14
votes
Evangelical pastor discusses the link between Barabbas and MAGA Christian nationalism
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- Title
- Evangelical pastor perfectly refutes MAGA Christianity!
- Authors
- Culture, Faith, and Politics
- Duration
- 13:40
- Published
- Dec 21 2023
I thouht this video discussion was interesting both in explaining what was going on inthe narrative of Jesus' last passover, as well as linking it to modern Christian Nationalism. It seemed to be a discussion between two people who actually focus on the scholarly side of the religion and not just the dogma.
So I don't fuck with Jesus and the church anymore but I was pretty dyed in the cloth growing up and it turns out that David Johnson is a product of Trinity which helped train guys like Wayne Grudem (note: fuck this guy), who is a bit of a rockstar in the soteriology movement, but more importantly is a noted Trump apologist.
I think you are correct that these two are focusing on the "scholarly side of Christianity", but honestly the "scholarly" side can be easily twisted to conform to an agenda. Wayne Grudem is a classic example. I mean this dude, literally wrote a book, one that I have the misfortune of reading twice in my lifetime, that serves to be the foundation of certain types of biblical doctrine and scholarship. Yet he is using his same type of scholarly skills to let his fellow Christians know that voting for Trump is a-ok AFTER experiencing 4 years of Trump's chaos, going so far as to argue against his fellow biblical scholar John Piper. Note even Piper does this bullshit "both sides are bad" kind of weak ass take. Like why aren't these chuds arguing for the opposite side?
This is by no means a criticism of your statements or the fact that there are Christians who don't support Trump, I mean ~20% of white evangelicals didn't support Trump in 2020... which is depressing but something. It's more about the fact that to me, pastors on the side of Christian nationalism, like that assclown in Dallas "Obama is paving the way to the antichrist" Jeffress or scholars like Grudem are the same side of the heinous coin with one side using scare tactics to confuse their audience while the other is using 'facts' to justify the same ideology. I mean to me, the simple fact that one guy argues for a type of theology I agreed using biblical examples while another can argue the exact opposite using another set of biblical examples shows the absurdity of it all.
Finally, if anyone else is interested, there's a great book about the history of Christian Nationalism that came out a few years ago called Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart. Highly recommend it.
Completed unrelated side note, Pastor Johnson mentions Jehu which inspired the name for the amazing post hardcore band, Drive Like Jehu who I absolutely love and who also recently lost their lead singer, Rick Froberg.
EDIT --- Ahh, dear /u/canekicker, I was re-reading my post and I wanted to quickly apologize for tone: my comment was not meant to target anything you said specifically at all - I found your comment illuminating and insightful. And then flew into a tangent of soap boxy things I wanted to say to an overall broadly liberal crowd instead of just you. My apologies for the foaming at the mouth in your direction, please forgive me : )
thanks for the plathora of links on this topic - I don't know those names because I don't run in Evangelical circles anymore, so that'll be uh, "fun" to wade back into.
I also feel slightly compelled to point out, though, that most religious people in America aren't white, and aren't even evangelicals....
Pew Research March 2024 -
Yes, white protestants (evangelicals or not) and catholics have a large percentage who view trump favorably.
Is it possible that it's not so much faith or no faith, or even Christian or not Christian, but rather, it is White-ness when combined with conservatism that makes people align themselves with Trump? The other thing we have to remember that American democracy does not happen in a vacuum: there's unlimited super PAC money targeting precisely white conservatives for decades to keep isolating and radicalizing them. Is it so odd that a specifically targeted group, reading tailored articles, watching tailored TV and sharing tailored memes become radicalized?
I wanted to kind of....not speak on their behalf so much as "cautionary tale"-ing ourselves. There's unlimited super PAC money targeting you and I as well to keep feeling outraged, keep feeling in danger, keep othering those awful people, and keep flattering ourselves that we stand for truth and justice and all things good in a decaying world. It's easy to say, wow look at how ignorant and horrible those people are. It's harder to say, wow look at what money in politics have turned our brothers/sisters and our neighbours into. Which is exactly what those who don't have our collective interests at heart have been trying to do.
Nothing to forgive, I didn't even see the comment so it's a bit of classic no harm no foul but I appreciate the effort anyways.
Oh 100%. However, even if white evangelicals now only make up a minority of the US population, white people as whole still make up 60% of America. If this represented a gradual shift occurring over generations , I think things would be different but we were sitting at 72% white in America in 2010. The same can be seen in white Christians overall, which until 2012, made up over 50% of the population. So to me, whiteness and conservationism is pretty closely linked, though not perfect 1 to 1 as you mentioned before and to me, the Pew data indicates that White Evangelicals simply are the most fervent conservatives rather an outlier among white people as a whole. At the same time, white evangelicals are incredibly powerful even as statistical minorities and represent 1/3 of the GOP vote in the last 3 elections.
