I've got my church you got yours behavior. or are you alluding to membership requirements.
posted by clavdivs at 3:40 PM on September 28

huh, is that many other worshipers from surrounding churches went to the scene including one reporter who was on the scene until now or probably still is.
is that indicative of I've got my church you got yours behavior. or are you alluding to membership requirements.

What I am saying is, to rational people of faith, the mere existence of other faiths and the presence of practitioners of those faiths is not a terrible or negative thing, but rather a positive one.

But not all people of faith are rational or understanding.

A MAGAt -- someone who, by definition, desires to drag America kicking and screaming back to an extended era where one religion, one race, one culture were unquestionably dominant -- is far less likely to me to look at any Other rationally or with empathy, regardless of their religious affiliation.
posted by delfin at 4:04 PM on September 28 [5 favorites]

Belief in God is just another flavor of authoritarianism.

Just yesterday I was at a dinner with a relative and he is a nice, polite, and amiable man but typical of a Christian he said a prayer for us before the meal and then asked "and Polymodus, have you accepted Christ yet?" Cat got my tongue and I choked out a meek "No", but aren't these unthinking tactics just par for the course. They assume I will become a religious subject and so erase my existence as a non-theist. It is the mentality of authoritarianism and it is in their most basic interactions with other people.
posted by polymodus at 5:16 PM on September 28 [10 favorites]

Belief in God is just another flavor of authoritarianism.

When I said this, I meant it quite literally. Belief in God (who deserves or demands worship) is recognizing an ultimate and deserving Authority who should be obeyed. It sets up the model for everything else. There are good and loving people who believe in God, but they accept that a sort of authoritarianism is Just and proper for the Universe. To me, that's a flaw in their system. I am more comfortable with basing our understanding on a shared set of facts that are based on long-observed or deduced evidence. I want to be tolerant of other people's beliefs, but it's extremely difficult when they won't accept my friends as people or when they excuse genocide, or blow up buildings in my town. How again is religion supposed to be net positive? I know practicing people of various faiths who seem to value it, but it requires rejecting a substantial amount of the dogma that's supposed to be crucial. I feel like those people would also be good people without religion.

I don't say this to attack or offend anyone, it's just inarguable that having a God who is the Authority who ought to be followed in all things IS authoritarianism. And unless you think that God literally speaks to specific humans in a verifiable way that can't be screwed up, following "God's Laws" is indistinguishable from other human forms of authoritarianism.
posted by rikschell at 6:13 PM on September 28 [11 favorites]

In the eyes of some Christians, Mormonism is not part of Christianity …

Nor is Catholicism.
posted by TedW at 6:24 PM on September 28 [3 favorites]

Are we posting links to Chick Publications? TedW, surely there's better source material

Strident atheism is about as boring as evangelical proselytizing
posted by Didymus at 7:33 PM on September 28 [2 favorites]

Religion is a progressive invention to control regressive behaviour - one of the first ever developed. Consequently, it was the first to be commandeered by regressives to empower regressive behaviour.

Then government was developed to push religion aside as the regulator of society, but it too was quickly captured by tyrants.

Then democracy was developed as a perpetual compromise between progressives and regressives to avoid the endless bloodshed and abuse, but it too proved vulnerable to failure.

Then communism was developed as a way to level the playing field so severely that it would put the tyrants out of commission once and for all, but they quickly learned how to capture that as well and we have for the most part fallen back to democracy.

Now, that too is about to fall to regressive control, on a global scale.

What comes next? Whatever it is, the tyrants will seize it as well.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:47 PM on September 28 [4 favorites]

on a global scale.
What comes next? Whatever it is,

though ah, the antecedents are rather scaled down.

Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
"The February Revolution was a surprise attack, a seizing of the old society unaware...Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, storm more swiftly from success to success, their dramatic effects outdo each other, men and things seem set in sparkling diamonds, ecstasy is the order of the day – but they are short-lived, soon they have reached their zenith, and a long Katzenjammer [cat’s winge] takes hold of society before it learns to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period soberly. "

but rather a positive one.
But not all people of faith are rational or understanding.

"ok, then"

-'Fargo'

posted by clavdivs at 8:23 PM on September 28

CynicalKnight: "Religion is a progressive invention to control regressive behaviour - one of the first ever developed. Consequently, it was the first to be commandeered by regressives to empower regressive behaviour."

