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Evangelical Christians have come up in a few threads here and there and I kind of feel like they're a topic all their own. I also feel like there is sometimes a lack of understanding here of what they believe, why, and how they influence American politics so much. I grew up around some of these people and some of the folks that had a hand in raising me as a child were hardcore fundies that believed some pretty crazy stuff. My childhood exposed me to a variety of viewpoints thankfully but there were times I believed these things. To give you an idea of how close I was to this particular brand of madness I remember handing out Chick tracts to other kids when I was in grade school, telling other kids they were going to Hell because they liked rock music, and developing some crazy that I avoided getting fixed because I was taught psychologists were evil. Phew. I remember attending some various churches where after the sermons people would seriously stand around and make sure everybody else there hated the gays enough. "Typical conversation" with people you just met would be whether you believed in evolution or creationism. I remember being told that anybody who believed in evolution was "not worth your time" and should be avoided at all costs. I remember very specifically being told that "psychology is the opposite of Christianity." I remember being told that Satan spoke directly to people through heavy metal music and that if you played D&D long enough you'd uncover instructions on how to cast actual magic spells. Yes these people are as batshit crazy as you think they are. In many ways they're worse. Anybody paying attention to America at all has seen the religious right in action. They've formed a pretty unholy alliance with the financial right and conservatives are always pushing austerity and telling the poor to get the gently caress back to work and quit asking for help. If that doesn't sound much like what Jesus would have taught that's because it loving isn't. As much as they proclaim their love for Jesus America's far right religious types are about as far from Jesus as one can get. But if they're so different from Jesus and hate what he actually taught so much how do they justify it? Well, let me go over some of the stuff I was taught as a child. Earth Is a Battleground quote:Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” This is, I think, one of the core beliefs that leads to this stuff and is also why it's so fundamentally difficult to pull people out once they've gone into the deep end. What you get taught is that the entire reason that Earth exists is because God is testing men and the devil is trying to tempt them away. There are various reasons for this (some of which go back to Adam and Eve) but the short of it is that mankind hosed pretty badly and now God wants to see who is worthy of entry into the Kingdom of Heaven and who isn't. The devil only has power because God gave it to him. God cast him out because he hosed up but God isn't like a bad guy so he forgave him but said "OK you have to serve me. You want to be a dick then you can be a dick but only if when I want you to." The idea is that life is a test. The souls of men are bombarded with temptation by the devil through their whole lives but those that manage to resist go to Heaven. God isn't a complete bastard and if you screw up he'll let you in if you repent, ask for forgiveness, and mend your awful ways but really it's best to just not stray in the first place. The issue is that straying or deviating at all is viewed as not only a problem in and of itself as those that stray from the flock are more likely to do it again but it acknowledges that such an action is even possible. Remember that pesky word "temptation." The idea is that the devil will absolutely not stop bothering you from the day you're born until the day you die. It's nonstop. He won't quit. His works are everywhere and he'll do anything he can to tempt you away. He's also right loving sneaky and you may not even realize it when he's speaking to you. This is where you get Satanic panics from and why the right is so gung ho about condemning all sorts of things and wants all sorts of poo poo banned. It's for our own good. If you ban the things the devil speaks through then he can't talk to you. Of course he'll find other ways and we need to ban them too. This is also the justification for bad poo poo happening to good people. You're just being tested. Your faith must hold through everything or you fail and go to Hell. This is where the "everybody that disagrees with me is a threat" thought often comes from. You must follow God's law to the letter and any deviation is sinful. Those that disagree with God's law are tempting people away by merely existing and must be destroyed. This is eternal salvation we're talking about here, people. This is the Kingdom of Heaven where everybody is rich and everything is perfect forever. Eve didn't gently caress up by eating the fruit she hosed up by defying God's law even if it might seem arbitrary and stupid to us. What do we know? We aren't Him. So now that