I'm horrified to say, yes, with... yes, really!... country singer Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" song lyrics along with all the secular documents added in.
I'm horrified to say, yes, with... yes, really!... country singer Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" song lyrics along with all the secular documents added in.
Thanks for that @Gramps49. The media here picked up on the Trump Bible's existence. Because of the exchange rate Kiwis would have to pay NZ$100.
...and that leads me onto another depressing thought: [speculation follows] are sales of this tacky/blasphemous crud simply a way of laundering foreign money into Trump's legal funds? It's a lot harder to trace 100 000 overseas sales of the Bible a la Trump than it is US$ 6M turning up in a bank account, and if it's laundered through a US front it probably doesn't technically count as a foreign donation.
Thanks for that @Gramps49. The media here picked up on the Trump Bible's existence. Because of the exchange rate Kiwis would have to pay NZ$100.
...and that leads me onto another depressing thought: [speculation follows] are sales of this tacky/blasphemous crud simply a way of laundering foreign money into Trump's legal funds? It's a lot harder to trace 100 000 overseas sales of the Bible a la Trump than it is US$ 6M turning up in a bank account, and if it's laundered through a US front it probably doesn't technically count as a foreign donation.
I have a hard time imagining many folks outside the US wanting this "collector's item" unless it is to be a reminder to share with the grandkids of what happens to the kind of country that does this sort of thing.
Presumably some nefarious person wanting to support Trump, but unable to make a straight donation legally, could order a few thousand Bibles. Would the Bibles themselves even need to be shipped? All that would be necessary would be a paper trail of order and receipt.
Did a little thinking and digging.
Thinking lead to remembering that Jamar Tisby had recently mentioned that this publishing project has been around for a few years and has ended up using thr KJV text because authors like Tisby protested to Zondervan, when the GBtUSA bible publishers wanted to get rights from Z'van to use the NIV text. https://jemartisby.substack.com/p/three-years-ago-we-stopped-harper
If the king of grift (Trump) had been involved then, we probably would have known it.
Presumably some nefarious person wanting to support Trump, but unable to make a straight donation legally, could order a few thousand Bibles. Would the Bibles themselves even need to be shipped? All that would be necessary would be a paper trail of order and receipt.
I think Trump has been known to do this. See here.
Yesterday, Trump announced even though Biden goes to church regularly, he, Trump, was the only Christian nominee. He called for Nov 5, election day, to be Christian Awareness day. He wants all Christians to come out and vote for him. Where is a vomit emoji when it is needed?
@Kendel, don't worry I am in no danger of buying one, even if I set fire to a hundred dollar note it would be better than buying one - though I'd rather give it to a reputable charity. God knows the need is out there and life is getting harder for many people.
I really don't understand why Trump appeals to very conservative Christians, but then I don't really understand very conservative Christians either.
As an aside, I've been wondering what ChastMastr has done to be mistaken for a Brit.
It can't be his choice of name ...
.
Dunno. I saw his "I'm back" post a while back and thought I had the impression he was .......
Well, I see I was wrong.
@ChastMastr's choice of name.....
eludes me. As much does.
Let us return to our previously scheduled discussion.......
Hello! Good to meet you. I don’t think I’m in particularly great physical shape and my emotional stress levels have been… All over the place unfortunately. As for my screen name here, it means “Chaste Master,” but when I created it very long ago, AOL only allowed 10 characters in the name. And for a long time now, I haven’t really been in master mode anyway, but it’s been my screen name for… Well, since the late 1990s… So ChastMastr without the Es is my name basically everywhere.
Yesterday, Trump announced even though Biden goes to church regularly, he, Trump, was the only Christian nominee. He called for Nov 5, election day, to be Christian Awareness day. He wants all Christians to come out and vote for him. Where is a vomit emoji when it is needed?
Oh for God’s sake. He really has no limit, does he?
Even if someone seemed to be in tune with my political and moral beliefs but was known to be economical with the truth I wouldn't vote for them.
But a lot of people would. If the choice was between a lying scumbag who was likely to make choices you'd broadly support, or an upright honest person who you know with absolute certainty will make choices that you hate, many people will choose the scumbag.