This is a very ahistorical take on what religion is and how it is situated in culture. I recommend reading Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, just to start with.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:28 PM on September 28 [7 favorites]

Brief reminder that the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant body in the U.S., was created in 1845, explicitly so that its member churches could continue to be pro-slavery.
posted by gimonca at 8:36 PM on September 28 [11 favorites]

Many of them regard Trump as a deeply flawed person who sins flagrantly … but still find supporting him over Clinton/Biden/Harris to be obviously the right move

Yeah, but they'd still be behaving a lot differently toward him and his party if their values weren't already, on some level, aligned with his. There's a whole lot of room between voting for somebody and supporting them--allowing yourself to be seen as part of his ingroup, amplifying right-wing talking points, refusing to address the damage he does to people and democracy, not condemning his outrageous positions and statements, etc.

I grew up in this subculture, and I can tell you that if you color outside the lines in very specific ways, conservative white evangelicals will have no problem turning on you. Marital infidelity, child grooming, racism, embezzlement, bribery? Ah, unfortunate, but God forgives, and who among us, amirite? Discovered to be homosexual, trans-allied, socialist, pro-choice? Out on your ass, or at the very least, totally "un-supportable" politically, because the Bible. What's designated as within and outside of the lines is very, very telling about what these people already believe.
posted by Rykey at 6:12 AM on September 29 [9 favorites]

I'm a leftist, transgender Christian who really dislikes when people say that various other flavors of Christianity such as militant evangelicalism don't count in some way because I think as a Christian it's important that I, and people like me, reckon with the horrors perpetrated by our co-religionists in the name of said religion and I have thoughts but the real reason I'm posting is to second "I recommend reading Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, just to start with" because that book slaps.
posted by an octopus IRL at 6:19 AM on September 29 [12 favorites]

Are we posting links to Chick Publications? TedW, surely there's better source material

I dunno; when it comes to narrow-minded Christians claiming to be authorities on who is and isn’t a “real” Christian, Jack Chick was a pretty good example.
posted by TedW at 6:52 AM on September 29 [5 favorites]

TedW beat me to saying exactly the thing I was about to say. There's also a very high point-and-laugh entertainment factor.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:44 AM on September 29 [2 favorites]

Chick tracts are go to examples for self-parody. They also expose an alternative reality where humor is absent but something else exists in its place (maybe terror, not sure).
posted by Brian B. at 9:26 AM on September 29 [2 favorites]

Chick tracts are indeed way over-the-top, but the attitude expressed in that particular one -- that Catholics are not true Christians and will not be going to Heaven unless they recant/repent -- is hardly exclusive to them. Those arguments for-and-against Catholicism's legitimacy have been going on for centuries and won't end any time soon in certain circles. The Catholic Church itself has undergone reforms, reworkings and nigh-upon-schisms in recent decades, as it has at many other points in time, trying to nail down what the Church is, what it stands for, and how it can and should interact with the rest of the world.

Now, can Catholics and Protestants cooperate in matters where they agree on the desired end result? You betcha. The same John Bircher types who swore that JFK would hand America over to the Vatican as a vassal state cheered on the regressive Catholic SCOTUS majority that invalidated Roe/Casey, for instance. The time for interdenominational warfare comes after the unbelievers and unwashed masses are cowed into submission, not before.
posted by delfin at 10:09 AM on September 29 [2 favorites]

I'm not going to single out religion, because ISTM that pretty much any time you get a group of people together in pursuit of a common interest, you'll get those who want to lead. I've seen it at all levels, from half a dozen in a software team, through school boards and town councils, up to religions and governments. Some have a genuine interest, but others just want to find something where they can exercise their desire to be in charge.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 10:42 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

It's kind of like Little League Baseball. There are people involved in it who simply want everyone to have a good time and play fair and enjoy themselves, there are people who want to be in charge of teams and instruct others about what is right and what is wrong, and there are people who are interested only in winning at any cost.