Adam and Eve ruined it for the rest of us we have to clean up the mess. quote:Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Oh and make sure you root out the devil's influence anywhere you can find it. Crafty fucker is everywhere and you can't be too careful. quote:Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Environmentalism is Another Tool of Satan and Evolution Doesn't Exist quote:Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; Remember that whole "battleground" thing. It's going to be real important real soon. Now recall that a lot of people are subscribing to the Biblical literalism stance. Something like 30% of Americans (yes, it is that high) believe that the Bible is the literal word of God and absolutely all of it is 100% true. Generally speaking that means the King James version. Anyway read that passage again. OK, got it? A common interpretation is "the Earth literally can't change. Ever. At all." All this talk about global warming? Yeah, it's the devil's influence. Maybe they realize they're being misled by the devil and are doing this deliberately maybe they don't know. The important thing is to ignore it and don't let it make you stray. You want to go to Heaven, right? Think about the ramifications of that. quote:And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. We own the Earth and everything that lives on it. We can do whatever we want with it. Doesn't matter, God said so. Pollute away! Anybody telling you that we should have any concern at all for the well-being of this rock or anything else living on it is defying God. He said we can do whatever we want so if I want to hunt an endangered species into extinction I have a God-given right to. As the Earth doesn't change that doesn't even really matter because that means we can't gently caress up too badly no matter how hard we try so yeah how about a twelfth Big Mac? So if the Earth doesn't change that whole "grew out of a poo poo load of rocks slamming together over millions of years" thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense now does it? Who came up with that crap, anyway? And hey look all these important religious figures are saying the Earth is 10,000 years old. Carbon dating, fossils, and science must be that devil guy influencing things again. Anybody that tells you the Earth is over 10,000 years old is a pawn of the devil trying to tempt you into straying from the flock. Ignore it at all costs. I remember being told that I should not play Tyrants: Fight Through Time because it talked about a year before 4,000 B.C. No. Seriously. They want to isolate Good Christian Folks from literally everything that might even lead to the possibility of a thought that they might be wrong. I wonder if there's a verse about that... quote:Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. If our children don't even know there are other paths they can't walk them. Quick, better ban the teaching of evolution from our schools! God Hates Lazies...And the Poors quote:Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men God commands us to work hard at whatever we do. Whatever it is give your all. Well that actually isn't so bad. So where does the prosperity gospel come from? quote:Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. So you say crime rates are higher in poor neighborhoods? Well then the poors are obviously not neighborly and are always being jerks to each other so God decided they shoul be poor. loving poors...it's their own fault. quote:One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. And the rich must be generous or else God wouldn't let them be rich. QED. quote:Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Hear that, poors? God knows the tiny amounts of money you give. Why Richy McRichpants gave $5,000,000 to a cancer fund last year so of course he deserve to be rich! Ignore that that was less than 1% of his wealth. quote:Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work If your boss says "work 14 hours while I pay you for 6" you have to. Because he said so. Don't complain. If the government didn't make that illegal they're God's legitimate authority on Earth so you don't get a choice. quote:And spend the money for whatever you desire And don't you dare complain when it turns out that Richy McRichpants was snorting cocaine off of the rear end of a $75,000 hooker while your children go hungry. quote:The righteous eat to their hearts’ content, but the stomach of the wicked goes hungry. Maybe if you poors weren't such poo poo bags God would let you have more food. quote:Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have All you poors bitching about not having enough money are doing something God hates. Now go back to work and make me more money I want a $90,000 hooker tonight and I want her on my private jet. If you dare suggest that any of this might be wrong and we should actually, you know, help the poor people out like Jesus said this is the logic you get. They're poor because they deserve it. Poor people obviously are lazier, do more drugs, and are greedy jerks so God is punishing them with poverty and suffering. Once again any suggestion