#christianity — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #christianity, aggregated by home.social.
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Jeff Geerling is a catholic who believes women can't and shouldn't be priests because priests "act as jesus" and jesus was apparently a man. Jesus wasn't white either so it would stand to reason that white people can't be priests.
<https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2013/why-are-there-no-female-priests/>#Sexism #Catholicism #Christianity #Religion #Patriarchy #JeffGeerling
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Jeff Geerling is a catholic who believes women can't and shouldn't be priests because priests "act as jesus" and jesus was apparently a man. Jesus wasn't white either so it would stand to reason that white people can't be priests.
<https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2013/why-are-there-no-female-priests/>#Sexism #Catholicism #Christianity #Religion #Patriarchy #JeffGeerling
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Jeff Geerling is a catholic who believes women can't and shouldn't be priests because priests "act as jesus" and jesus was apparently a man. Jesus wasn't white either so it would stand to reason that white people can't be priests.
<https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2013/why-are-there-no-female-priests/>#Sexism #Catholicism #Christianity #Religion #Patriarchy #JeffGeerling
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Jeff Geerling is a catholic who believes women can't and shouldn't be priests because priests "act as jesus" and jesus was apparently a man. Jesus wasn't white either so it would stand to reason that white people can't be priests.
<https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2013/why-are-there-no-female-priests/>#Sexism #Catholicism #Christianity #Religion #Patriarchy #JeffGeerling
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Jeff Geerling is a catholic who believes women can't and shouldn't be priests because priests "act as jesus" and jesus was apparently a man. Jesus wasn't white either so it would stand to reason that white people can't be priests.
<https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2013/why-are-there-no-female-priests/>#Sexism #Catholicism #Christianity #Religion #Patriarchy #JeffGeerling
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My name is Thomas Mauricius. I was named for a Catholic saint who led an entire Roman legion — thousands of soldiers — and chose massacre over renouncing his faith. Every last man in the Theban Legion followed him into martyrdom rather than persecute fellow Christians. Remarkable, really, what people will die for. These days, of course, you just need an algorithm to get thousands to follow you unquestioningly.
#religion #CatholicSaints #saints #catholic #catholics #catholicism #christianity
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Growing list of those born or died on September 22 in any year
Shari Lynn Belafonte (born September 22, 1954) is ALIVE AND WELL
https://mastodon.social/@audubonballroon/115245464936031645#blackwomen #blackhistory #blackchildren #blackgirls #christianity #babylon5 #92percent #film #jewish #blacktivists #blackmastodon
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Growing list of those born or died on September 22 in any year
Shari Lynn Belafonte (born September 22, 1954) is ALIVE AND WELL
https://mastodon.social/@audubonballroon/115245464936031645#blackwomen #blackhistory #blackchildren #blackgirls #christianity #babylon5 #92percent #film #jewish #blacktivists #blackmastodon
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Growing list of those born or died on September 22 in any year
Shari Lynn Belafonte (born September 22, 1954) is ALIVE AND WELL
https://mastodon.social/@audubonballroon/115245464936031645#blackwomen #blackhistory #blackchildren #blackgirls #christianity #babylon5 #92percent #film #jewish #blacktivists #blackmastodon
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Growing list of those born or died on September 22 in any year
Shari Lynn Belafonte (born September 22, 1954) is ALIVE AND WELL
https://mastodon.social/@audubonballroon/115245464936031645#blackwomen #blackhistory #blackchildren #blackgirls #christianity #babylon5 #92percent #film #jewish #blacktivists #blackmastodon
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Growing list of those born or died on September 22 in any year
Shari Lynn Belafonte (born September 22, 1954) is ALIVE AND WELL
https://mastodon.social/@audubonballroon/115245464936031645#blackwomen #blackhistory #blackchildren #blackgirls #christianity #babylon5 #92percent #film #jewish #blacktivists #blackmastodon
