…this guy decries the modern overemphasis on soul freedom…
Excellent example of the modern mentality. The SBC is a hot bed of Christian Nationalism. No, not the flavor where they build rural compounds and learn to field-strip assault rifles. In many ways this version is worse. These folks are convinced the USA was intended to be a Christian country both culturally and politically and that our laws should be made to reflect this privilege. This is prime MAGA territory. Trump panders to their sensibility and they are firm supporters.
Some initial comments-
Most of the people in the pews are just as oblivious of all this as are Roman Catholic parishioners.
We have seen the downside of a rigid church hierarchy. Here we see the downside of autonomy.
No matter the polity, the powerful are protected. The weak are exploited and marginalized.
The Kingdom of God!
This morning I had breakfast at my favorite local diner. They had their TV on, mercifully muted. (I don’t get it. Why pay the cost to install and maintain a TV in your establishment and then mute it? Are people agitated if they’re away from the video screen for any length of time?) The TV was set to FOX channel and they were streaming the initial meeting of President Trumps’ ** you do not have permission to see this link **. I didn’t catch who all the participants were but I did recognize a couple politicians and YouTube personalities.
Ostensibly the Religious Liberty Task Force was formed to combat ** you do not have permission to see this link ** in government. The panelists I saw speak (closed captioning) made all the right noises about the need to protect religious freedom in our country. Apparently there is a rampant anti-Christian movement in this country determined to tear down all the wholesome values that made this country great. (It being intentionally designed to be a Christian Country, don’t you know?)
Of course on one level this is an attempt to pander to an important part of President Trump’s constituency, fundamentalist and Right leaning Christians. I don’t think anyone expects some sort of Inquisition or anything although there is possibly some damage it can do. Mainly they exist to perpetuate some myths.
The chief myth that supports the efforts of these folks is that the USA was intended to be a country that privileged Christian values and that at some point these values have been undermined in some way and are under attack. Christians are victims of active persecution and must be defended.
I am happy to discuss it but I am by no means militant in my atheism. I concern myself with other people’s relationship with the Infinite only at the point when they try to use the coercive power of the state to privilege their beliefs. Our Founders here were quite wise. The First Amendment states the correct approach very clearly. May I quote?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It’s astonishing how Bible Thumpers try to muddy these pretty clear waters. The very first phrase in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights prohibits the govt from preferring one religion over another or even preferring religion at all. Secondly, religious toleration. Everyone has the right to hold and practice their beliefs, alone or in tandem with like-minded fellows, free from censure or restriction. No one is inhibited. No one is privileged. But that’s it. That’s all you get. Or should need. (We note also that the Constitution, the Operating Manual for our democracy only mentions religion once and that to forbid religious tests for holding office.)
But nooooo….Christians insist on moving right to the front of the line, of having first say, or setting the agenda. Toleration for the rest…mostly. Any pushback to this call for privilege is demonstration of “anti-Christian” bias. I am no psychologist but I detect an underlying fear that a non-privileged faith cannot survive. Who among these folks has a private spiritual life? I am no psychic either but I suspect very few. It’s either public or nothing.
Meanwhile the congregations age and the churches empty. The younger the demographic the less support. What we have are people grasping at the last support they can find as they slide down the bottomless pit of irrelevance. The tree is apparently flowering but rotten hollow inside. Waiting for just the right wind to come along and blow it over.
I got news of the Minnesota shootings just as I was about to go to my sister’s place. Thankfully, they were able to eventually apprehend the person who appears to be responsible for it.
On the way back to the States, I was sitting next to a woman who had spent 12 days in Norway hiking. She told me she was not looking forward to returning to the divisiveness.
It’s such a pity this seems to be the state of affairs.
Here is a video on the New Yorker’s YouTube channel. it concerns the question of women’s place in ministry in the SBC. It’s very revealing. And brings back memories. During my short, unsuccessful stint in the seminary, I met two women who were studying for the ministry, both with plans to become pastors in the SBC. This was during the takeover of the SBC by the fundamentalists. I lost track of them when I left and over the years I’ve always wondered what happened to them.
The smugness and self-righteousness of the fundies is always astounding to behold. Jesus is their “personal savior” sitting right there beside them whispering in their ears what to do at all times. About 30 seconds in you get a quick view of one of the architects of the SBC takeover, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary in Lousiville, KY. (The very seminary I attended actually.) Mohler remains a big gun in the modern evangelical movement. He was the McCarthyite swine who purged Southern of its “liberal” professors after the takeover. “Liberal” meaning, scholars who had such wild-eyed radical positions as there having been more than one composer of Isaiah or admitting that Paul probably didn’t write the Pastorals. Shocking! Blasphemous!