to the contrary is the devil's influence. Ever wonder if there was some kind of background to people talking about Obama like he's a demon? Ever wonder why they're trying so hard to make him an illegitimate ruler? There are two conflicting ideals here; on one hand they believe we should support whatever our leaders do but on the other hand Obama is going against a lot of things they believe. They believe that helping the poor is going against God's will because He made them poor. Well technically they made themselves be poor by sucking but still...it has nothing to do with economics, it has nothing to do with the rich being shits, it has nothing to do with the system being stacked against certain people. It's all those people sucking and God punishing them for it. Nothing else so stop it with this socialism crap, forget education, and let us preach to them. Force them to be Christian, enact fundamentalism, and America's problems will all vanish. They keep voting Democrat because the Ds keep promising to make Us Good Folks give them stuff. That would defy God's will. Oh, and kill the gays. God hates them. The fact that gay and trans people get treated so badly in the work force is because God is punishing them for being gay. Let it happen, they brought it on themselves. quote:Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative Shut up and get back to work. quote:And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Only buy things from businesses run by Christians. If anybody working for the company is too immoral don't buy from there. If anybody working for you does not have Christian values it is your duty as one of God's agents to punish them for not being Christian enough. Run your business in a Christian manner and that means fire the gays, only promote fellow Christians, and only give to Christian charities. Everybody else doesn't deserve anything. Just ignore that you've effectively stacked the deck against non-Christian people. If they wanted your help they'd convert. Brutal Theocratic Fundamentalism Is a Good Thing Remember how I said rich people are obviously rich because they're righteous? If we're all righteous enough God will let us all be rich so it's time to brutally suppress everything unChristian, put the church in charge of the nation, and severely punish sinners to discourage them. Then we'll all be rich. It will be for the good of the nation so why are we not doing that? Must be the devil again.
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Jul 1, 2015 16:25
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op posted:Remember that whole "battleground" thing. It's going to be real important real soon. Now recall that a lot of people are subscribing to the Biblical literalism stance. Something like 30% of Americans (yes, it is that high) believe that the Bible is the literal word of God and absolutely all of it is 100% true. Generally speaking that means the King James version. Anyway read that passage again. OK, got it? A common interpretation is "the Earth literally can't change. Ever. At all." All this talk about global warming? Yeah, it's the devil's influence. Maybe they realize they're being misled by the devil and are doing this deliberately maybe they don't know. The important thing is to ignore it and don't let it make you stray. You want to go to Heaven, right?  I suppose pointing out that that translation only exists because an English king wanted to divorce his wife and was willing to cause major upheavals in the religious structures of England to do so is pointless with these people? Also, hats off to you for being so willing to share OP. I can't quite understand goons who are willing to lay out quite so much in a semi-public forum for anyone with  who might happen by and see some of their personal baggage, but you're a hell of a lot more courageous then me. 
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Jul 1, 2015 19:35
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Too bad Kyrie got banned. Maybe he'll come back to contribute.
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Jul 1, 2015 19:41
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Question/comment for the OP. I think you're using the term "Evangelical a bit narrowly to refer only to Fundamentalist/Right-Wing . There are plenty on the Evangelical-left, even if their often ignored. Jim Wallis, Rob Bell, Greg Boyd, and Jimmy Carter for example. Great post but that's my one minor quibble.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:06
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Nckdictator posted:Question/comment for the OP. I think you're using the term "Evangelical a bit narrowly to refer only to Fundamentalist/Right-Wing . There are plenty on the Evangelical-left, even if their often ignored. Jim Wallis, Rob Bell, Greg Boyd, and Jimmy Carter for example. Great post but that's my one minor quibble. I thought Jimmy Carter was Baptist? Are Baptists a subset of Evangelicalism?
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Jul 1, 2015 20:08
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Klaus88 posted:
Henry VIII was a prophet of God. 