Even if someone seemed to be in tune with my political and moral beliefs but was known to be economical with the truth I wouldn't vote for them.
But a lot of people would. If the choice was between a lying scumbag who was likely to make choices you'd broadly support, or an upright honest person who you know with absolute certainty will make choices that you hate, many people will choose the scumbag.
@Leorning Cniht and @Huia the moral issues are varnish as well as a tie bar.. Trump offers evangelicals specific things they think are righteous accomplishments and that he doesn't care about (end abortion, regulate private sexual behavior, enforce "biblical marriage" concepts, etc.). Some people want to excuse his evils by calling him a Cyrus - an evil pagan leader, who is used by God to bring about God's purposes - which of course is what this type of evangelical believes they want, too. Trump's price for these favors is, of course, political support.
That's the varnish layer.
This varnish covers the real gears and levers. Fear of loss pf political and social power. Demographics are changing quickly in the US, and many white evangelicals are terrified over the possibility of losing some power to others, who might want different things. Of course the varnish issues are part of it, but the real matter is power and control, as well as preventing "others" from using power and control to further "their agendas", which might include further reductions of P&C by directing public wealth to other (Christian, moral) goals like helping the poor, dealing with systemic -isms, a better functioning justice systemn, real and humane progress on handling immigration, etc. but that would "redistribute wealth" that has been being distributed to those who have it already for a long, long time.
I wonder what the situation would be, if the energy and money spent on anti abortion goals had been being spent on entirely reworking the foster "care" and juvenile "justice" system for the last 50 years. Something any christian should be able to support.
But a lot of people would. If the choice was between a lying scumbag who was likely to make choices you'd broadly support, or an upright honest person who you know with absolute certainty will make choices that you hate, many people will choose the scumbag.
I have mixed feelings about this. If there was someone who would, with all the uprightness and honesty in the world, but with horrifically wrong notions of how the world should work, make the US into Gideon from The Handmaid's Tale, and someone else who lies all the time, and is really looking out for themselves, but who definitely wouldn't turn the US into a fascist dictatorship--and of course here in the US we're really stuck with choosing between two options when the actual election happens--I think I'd pick the lying jerk over the definitely-going-to-make-things-horrific person. Often/usually these people are the same--I think a lot of people who are all for Christian Nationalism are usually manipulative and toxic as well as having a ghastly ideology--but in the case of picking between someone who will definitely do lots of harm (even if, in their minds, well-meaning ("Putting you in this re-education camp is for your own good--you'll thank us one day," etc.) and someone who will do less harm, I would have to pick the less harmful one.
I just finished the book The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory by Tim Alberta. This is a book by an Evangelical reporter about how the American Evangelical Movement has gone off the rails/
Basically, he says it was a set of bad actors taking advantage of a set of bias American Evangelicals have and running away with it. The bias include when does life begin, government interference with religion and the antivaccination movement.
Did you know the Southern Baptist Convention originally took a neutral stance on abortion, saying it was up to the woman in consultation with her doctor, her family and her pastor to decide what to do? Then Jerry Falwell Sr. got involved and moved the Convention to a strong pro life stance.
A number of Evangelicals got very upset when local governments ordered no public gatherings in the initial stages of the pandemic. Pastors that wanted to close churches suddenly found their people rebelling.
Evangelicals feared the new vaccines were the government's way of injecting the Mark of the Beast into people.
And then there was Trump. Basically, Evangelicals voted for him in spite of his personality because they thought he was the only way they could regain power.
The book also spends quite a bit of time on the Falwell family and Liberty University.
The downside of the book was Alberta's emphasis on the Evangelical movement as the only true church. He gives limite lip service to mainline churches.
I would say if you really want to get an idea of how the Evangelicals became a nationalist movement, this is a book to read.
Please note, I am only talking about the American Evangelical movement, bur Alberta does say it spilled over into Canada some.
I just finished the book The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory by Tim Alberta. This is a book by an Evangelical reporter about how the American Evangelical Movement has gone off the rails/
Basically, he says it was a set of bad actors taking advantage of a set of bias American Evangelicals have and running away with it. The bias include when does life begin, government interference with religion and the antivaccination movement.