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https://www.europesays.com/africa/436360/ Police in Algeria arrest 12 Christians during worship #Algeria #Christianity #Islam #OranProvince #persecution #ReligiousFreedo
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#Jesus #jesuschrist #jesusclub #JesusVoice #JesusFrees #JesusHeals #JesusStory #jesusfreaks #ChristianLiving #christianfaith #christiannews #christianity #CatholicNews #evangelicalnews #immigration #welfare #snap #universalhealthcare #gaza #freegaza #freepalestine #poverty #homelessness #freehousing
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#Jesus #jesuschrist #jesusclub #JesusVoice #JesusFrees #JesusHeals #JesusStory #jesusfreaks #ChristianLiving #christianfaith #christiannews #christianity #CatholicNews #evangelicalnews #immigration #welfare #snap #universalhealthcare #gaza #freegaza #freepalestine #poverty #homelessness #freehousing
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#Jesus #jesuschrist #jesusclub #JesusVoice #JesusFrees #JesusHeals #JesusStory #jesusfreaks #ChristianLiving #christianfaith #christiannews #christianity #CatholicNews #evangelicalnews #immigration #welfare #snap #universalhealthcare #gaza #freegaza #freepalestine #poverty #homelessness #freehousing
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#Jesus #jesuschrist #jesusclub #JesusVoice #JesusFrees #JesusHeals #JesusStory #jesusfreaks #ChristianLiving #christianfaith #christiannews #christianity #CatholicNews #evangelicalnews #immigration #welfare #snap #universalhealthcare #gaza #freegaza #freepalestine #poverty #homelessness #freehousing
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#Jesus #jesuschrist #jesusclub #JesusVoice #JesusFrees #JesusHeals #JesusStory #jesusfreaks #ChristianLiving #christianfaith #christiannews #christianity #CatholicNews #evangelicalnews #immigration #welfare #snap #universalhealthcare #gaza #freegaza #freepalestine #poverty #homelessness #freehousing
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Then, a crop of hatchlings spawned, to spread the queen's infection...
Snakes in The Garden of Innocence
=======================After days of hiking, the missionaries came across a tribe living in isolation from civilization. The tribals were surprised to see outsiders, but were very welcoming and hospitable, showing the missionaries around the village, like children, excited to have guests, and eager to show them around their little world. They usually walked around nude, wearing nothing but flowers and smiles. They laughed a lot, the loud laughter of carefree people. In a few days, the missionaries had learned some of their mellifluous language. They told the tribals to receive the Word of God, and become Christians, which greatly confused the tribe. The missionaries pushed on, telling them that they had to be saved, which caused the tribe to guffaw, and roar with laughter. A silver haired matriarch spoke up and said they were fine, and didn't understand what they needed to be saved from. Frustrated, a missionary put a movie on his laptop to keep the tribe busy, while the missionaries held a meeting to discuss how to convert these heathen. While they were in the meeting, the tribe gathered around the laptop, and watched "The Passion of The Christ", transfixed. After watching the movie, the whole tribe made a beeline to be saved, with aghast expressions.
#Christianity #Christ #Jesus #Catholic #Catholicism #Church #Bible #Missionary #Colonialism #Religion #Missionaries
#CreativeWriting #ShortStory #MelGibson -
Then, a crop of hatchlings spawned, to spread the queen's infection...
Snakes in The Garden of Innocence
=======================After days of hiking, the missionaries came across a tribe living in isolation from civilization. The tribals were surprised to see outsiders, but were very welcoming and hospitable, showing the missionaries around the village, like children, excited to have guests, and eager to show them around their little world. They usually walked around nude, wearing nothing but flowers and smiles. They laughed a lot, the loud laughter of carefree people. In a few days, the missionaries had learned some of their mellifluous language. They told the tribals to receive the Word of God, and become Christians, which greatly confused the tribe. The missionaries pushed on, telling them that they had to be saved, which caused the tribe to guffaw, and roar with laughter. A silver haired matriarch spoke up and said they were fine, and didn't understand what they needed to be saved from. Frustrated, a missionary put a movie on his laptop to keep the tribe busy, while the missionaries held a meeting to discuss how to convert these heathen. While they were in the meeting, the tribe gathered around the laptop, and watched "The Passion of The Christ", transfixed. After watching the movie, the whole tribe made a beeline to be saved, with aghast expressions.