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Jul 1, 2015 20:10
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Who What Now posted:I thought Jimmy Carter was Baptist? Are Baptists a subset of Evangelicalism? 'Eh, I might be wrong there, not sure.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:12
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Who What Now posted:I thought Jimmy Carter was Baptist? Are Baptists a subset of Evangelicalism? Protestant churches in the US are divided into four main groups- Mainline, Evangelical, and Historically Black denominational Protestantism, and nondenominational Evangelicals. The Southern Baptist Convention is an evangelical denomination, as opposed to its mainline sister denomination the American Baptist Church. The reasons behind this are interesting to me, but somewhat lengthy.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:14
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Who What Now posted:I thought Jimmy Carter was Baptist? Are Baptists a subset of Evangelicalism? Baptists run the gamut from ultra-right fundamentalists to strict secularist liberals, some are evangelical and some aren't (and not all the evangelicals are right-wing fundamentalists). Most American Christian sects have a similar sort of political spectrum within them.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:14
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Serious question (because I don't know): Is the "prosperity gospel" bullshit a subset of Evangelical Christianity, or just one of its core tenets?
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Jul 1, 2015 20:18
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Effectronica posted:Protestant churches in the US are divided into four main groups- Mainline, Evangelical, and Historically Black denominational Protestantism, and nondenominational Evangelicals. The Southern Baptist Convention is an evangelical denomination, as opposed to its mainline sister denomination the American Baptist Church. So was Carter Southern or American Baptist? Quick google search doesn't say.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:20
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Everblight posted:Serious question (because I don't know): Is the "prosperity gospel" bullshit a subset of Evangelical Christianity, or just one of its core tenets? Prosperity gospel types are hated by the more theologically inclined evangelicals. However, many evangelicals are not theologically inclined, or reject theology, so some of its tenets make their way into the mainstream. But it's part of a complex of right-wing theology like George Gilder and so on.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:21
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Who What Now posted:So was Carter Southern or American Baptist? Quick google search doesn't say. He was Southern while president, but broke away from them in 2000 and founded the New Baptist Covenant, which unites liberal/moderate Southern Baptists, American Baptists, and Historically Black Baptist churches into an ecumenical organization.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:23
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Effectronica posted:He was Southern while president, but broke away from them in 2000 and founded the New Baptist Covenant, which unites liberal/moderate Southern Baptists, American Baptists, and Historically Black Baptist churches into an ecumenical organization. Cool to know. Did he break away for any specific reasons relevant to this thread?
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Jul 1, 2015 20:38
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Who What Now posted:Cool to know. Did he break away for any specific reasons relevant to this thread? Oh did he ever. Jimmy F'n Carter posted:The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.
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Jul 1, 2015 20:57
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"psychology is the opposite of Christianity." Pretty much sums it up. They are practicing a form of pseudo psychology which imposes an external spiritual reality that does not reflect how the human mind works. They believe that emotions are the result of a spiritual state and not the product of their thinking. By believing that all problems can be solved by 'The Spirit' they train themselves to engage in emotionally infantile and reactionary behavior. Their life plan is to bottle up their problems, close their eyes, cover their ears a get excited about Jesus. They generalize the behavior, which is why you see some worshiping the flag with the same devotion. This is the kind of mental environment that created people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Its a one way ticket to crazy town.
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Jul 1, 2015 23:13
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Is there a good source or a book that describes the development of modern evangelicalism in the US? What fascinates me is how they have these really odd beliefs (Rapture, KJV Bible, spiritual warfare, Zionism, complete disregard for social issues, obsession with the gays etc.) that doesn't really gel with other Christian denominations. How do they even reconcile their belief in the inerrancy of the Bible with these non-Biblical tendencies. Why do they care so much about the Old Testament and especially Leviticus? American Christianity should really be regarded as its own beast these days.
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Jul 1, 2015 23:51
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We already have this thread and, problems aside, PJ does it better.
