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Christianists and their quest for "Dominion"


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Saw this on Facebook this morning:

https://theestablishment.co/christianists-want-dominion-over-america-and-its-not-rude-to-say-so-b03abaa3c319

From the article (to avoid quote feature hell I will post again after I post this clip from this article):
 

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Another clue to the chasm between Christianity and Christianism lies in polling data. On election day, 58% of non-Catholic Christians of any race voted for Donald J. Trump, but 81% of self-identified white, born-again/evangelical Christians did.

An even more curious phenomenon is revealed in the primary polling for candidate Trump. Among the 40% of GOP primary voters who call themselves Evangelical Christians, Donald Trump had the strongest supportamong people who do not attend church. At first blush, unchurched Evangelicals may seem a contradiction in terms, though we don’t blink at secular Jews or lapsed Catholics who still identify with the religion of their communities. “Evangelical” or “born-again” sounds like a personal commitment, rather than a family tradition, but as Jack Jenkins explains:

“…when it comes to understanding Trump’s popularity with the evangelical masses, the key lies in a simple reality: Lots of evangelicals — especially Trump supporters — simply aren’t that ‘religious.’”

Evangelical leaders complain of the Biblical illiteracy of American Christians, and around 40% of white Evangelical Protestants, the core demographic of the theocratically ambitious Republican Party, attend church only occasionally, or never. But they vote the straight “faith, family, and freedom” ticket of values voters. Molly Ball at The Atlantic observes,

“…when cultural conservatives disengage from organized religion, they tend to redraw the boundaries of identity, de-emphasizing morality and religion and emphasizing race and nation. Trump is both a beneficiary and a driver of that shift.”

The voting patterns of the Evangelical base of the GOP tell you much more 

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Roger Williams, who was one of the founders of the State of Rhode Island said of the compelled worship practiced by the State in the Massaschusettes Bay Colony that it was a "Stink in God's nose".  I absolutely agree.  

Compelled worship is false worship.  The State has no business compelling people to worship.  Religions have no business seeking to have worship compelled.  Every time the State and the Church have gotten intertwined bad things result.  I, as a Christian, feel it is my duty to oppose this attempt to compel people into the Christianists brand of Christianity.  

This needs to be opposed, vigorously.

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7 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

The author should have just said white people like everyone else does. Seems just a slight rebranding of the usual -they voted for white supremacy- accusation.

Otherwise why seperate Catholicism from Christianity.

I think the point about the racial element of Dominionism is made quite clear in the article.  The point the author is making is that you don't have that racial aspect is found largely among conservative evagelicals.  Not so much among the more traditional and Orthodox denominations.

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17 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Looks like to me they just exclude catholicism because many if not most latino Americans come from catholic backgrounds.

Catholics in general vote differently than Mainline Protestants and especially Evangelists, it's not just a question of ethnicity. Such is the case here in Canada, at least.

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Surely this is just a culture clash given a different name. This is traditional right wing conservative WHITE america feeling like its values are being eroded and they voted for the guy who was more likely to stop that happening. Religion ties into those values for some people as there is a connection, but what I think they feel like they are losing is their culture and are fighting back. 

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4 minutes ago, Sullen said:

Catholics in general vote differently than Mainline Protestants and especially Evangelists, it's not just a question of ethnicity. Such is the case here in Canada, at least.

Do they vote similar to each other? As implied here as all non Catholic denominations are lumped together for this article.

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4 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Do they vote similar to each other? As implied here as all non Catholic denominations are lumped together for this article.

Mainline Protestants usually vote like one another, yes. They're usually standard right-wing.

Evangelicals are so extreme they deserve their own category, and Mormons aren't even technically Christians, and so they are their own voting bloc.

5 minutes ago, The King in Black said:

So wait what major American Christian factions don't outright hate each other ?

I don't think American Catholics really mind the Orthodox, or the Copts, or any Eastern branch of Christianity.

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36 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I think the point about the racial element of Dominionism is made quite clear in the article.  The point the author is making is that you don't have that racial aspect is found largely among conservative evagelicals.  Not so much among the more traditional and Orthodox denominations.

I was going to write with tongue firmly in cheek that with this board you were preaching to the choir, but maybe not.

Scot, if you really want to put a chill in your spine read this article.

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I grew up in the far-right evangelical conservative (Christofascist) movement; specifically, I was homeschooled and my parents were part of a subculture called Quiverfull, whose aim is to outbreed everyone for Jesus. I spent my teen years being a political activist. I was taught by every pastor I encountered that it was our job as Christians to outbreed the secularists (anyone not a far-right evangelical Protestant) and take over the government through sheer numbers.

If the not really religious Evangelicals are scary the actually really "religious" ones are downright terrifying.

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8 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

I was going to write with tongue firmly in cheek that with this board you were preaching to the choir, but maybe not.

Scot, if you really want to put a chill in your spine read this article.