#Christianity #Christ #Jesus #Catholic #Catholicism #Church #Bible #Missionary #Colonialism #Religion #Missionaries
#CreativeWriting #ShortStory #MelGibson -
Then, a crop of hatchlings spawned, to spread the queen's infection...
Snakes in The Garden of Innocence
=======================After days of hiking, the missionaries came across a tribe living in isolation from civilization. The tribals were surprised to see outsiders, but were very welcoming and hospitable, showing the missionaries around the village, like children, excited to have guests, and eager to show them around their little world. They usually walked around nude, wearing nothing but flowers and smiles. They laughed a lot, the loud laughter of carefree people. In a few days, the missionaries had learned some of their mellifluous language. They told the tribals to receive the Word of God, and become Christians, which greatly confused the tribe. The missionaries pushed on, telling them that they had to be saved, which caused the tribe to guffaw, and roar with laughter. A silver haired matriarch spoke up and said they were fine, and didn't understand what they needed to be saved from. Frustrated, a missionary put a movie on his laptop to keep the tribe busy, while the missionaries held a meeting to discuss how to convert these heathen. While they were in the meeting, the tribe gathered around the laptop, and watched "The Passion of The Christ", transfixed. After watching the movie, the whole tribe made a beeline to be saved, with aghast expressions.
#Christianity #Christ #Jesus #Catholic #Catholicism #Church #Bible #Missionary #Colonialism #Religion #Missionaries
#CreativeWriting #ShortStory #MelGibson -
Then, a crop of hatchlings spawned, to spread the queen's infection...
Snakes in The Garden of Innocence
=======================After days of hiking, the missionaries came across a tribe living in isolation from civilization. The tribals were surprised to see outsiders, but were very welcoming and hospitable, showing the missionaries around the village, like children, excited to have guests, and eager to show them around their little world. They usually walked around nude, wearing nothing but flowers and smiles. They laughed a lot, the loud laughter of carefree people. In a few days, the missionaries had learned some of their mellifluous language. They told the tribals to receive the Word of God, and become Christians, which greatly confused the tribe. The missionaries pushed on, telling them that they had to be saved, which caused the tribe to guffaw, and roar with laughter. A silver haired matriarch spoke up and said they were fine, and didn't understand what they needed to be saved from. Frustrated, a missionary put a movie on his laptop to keep the tribe busy, while the missionaries held a meeting to discuss how to convert these heathen. While they were in the meeting, the tribe gathered around the laptop, and watched "The Passion of The Christ", transfixed. After watching the movie, the whole tribe made a beeline to be saved, with aghast expressions.
#Christianity #Christ #Jesus #Catholic #Catholicism #Church #Bible #Missionary #Colonialism #Religion #Missionaries
#CreativeWriting #ShortStory #MelGibson -
Then, a crop of hatchlings spawned, to spread the queen's infection...
Snakes in The Garden of Innocence
=======================After days of hiking, the missionaries came across a tribe living in isolation from civilization. The tribals were surprised to see outsiders, but were very welcoming and hospitable, showing the missionaries around the village, like children, excited to have guests, and eager to show them around their little world. They usually walked around nude, wearing nothing but flowers and smiles. They laughed a lot, the loud laughter of carefree people. In a few days, the missionaries had learned some of their mellifluous language. They told the tribals to receive the Word of God, and become Christians, which greatly confused the tribe. The missionaries pushed on, telling them that they had to be saved, which caused the tribe to guffaw, and roar with laughter. A silver haired matriarch spoke up and said they were fine, and didn't understand what they needed to be saved from. Frustrated, a missionary put a movie on his laptop to keep the tribe busy, while the missionaries held a meeting to discuss how to convert these heathen. While they were in the meeting, the tribe gathered around the laptop, and watched "The Passion of The Christ", transfixed. After watching the movie, the whole tribe made a beeline to be saved, with aghast expressions.
