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Rick A.'s avatar

Kristen, I am in the belly of the beast———white, male, married, 72 years old, lifelong Texas BAPTIST of all things. I have been in pretty normal churches my entire life. No hellfire evangelists for the most part, no prosperity gospel charlatans, no faith healing quacks, etc. In fact, we prided ourselves on being the absolute champions of the separation of church and state. John Leland, Baptist pastor from Virginia, encouraged and influenced Madison and the rest of the founding fathers to enshrine that tenet in the First Amendment. Baptist pastor George W. Truett made a famous speech(to Baptists at least)on the steps of the US Capitol in 1920 championing religious liberty and the separation of church and state, a free church in a free state. That was in our Baptist DNA I thought. If any are not free to worship, or not worship, according to the dictates of his or her conscience, then none of us are, am I right? This belief and so many others I believe, are now out the window with the current Christian nationalism heresy, which is wrong and of course historically a lie. The theology/mindset/cultic behavior and attitudes this author and you describe is stark raving mad from both a common sense and theological point of view. It hate it, I despise it, it drives me insane, but I do not dispute its accuracy. What was fringe talk from the nut job “holy roller” preachers is now mainstream or at least widely accepted. I mean Trump got rid of abortion, so every evil satanic act and deed known to man is all good. This is crazy, and I do not know what to do about it. American Christianity in great measure has sold its soul. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. We are about to reap what we have sowed.

All these Christian nation people better watch out. If the Middle East monarchs keep bribing the Trump family, Islam may soon be decreed the only faith allowed by another executive order. Oops!

Sorry for the long reply. I have been thinking about the cult attitudes, the groupthink, the backwards thinking in the “church people” for a long time, even before Trump. Evangelicals are the worst of course, but mainline churches and Catholics too are way infected. Christians in 2016 gave us Donald J. Trump and every evil, cruel and vile thing that has transpired. I am heartsick, depressed and totally baffled by the mindset described today, but IT IS REAL. Fringe heretical theology is the coin of the realm now. We are so messed up as a nation and especially as believers. Help!

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Randy's avatar

I am coming to believe that we are engaged in a battle in this country, not for the soul of America but for the meaning of Christianity. What gets called Christian Nationalism is far worse than non-Christian. It is actively anti-Christian.

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