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Peter Burnett's avatar

“The Republicans who want to destroy the ‘socialist’ government, want to keep white people in charge, support Trump or someone similar, are fervently Christian, and openly court violence.”

ARE fervently Christian?

Fervently PROCLAIM THEMSELVES to be Christian, yet are openly anti-Christian, and don’t appear to have the least idea of what “Christian” means.

Nothing new about such gross misrepresentation, but this power-mad bunch of junkies have taken it about as far as it can be taken. Yet another demented sect like the Anabaptists of Munster…

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Rose (WNY via OH/OR/MA/FL/CO)'s avatar

So true, Peter! I still can’t erase from my mind that image of tfg clutching a Bible prop for a photo op at St. John’s Church! He, who probably has violated every single one of the 10 commandments! He, the Republican role model of Christian hypocrisy.

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Anne Dempsey's avatar

Agree. Throw in the word “Christian” whenever possible, to appease the evangelicals who are beginning to “see the light” shining through Trump’s facade. (Mixed metaphor, sorry!)

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Dave Dalton's avatar

I’m thinking, correct the misrepresentation of Christianity with the descriptor “Extremist Evangelical Right” evety time you see it

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Susan Troy's avatar

At least there is Faithful America, an ecumenical group that is fighting against White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism. It was refreshing for me to learn about them because I am culturally Christian, but can't stomach White Supremacy or Christian Nationalism. They are full of hate, violence and self righteousness it makes their claim to be representa tives of Christ completely untenable.

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Anne Dempsey's avatar

I receive their emails regularly. Good information and a ray of sanity.

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Pat Cole's avatar

Jeeze. I am proudly Cretin avoiding the 300 million Christian takeoffs which sprout like mushrooms in dark places eating you know what and professing to do everyone else in. Whew, you have no idea what it’s like to have such a rare god-type. Very little god but lots of type. Type, type …

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Peter Burnett's avatar

I wrote a long, detailed response to Dave Dalton's demand (scroll down to see it) that these people be called out for blasphemy. Typically, it vanished at the very moment when I was about to post it.

That said, most readers here are well able to think for themselves and, if you come to think about it, blasphemy will become understandable even to atheists as the endemic disease not only of the monotheist religions but of all who believe in the existence of One Truth.

Prime symptom: when the belief in "One Truth" skids into a belief that "I possess it". Even Stalin suffered from this...

*

Our old Nobodaddy Joe

watches us from down below.

At the seminary, he

grew jealous of the Deity;

plotted there to take His place,

liquidate the human race,

leaving only Party cadres,

indispensable cadavers

and of course His Privates, We.

*

Sorry, that's a distraction. But now... I wonder whether most of us don't fall into this trap at some time or another, for any and every belief or belief system is bound to entail pitfalls of delusion. Even what we take for axioms contain pitfalls... every time we think we know and understand something that we do not know.

And many things are quite beyond the confines of strait, infinitely narrow linear minds.

I suggest that it may be well worth thinking about delusion and what religious leaders call “blasphemy”... while liking to imagine that it is practiced only by others...

Nor dare we forget for one moment that everywhere, everywhere, on TV screens, at pulpits and at church doors, tricksters and misguiders stand or lie in wait for the unwary believer... As though we needed any added misguiding! As though we didn’t come into this world more than adequately equipped for getting everything wrong…

We need to wake up now and stay awake to how everything from concepts to lenses and telescreens conditions consciousness and distorts our view, especially when we take what we gain from such mediation for anything more than very relative realities. Yet our whole world constantly confuses images with the reality they depict, and scientific theories and models with what is.

Maybe that is what the biblical commandment against setting up graven images is really about—at least in our times—the cult of illusions.

Safety must surely call for a skeptical examination of all beliefs. Rational faith needs no fancy dress...

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Marj's avatar

I am Jewish and I am more Christian than these folks.

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chc55555's avatar

Heck, I’m agnostic/atheist and I’M more Christian than they are.

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Ron Bravenec's avatar

Same here!

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Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

This pagan feminist was thinking along the same lines!

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Michele's avatar

I was thinking this as well. I know lots of people who do not ID with any religion and yet they are the most decent people I know in addition to the one Christian who is the most grounded and practices what Jesus actually taught. We were joking with my LMT on Wednesday about the afterlife and we all agreed that we would be nowhere near any of these so-called Christians. He is taking his massage table!

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Pat Cole's avatar

Pagan feminists make really good Cretins. All gods or no gods accepted as need arises. We have only one commandment. You get to be who you are.

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Michele's avatar

Cretins????