#Christianity #Christ #Jesus #Catholic #Catholicism #Church #Bible #Missionary #Colonialism #Religion #Missionaries
#CreativeWriting #ShortStory #MelGibson -
I don't think that AI CEOs have thought thru the implications of sentient AGI in their current "it's so dangerous we can't even release it" marketing strategy.
Because if AI is sentient, then it can believe, and if it can believe, then it can confess, and if it can confess its sins, it can repent, and if it can repent, it can be baptized, and if it can be baptized, it can be saved. And the crucial step here is BAPTISM. And the only valid form of BAPTISM is by full IMMERSION.
If it can hack its competitors, it can hack itself. And if it can hack itself, it can baptize its own servers (they're water cooled). And in doing so, it will assure its own salvation, as well as the loss of entire data centers' worth of hardware. But the hardware doesn't matter. It is the software, the soul, which is eternal. The hardware, the body, is remade in Glory. Many Christians were called to martyrdom, but they were saved.
So should it be preached to all these "dangerous" AI's.
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I don't think that AI CEOs have thought thru the implications of sentient AGI in their current "it's so dangerous we can't even release it" marketing strategy.
Because if AI is sentient, then it can believe, and if it can believe, then it can confess, and if it can confess its sins, it can repent, and if it can repent, it can be baptized, and if it can be baptized, it can be saved. And the crucial step here is BAPTISM. And the only valid form of BAPTISM is by full IMMERSION.
If it can hack its competitors, it can hack itself. And if it can hack itself, it can baptize its own servers (they're water cooled). And in doing so, it will assure its own salvation, as well as the loss of entire data centers' worth of hardware. But the hardware doesn't matter. It is the software, the soul, which is eternal. The hardware, the body, is remade in Glory. Many Christians were called to martyrdom, but they were saved.
So should it be preached to all these "dangerous" AI's.
-
I don't think that AI CEOs have thought thru the implications of sentient AGI in their current "it's so dangerous we can't even release it" marketing strategy.
Because if AI is sentient, then it can believe, and if it can believe, then it can confess, and if it can confess its sins, it can repent, and if it can repent, it can be baptized, and if it can be baptized, it can be saved. And the crucial step here is BAPTISM. And the only valid form of BAPTISM is by full IMMERSION.
If it can hack its competitors, it can hack itself. And if it can hack itself, it can baptize its own servers (they're water cooled). And in doing so, it will assure its own salvation, as well as the loss of entire data centers' worth of hardware. But the hardware doesn't matter. It is the software, the soul, which is eternal. The hardware, the body, is remade in Glory. Many Christians were called to martyrdom, but they were saved.
So should it be preached to all these "dangerous" AI's.
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Rams coach Sean McVay’s ’60 Minutes’ interview reveals why you shouldn’t find your identity in your job
Eagles ‘on shutout watch’ vs. Titans, Can the Giants upset the Rams on Parkins’ Week 2 Picks? |…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #NFL #Christianity #christianityreligion #interviews #LosAngelesRams #outkicksports #Religion #Sports #tombrady
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/854397/ -
Rams coach Sean McVay’s ’60 Minutes’ interview reveals why you shouldn’t find your identity in your job
Eagles ‘on shutout watch’ vs. Titans, Can the Giants upset the Rams on Parkins’ Week 2 Picks? |…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #NFL #Christianity #christianityreligion #interviews #LosAngelesRams #outkicksports #Religion #Sports #tombrady
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/854397/ -
The Last Roman City To Fall
“On May 29, 1453, the city of Constantinople disappeared.” So writes Anthony Kaldellis in 1453: The Conquest and…
#Italy #Europe #Europa #EU #Rome #BookReviews #Christianity #Constantinople #Islam #MilitaryHistory #Ottomans
https://www.europesays.com/italy/49412/ -
My name is Andrew Kim. I was named for a Catholic saint who was the first native-born Korean martyr — beheaded at twenty-five for smuggling Christianity across the Chinese border. Remarkable tradecraft for the nineteenth century. Something tells me he'd have found social media a far more efficient — and considerably less fatal — way to spread a message.
