General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat do Evangelicals truly believe?
I'm wondering if any journalists or writers have made a deep dive into Evangelical culture post-11/2016 to try to get a grip on what beliefs are central to their existence.
As far as I can tell, the only fixed stars are:
1. They're right about everything.
2. They're going to Heaven and everyone not like them is going to Hell.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Runningdawg
(4,517 posts)if they die in the process - so be it - more Jesus points for heaven.
dalton99a
(81,514 posts)who also wants sex and money
PETRUS
(3,678 posts)"One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America," by Kevin Kruse.
rurallib
(62,420 posts)world wide wally
(21,744 posts)ooky
(8,923 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Adonis over time. If you try asking a rightwing evangelical to explain that, you will likely get shot.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)If Jesus came back today, he would tell these fuckers that they are NOT his followers. He would disown them entirely. It was the asshole Paul who made it too easy for anyone to claim they were xtian. But I think even Paul would denounce these fuckers.
Please warn me of any evilgelicals coming to shoot me!
ck4829
(35,077 posts)violetpastille
(1,483 posts)So I went to the "About Me" page of their church's website. And it said.
WE BELIEVE that God designed marriage as a covenant one flesh union between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:21-24; Malachi 2:14-16; Mark 10:2-12). The relationship between a husband and wife in marriage points beyond itself to the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:22-33). Because marriage between man and woman was part of Gods design for His creation of humankind, and because marriage pictures the union between Christ and His church, we do not recognize any other definitions of marriage outside of these biblical standards.
Lots of Old Testament stuff and NOTHING about helping the poor, which I believe was Jesus' one big message to us all.
So, I'm cool that they don't talk to me.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)It sounds like some places in Steven King novels.
violetpastille
(1,483 posts)You're right.
I was an environmental refugee from California. We drove up to SW Washington and saw that houses were cheap and there was water up here so we bought a home in a new subdivision.
All our neighbors are also from California. ( Red California.)
They are here for the White Flight and we just came for the H20.
(But I'm going to work like hell for the next two years to get our Red Congressperson out of office to make a nice welcoming space for the next round of Californian climate refugees.)
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)The vast majority of marriages in Biblical times were plural marriages - one man, as many women as their fathers will give them. To people in a simpler time, polygyny made a lot of sense: we have a 90 percent infant mortality rate, we need as many babies born as we possibly can get, Issac and Jacob are really good at fathering children...let's have them father all the children in the village.
So, therefore, if you REALLY want to follow the Bible in marriage matters, with the legal system we have now, make it "one man, one wife and as many 'girlfriends' as you can attract. It's totally legal to do this, and as long as you can find a woman who will put up with her husband sleeping with seven or eight other women for the express purpose of pregnancy, you should be okay.
Azathoth
(4,609 posts)And abortion is the greatest evil in the world.
Literally everything else is negotiable.
Mariana
(14,858 posts)A person can believe or disbelieve just about anything and still be considered one variety of Christian or another. With so many denominations to pick from, plus "nondenominational" and "independent" churches, there's a flavor of Christianity for everyone.
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)Cosmocat
(14,565 posts)Pretty much the sum of it.
meow2u3
(24,764 posts)...Jesus was the spawn of Satan?
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Last edited Sun Nov 11, 2018, 12:25 AM - Edit history (1)
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,350 posts)So if another of member of my congregation meets me in a liquor store or a strip bar, they will not remember the encounter afterwards. Nor will I.
Praise jeebus.
Oh, yeah, and handling rattlesnakes is da bomb!
LiberalFighter
(50,942 posts)Therefore, they are worshiping other gods when they worship Jesus. The Ten Commandments references only one god. Oh. Since Jesus is not a Christian it must be another person they are worshiping.
Wolf Frankula
(3,601 posts)is like us, wants to be like us, or ought to be like us. That is a common American belief.
Wolf
brettdale
(12,381 posts)Have said
All gay people go to hell.
Because we legalize prostitution, God caused the earthquakes.