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Jul 2, 2015 00:14
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Everblight posted:Serious question (because I don't know): Is the "prosperity gospel" bullshit a subset of Evangelical Christianity, or just one of its core tenets? Prosperity gospel actually cropped up over several centuries. It actually dates back to...well far as I know the 15th century at least. It is also wrapped up in fundamentalism. It's a very complex history but the short of it is actually related to that whole "people set up colonies in America for religious freedom." A lot of it goes back to Calvinism and Puritanism. One of the reasons that a lot of people came here was because the Catholic Church's power in Europe was waning and a lot of folks wanted Europe to go back to being extremely theocratic. They were not happy that Protestantism was on the rise and heresy wasn't being punished anymore so they set up little pocket theocracies here. They also believed that Jesus was going to come back real soon and God was going to enact judgement on us any day now so they were going to be righteous as gently caress and abandon everybody else to sin, the devil's influence, and Hell. This is also where the Protestant work ethic stuff came up. One of the beliefs that began was that hard work was a righteous act in and of it itself. If you worked hard, went to church, and were a good Christian God would reward you with riches. However if you were lazy God would punish you with poverty so we should not help the poor. The poor must help themselves or, alternately, we must force them to work for their own good. Yes this was used sometimes to justify indentured servitude or slavery as well as outright racism. This is also part of why the religious right thinks they have a reason to hate on blacks so much. Poverty is rampant among black communities so obviously it's just because the blacks are lazy and don't feel like working. It can't possibly be due to 300 years of systemic racism. Nope, they're just lazy. fspades posted:Is there a good source or a book that describes the development of modern evangelicalism in the US? What fascinates me is how they have these really odd beliefs (Rapture, KJV Bible, spiritual warfare, Zionism, complete disregard for social issues, obsession with the gays etc.) that doesn't really gel with other Christian denominations. How do they even reconcile their belief in the inerrancy of the Bible with these non-Biblical tendencies. Why do they care so much about the Old Testament and especially Leviticus? American Christianity should really be regarded as its own beast these days. It's too complex for one book but if you want to get some basic ideas Wikipedia actually has a poo poo load of articles that are pretty good. Could probably branch out from here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan Might be a good place to start. Anyway a lot of it ultimately goes back to the religious movements in the Renaissance. Various people were dissecting the Bible word by word and arguing over what it ultimately meant. This is also where Biblical literalism really started to show. Even Judaism says that taking everything literally is really dumb and most of the Old Testament is made up stories meant to teach you things but for various reasons certain Christian thinkers later went "nope, it's all true and you're dumb if you believe otherwise." It's another one of the major points of doctrinal conflict. Most Christians worldwide believe that some of the stories from the Bible are true and happened but others are not. Jesus himself made up a crap load of stories to illustrate points and much of his teaching was actually based on allegorical stuff. A lot of it really was just awful people finding ways to justify awful opinions. Note that during the colonial era a lot of people were incredibly greedy then during the 19th century there were a lot of rich people exploiting the ever loving gently caress out of anybody and anything they could sink their claws in. Read quotes from the rich of that era; you see a lot of prosperity gospel stuff and it became systemic simply because it meant you could exploit the working class mercilessly and be doing God's work in the process because you were helping punish the lazy. That or forcing them to work which God would reward them for if they were also good Christians and went to church. Compare that to the anti-poor rhetoric we hear today. How often do we hear that the rich deserve their wealth and it's wrong to take it away? In a lot of ways it was the ideas being spread by wealthy white people who liked being wealthy and white and wanted to be wealthier and whiter. Effectronica posted:The reasons behind this are interesting to me, but somewhat lengthy. 
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Jul 2, 2015 03:59
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Even among "Evangelical Christians" there is a huge spectrum as far as beliefs go. My wife is an ordained Baptist minister to go along with her MA in Theology and her M.Div. That being said, if we moved back home, which to us is North Georgia/Tennessee, we would be considered almost heretical in how progressive our theology and beliefs are, as would most of the staff and members of our current church. Even though we would (I suppose) consider ourselves evangelical, plenty of people would disagree. I'm typing this while on vacation, and on my phone, to boot, so it isn't quite as lengthy of informative as it could be, but I am (cautiously) willing to contribute what I know or my experiences on the subject. A great example of someone I would consider to be a model of reasonable/progressive evangelicalism is a friend of my wife's, Dr. David P Gushee, an ethicist currently at the McAfee school of theology at Mercer Atlanta. His most recent book is Changing Our Mind, which is about how his beliefs on LGBT issues changed over time towards full acceptance in the Christian church. All this is to say that there are plenty of Christians, evangelical and otherwise, that do not fit the stereotype of being hyper fundamentalists.