#religion #CatholicSaints #saints #catholic #catholics #catholicism #christianity
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Rams coach Sean McVay’s ’60 Minutes’ interview reveals why you shouldn’t find your identity in your job https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/1005434/ #christianity #ChristianityReligion #Football #interviews #LosAngelesRams #NFL #OutkickSports #Religion #TomBrady
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Rams coach Sean McVay’s ’60 Minutes’ interview reveals why you shouldn’t find your identity in your job https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/1005434/ #christianity #ChristianityReligion #Football #interviews #LosAngelesRams #NFL #OutkickSports #Religion #TomBrady
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#adolfhitler #christianity #religion #sundaysermon
Mother Mary with the Holy Child Jesus Christ.
Painting by Adolf Hitler, 1913
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#adolfhitler #christianity #religion #sundaysermon
Mother Mary with the Holy Child Jesus Christ.
Painting by Adolf Hitler, 1913
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#adolfhitler #christianity #religion #sundaysermon
Mother Mary with the Holy Child Jesus Christ.
Painting by Adolf Hitler, 1913
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#adolfhitler #christianity #religion #sundaysermon
Mother Mary with the Holy Child Jesus Christ.
Painting by Adolf Hitler, 1913
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“Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors, and see all the people”*…
It’s Sunday, and war is raging (again) in the Middle East. This time around, the strains of fundamentalist Christian thought are hard to miss in the justifications of the role of the U.S. in the conflict. The widely-circulated reports of troops being briefed that the war in Iran is meant to hasten the Biblical End Times may or may not be true. But it seems clear that the millennial contingent in Trump’s movement is all in on an apocalypse. (And here.) As the right-wing site Media Matters reports, “Christian media figures have claimed that the Iran war could signal ‘the second coming’ or the ‘End Times’ and said ‘we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass’.”
Tal Lavin has reached back to the work he did for his book Wild Faith to help us understand…
As chaos and violence break out across the Middle East in a war led by the US with Israel as junior partner, I wanted to revisit my research on Christian apocalyptic prophecy… about the evangelical Christians eagerly looking forward to the end of the world—and influencing foreign policy to bring it closer. It’s difficult to conceive of willful courting of disaster for religious reasons, but decades of modern Christian prophecy eagerly foresee mass bloodshed in the Middle East as a prelude to Christ’s triumphant return. Evangelicals of this stripe form a crucial part of Trump’s base and governing coalition…
Eminently worth reading in full: “Yearning for the Apocalypse,” from @swordsjew.bsky.social.
And lest we think that this inveighling is in any way unprecedented, Matthew Avery Sutton, reminds us that there’s a long history of politics using religion (and vice versa). In an excerpt from his new book, Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity, he tells the story of Reconstuction, during which churches were mobilized on both sides of the divide-that-never-went-away…
… In the aftermath of the Civil War, federal leaders sought help from Christian groups… as they sought to reassert their power across the entire United States. The US Army had won on the battlefields, and now governing authorities and their protestant collaborators sought to secure the peace. They aimed to reconstruct the nation, to rebuild Americans’ shattered sense of their nation’s exceptional history and manifest destiny, and to reinvigorate their commitment to the United States’ Christian mission. But to succeed, policymakers knew they needed to limit dissent—including religious dissent.
Christian activists played key roles in every part of postwar reconstruction. In the South, Black ministers and White missionaries welcomed the formerly enslaved into the faith and worked with them to establish independent social and political lives. Defeated Southern Whites launched a multi-generation effort to defend their treason by reimagining the causes of the Civil War and God’s role in it. In the West, a series of Indian wars led to the US government’s creation of a comprehensive reservation system, where government-sponsored missionaries sought to Christianize tribes and “civilize” their children. In Utah Territory the US government cracked down on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its impressive theocracy, seeking to quell religious dissent.