And while I agree with you that money is targeting us to feel outraged and danger, this kind of ignores the entire point that there are real policies and actions being taken by these people. I mean, the second in line for presidential elections has ties to and arguably is a Christian nationalist who attempted to overturn a legitimate election. His cohorts are doing goofy ass shit like requiring the 10 commandments to be posted in schools and attempting to ban porn in 5 different states, which is arguably an outpouring of the alt-right leaning NoFap movement.. On the more serious end, you have limits to abortion access, the subsequent attempts to ban mifepristone under the bizarre Comstock act, cruelty at the southern border, bizarre anti-DEI bills, the Christian nationalist trad wife movement, an ongoing effort by nationalists to drive public tax money into private Christian schools, using the bible to deny Medicaid expansion in rural states, their love and admiration for Putin and his policies, and an entire proposal of Christian nationalist policies and objectives outlined in the insane Project 2025. The list goes on and on. This isn't simply a debate of ideology or attempts to shift the discourse/overton window, these are actual policies and actions taken by those in power and I personally have very little interest in those who are funding these efforts.
To be clear, I am not white nor am I white-passing but I have personal experience with the negative influence that white evangelicals have on people who look like me but more importantly, people who don't look like them. Sure, it's not all of them and to quote a fucking asshole, "and some, I assume, are good people", but there are enough of them in places of power, with enough political influence, who have very little interest in making sure that this place cares for people who don't look or think like them.
Agreed. I was actually thinking yesterday about how one can use the scholarly side to push your agenda by telling the truth...but not the whole truth. I paused while writing my comment to reflect on that, but decided that they are just using that information to make an analogy and not to push a knowingly false narrative.
I think it's important to see how just because the so-called culture war is largely pushed by evangelicals doesn't mean that it is inherently Christian or even evangelical.
Agreed but I feel with Christians and evangelicals as a whole, there's always this competitiveness and "no true Scotsman" kind of thinking. I mean culture and policies aside, look at Christian Doctrine. You have some Christians who believed in tritheism, a lack of unity at the SBC concerning women pastors, those arguing that hell isn't real, or even the classic protestant vs catholic disagreement on things like transubstantiation. I guess my point is that those pushing these ideas believe that they're doing God's work just as much as those who don't.
One thing a friend of mine and I talk about is how so much of our upbringing in the church was based on competition. Who can recite the most verses, who has the deepest understanding of doctrine and theology, and ultimately, who can be holiest. It's a environment that breeds disagreement and ultimately, fracturing of beliefs. It wasn't until after I stepped away from this all that I realized that not all churches did this, which furthered my belief that outside of a few core principles, Christianity lacks coherence and is basically is a tool that's malleable to whatever existing cultural norms or beliefs one group holds. I guess it's why Christianity has such a long history of schisms and so many denominations.
While what you're describing in the first part certainly exists, I think it's probably something that you experience mainly in relation to the hyper-intense church where you grew up. In my experience, most Christians don't know or care about the differences between denominations, other than knowing about the saints and maybe transubstantiation with Catholics and perhaps the more involved members knowing that the "other" version of their denomination is crazy (e.g. ELCA vs. Missouri Synod/PCUSA vs. PCA).
WHAT!?!? You didn't have people yelling at you about how to structure your liturgy or how to properly recite the Nicene Creed?!!? Heretic! But agreed, most Christians don't give a shit about this but my gut feeling (aka 0 evidence) is that the cultural Christianity that's pervasive in America makes people more receptive and accepting of ideas that they'd likely reject if more closely examined.
At the church I grew up at (which is definitely evangelical in all the ways worth criticizing), we used to joke that new denominations would start over disagreements on the color of the carpet.
Good video. Level-headed and good details that didn't feel too esoteric for those who haven't heard those stories in a while.
If it's alright I'd like to go on a tangent and mention that Robert Jones of PRRI has been touring and doing online talks about the rise of Christian nationalism in the church. Unfortunately I can't link to a specific video because they seem to only leave a few videos up at a time and nothing older than 3 years.
But a while back I watched a live talk that he did and it was really substantive and profound to have a white person speaking about the historical and generational roots of particular cultural beliefs and the entrenchment of nationalist views in certain "southern" churches. He also has a couple books out on the subjects of Christians struggling with an identity that has stayed true to their faith but pivoted away from what is preached in church, in addition to I think a book about his own family's southern roots and how he's had to reshape his way of thinking.
Really great stuff and I hope more people view OP's video and PRRI's research. The work that they're doing is important and one of the steps we need to be taking to combat extremism and violence in the west.