On a related note, every congregation should go to Dairy Queen after each service.
posted by delfin at 10:47 AM on September 29 [7 favorites]

Or, at the least, serve Capri Sun and orange slices mid-service.
posted by snwod at 12:17 PM on September 29 [4 favorites]

Religion is a progressive invention

This is a very ahistorical take ... I recommend reading Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

- From the Wikipedia page:

"Durkheim attributes the development of religion to the emotional security attained through communal living"

- From a ChatGPT synopsis (emphasis mine):

"religion is fundamentally a social institution that helps maintain social cohesion. It's not just about belief in the supernatural but about shared practices and values"

"people come together and experience a shared emotional energy—what Durkheim calls collective effervescence. This reinforces social bonds."

"Durkheim concludes that religion is society worshipping itself. The values, norms, and collective conscience of a community are projected onto religious symbols"

I stand by my "ahistorical" take.

This is why I have aleways argued that athiest activism is counterproductive, and instead that energy should be directed to wards boosting progressive spiritual voices.
posted by CynicalKnight at 1:02 PM on September 29 [3 favorites]

Yes, the specifically ahistorical part is your statement that religion is "a progressive invention to control regressive behaviour". It's bullshit, being simplistic to the point of meaninglessness and invoking weird ideas of "progressive" and "regressive" (and "invention"). Religion is a technology that emerges from culture, but it wasn't "invented" per se, and it certainly wasn't invented to "control regressive behavior".
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:46 PM on September 29

Religion ... wasn't "invented"

The spoken and written word were invented. Mathematics was invented. Religions are invented all the time, often for nefarious purposes. All these elaborate parables and sacred tomes didn't emerge from the earth like weeds or drop from the sky like rain.

it certainly wasn't invented to "control regressive behavior"

Even a cursory look at the ten commandments of Moses, the commandments of Allah in Surat Al-An`am, the noble eightfold path and five precepts of Buddhism, the Golden Rule itself suggests the exact opposite of your statement.
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:20 PM on September 29 [2 favorites]

There’s also no one less persuasive to serious Christians than “progressive” and (worse) “prophetic” Christian insofar as they always manage to conform themselves to whatever secular leftists decide is important within a very short period of the word being handed down.
Leaving aside the question of who counts as a serious Christian, progressive Christianity is not just a passive recipient of culture but one of the drivers thereof, and they do make their own judgements of which ideas to adopt and which to leave by the wayside. They don't show any signs of all becoming Communists frex.
And what appears to be a rapid change may well be a slower cultural change exposed through some inciting incident. In my atheist/skeptic/freethought community I can think of Richard Dawkins finding his sexist bigotry beyond the pale in "elevatorgate". That was a cultural change that was long underway but may not have been obvious to some members until Richard Dawkins showed his ass on PZ Meyers' blog. I would expect similar things happen in progressive Christianity.
posted by mscibing at 4:46 PM on September 29 [5 favorites]

On a related note, every congregation should go to Dairy Queen after each service.

If only to save the tipped workers at diners and restaurants from having to deal with those fuckers not tipping.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:45 AM on September 30 [5 favorites]

If anyone is looking for a bright spot -

The survivors of the shooting at the Mormon church set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the family of the shooter.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:40 AM on October 1

EmpressCallipygos: "The survivors of the shooting at the Mormon church set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the family of the shooter."

Enabling violent white supremacists and their families is the Mormon Church's whole raison d'être!
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:04 PM on October 1

....or maybe it was a demonstration of forgiveness. Telling that this was not your interpretation, I think.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:01 PM on October 1

Sure, it was a demonstration of forgiveness! The thing is, forgiving white supremacists is what the Mormons do. If the shooter had been a leftist, or nonwhite, i don't think the forgiveness would've been so forthcoming.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:05 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]

James Talarico raises $6.2 million for Texas Senate bid - "The 36-year-old state lawmaker's profile has skyrocketed since his Senate campaign launch, positioning himself as a D.C. outsider with an emphasis on appealing to Christian voters in the state. Texas Democrat Colin Allred, Talarico's primary opponent, raised over $4.1 million in the third quarter of the year, Axios scooped on Wednesday." (previously)

oh and pat kahnke previously! :P

and more recently...
-What Was SO WRONG With the Charlie Kirk Memorial?
-The Dangerous Movement Behind Pete Hegseth's Authoritarian Faith (with Amy Hawk)
posted by kliuless at 11:59 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]

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