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Jul 2, 2015 04:23
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If anyone is interested, here are the book, chapter and verses for the scripture quotes in the OP: Job 1:9-11 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” James 1:12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Ephesians 5:11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 1 Chronicles 16:Part of Verse 29 and All of 30 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men 1 Corinthians 10:24 Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Proverbs 11:24 One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Proverbs 3:27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Titus 3:1 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work Deuteronomy 14:Part of Verse 26 And spend the money for whatever you desire Proverbs 13:25 The righteous eat to their hearts’ content, but the stomach of the wicked goes hungry. Hebrews 13:Part of Verse 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have Titus 2:9 Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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Jul 2, 2015 05:58
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Everblight posted:Serious question (because I don't know): Is the "prosperity gospel" bullshit a subset of Evangelical Christianity, or just one of its core tenets? On the flip side the Catholic Church considers the prosperity gospel heresy!
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Jul 2, 2015 08:19
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Most Protestants consider prosperity gospel highly toxic, immoral, and completely against the teachings of Christ.
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Jul 2, 2015 13:12
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pokchu posted:Most Protestants consider prosperity gospel highly toxic, immoral, and completely against the teachings of Christ. The question is how loud are they and how often do they vote?
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Jul 2, 2015 13:17
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The question is how loud are they and how often do they vote? at first, I wanted to answer "very, and often," but after thinking about it, I'm not sure of how much overlap there is between prosperity gospel and fundamentalist evangelicalism. I'll try to find out.
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Jul 2, 2015 14:15
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pokchu posted:at first, I wanted to answer "very, and often," but after thinking about it, I'm not sure of how much overlap there is between prosperity gospel and fundamentalist evangelicalism. I'll try to find out. One of the issues with American politics is that the fundies are extremely loud and have a very high voter turnout. These people absolutely do not miss elections. They're a minority sure but they have enough raw voting power that they can't be ignored.
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Jul 2, 2015 14:33
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ToxicSlurpee posted:One of the issues with American politics is that the fundies are extremely loud and have a very high voter turnout. These people absolutely do not miss elections. They're a minority sure but they have enough raw voting power that they can't be ignored. From what I've learned from a few quick discussions is that while what you said is absolutely true, prosperity gospel occupies its own little subset outside of mainstream Protestantism. While their voting records may end up the same, they get there via different means. Evangelicals have a strong calvanist streak, which while off-putting in the eyes of many Christians, prosperity gospel's theology is very shallow and simply cherry picks passages referring to being financially or emotionally "blessed." There also seems to be a strong contingent from penecostal or penecostal style churches inside Prosperity churches, probably because of the strong focus on being moved by the "spirit." I suppose to actually answer the question, prosperity gospelers are likely to vote in the same vein as fundamentalist evangelicals, but for different reasons. For instance, most prosperity gospel doesn't bother to touch issues like abortion, leaving that up to members themselves. This is what I got from a friend of ours currently writing his phd thesis on prosperity gospel, but is admittedly (by him) highly critical of it based upon the effect it has had on his family.
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Jul 2, 2015 14:58
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A crash ate my megapost, so I'll do a smaller one and follow up. So three parts of the four-way split date back to the early years of the USA and the Second Great Awakening, where you had, first, a major period of growth for Methodist and Baptist churches, mild growth for Presbyterians, and stagnation for Episcopalians and Congregationalists due to westward migration. Second, you had the establishment of the first black ministers and congregations. For probably coincidental reasons, Methodists become somewhat predominant in the Old Northwest and Baptists in the trans-Appalachian South. The first of the Black Churches are established in many Northeastern cities because of white racism during this time. Fast-forward to the 1850s, the start of the Third Great Awakening, and you've had a massive influx of German immigrants, who have created a heavy Lutheran presence in most of what's now the Upper Midwest, but you've also had a split over slavery in many denominations. Generally speaking, evangelical denominations are descended from the proslavery churches and mainline ones from the antislavery churches. This is only a general trend. The Presbyterian evangelicals are descended initially from pro-segregation churches that split in 1973 from the reunited Presbyterian churches over the issue of ordaining women as ministers. Lutheran evangelicals are concentrated in Wisconsin. However, denominations that were predominantly antislavery like the Episcopalians and Congregationalists have only marginal evangelical elements. In addition, the Seventh-Day Adventists and Churches of Christ date from this period, and while they are outwardly similar to evangelicals they differ in many internal respects. Another large chunk of black churches come from the end of Reconstruction and the spread of segregation.