It was touch and go there for a while when the revelations about widespread sexual abuse in the SBC came out in 2018. His compatriots in the takeover, Judge(!) Paul Pressler and seminary president Paige Patterson, were not so lucky. Pressler was guilty of abuse himself (teenage boys) and Patterson had to resign from his position when it became clear that he was part of the cover-up and persecution of victims (mostly women) who reported abuse. Mohler is thought to have escaped because he went on a long mea culpa repentance tour immediately after the news came out. (Baptists love that kind of thing. Always ready to forgive!)
Personally I congratulate them on doubling down against women in leadership in the SBC. They’re just driving even more people out of the convention and sawing off the already thin log they rest upon. I suppose I should thank them. They contributed mightily to my own escape. Yet the way they treated Prof Hinson was hateful and despicable. I do not forgive.
Stephen,
Great posts, thanks.
I wonder if the President’s condemnation of Leonard Leo will lead to a governmental shift in favor of conservative Protestant. Or will Catholics abandon the pope to side with Protestants? Will the Protestants become louder in their criticism of Catholics.
Mel Gibson and others have been selected to lead Hollywood into making
Movies more aligned with the current
Governments liking while at the same time insisting that the popes are the rightful heads of the church but the current one is somehow not legitimate.
Will the Protestants become louder in their criticism of Catholics.
Well the evangelical fundamentalists are definitely anti-Catholic although for purposes of the culture wars they submerge it a bit.
Folks because of my interest in the SBC the YouTube algorithm helpfully provides me with all all kinds of videos. Even though there a only small set of channels I regularly follow to keep up with the doings every once in a while I get something interesting.
The hardcore of the hardcore. These folks think Albert Mohler is a “liberal” and the SBC is “Woke”. Their big thing is Marxism in the churches. (Can’t these folks think of something new?) These folks are fierce and in the cases of the younger spokesmen, hirsute. (Many favor Reformation Calvinist type beards.) Of course this is prime MAGA/Christian Nationalist Territory.
Jesus was not a nice guy! The obsession with “weakness” is interesting – and revealing.
And then there are the self-appointed “influencers” to help the righteous young folk maintain the proper Christian lifestyle. (This young lady hasn’t figured out yet she’s supposed to be silent.)
We are all under the influence of a cult. Indeed. But then the ideological mind simply cannot conceive of a non-ideological space. Amidst the standard attacks on secularism and liberalism in this video is displayed a level of psychological projection that is astounding. Consider the Middle Eastern Cult of Ritualized Death Worship to which this fellow belongs whose origins reach back deeply into the dark mindless pre-conscious. Consider how it both fetishizes and fears the life principle. (What else from a cult whose central image consists of a man being tortured to death? Why be surprised at the characteristic strain of sado-masochism?)
I cannot pray for this young man’s salvation because I neither believe there is anyone to pray to nor in salvation, but I sincerely hope he can one day know one unfettered thought.
More fun from the SBC. Written without even an ounce of humor.
Brent Leatherwood, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), recently resigned after years of criticism, primarily from right-wing MAGA cultists who argued he wasn’t doing enough to promote Trump’s agenda.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
This article, from Hemant Mehta’s site Friendly Atheist, does a fine job of breaking it all down so I won’t offer much in the way of commentary. Hardcore but not hardcore enough! There is some interest in my part in seeing this movement eat itself alive. As religion slowly declines the hardcore will hang on to the bitter end, perhaps never entirely disappearing. How to convince my family that Trumpism is no victory but a defeat?
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Something altogether more serious. You would hope that this sort of revelation gets the airplay that the RC clergy abuse scandals did. CYA is the same in every denomination. One note: What is not made explicit in either the articles or the video is that while Truett McConnell university is affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention, the GBC is affiliated with…you guessed it.. the SBC. A couple of my friends from the church growing up attended. An old established Baptist institution.
The Roys Report is a well respected investigative journalism site run by folks who are themselves in the community.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Mehta’s article and associated video. It does help to have the documents laid out before you. Then go take a shower.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
You’ll note that this video is AI generated. I guess we’ll see more and more of this. But the visuals are so bland that you’re just as well listening to it without watching it. I feel absolutely no triumphalism at the picture of evangelicalism eating its own insides. I feel a great deal of sadness. There are so many good people who’ve chosen badly, grasping for certainty in a changing world. How far are they willing to go? I’m afraid it will not end well.
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