American Theocracy: The Rise of Christian Nationalism - " the societies that practice it are the most evil places on Earth"

blame al-jazeera.

Apparently, Peter Wagner himself denounced the comparison.

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Are you really saying that the common practice of pretending this kind of nationalist fundamentalism is somehow more typical of Islam, rather than acknowledging it as something that has been developing in America for centuries, is actually something everyone here just picked up from Al-Jazeera?

That’s…a bold move, to be sure. I wonder what Muslim rhetorician you must have learned it from.

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A friend of mine was asked by a co-worker “Are you a Christian or a Catholic.” She must have realized her faux pas from the expression that he gave her and she promptly dug herself deeper by saying “I know you Catholics consider yourselves Christian.” He said something like “It’s okay, we’re always ready to welcome you back to the mother church.” He got her back later by convincing her that the chicken restaurant Popeyes was secretly owned by the Catholic church. “it’s right in the name, Pope-yes.”

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Don’t forget Spain under Franco.

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That’s just the heartbreak of psoriasis.

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I think they mentioned some Romans. Not very favorably. But it’s anyone’s guess if that particular Roman was white.

Although- the concept of whiteness didn’t exist yet. So in reality- there were no white people anywhere.

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Oh, sure, it’s an extension of the term “fundamentalism” to describe counter-modernist religious movements outside of the American context. Considering that fundamentalist christianity has not diminished, perhaps the “brights” wanted to change rhetorical tack.

I’ve seen the face portraits on average-people sarcophagi (coffins, basically) for Romans in the time of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) and they look just as MENA/WANA* as one would would imagine.

*MENA: old term, Middle Eastern and North African
WANA: new term, Western Asian and North African

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I read that claim as referring to theocracy, where the rulers say their laws and orders are the will of God, and the Christian Nationalism just being the current American iteration.

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That seems easier to defend, although in terms of human rights violations per square foot it’s tough to choose between the places where the leaders say that their laws are God’s Plan and the places where the leaders say there is no God except The Plan.

About all you can say is that dictators gonna dictate, and as soon as anyone starts going “It’s my way or the highway,” it’s time to start looking for the exits.

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And I will resist them until they take my life. Period. End of story. They will literally have to kill me because I will never bow to their religious views and will never obey their religious laws.

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I’m denouncing the comparison. It’s flat out bullshit and I’m sick of people using lazy bullshit to understand the world. It’s not serving us well in solving our problems. :woman_shrugging:

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17 posts were split to a new topic: Anti-Christian derail

Same here, but I never click on them. I suspect it’s just that BB is tagged as “political site” in the verticals databases of MoPub, DoubleClick, Vungle, or whoever else is selling ads into this site. I worked in the back end of mobile/web advertising enough to know it’s all a lot stupider than people imagine it is.

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Yes, and even that was manufactured by Newt Gingrich. The marrying of religion to the political right in America was a deliberate tactical move. It was a natural next move after The Southern Strategy, I suppose.

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I think this is a key point that people SHOULD attend to here. This was not inevitable, but a specific tactic, though it goes back to the 70s and the rise of the Moral Majority that Gingrich really ran with. It was a direct outcome of gay rights measures being passed in cities across the country in the wake of the more militant gay rights movement after Stonewall. Jerry Falwell backed the attempt to repeal the gay rights ordinance in Dade County in FL (I think) and they were eventually successful. Then he backed Reagan against the ACTUAL Evangelical Christian in the 1980 election, President Jimmy Carter. They rallied around repealing Roe, too. Pretty much, they’ve been working to put these positive changes into law since the 1970s, and are succeeding. But we don’t have to let them win.

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60s: Enjoin racist
70s: Enjoin Xtian dominionists
80s: Enjoin war and “deficit” hawks
90s: Enjoin government obstructionists
00s: Enjoin domestic terrorists
10s: Prosper!

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Yeah, on the subject of “the most evil places on earth…”

I would think such a place would include a) killing regime enemies pretty freely b) no free elections c) repression of minority groups. And to get full credit, d) starts an aggressive war. Nazi Germany got max scores in all of those area.

Russia fits pretty well my four criteria there.

But Hungary? Come on! They don’t even have a death penalty there, not for 20+ years! They have free multi-party elections! They have half a dozen kosher restaurants, with signs in Hebrew on them! They have a big and active Jewish community there, no one is being killed. In fact it’s one of the safest countries in Europe for Jews at this point. Yes Orban has restricted foreign political groups and removed LGBTQ subjects from schools and so on… but that doesn’t put anyone in the running for “most evil place on earth”. That isn’t actually killing people. For what actually killing people looks like, look at Syria for example. Budapest has an active, although discreet, gay life. Here’s a guide to it.

Others in this thread have already listed a bunch of other evil options, but coming to mind are places where they wantonly kill regime enemies and minority groups, like Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, perhaps Ethiopia right now.

Coming out with hyperbole for “the most evil place on earth” when what it really means is “places that I totally hate their world view” doesn’t help convince anyone.

If you want to come up with a list ranking countries where it’s really really unpleasant to be a minority or LGBTQ, that list would be a long list of Arab and African countries before you finally get to a Christian country, which would be Russia, and then most of the other Christian countries would be way down in the rankings.

The dubious honor included a lot of atheist ruled lands as well.

It’s almost as if hatred of women and LGBT people had something to do with patriarchy.

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But sure, ignore the far right and see how that works out for everyone…

if you have to sneak around to live as you wish, then you’re not living in a free country.

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