America has two christianities. And not in the normal “Protestants and Catholics are on the verge of another 30 years war at each other” way. But regardless of denomination we have groups of Christian’s who see Christianity not as a set of beliefs and duties but as an in group and tool to persecute those they don’t like. Trump is the guy who tells them that the reason things are bad is those dirty non Christians (which many American Protestants include Catholics in for some gods forsaken reason). He offers them power in exchange for looking the other way from his sins
Yup. This goes back to the Southern strategy which was brought to the fore by the Nixon campaign (although it was in play since before then). From that era we also get this chilling warning from Barry Goldwater:
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.
Yeah I don’t want to say it’s an inevitable result of the bizarre fusion of Calvinism and Baptists that permeates American Protestant culture, but it certainly feels like that fusion has a strong lean in this direction.
There have been a lot of good books in the last few years about how Christian came to be so culturally interchangable with Republican. One I read and got a lot out of was “Jesus & John Wayne”, and the author does a good job tracking the rightward shift from a lot of different organizations and how they were able to permeate through multiple denominations. Just sharing in case anyone wants to go look at some of these connections themselves.
America has two christianities. And not in the normal “Protestants and Catholics are on the verge of another 30 years war at each other” way. But regardless of denomination we have groups of Christian’s who see Christianity not as a set of beliefs and duties but as an in group and tool to persecute those they don’t like. Trump is the guy who tells them that the reason things are bad is those dirty non Christians (which many American Protestants include Catholics in for some gods forsaken reason). He offers them power in exchange for looking the other way from his sins
The scary thing is that he didn’t invent that concept. It has been raging since before the Satanic Panic. He just gave those people a platform.
Yup. This goes back to the Southern strategy which was brought to the fore by the Nixon campaign (although it was in play since before then). From that era we also get this chilling warning from Barry Goldwater:
Yeah I don’t want to say it’s an inevitable result of the bizarre fusion of Calvinism and Baptists that permeates American Protestant culture, but it certainly feels like that fusion has a strong lean in this direction.
There have been a lot of good books in the last few years about how Christian came to be so culturally interchangable with Republican. One I read and got a lot out of was “Jesus & John Wayne”, and the author does a good job tracking the rightward shift from a lot of different organizations and how they were able to permeate through multiple denominations. Just sharing in case anyone wants to go look at some of these connections themselves.