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Jul 2, 2015 15:40
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pokchu posted:From what I've learned from a few quick discussions is that while what you said is absolutely true, prosperity gospel occupies its own little subset outside of mainstream Protestantism. While their voting records may end up the same, they get there via different means. Evangelicals have a strong calvanist streak, which while off-putting in the eyes of many Christians, prosperity gospel's theology is very shallow and simply cherry picks passages referring to being financially or emotionally "blessed." There also seems to be a strong contingent from penecostal or penecostal style churches inside Prosperity churches, probably because of the strong focus on being moved by the "spirit." One thing I've noticed about non-crazy Christians I've met is that many people are also single-issue voters. I know a lot of people that primarily voted R because of abortion. Interestingly these same people are fed up with the GOP right now and really, really disagree with a lot of what the party is up to. Granted these are also not fundies. The thing about the prosperity gospel is I've noticed that a lot of people ultimately believe it but don't know that that is what it's called or that they believe it. It's become a cultural thing at this point and a lot of people genuinely believe that America is a perfect meritocracy (it hasn't been for a while now) that has something to do with God. Granted it's also a common belief that the Christian world is in better shape than the non-Christian world just because Christianity has the best values system. Granted even in churches that don't touch on abortion much I've noticed that for a lot of Christian voters that's the most important issue. I also find it very interesting that Catholic leaders have been coming out with statements to the effect of "well if you're going to be pro-life but then tell the babies to get hosed after they're born you're not being very pro-life and are in fact a lovely Christian."
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Jul 2, 2015 15:48
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Effectronica posted:A crash ate my megapost, so I'll do a smaller one and follow up. While discussing the various denominations and their evolution, I'd just like to point out that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest and most progressive Lutheran denomination, is not "evangelical" in the sense this thread is using. It is a translation of one of the ways Lutherans traditionally refer to themselves in German, from "evangelische." So, don't confuse the two, different origins of the name.
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Jul 2, 2015 16:34
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The thing about the prosperity gospel is I've noticed that a lot of people ultimately believe it but don't know that that is what it's called or that they believe it. It's become a cultural thing at this point and a lot of people genuinely believe that America is a perfect meritocracy (it hasn't been for a while now) that has something to do with God. Granted it's also a common belief that the Christian world is in better shape than the non-Christian world just because Christianity has the best values system. I think the fact that popular Christian media seems produced almost entirely by evangelicals has influenced belief in many mainline protestant churches. I know quite a few mainline protestants who believe in the rapture and in the prosperity gospel even though their pastor has never once preached a sermon about either simply due to the Left Behind series and Christian self-help books. I wonder if the rise of prosperity gospel teachings coincided with the rise of televangelism? I distinctly remember televangelists often saying that donations to their ministries would be paid back a hundredfold by God -- and this wasn't in a metaphorical sense, either, because it was accompanied by callers talking about receiving large checks in the mail for various reasons after they had made a donation. This seems to reinforce the tenet of prosperity gospel that piety leads to material wealth.
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Jul 2, 2015 16:41
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Is there any significance in Scientology despising psychology too, or is it just crazy cultish beliefs leading to similar conclusions
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Jul 2, 2015 16:52
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Well yes. There's plenty to suggest that larger churches preaching prosperity gospel are just religious Ponzi schemes, and some of them are very stealthy about it (see: Joel o'steen)
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Jul 2, 2015 16:53
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my bony fealty posted:Is there any significance in Scientology despising psychology too, or is it just crazy cultish beliefs leading to similar conclusions Its the same thing as I described in my other post. The difference is Scientology is more insidious as the process of becoming 'clear' involves actively stripping away the self bit by bit. The most destructive forms of American Christianity just covers things up and leaves the ego and Id to its own devices.