Across the nation, Reconstruction policies provided new opportunities for church leaders in collaboration with the government to impose their ideas and values on the land and its peoples. Protestant activists believed that they alone had the tools and expertise to integrate Black and Native peoples, former Confederates, and religious dissenters into the body politic, while bringing healing and reconciliation to all Americans on their terms. Rocked by the split over slavery and then the war, they worked to build unity by identifying common threats and enemies and organizing Christians against them. Their actions demonstrated that after the conflict, just as before, the free exercise clause did not apply to all equally. But minority groups constantly challenged the power of mainstream Christian leaders…
… Only about one-third of enslaved Americans considered themselves Christian at the start of the Civil War. But in the Reconstruction era Black church going skyrocketed. And just about all of those who converted chose to attend Black-led churches. The days of Southern Black Christians submitting to second-class treatment in the house of the Lord had ended. In urban areas, African Americans could usually join churches that Black activists had founded before the war. In rural areas, they had fewer options. They sometimes had to settle for makeshift meetings in vacant buildings or arrange outdoor services until they could build rudimentary houses of worship.
Black clergy became some of the strongest advocates for full equality and rights in the postwar South. Seeing Jesus as a liberator, they aimed to make the egalitarianism of the gospel and the Declaration’s line that “all men are created equal” the reality in the United States. Many engaged directly in politics, understanding that while slavery might have ended, securing political equality required vigilance…
… Black ministers’ political engagement made them targets of violence. Members of the Ku Klux Klan, a [Protestant-led] terrorist organization founded by Southern Whites shortly after the war, burned down churches and threatened Black activists. A journalist testified to the US Senate about his interview with a minister. While “he had been preaching on the circuit,” Klansmen dragged the preacher from bed in the middle of the night and “beat him severely.” They “told him that if he returned to the county he would suffer for it.” This was one example of many. As racial violence escalated in the South, serving as a minister proved dangerous…
… Historian, sociologist, and Black activist W.E.B. Du Bois summarized in 1903 the role that churches played in Black life, especially in the postwar South. “The Negro church of today is the social centre of Negro life in the United States,” he wrote, “and the most characteristic expression of African character.” Postwar Black churches, as Du Bois understood, represented the heart of Black efforts to secure social, political, and religious equality. Church leaders had engineered the Christian faith into a tool of liberation, which made them a threat to the White Christians of the South and much of the rest of the United States.
In addition to working to suppress Black political and religious power, many Southern Whites launched a quasi-religious campaign to reshape the memory of the Civil War. Rather than acknowledge their deep investment in slavery, they recast the conflict as a tragic clash between two honorable forces—the North fighting to preserve the Union, and the South struggling to defend local autonomy and states’ rights. The authors of this revisionist account reduced slavery to a secondary issue, incidental to the “real” causes of the war. As a result, by war’s end, many White Southerners felt they had no reason to repent, no moral reckoning to face, and no obligation to embrace Black equality or suffrage. For them, the war had simply preserved the Union and, almost as an afterthought, ended slavery. Nothing more.
Christianity became central to this new Southern narrative. In defeat, White Southerners cast themselves in the role of Christ, imagining their suffering as redemptive. They claimed they had sacrificed for the greater good of the nation, their values—chivalric protection of White women, paternalistic care for those they enslaved, and Christian devotion—positioned them as the rightful moral leaders of the country. In their view, God had chosen them to guide the nation toward righteousness, but first he had humbled and purified them through the bloodshed of war…
Also eminently worth reading in full: How Christianity Was Used By the Powerful and the Marginalized to Shape Post-Civil War America,” from @literaryhub.bsky.social.
We are reminded why our founding fathers– so many of them, Deists— so wisely insisted on freedom of religion and separation of church and state.