Did you know the Southern Baptist Convention originally took a neutral stance on abortion, saying it was up to the woman in consultation with her doctor, her family and her pastor to decide what to do? Then Jerry Falwell Sr. got involved and moved the Convention to a strong pro life stance.
A number of Evangelicals got very upset when local governments ordered no public gatherings in the initial stages of the pandemic. Pastors that wanted to close churches suddenly found their people rebelling.
Evangelicals feared the new vaccines were the government's way of injecting the Mark of the Beast into people.
And then there was Trump. Basically, Evangelicals voted for him in spite of his personality because they thought he was the only way they could regain power.
The book also spends quite a bit of time on the Falwell family and Liberty University.
The downside of the book was Alberta's emphasis on the Evangelical movement as the only true church. He gives limite lip service to mainline churches.
I would say if you really want to get an idea of how the Evangelicals became a nationalist movement, this is a book to read.
Please note, I am only talking about the American Evangelical movement, bur Alberta does say it spilled over into Canada some.
I’ve heard about a lot of this stuff (and I think Tim Alberta has been on the show) on the Holy Post podcast.
These tendencies are showing up elsewhere now. Plenty of 'culture wars' warriors and anti-vaxxers coming into Orthodoxy in the US. It may be the same in Roman Catholicism too.
I just finished the book The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory by Tim Alberta. This is a book by an Evangelical reporter about how the American Evangelical Movement has gone off the rails/
Basically, he says it was a set of bad actors taking advantage of a set of bias American Evangelicals have and running away with it. The bias include when does life begin, government interference with religion and the antivaccination movement.
Did you know the Southern Baptist Convention originally took a neutral stance on abortion, saying it was up to the woman in consultation with her doctor, her family and her pastor to decide what to do? Then Jerry Falwell Sr. got involved and moved the Convention to a strong pro life stance.
A number of Evangelicals got very upset when local governments ordered no public gatherings in the initial stages of the pandemic. Pastors that wanted to close churches suddenly found their people rebelling.
Evangelicals feared the new vaccines were the government's way of injecting the Mark of the Beast into people.
And then there was Trump. Basically, Evangelicals voted for him in spite of his personality because they thought he was the only way they could regain power.
The book also spends quite a bit of time on the Falwell family and Liberty University.
The downside of the book was Alberta's emphasis on the Evangelical movement as the only true church. He gives limite lip service to mainline churches.
I would say if you really want to get an idea of how the Evangelicals became a nationalist movement, this is a book to read.
Please note, I am only talking about the American Evangelical movement, bur Alberta does say it spilled over into Canada some.
I’ve heard about a lot of this stuff (and I think Tim Alberta has been on the show) on the Holy Post podcast.
I wonder what will happen when personalized RNA based anti-cancer vaccines really start to kick in?
@Martin54 I think we can predict based on how white evangelicals here (of which I am one), have handled other "objectionable" health care options.
Besides abortion, we can look at the variety of responses to stem cell therapies, any vaccination you name, the resurrection of "traditional medicines" (depending on what people believe about the cultural sources of those "medicines"), growing refusal of birth control among couples, and the like. There have been huge cultural shifts within evangelical church cultures within my adult lifetime. Really. Enormous.
So, there is cultural support (pressure) within many churches, and those supports/pressures vary within churches as well.
There will not be a monolithic response, when personalized RNA cancer vaccines are more widely available. But I think the responses can be predicted now by looking at the various layers of "philosophies" and responses to (and "excuses" for using) other therapies.
I wonder what will happen when personalized RNA based anti-cancer vaccines really start to kick in?
@Martin54 I think we can predict based on how white evangelicals here (of which I am one), have handled other "objectionable" health care options.
Besides abortion, we can look at the variety of responses to stem cell therapies, any vaccination you name, the resurrection of "traditional medicines" (depending on what people believe about the cultural sources of those "medicines"), growing refusal of birth control among couples, and the like. There have been huge cultural shifts within evangelical church cultures within my adult lifetime. Really. Enormous.