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Jul 2, 2015 17:01
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my bony fealty posted:Is there any significance in Scientology despising psychology too, or is it just crazy cultish beliefs leading to similar conclusions My understanding is that there are similar thought processes there but the thing with Scientology is that L. Ron got his start writing science fiction and self-help books. Dianetics was one of his first big things before he started Scientology. The religion is of course a gigantic, massive cult that encourages being batshit mad in a lot of different ways and demands isolation from outside influences. Psychology is an outside influence. The view of a lot of Christians is that Christ is the only help you should need. You can do all things through Christ and God. They generally also believe in purity of choice. I don't entirely know what the name for it is but they basically believe that we all have a core part of our mind that can make decisions that is perfectly sane. People that come down with some sort of crazy are basically choosing to be crazy. They believe that if your faith is strong enough and that if you trust in God enough you can just will away the crazy. Yes the devil comes in here too again. Sometimes you'll hear things like crazy people being possessed (no, I'm not making that up), being influenced by the devil, or being punished by God. Those are things that a person brings on themselves by being bad at Christianity. Psychologists will also encourage removing very toxic people from your life or suggest things that the fundies don't like. The other side of it is that mainstream psychology no longer considers homosexuality to be a mental illness. It was actually pretty recently that mainstream psychology considered the gays wrong and was seeking to cure them. Anti-gay evangelicals obviously liked that quite a bit but when psychology started thinking "wait, really...what's the problem here?" and quit treating it like a mental illness a lot of people started going "the devil got them!" and treating them like they were evil.
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Jul 3, 2015 02:08
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ToxicSlurpee posted:They generally also believe in purity of choice. I don't entirely know what the name for it is but they basically believe that we all have a core part of our mind that can make decisions that is perfectly sane. People that come down with some sort of crazy are basically choosing to be crazy.
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Jul 3, 2015 02:12
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quote:Remember that whole "battleground" thing. It's going to be real important real soon. Now recall that a lot of people are subscribing to the Biblical literalism stance. Something like 30% of Americans (yes, it is that high) believe that the Bible is the literal word of God and absolutely all of it is 100% true. Generally speaking that means the King James version. Anyway read that passage again. OK, got it? A common interpretation is "the Earth literally can't change. Ever. At all." All this talk about global warming? Yeah, it's the devil's influence. Maybe they realize they're being misled by the devil and are doing this deliberately maybe they don't know. The important thing is to ignore it and don't let it make you stray. You want to go to Heaven, right?
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Jul 3, 2015 03:30
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Something like 30% of Americans (yes, it is that high) believe that the Bible is the literal word of God and absolutely all of it is 100% true. So strange that we're a nuclear powered nation that routinely launches people and equipment into orbit but we've got this huge population of folks who practically believe something like Lord of the Rings is a history book.
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Jul 3, 2015 05:30
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Guavanaut posted:Mind, body, and soul. The mind and body are fallible created things, whereas the soul is immortal and granted free will by God. What I'm trying to remember is what the phrase for that concept is. It wasn't free will or anything involving the soul. Or maybe it is just "free will" and I'm dredging up inaccurate childhood memories.
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Jul 3, 2015 10:07
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Animal-Mother posted:So strange that we're a nuclear powered nation that routinely launches people and equipment into orbit but we've got this huge population of folks who practically believe something like Lord of the Rings is a history book. Well, technically, the Bible is a history book. It's just that it's also a religious manual, and the methods and objectives of recording history have changed dramatically since a couple of thousand years ago. Just have a look at the mythologising you see in Greek and Roman histories, even if they are closer to the modern standard.
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Jul 3, 2015 11:56
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