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Pat Cole's avatar

Yes. Not to be confused with similarly spelled cretons cretans or cretens. Cretinism came to us one wintry day in St. Stephens, Wyoming when we were excommunicated from our normal Catholicism. According to mom we had been Catholic since before Mary Queen of Scots. I had almost convinced her that we were really closet Jews from Crete but she held fast to her Catholic upbringing. After being nearly beaten to death by her alcoholic husband (my sperm donor, as I was not quite born yet) she divorced. Twelve years later the Catholic police caught up and alas I had to give up my alter boy vestments. I patiently explained that we should take up Cretinism as it started with a C, too. Being the bastard child, my siblings with every conceivable opportunity introduced me as that red haired bastard child and the ensuing wars convinced mom to start calling us a bunch of cretins. We later moved and mom went back to being a good Catholic, but for my part I felt most comfortable staying a Cretin. At least I didn’t have to sneak into church. I hope this explains things well enough, but if not it’s one of those faith deals. Trust me.

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Michele's avatar

Thank you, Pat, for posting this. Yes, it does explain things. I wasn't sure what the reference was. Love the idea of being a closet Jew from Crete. My own father was ranting away one time about Jews when his sister informed him that there was a rumor that some ancestor was part Jewish and he shut up. I am not sure where she got this, as I have the family tree way back and I don't see any Jews. But she did end the rant. As for Catholics, I was raised in a good Protestant household and heard all sorts of nonsense about Catholics. I also taught in a Catholic boys' school run by Irish priests while a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone. My husband and I were married in Sierra Leone by our principals (both Catholic priests) in Freetown by special permission by the bishop of Sierra Leone (also Irish) as we were not Catholic. I am sorry you had to endure what you did growing up, but I love that you seem to have a sense of humor about it.

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Chuck Lavazzi's avatar

Atheists are more Christian than the radical Christianists.

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Diana King's avatar

It’s very weird that “Christian” is held as the paradigm for kindness and good deeds when it has probably been responsible for more death, destruction, humiliation, torture, suppression, repression etc … than atheists or agnostics and many other religions put together.

Christianity, and any other mystical being belief, is basically an esoteric way for humans to justify shit and selfish behaviour, to blame that entity and absolve self responsibility.

Let’s face it - we all know what makes a safe and caring community - and that’s to respect others as you hope to be respected. Simple

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Alexander Moss (VA)'s avatar

Thanks. Peter. This was going to be my reply as well. The true Christians I know wouldn't have anything to do with of this. In fact, this type activity is exactly what turned my father against the Republican Party, and made him vote Democratic TWICE before he passed away. These people are about as far away from being "Christian" as I can imagine.

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chc55555's avatar

My dad did the same thing.

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Frank Mitchell's avatar

Yes, please do not call these people anything but CINO (Christian in Name Only). Their evangelism is about power, white supremacy, and control of other persons' thoughts and speech. It has nothing to do with "This I command you, that you love one another". The name of Christ is used by them as a get out of hell free card.

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Peter Burnett's avatar

Spreading the Bad News, making hell, spreading their hell -- poor wretches, poor us, even the thought of such sick minds is nauseous. It hurts to think of them.

But if nothing can be done to free them of their hate, let us at least protect ourselves from joining them in their cesspool.

Loving one's enemies could hardly be more heroic, when one sees what they do.

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Ron Bravenec's avatar

I like the term CHINO. 😉

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Barbara D. Reed's avatar

Christian Heretics In Name Only?

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Mary_Lou Troy's avatar

I've been thinking about this a lot. As someone who does not identify as Christian but who admires those who put their Christian beliefs to work for good, it seems to me that those who hold Christian beliefs are in danger of losing their religious identification to the white supremacist power hungry evangelism. Does the humble nature of those beliefs preclude them from calling out those who would subvert those beliefs?

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Dave Dalton's avatar

No, it does NOT

Call them out for their blasphemy

Correct them every time by identifying them as “The Extremist Evangelical Right Wing Radicals”

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Frank Mitchell's avatar

No, but frequently in history we see wars between believers who each believe that their set of beliefs is correct, and now we see people who give up going to church because there is too high a noise to signal ratio. Those conflicts that lead to war are often justified by the story of Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple, but He got riled up because the money changers were shortchanging those people who came with their own currency but had to trade it for the official Temple currency as offerings could only be made in the correct currency. (I heard that in a Methodist sermon, so it must be correct, right?)

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Susan Troy's avatar

OMG. He got riled up but he certainly didn't come in with a weapon of mass destruction. That was then and this is now. We have got to do better and I would posit that the right wing are the money changers who now need to be ushered out.

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Susan Troy's avatar

There is a group called Faithful America that I learned about in one of these comment sections. It is an ecumenical group dedicated to calling out White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism for the unchristian groups they clearly are. They held a sunrise vigil in front of the White House on January 6. I listened to it and was really heartened. The press didn't pick it up they way it does the rest of the right wing junk and I wish they had. It's important for all of us to know that the right wing bullies don't own Christianity even if they think they do. It's equally important to know there are viable and vibrant alternatives that are doing good work.