So, there is cultural support (pressure) within many churches, and those supports/pressures vary within churches as well.
There will not be a monolithic response, when personalized RNA cancer vaccines are more widely available. But I think the responses can be predicted now by looking at the various layers of "philosophies" and responses to (and "excuses" for using) other therapies.
You, or more importantly your loved ones, your children, can die bad, in 'faith', or be healed infidels. We'll see.
Trump must have had mRNA Covid and anti-viral treatment.
Oh, some of us just don't fit in very well anywhere at all. Too much critical thinking to fit into evangelical culture, and too much faith to be infidels.
There are conversations I have given up trying to have with people from church, many of whom are relatives. When my niece contacted me about her desire to get required COVID vaccinations that her parents had written a theologically-objectionable "religious exemption" letter to prevent, I supported my niece, while trying to provide her resources for talking with her parents. Fortunately, she was 18 and her parents didn't question her right to get the vaccinations.
I have done and would do the same kind of thing again and more, and certainly for my own children.
Our school district does not provide adequate sex ed, so I do it myself, including going over the use of condoms and spermacide, and how to get birth control, as well as what options are available. Because I love my daughters.
Of course, my girls have their HPV vaccines. There are many ways they could acquire it and die from it or pass it on. I have loved ones who don't allow their daughters to get it, because "they will be virgins when they get married, as will their husbands be."
My husband and I talk openly about reproductive choices we have made and the ethical questions that informed them. Because our girls are critical thinkers and we love them.
We will all die one way or another. It's important to me not to make that process worse for me or my loved ones, because I have chosen nonsense and politics to inform my health decisions.
I take it that where you are, @Kendel there's pretty much a polarised and stark choice between an evangelical sub-culture on the one hand and outright unbelief on the other. Would that be an accurate summary?
I know the religious landscape is changing in the USA, even in the Bible Belt, but I was always led to believe that there a wide range of options available, other than, perhaps in the deep Deep South or the middest mid Midwest.
I take it that where you are, @Kendel there's pretty much a polarised and stark choice between an evangelical sub-culture on the one hand and outright unbelief on the other. Would that be an accurate summary?
@Gamma Gamaliel I know some people who just might characterize the situation as you did -- Us v. The Infidels. But no, what you describe is not the norm.
As a Christian, I don't range far theologically myself. But there is a fairly broad variety of Christian and other religious expression in Michigan.
It's becoming harder and harder to see through the political and politicized stuff, particularly in evangelical (I hate that term) churches because so many people think everything is tied to their faith anymore and is therefore a hill to die on. Life in the local church can be discouraging for those who don't see political issues that way. Or vaccinations, or sex ed, health care, or.... as I expressed to @Martin54 two slides up from this one.
One thing Alberta has noted is how fast Americans have indicated they are no longer religious. He lays it at the feet of the white evangelical nationalists, As they have become more strident, those that identify as nons have increased.
I think that is certainly a factor @Gramps49. But I think more is going on as well. Corset-tightening groups like the Council on "Biblical" Manhood and Womanhood make it harder and harder for women of all kinds to see a place for themselves. The outrageous examples of toxic masculinity don't help. Insistence on 19th century morality and science are an absolute turn off to thinking people.
But I think there is a huge shedding of people whose parents and grandparents became part of churches during the WWI to WWII era. Churches offered stability and hope at times when there was enormous fear. People whose families were part of churches primarily for those reasons don't have much reason to stay, when things are going pretty well here.
I don't think that one single factor explains it all. But there certainly are some major ones.
I think high church attendance continued up to the early 70s. That would have been during the era of mutually assured destruction, otherwise known as the cold war. Things started to soften as we went into Vietnam. About the time of the Jesus Movement people, attendance started going down.
I note many Christian Nationalists use fear as their motivator. Just this past week, a commentator in a local paper was harping on how we need to go back to Christian values. I responded people said that on both sides of the civil war (God is on our side); when women fought for national suffrage, (women should keep silent) and when the Supreme Court allowed for equal marriage (Adam and Eve, not Sam and Steve). What this country really needs is justice for all. Now that is a value that should be shared among people of faith and secular humanists, I would think.