Dont read Harry Potter,people will cast spells, (I said, well they wont work though) and they
replied, "your'e poor naive fool."
They seem to love to use the word "Fool"
The world's over populated, if you bombed Africa, you solve the world's problems.
God wants women to stay at home, the Husband is the boss.
So if you take those comments.
Evangelical people, don't like women, don't like gay people, don't like people with dark skin pigmentation
and Im guessing they would've failed science class.
budkin
(6,703 posts)That's pretty much it.
gibraltar72
(7,506 posts)So they latched on like grim death. They want the end times.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)the singular goal of saving their own fraudulent miserable asses on their day of reckoning.
.
AlexSFCA
(6,139 posts)justgamma
(3,666 posts)therefore they can sin all they want. Also, the Ten Commandments must be displayed everywhere. They don't need to be followed,only displayed.
KCDebbie
(664 posts)while fomenting a war between Israel and Iran so that Iran can kill all but 144,000 Jews world-wide, an event after which God/Jesus, the creator of the universe and all in it can finally be allowed (by whom? I don't know...) to return to Earth!
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)1) Kings
You also heard this one during the W Bush era. The concept that God will select a king to lead his faithful, and that obedience to that king is tantamount to obedience to God. Currently, Trump is their king. That leads us to.....
2) Wrath
Evangelicals believe that liberals and America's liberal society, with abortion, pornography, humanism, feminism, multiculturalism, and a general lack of focus on God. With Trump's in-your-face disdain of liberals, Evangelicals see Trump as God's tool to punish America. And.....
3) Wealth
If you read what Jesus said, he doesn't seem too keen on the wealthy. But there is a philosophy among some American Evangelicals called "Wealth Theology." Long story shortened: if you are rich, it is a manifestation of how much God loves you. And that stems from.....
4) Grace
Works vs. Grace is one of the longest running debates in Christianity. Super simplified: The "works" side believes that you can do good works - feed the poor, house the homeless, give a bunch of money to charity or the Church, and that will help get you into Heaven. The "grace" side holds that original sin makes us all unworthy to enter Heaven, no matter what we do. Our only hope is to accept Jesus (who died for our sins) and to have God's grace. Grace basically means that somehow, some way, God picked you to be an integral part of His plan. Here's the thing - while holy, Godly behavior is supposed to manifest itself in people with Grace (think "Mother Theresa" ) that isn't always the case (think David committing adultery with Bathsheba or all the things St. Augustine did or St. Paul being a Roman slaughtering Christians before God talks to him and he becomes their leader.) So here's how it works with Trump: the three wives; the adultery with porn stars, the shady finances don't matter because Trump's wealth (remember point 3) and elevation to leadership (remember point 1) are manifestations of his being possessed of God's grace.
Disclaimers: 1) this is an attempt at explanation, not a defense 2) this is a gross oversimplification
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)They do not believe what they say
TheBlackAdder
(28,207 posts).
Before the 80s, people who thought of the Bible being without error were seen as pariahs.
Then, there was a big push, around the same time as the "Moral Majority" came to be, and churches slowly adopted this thought. Christians who believed in Verbal Dictation or Verbal Plenary Inspiration argued that, since the Bible was inspired by God, it must be perfect. Evangelical minister, Harold Lindsell, wrote a book and later headed the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. An astonishing 335 Evangelical leaders signed onto the The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy."
Soon, the educated ministers were forced out of churches. Religious universities, began to purge any doctors who refused to sign onto inerrancy, since the Bible contains hundreds of erroneous and conflicting passages. Compound this with the modernist view that anyone can be a minister, without official training or education, as long as one was divinely inspired or felt so.
This led to a complete dumbing down of religion within Christianity, as the majority of church organizations and movements have now subscribed to this Biblical Inerrancy movement.
The problem with this belief, is that people must make up stories and excuses to resolve these Biblical errors.
Now, after 35 years, a generation and a half, most people are used to explaining away things to meet their needs. The educated are no longer acting as the firewalls of insanity, and lunatic fringes are now the keymasters to most churches.
.