If the not really religious Evangelicals are scary the actually really "religious" ones are downright terrifying.

Yeah, we homeschool, but not for religious reasons.  There are some scary families out there.

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6 minutes ago, Sullen said:

 

Evangelicals are so extreme they deserve their own category, and Mormons aren't even technically Christians, and so they are their own voting bloc.

 

This article doesn't seem to do that. It looks like it's lumping all factions of Christianity together except catholics. I mean just within Baptists a "southerm Baptist" is a different thing than a "Baptist"

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2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Saw this on Facebook this morning:

https://theestablishment.co/christianists-want-dominion-over-america-and-its-not-rude-to-say-so-b03abaa3c319

From the article (to avoid quote feature hell I will post again after I post this clip from this article):
 

Scot

I can't speak for these "Christianists" or whatever they are called, but as a Christian I'd like you to explore this state religion thing a bit more.

So, consider this. Let's say there are 1.5 billion Christians today. Or whatever the approximate number is. On top of that, add up all the Christians that lived and died between 400 AD and today. Probably a few billion more.

Now, how many of those cumulative billions of people became Christians because Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire back in 380 AD? Consider the knock on effect of the Roman Catholic Church being established, converting all of Europe as a result, Russia, the colonization of the Americas and the spread of the religion to all corners of the world. All as a result of the influence of the Church established by that decision in 380 AD.

It may be that 90% of Christians over the ages were converted because of the decision by Theodosius to make Christianity the State Religion of Rome.

Now, I ask this question not of the average secular person opposed to religion. I ask it of you, as a Christian. Since you believe in God, do you believe that God would have preferred for those billions of people never to have been converted and saved, just so that the humanist idea of seperation of Church and State could be protected?

Or in the bigger, eternal scheme of things are things like human Constitutions, Bills of Rights, social contracts and the like irrelevant to Him, just like the fleeting duration of the civilizations that design them.

If His goal is that every soul be saved, is it not better that a single decision was taken in 380AD that had people being born in 1380AD, 1580AD, 1780AD and 2017AD with Christianity firmly established as the default religion in their nations?

I'm interested to see your current view on this.

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24 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Scot

I can't speak for these "Christianists" or whatever they are called, but as a Christian I'd like you to explore this state religion thing a bit more.

So, consider this. Let's say there are 1.5 billion Christians today. Or whatever the approximate number is. On top of that, add up all the Christians that lived and died between 400 AD and today. Probably a few billion more.

Now, how many of those cumulative billions of people became Christians because Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire back in 380 AD? Consider the knock on effect of the Roman Catholic Church being established, converting all of Europe as a result, Russia, the colonization of the Americas and the spread of the religion to all corners of the world. All as a result of the influence of the Church established by that decision in 380 AD.

It may be that 90% of Christians over the ages were converted because of the decision by Theodosius to make Christianity the State Religion of Rome.

Now, I ask this question not of the average secular person opposed to religion. I ask it of you, as a Christian. Since you believe in God, do you believe that God would have preferred for those billions of people never to have been converted and saved, just so that the humanist idea of seperation of Church and State could be protected?

Or in the bigger, eternal scheme of things are things like human Constitutions, Bills of Rights, social contracts and the like irrelevant to Him, just like the fleeting duration of the civilizations that design them.

If His goal is that every soul be saved, is it not better that a single decision was taken in 380AD that had people being born in 1380AD, 1580AD, 1780AD and 2017AD with Christianity firmly established as the default religion in their nations?

I'm interested to see your current view on this.

I believe in free will.  As such I do not believe that Emperor Theodosius' declaration saved anyone.  I think that we have to come to Christ one at a time.  I recognize the irony given that I'm a member of a Church that loved what Emperor Theodosius did (I'm Eastern Orthodox).

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7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I believe in free will.  As such I do not believe that Emperor Theodosius' declaration saved anyone.  I think that we have to come to Christ one at a time.  I recognize the irony given that I'm a member of a Church that loved what Emperor Theodosius did (I'm Eastern Orthodox).

Sure. I also believe in free will. It is a fundamental principle of my and your religion. But consider that if Christianity did not become the State  Religion of Rome, it might not have spread to all of Europe, and would not have ridden the colonisation wave to the New World, to Africa and everywhere else. So billions fewer people would have been presented with the opportunity to make that choice, as there would not have been missionaries or churches taking the message to them in the numbers that were made possible as a knock on effect of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in those early centuries.

It's not about forcing people to become Christians. But if giving Christianity the right to be the official religion in schools, state institutions and the like (for those who wish to participate)  means more people are faced with making that choice on a daily basis, the end result will be more people converting.

There is no requirement to give all religions a fair shot. The requirement is to take the Gospel to all the world and make people His disciples. So if that is achieved by undermining other religions, well, that is in fact a requirement placed upon Christians, not something to be frowned upon.

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