What this country really needs is justice for all. Now that is a value that should be shared among people of faith and secular humanists, I would think.
The CNs I've been encountering online claim that "justice" (and "love") means something different in the Bible to what it means in everyday use. Which seems awfully convenient.
The CNs I've been encountering online claim that "justice" (and "love") means something different in the Bible to what it means in everyday use. Which seems awfully convenient.
That line of argument has been used often enough on this vessel as well.
What happens when the story of Good Samaritan is brought forward. The Jews hated the Samaritans but it was the Samaritan that showed love. How can they say that that is not the usual kind of love. I know we have pond differences but that should surely be obvious.
What happens when the story of Good Samaritan is brought forward. The Jews hated the Samaritans but it was the Samaritan that showed love. How can they say that that is not the usual kind of love. I know we have pond differences but that should surely be obvious.
Yes. It should.
I rock boats, when I mention this in addition to references to Galatians 6:10 ("So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith".).
What happens when the story of Good Samaritan is brought forward. The Jews hated the Samaritans but it was the Samaritan that showed love. How can they say that that is not the usual kind of love. I know we have pond differences but that should surely be obvious.
Yes. It should.
I rock boats, when I mention this in addition to references to Galatians 6:10 ("So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith".).
Then they tell you that the truly good thing is to denounce someone's sin and warn them about Hell.
Comments
But you are right about sophistication. Painful discussion at the Mexican restaurant with a loved family member yesterday was a very good reminder.
I don't think anything can be done.
Cold comfort, I'm sure, but I have never heard of the Washington Times before this morning.
I'm horrified to say, yes, with... yes, really!... country singer Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" song lyrics along with all the secular documents added in.
A nice accompaniment to the Epoch Times.
It's nearly unbearable, isn't it? Aesthetically, theologically, politically.....
Sigh. This is my country.
Which I'm seeing billboards for all over the place here in Tampa Bay, Florida, now. Ugh. Of course, during an election year.
We shall overcome.
Are you visiting, or a resident? I took you for a Brit.
...and that leads me onto another depressing thought: [speculation follows] are sales of this tacky/blasphemous crud simply a way of laundering foreign money into Trump's legal funds? It's a lot harder to trace 100 000 overseas sales of the Bible a la Trump than it is US$ 6M turning up in a bank account, and if it's laundered through a US front it probably doesn't technically count as a foreign donation.
I have a hard time imagining many folks outside the US wanting this "collector's item" unless it is to be a reminder to share with the grandkids of what happens to the kind of country that does this sort of thing.
Thinking lead to remembering that Jamar Tisby had recently mentioned that this publishing project has been around for a few years and has ended up using thr KJV text because authors like Tisby protested to Zondervan, when the GBtUSA bible publishers wanted to get rights from Z'van to use the NIV text.
https://jemartisby.substack.com/p/three-years-ago-we-stopped-harper
If the king of grift (Trump) had been involved then, we probably would have known it.
It seems that Trump's financial benefits from this escapade come from being paid for his endorsdment and image, per NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1241186975/donald-trump-bible-god-bless-usa
I don't know how much he gets from this deal or if it's connected to the numbers of sales.
My take is that this is the perfect convergence of grift, idolatry and political fervor,
I think Trump has been known to do this. See here.
Oh! I was born and raised in Florida, actually...
It can't be his choice of name ...
Back to the plot. There's a meme on a certain social media platform which says that a Bible signed by the Anti-Christ must be a collectors item.
Hey!
Florida. You must have a strong constitution. Physical constitution, I mean. Psychical as well.
Good to meet you, @ChastMastr
Dunno. I saw his "I'm back" post a while back and thought I had the impression he was .......
Well, I see I was wrong.
@ChastMastr's choice of name.....
eludes me. As much does.
Let us return to our previously scheduled discussion.......
@Kendel, don't worry I am in no danger of buying one, even if I set fire to a hundred dollar note it would be better than buying one - though I'd rather give it to a reputable charity. God knows the need is out there and life is getting harder for many people.