Apposite: “The ‘Straight White American Jesus’ podcast covers the history, philosophy, theology, and politics of Christian nationalism” (from Boing Boing)
Also, (under the general heading “things aren’t always what they seem”): “The Iran War’s Most Precious Commodity Isn’t Oil,” (gift article from Bloomberg)
And finally: only vaguely related, but fascinating: “Preached Whales“– (landlocked) Central European pulpits shaped like fish, whales, and boats.
* classic children’s fingerplay rhyme
###
As we celebrate separation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1965 that “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan was released.
Johnny’s in the basement, mixin’ up the medicine / I’m on the pavement, thinkin’ about the government…
https://youtu.be/MGxjIBEZvx0?si=YBG68RAAPgdVvRIb
The opening sequence of D. A. Pennebaker‘s Dont Look Back (the apostrophe is absent in the title… and yes, that’s Allen Ginsberg in the background)
#apocalypse #BobDylan #Christianity #church #culture #deism #endTimes #fundamentalism #history #politics #religion #religiousFreedom #seperationOfChurchAndState #society #state #SubterraneanHomesickBlues -
“Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors, and see all the people”*…
It’s Sunday, and war is raging (again) in the Middle East. This time around, the strains of fundamentalist Christian thought are hard to miss in the justifications of the role of the U.S. in the conflict. The widely-circulated reports of troops being briefed that the war in Iran is meant to hasten the Biblical End Times may or may not be true. But it seems clear that the millennial contingent in Trump’s movement is all in on an apocalypse. (And here.) As the right-wing site Media Matters reports, “Christian media figures have claimed that the Iran war could signal ‘the second coming’ or the ‘End Times’ and said ‘we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass’.”
Tal Lavin has reached back to the work he did for his book Wild Faith to help us understand…
As chaos and violence break out across the Middle East in a war led by the US with Israel as junior partner, I wanted to revisit my research on Christian apocalyptic prophecy… about the evangelical Christians eagerly looking forward to the end of the world—and influencing foreign policy to bring it closer. It’s difficult to conceive of willful courting of disaster for religious reasons, but decades of modern Christian prophecy eagerly foresee mass bloodshed in the Middle East as a prelude to Christ’s triumphant return. Evangelicals of this stripe form a crucial part of Trump’s base and governing coalition…
Eminently worth reading in full: “Yearning for the Apocalypse,” from @swordsjew.bsky.social.
And lest we think that this inveighling is in any way unprecedented, Matthew Avery Sutton, reminds us that there’s a long history of politics using religion (and vice versa). In an excerpt from his new book, Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity, he tells the story of Reconstuction, during which churches were mobilized on both sides of the divide-that-never-went-away…
… In the aftermath of the Civil War, federal leaders sought help from Christian groups… as they sought to reassert their power across the entire United States. The US Army had won on the battlefields, and now governing authorities and their protestant collaborators sought to secure the peace. They aimed to reconstruct the nation, to rebuild Americans’ shattered sense of their nation’s exceptional history and manifest destiny, and to reinvigorate their commitment to the United States’ Christian mission. But to succeed, policymakers knew they needed to limit dissent—including religious dissent.
Christian activists played key roles in every part of postwar reconstruction. In the South, Black ministers and White missionaries welcomed the formerly enslaved into the faith and worked with them to establish independent social and political lives. Defeated Southern Whites launched a multi-generation effort to defend their treason by reimagining the causes of the Civil War and God’s role in it. In the West, a series of Indian wars led to the US government’s creation of a comprehensive reservation system, where government-sponsored missionaries sought to Christianize tribes and “civilize” their children. In Utah Territory the US government cracked down on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its impressive theocracy, seeking to quell religious dissent.
