Imposter Christianity, imposter conclusions, imposter patriots, imposter politicians.
CNN, John Blake, 24 July 2022: An ‘imposter Christianity’ is threatening American democracy
A take on the obvious observation that so many Christians say they believe one thing while in fact doing exactly the opposite.
The insurrection marked the first time many Americans realized the US is facing a burgeoning White Christian nationalist movement. This movement uses Christian language to cloak sexism and hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants in its quest to create a White Christian America.
[…]
“These ideas are so widespread that any individual pastor or Christian leader who tries to turn the tide and say, ‘Let’s look again at Jesus and scripture,’ are going to be tossed aside,” she says.
The ideas are also insidious because many sound like expressions of Christian piety or harmless references to US history. But White Christian nationalists interpret these ideas in ways that are potentially violent and heretical. Their movement is not only anti-democratic, it contradicts the life and teachings of Jesus, some clergy, scholars and historians say.
Samuel Perry, a professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma who is authority on the ideology, calls it an “imposter Christianity.”
The essay goes on identify, and challenge, the “three key beliefs” tied to White Christian Nationalism
- A belief that the US was founded as a Christian nation
- A belief in a ‘Warrior Christ’
- A belief there’s such a person as a ‘real American’
Of course, the most cursory review of religious history reveals that no faith movement stands still; they all shift and change with political and cultural trends. There is no there there. (Not to mention how translations of texts over hundreds of years as languages change, and after stories were told verbally over more hundreds of years, have repeatedly distorted whatever original message might have been there at the beginning.)
\\
Of course Republicans all along have resisted the formal January 6th. inquiry (just one example: Republicans Signal Refusal of Jan. 6 Subpoenas, Setting Up a Showdown) and not, obviously, because they’ve seen all the testimony and heard about all the evidence and reach a different conclusion. They simply reject the conclusion upfront; it doesn’t fit their ‘story.’ Again, I have this impression that conservatives (and the religious), because they are beholden to ideology and not evidence, truly don’t understand how to evaluate evidence and draw from it a valid conclusion. It’s simply not part of their worldview. Conclusions are never to be questioned; they are predetermined. If they don’t like the conclusion a body of evidence seems to imply, they don’t dispute the evidence, they ignore it and insist their own story is the right one.
Added 26jul22: Of course this is a specific example of the general observation that you cannot change the minds of the vast majority of people by laying out the facts and expecting them to reach the obvious conclusion. (As I captured here.)
Or maybe a refinement, not an example. The very people who cling to prior beliefs and resist evidence are of course those most committed to ideology, whether religious or conservative or even to a lesser extent the radical left (who tend to reject biology for certain purposes). But it’s because Republicans are so ideologically driven that they are the prime examples of this unfortunate facet of human nature. (But see my upcoming discussion of David McRaney’s new book for a plausible reason this dig-in-the-heels tendency might, in fact, have served an evolutionary purpose.)
\\
Another recurring story in recent weeks, for example, is how many Republicans, even once Trump staffers, are turning up giving testimony to the January 6th inquiry.
Washington Post, Matt Bai, 22 July 2022: These Jan. 6 witnesses are doing the right thing now. They’re not heroes.
Heroes? The real question is, what took them so long?
What should we remember? That they realized, at the last possible moment, that they were enabling a president who cared nothing for his country and its values? That they suddenly found the spine and rectitude to storm out on jobs they were going to have for only a few more weeks anyway?
What did that cost them, exactly? A couple days of orderly packing?
[…]
Matthews, Pottinger, Judd Deere, Eric Herschmann, Pat Cipollone, Kayleigh McEnany — none of them are really all that different from Josh Hawley, the senator shown fleeing the Capitol after having riled up the rioters with a raised fist. All of them enabled a president who stirred up the worst emotions in American life, who lit the fuse on a crude bomb and then recklessly hurled it into the heart of our democracy. It just took a little longer for things to play out.
\\
The puzzle about Trump in particular, and Republicans in general, is why they are so easily satisfied with their intellectually- and morally-challenged candidates. Why was Trump, a despicable person on so many levels, apparently the only one who could bring conservatives dreams (like repealing Roe) to reality?
In fact I think about a lot of Republican candidates the same way. Really, are these people the best the party can do? Sarah Palin? Marjorie Taylor Green? Lauren Boebert? All people who can reliably be counted on to say idiotic things? (Peach tree dish).
And Herschel Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner but otherwise perpetual liar and apparent imbecile? “Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got to clean that back up.” Trump endorsed him.
Republicans reject expertise and knowledge (a point David Brin brings up relentlessly, which I will explore when I discuss the rest of his book) and so all they are left with, apparently, is celebrity. Trump himself. Before him, Arnold Schwarzenegger, before him Ronald Reagan. In every current race, given a range of candidates, Trump will endorse the closest to a celebrity, e.g. Dr. Oz.
Gotta go.