I really don't understand why Trump appeals to very conservative Christians, but then I don't really understand very conservative Christians either.
He offers power to a wealthy, powerful demographic who is afraid of losing power.
Hello! Good to meet you. I don’t think I’m in particularly great physical shape and my emotional stress levels have been… All over the place unfortunately. As for my screen name here, it means “Chaste Master,” but when I created it very long ago, AOL only allowed 10 characters in the name. And for a long time now, I haven’t really been in master mode anyway, but it’s been my screen name for… Well, since the late 1990s… So ChastMastr without the Es is my name basically everywhere.
Oh for God’s sake. He really has no limit, does he?
Even if someone seemed to be in tune with my political and moral beliefs but was known to be economical with the truth I wouldn't vote for them.
But a lot of people would. If the choice was between a lying scumbag who was likely to make choices you'd broadly support, or an upright honest person who you know with absolute certainty will make choices that you hate, many people will choose the scumbag.
@ChastMastr , Nope. He'll go as low as we let him. He hasn't shown us rock bottom yet, because he just hasn't had time.
@Leorning Cniht and @Huia the moral issues are varnish as well as a tie bar.. Trump offers evangelicals specific things they think are righteous accomplishments and that he doesn't care about (end abortion, regulate private sexual behavior, enforce "biblical marriage" concepts, etc.). Some people want to excuse his evils by calling him a Cyrus - an evil pagan leader, who is used by God to bring about God's purposes - which of course is what this type of evangelical believes they want, too. Trump's price for these favors is, of course, political support.
That's the varnish layer.
This varnish covers the real gears and levers. Fear of loss pf political and social power. Demographics are changing quickly in the US, and many white evangelicals are terrified over the possibility of losing some power to others, who might want different things. Of course the varnish issues are part of it, but the real matter is power and control, as well as preventing "others" from using power and control to further "their agendas", which might include further reductions of P&C by directing public wealth to other (Christian, moral) goals like helping the poor, dealing with systemic -isms, a better functioning justice systemn, real and humane progress on handling immigration, etc. but that would "redistribute wealth" that has been being distributed to those who have it already for a long, long time.
I wonder what the situation would be, if the energy and money spent on anti abortion goals had been being spent on entirely reworking the foster "care" and juvenile "justice" system for the last 50 years. Something any christian should be able to support.
I have mixed feelings about this. If there was someone who would, with all the uprightness and honesty in the world, but with horrifically wrong notions of how the world should work, make the US into Gideon from The Handmaid's Tale, and someone else who lies all the time, and is really looking out for themselves, but who definitely wouldn't turn the US into a fascist dictatorship--and of course here in the US we're really stuck with choosing between two options when the actual election happens--I think I'd pick the lying jerk over the definitely-going-to-make-things-horrific person. Often/usually these people are the same--I think a lot of people who are all for Christian Nationalism are usually manipulative and toxic as well as having a ghastly ideology--but in the case of picking between someone who will definitely do lots of harm (even if, in their minds, well-meaning ("Putting you in this re-education camp is for your own good--you'll thank us one day," etc.) and someone who will do less harm, I would have to pick the less harmful one.
Thanks but I don’t want to think about the word bottom and Donald Trump. Brain bleach available
Basically, he says it was a set of bad actors taking advantage of a set of bias American Evangelicals have and running away with it. The bias include when does life begin, government interference with religion and the antivaccination movement.
Did you know the Southern Baptist Convention originally took a neutral stance on abortion, saying it was up to the woman in consultation with her doctor, her family and her pastor to decide what to do? Then Jerry Falwell Sr. got involved and moved the Convention to a strong pro life stance.
A number of Evangelicals got very upset when local governments ordered no public gatherings in the initial stages of the pandemic. Pastors that wanted to close churches suddenly found their people rebelling.
Evangelicals feared the new vaccines were the government's way of injecting the Mark of the Beast into people.
And then there was Trump. Basically, Evangelicals voted for him in spite of his personality because they thought he was the only way they could regain power.
The book also spends quite a bit of time on the Falwell family and Liberty University.