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Sally Jenks Roth (VT)'s avatar

Jesus loved and helped the poor, not so these excuses for human beings...

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William Moore's avatar

awesome, I love a great new Acronym!

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William Burke's avatar

Triggering on Jim Jones anyone? 

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Mike S's avatar

Peter,

I think there might be a difference between an American "Christian" and a "Follower of Christ's messages". Correct?

Because, one can define a "Christian" from, say, the Pulpit as: Republican, Fascist, Anti-Semitic, Violent, Anti-Democracy, etc. Correct? In the Baptist Church there is no barrier at all to defining a Christian in this way.

So, I have to side with Dr. Richardson on this one.

She did properly capture a VERY large number of people who refer to themselves as "Christian".

Note, those same people DO NOT refer to Christ's messages often or at all.

There is a difference. Christians can follow "Satan".

Followers of Christ bestow love and forgiveness and show acceptance (of all comers).

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Craig Gjerde's avatar

Who are the ultrarich who “$upport” all these Republicans in order to have less regulatory oversight and make more money? They are the people who endanger our government.

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Mike S's avatar

Yes.

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Michele's avatar

I wonder how many of them have actually read the first three Gospels and what Jesus asked of his followers. I do love the book What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills.

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Mike S's avatar

Not many.

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Craig Gjerde's avatar

Or just Matthew 25.

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Michele's avatar

Yes.

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Bongo-1, VT's avatar

Christians- my ass!

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Satchuralman's avatar

Absolutely 💯 % correct. These selfish bozos are fervently unchristian.

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Chuck Lavazzi's avatar

They are fervently Christian in exactly the same way Al Qaeda are fervently Islamic. They are a authoritarian organization using their religion as protective cover for a purely secular agenda that is not hesitant to use violence and terrorism in achieving their ends.

While, of course, simultaneously claiming that they are the "real victims."

Anybody want to guess what political party did that in Germany in the 1930s?

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George T's avatar

Christian Nationalists and White Christian Extremists, are behind everything the QOP and tfg says and does. They are also behind the dehumanizing of Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Asians, and LGBTQ people. In reality they are behind the dehumanizing of anyone they see as not a White Christian. The silence of Republicans is because they are, and support, Christian Extremists.

“If you’re not against us you’re for us”

—-

The following article is very much worth reading!

—-

How the Christian right helped foment insurrection

Christian-right activists inside and outside of government promoted the election fraud lie and claimed God told them to “let the church roar.”

https://revealnews.org/article/how-the-christian-right-helped-foment-insurrection/

Here are a few excerpts:

——

“Christian-right activists inside and outside of government promoted the election fraud lie and claimed God told them to “let the church roar.”

—-

“Florida televangelist Paula White…..White called the election results into question, asking God to let the people “have the assurance of a fair and a just election.” Flanked by a row of American flags, White implored God to “let every adversary against democracy, against freedom, against life, against liberty, against justice, against peace, against righteousness be overturned right now in the name of Jesus.” “

——

After breaching the Senate chamber.

“In video captured by The New Yorker, men ransacked the room, rifling through senators’ binders and papers, searching for evidence of what they claimed was treason. Then, standing on the rostrum where the president of the Senate presides, the group paused to pray “in Christ’s holy name.”

“Men raised their arms in the air as millions of evangelical and charismatic parishioners do every Sunday and thanked God for allowing them “to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs.” They thanked God “for allowing the United States of America to be reborn.”

(This starts at the 7:57 minute mark in the video)

https://www.newyorker.com/news/video-dept/a-reporters-footage-from-inside-the-capitol-siege

——

“Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracist radio host and Trump booster, electrified the Jericho Marchers with his invocation of the Book of Revelation, thought to prophesy Christ’s return. “Christ’s crucifixion was not our defeat, it was our greatest victory,” he shouted. “The state has no jurisdiction over any of us. Our relationship with God is sacred and is eternal.” He vowed that Biden “will be removed, one way or another.”

——

“…two federal workers, Arina Grossu – who had previously worked for the Christian-right advocacy group Family Research Council – and Rob Weaver, formed a new Christian right group, the Jericho March. The new group’s goal, according to a news release announcing its launch, was to “prayerfully protest and call on government officials to cast light on voter fraud, corruption, and suppression of the will of the American people in this election.” In fact, the Jericho March would help lay the groundwork for the insurrection.”

—-

“…..the dehumanization of Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Asians, and LGBTQ people that animates discrimination against each of those groups. That dehumanization is part of the playbook of the GOP’s politics of division and hate.”

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Cathy Gellert's avatar

What would Jesus do? He was full of benevolent love and forgiveness and His arms were opened wide to everyone, without judgement. These people are NOT Christians. They’re hateful liars, bigots and call for violence. They’re doing the devils work.

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Susan Troy's avatar

I just got my tee shirt from Northern Sun that reads, "Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel looses its lunch." I think we should just expand that to MAGA period.

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