All politics are identity politics. Republicans have long mocked this notion, treating the very concept of “identity politics” as a left-wing fixation. In reality, the GOP’s success is entirely due to the cheapest form of identity politics: For decades, but especially now, they have worked to distract voters from the party’s ruinous policies with appeals to their identity as white, provincial and, most importantly, Christian. This campaign has been enormously successful. White evangelicals have been the backbone of the GOP for decades not because they love tax cuts for the rich and environmental degradation, but because they have been told, repeatedly, that Democrats are demonic and there is no such thing as a liberal Christian.
This is why there’s a growing panic in the Republican ranks over the campaign of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas, and it’s not just fear that he could beat Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general. Win or lose, Talarico — a seminary student-turned-politician — embodies an existential threat to the right’s long-standing myth that to be Christian must necessarily mean voting Republican.
You can’t follow teachings of Jesus and be a Republican.
Christ said to pay your taxes, that hoarding wealth is a sin, and he flipped shit (and tables) over the commercialization of faith in the temple.
He threatens Hell one time (Matthew 25), and it’s for the mistreatment of the poor, hungry, sick, imprisoned, and foreigners.
What did Jesus say about the (ubiquitous at the time) institution of slavery?
Spoiler: not a single thing.
Mistreat your slaves all you want (within the specific rules outlined in the Old Testament, of course e.g. Exodus 21, Leviticus 25). That includes literally raping your slaves and enslaving the offspring.
Its absolutely insane to me that anyone could use the bible as a moral guidepost. Shits depraved in there. Remember that time that god was like ‘its totally okay if I murder your family if i replace them with more fuckable people later’?
If you’re referring to Job, I think it’s even worse.
Unless I’m mistaken… I think the “it’s all ok because God gave him a new family” stuff was retconned by modern Christians. I think in the original ending he’s just S.O.L. on the family front. But it was necessary because god made a bet with Satan. Or something.
Earnestly and honestly reading the Book of Job was possibly the beginning of years of questioning this bullshit, for me.
The story is horrifying, and I remember sitting through sermons about it, looking around at other people in the pews thinking, “am I the only one who sees how fucked up this story is?!” (Yeah, pretty much was)
Remember that other story where the guy gets raped by his two daughters, but it’s totally ok?
“MLK never held a speech defending trans rights, therefore he was a bigot who hated trans people.”
Yeah sorry, this excuse just doesn’t cut it for me.
We’re talking about Jesus, not MLK. His words are supposed to be the words of God, and he allegedly spent his time here challenging all sorts of societal norms.
The fact that he can’t, even once, say anything close to, “hey guys, don’t own other people as property” is extremely damning.
The fact that the rest of the book is explicitly and fiercely pro-slavery makes it so much worse.
In his own words, he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. That law explicitly includes specifics on how to properly beat your slaves. It explicitly outlines the differences between Jewish and Gentile slaves. It includes specifics about how, if you fuck your slave and they get pregnant, you can enslave the child.
As someone who, unfortunately, needs to interact with a lot of American “Christians”, it cannot be understated how little of Christ’s own words are spoken in most Protestant churches.
Years of going to church with my wife’s family and I’ve heard Romans or Timothy 2 dozens of times but I can’t remember the last time I heard anything from the gospels that were actually Jesus’ words vice an apostle.
Sunday school is worse. Kids learn Old testament -> brief synopsis of Jesus, mostly John (should be obvious by now why) -> and then wrote memorize Paul.
Christians in America generally avoid Christ as much as possible.
I remember Robert Anton Wilson, who grew up Catholic, musing about how they should probably be called Paulians. Man, did that hit home with my experience.
I grew up xtian (from a liberal tradition of xtianity) and when I started hearing how other kids that were also xtian talking about certain issues, as early as maybe third or fourth grade I started to understand that there are vastly different interpretations of what that means.
I read the NT at a rather early age, slogged through the OT later, 2x for both of them (although I admit to skimming Numbers) and that did a lot to generally give me a great distance from all of it.
When hard core wingers talk about “the bible”, I often get the sense they have never read anything but hand-selected passages spoon-fed to them. It is especially wild to notice that when I talk about “red letter xtians” around them they often get a look of confusion. Before the term was concocted, though, even as an adolescent, when I’d ask people if what they were espousing was something that was written in red, they’d be confused. Which is strange, since quite a few bibles I’ve seen have Jesus’ words in red…
When this same batch of illiterates advocate for “teaching the bible”, part of me wants to say - yes, let’s do that, but read the entire thing and have class discussions after each assigned reading.
No special guidance, though, from certain beliefs. No apologetics applied to “explain” all the contradictions with logic, math, science and ethics. Start to finish, baby, even if it takes a few years to do it.
See how long that lasts, LOL.
Cover-to-covering the bible was a wild ride which I did later in life. My wife’s family are all “Christian” and it was a treat to discover none of them had ever actually… Read it.
I see this mainly in Protestantism. Anecdotally, it seems there is a bigger emphasis on textual knowledge in the “high churches”.
My parents are very strong, theologically conservative Christians and vote Republican. I say “vote Republican” because they’re not invested in the machinery and drama around Republican politics. They don’t attend conventions or rallys. They don’t watch Fox new or follow the 24 hour news cycle. They’re not at all wealthy but are comfortable (through frugal living) and they take advantage of public programs. They are essentially single-issue voters - abortion. I’m 95% sure that if the parties magically switched positions and Democrats were pro-life and Republican pro-choice, my parents would start voting Democrat.
The Republicans’ entire existence is due to 2 single-issue voting groups. Pro-Life and Pro-gun.
It definitely more abt keeping antiquated rules and racist traditions. Pro-“Life” is only for the control over women’s bodies in that they have to keep viable (and unviable) pregnancies to term, after that the women and children can go fuck themselves. I would say my parents biggest voting issue is the culture war thats claimed their three children. Im gay and my sisters are queer and progressive. My dad has hundreds if not thousands of Facebook posts complaining that his children are no contact with him. Pro-“gun” means they want more school children to die while they are in class studying how to survive drag queen attacks at libraries.
Southpark, Simpsons, or the Onion really can’t make this shit up it sounds so crazy. George Orwell knew
The Republicans cause more abortions because they don’t do anything to fix the problem sooner. No sex Ed. No contraception. Nothing to allow labor to have stable home lives with financial security. Voting Republican to minimize abortion is counter productive.