Religion

[lordstanley]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Probably true in a lot of denoms. Apropos that Tater posted that lecture by Watts above where he makes the excellent point that a person can only talk about things in the forms/images/language they have particular access and experience in, IOW that your communication is all culturally conditioned. Paul is pretty revolutionary when you filter him through the lens of what he was - an upper class(probably),  Pharasaic Jew of the Roman Empire. Of course by today's culture he still appears in places as reactionary. I don't think that's the best take, but YMMV.

I always look back to the story told in Acts about Peter and Paul disagreeing on doctrine. I am always astounded the curators of the NT let that story slip through because to me it is the most salient episode in all of post resurrection writing and blows-up every church's claim to interpretive authority. You are not an evil person because you disagree on doctrine. If Peter and Paul do not, nobody ever will, no-one really has any better claim to it than anyone else.

(yeah - they'd probably have burned me at the stake as Gnostic heretic too )

Heretics sometimes get a bum rap. One of the most famous events in Church history was the Arian controversy of the 4th century, resolution of which led to among other things the Nicene Creed. On the one hand, the priest Arius and like-minded bishops such as Eusebius of Nicomedia perceived Jesus as a highly moral person created and then adopted by God as his Son, with Jesus being raised from the dead and granted a divine yet subordinate status. To future saint Athanasius and his mentor Alexander of Alexandria, the Arian position was destructive since their view was that Jesus was fully and equally God, which not only upheld the principle of monotheism but was necessary if one were to believe that Christ was capable of offering mankind moral and physical salvation. It was a genuinely undecided issue, with support for the respective positions ebbing and flowing practically year by year, city by city, council by council, emperor by emperor. It deeply involved the urban, Greek-speaking Christian laity, who were no country bumpkins. Cities at the heart of the Roman world in late antiquity – Alexandria, Antioch and then Constantinople – were sophisticated metropolises where trade, commerce, art, and learning flourished. Gregory of Nyssa later in the century quipped about Constantinople that “in this city if you ask a shopkeeper for change, he will argue with you about whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten”. Not one, not two, but at least four councils deemed Arian’s views to be orthodox prior to his death although that position eventually lost out. Meanwhile Athanasius repeatedly was hit with charges of financial extortion and  incitement of violence, all of which resulted in Athanasius being exiled on five different occasions totalling almost 20 years by multiple emperors. But the Athanasius position eventually won out. 

[CMRivdogs]

This popped up in my feed today

https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com/p/how-do-religious-americans-view-the?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

 

A few interesting takeaways 

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White Christian groups have the highest levels of approval of Trump’s second term as president. White evangelicals (76%) are clearly thrilled, with slim majorities of white mainline and white Catholics approving of Trump.

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Turning to Christian nationalism, we can see that Americans who are at least sympathetic to it are clearly most approving of Trump (67% and 77%), while Skeptics of Christian nationalism (42%) and Rejecters (9%) are less so. The Skeptics number is surprising to me—it clearly departs from both the Sympathizer/Adherent groups as well as the Rejecter group. 

Quote

While the data visualization is just a bit confusing, PRRI asked folks to agree or strongly agree with one of two statements—Is Trump a dangerous dictator or a strong leader? Most Americans see him as a potentially dangerous dictator. 

But Hispanic Protestants, and especially white Christians, are more likely to see him as a strong leader who needs power in order to restore America’s greatness.

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One of the most alarming findings of the past few PRRI surveys has been a growing, but still minority, level of support for political violence. In the current survey they actually find the level of support for political violence has declined from its high in 2023, where just over 23% said true patriots may have to resort to violence to put our country back on track.

Now, only 17% of Americans agree with this statement. But 33% of Adherents of Christian nationalism agree, and 25% of Sympathizers agree. As I write in American Idolatry, violence is a central idol of Christian nationalism and is a natural result of a quest for self-interested power and embracing fear that “they” are trying to steal that power away.

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There is one final set of findings I’d like to highlight before you go check out the full report. I think it is good news that nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) would prefer “the U.S. to be a nation made up of people belonging to a wide variety of religions,” compared with 32% who prefer “the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith.”

White evangelicals and Hispanic Protestants are the only religious groups where a majority say they’d rather have a country where most people follow the Christian faith. The fact that Hispanic Protestants score so high here is evidence that embracing this religious identity is linked to demonstrating their “American-ness.” My guess is that quite a few Hispanic Protestants are Adherents of Christian nationalism, and as we can see at the bottom of the figure, a vast majority of those folks want a nation full of Christians. So while their race/ethnicity might be seen as a mark against their “American-ness,” Hispanic Protestants embrace Christian nationalism in order to show they are truly American.

 

[Tigermojo]

There was a documentary on Prime that said the Romans created Christianity because they were having problems with the Jews. They needed the people to be sheep. Of course the rules did not apply to Roman leadership. History repeats. Now Trump is the new Messiah, so do as he says and not how he does.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This popped up in my feed today

https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com/p/how-do-religious-americans-view-the?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

 

A few interesting takeaways 

 

Good find. A couple comments on this:

• Hispanic Protestants may be desperately trying to demonstrate their "Americaness" by supporting Trump, the raid, the deportations and the rest of it, but If things go as far as MAGA and the Red Hats want it to, they'll find themselves being rolled over along with the rest of them, especially if they look the part.
• The 32% of people prefer “the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith" are willfully failing to recognize that Christians are already a super-majority in this country.

 

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This popped up in my feed today

https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com/p/how-do-religious-americans-view-the?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

 

A few interesting takeaways 

 

the last bit about Protestant Hispanics was interesting. I'm old enough to remember when non-Catholic Hispanics would not have been a large enough group to care about (politically that is!) but Google just told that Catholicism among Hispanics fell from 67% to 43% in just the  12yrs from 2010 to 2022, Apparently 2nd generation Hispanics leaving the RCC in droves. That's an amazingly rapid shift.

[gehringer_2]

5 hours ago, lordstanley said:

Heretics sometimes get a bum rap.

+1

I've read some about Origen, one of the most renowned teachers of the early church, may have been the single person most responsible for the selection of the canon. Today the church doesn't talk about him because a lot of what he believed is not current orthodoxy. But Origen himself was cool about it, freely said he wasn't sure about a lot things but he'd tell you what made sense to him, take it or leave it.

Edited October 22 by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

Sitting at the airport in Boston, several hours to kill. This song came up in my newsfeed. 

Trigger Warning

Not Safe For Work (Lyrics)

 

[LaceyLou]

I hope you were able to avoid the parts of Boston currently on fire. It's a war zone, as I'm sure you know. 😉

(I'm pretty sure Logan Airport would be a good place for Purgatory to be)

[CMRivdogs]

4 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

I hope you were able to avoid the parts of Boston currently on fire. It's a war zone, as I'm sure you know. 😉

(I'm pretty sure Logan Airport would be a good place for Purgatory to be)

We basically went from the airport to the boat and back. Didn’t see much of Boston this trip

[chasfh]

 

 

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

 

 

If only this were actual parody.

[oblong]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

 

 

that might be the most spot on thing that site's ever done.