The downside of the book was Alberta's emphasis on the Evangelical movement as the only true church. He gives limite lip service to mainline churches.
I would say if you really want to get an idea of how the Evangelicals became a nationalist movement, this is a book to read.
Please note, I am only talking about the American Evangelical movement, bur Alberta does say it spilled over into Canada some.
I’ve heard about a lot of this stuff (and I think Tim Alberta has been on the show) on the Holy Post podcast.
Audio:
https://www.holypost.com/post/594-how-fear-greed-corrupted-american-evangelicalism-with-tim-alberta
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKrOlqlqsTQ
Besides abortion, we can look at the variety of responses to stem cell therapies, any vaccination you name, the resurrection of "traditional medicines" (depending on what people believe about the cultural sources of those "medicines"), growing refusal of birth control among couples, and the like. There have been huge cultural shifts within evangelical church cultures within my adult lifetime. Really. Enormous.
So, there is cultural support (pressure) within many churches, and those supports/pressures vary within churches as well.
There will not be a monolithic response, when personalized RNA cancer vaccines are more widely available. But I think the responses can be predicted now by looking at the various layers of "philosophies" and responses to (and "excuses" for using) other therapies.
You, or more importantly your loved ones, your children, can die bad, in 'faith', or be healed infidels. We'll see.
Trump must have had mRNA Covid and anti-viral treatment.
There are conversations I have given up trying to have with people from church, many of whom are relatives. When my niece contacted me about her desire to get required COVID vaccinations that her parents had written a theologically-objectionable "religious exemption" letter to prevent, I supported my niece, while trying to provide her resources for talking with her parents. Fortunately, she was 18 and her parents didn't question her right to get the vaccinations.
I have done and would do the same kind of thing again and more, and certainly for my own children.
Our school district does not provide adequate sex ed, so I do it myself, including going over the use of condoms and spermacide, and how to get birth control, as well as what options are available. Because I love my daughters.
Of course, my girls have their HPV vaccines. There are many ways they could acquire it and die from it or pass it on. I have loved ones who don't allow their daughters to get it, because "they will be virgins when they get married, as will their husbands be."
My husband and I talk openly about reproductive choices we have made and the ethical questions that informed them. Because our girls are critical thinkers and we love them.
We will all die one way or another. It's important to me not to make that process worse for me or my loved ones, because I have chosen nonsense and politics to inform my health decisions.
I know the religious landscape is changing in the USA, even in the Bible Belt, but I was always led to believe that there a wide range of options available, other than, perhaps in the deep Deep South or the middest mid Midwest.
@Gamma Gamaliel I know some people who just might characterize the situation as you did -- Us v. The Infidels. But no, what you describe is not the norm.
As a Christian, I don't range far theologically myself. But there is a fairly broad variety of Christian and other religious expression in Michigan.
It's becoming harder and harder to see through the political and politicized stuff, particularly in evangelical (I hate that term) churches because so many people think everything is tied to their faith anymore and is therefore a hill to die on. Life in the local church can be discouraging for those who don't see political issues that way. Or vaccinations, or sex ed, health care, or.... as I expressed to @Martin54 two slides up from this one.
But I think there is a huge shedding of people whose parents and grandparents became part of churches during the WWI to WWII era. Churches offered stability and hope at times when there was enormous fear. People whose families were part of churches primarily for those reasons don't have much reason to stay, when things are going pretty well here.
I don't think that one single factor explains it all. But there certainly are some major ones.
I note many Christian Nationalists use fear as their motivator. Just this past week, a commentator in a local paper was harping on how we need to go back to Christian values. I responded people said that on both sides of the civil war (God is on our side); when women fought for national suffrage, (women should keep silent) and when the Supreme Court allowed for equal marriage (Adam and Eve, not Sam and Steve). What this country really needs is justice for all. Now that is a value that should be shared among people of faith and secular humanists, I would think.
That line of argument has been used often enough on this vessel as well.
Yes. It should.
I rock boats, when I mention this in addition to references to Galatians 6:10 ("So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith".).
Then they tell you that the truly good thing is to denounce someone's sin and warn them about Hell.