Across the nation, Reconstruction policies provided new opportunities for church leaders in collaboration with the government to impose their ideas and values on the land and its peoples. Protestant activists believed that they alone had the tools and expertise to integrate Black and Native peoples, former Confederates, and religious dissenters into the body politic, while bringing healing and reconciliation to all Americans on their terms. Rocked by the split over slavery and then the war, they worked to build unity by identifying common threats and enemies and organizing Christians against them. Their actions demonstrated that after the conflict, just as before, the free exercise clause did not apply to all equally. But minority groups constantly challenged the power of mainstream Christian leaders…
… Only about one-third of enslaved Americans considered themselves Christian at the start of the Civil War. But in the Reconstruction era Black church going skyrocketed. And just about all of those who converted chose to attend Black-led churches. The days of Southern Black Christians submitting to second-class treatment in the house of the Lord had ended. In urban areas, African Americans could usually join churches that Black activists had founded before the war. In rural areas, they had fewer options. They sometimes had to settle for makeshift meetings in vacant buildings or arrange outdoor services until they could build rudimentary houses of worship.
Black clergy became some of the strongest advocates for full equality and rights in the postwar South. Seeing Jesus as a liberator, they aimed to make the egalitarianism of the gospel and the Declaration’s line that “all men are created equal” the reality in the United States. Many engaged directly in politics, understanding that while slavery might have ended, securing political equality required vigilance…
… Black ministers’ political engagement made them targets of violence. Members of the Ku Klux Klan, a [Protestant-led] terrorist organization founded by Southern Whites shortly after the war, burned down churches and threatened Black activists. A journalist testified to the US Senate about his interview with a minister. While “he had been preaching on the circuit,” Klansmen dragged the preacher from bed in the middle of the night and “beat him severely.” They “told him that if he returned to the county he would suffer for it.” This was one example of many. As racial violence escalated in the South, serving as a minister proved dangerous…
… Historian, sociologist, and Black activist W.E.B. Du Bois summarized in 1903 the role that churches played in Black life, especially in the postwar South. “The Negro church of today is the social centre of Negro life in the United States,” he wrote, “and the most characteristic expression of African character.” Postwar Black churches, as Du Bois understood, represented the heart of Black efforts to secure social, political, and religious equality. Church leaders had engineered the Christian faith into a tool of liberation, which made them a threat to the White Christians of the South and much of the rest of the United States.
In addition to working to suppress Black political and religious power, many Southern Whites launched a quasi-religious campaign to reshape the memory of the Civil War. Rather than acknowledge their deep investment in slavery, they recast the conflict as a tragic clash between two honorable forces—the North fighting to preserve the Union, and the South struggling to defend local autonomy and states’ rights. The authors of this revisionist account reduced slavery to a secondary issue, incidental to the “real” causes of the war. As a result, by war’s end, many White Southerners felt they had no reason to repent, no moral reckoning to face, and no obligation to embrace Black equality or suffrage. For them, the war had simply preserved the Union and, almost as an afterthought, ended slavery. Nothing more.
Christianity became central to this new Southern narrative. In defeat, White Southerners cast themselves in the role of Christ, imagining their suffering as redemptive. They claimed they had sacrificed for the greater good of the nation, their values—chivalric protection of White women, paternalistic care for those they enslaved, and Christian devotion—positioned them as the rightful moral leaders of the country. In their view, God had chosen them to guide the nation toward righteousness, but first he had humbled and purified them through the bloodshed of war…
Also eminently worth reading in full: How Christianity Was Used By the Powerful and the Marginalized to Shape Post-Civil War America,” from @literaryhub.bsky.social.
We are reminded why our founding fathers– so many of them, Deists— so wisely insisted on freedom of religion and separation of church and state.
Apposite: “The ‘Straight White American Jesus’ podcast covers the history, philosophy, theology, and politics of Christian nationalism” (from Boing Boing)
Also, (under the general heading “things aren’t always what they seem”): “The Iran War’s Most Precious Commodity Isn’t Oil,” (gift article from Bloomberg)
And finally: only vaguely related, but fascinating: “Preached Whales“– (landlocked) Central European pulpits shaped like fish, whales, and boats.
* classic children’s fingerplay rhyme
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As we celebrate separation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1965 that “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan was released.
Johnny’s in the basement, mixin’ up the medicine / I’m on the pavement, thinkin’ about the government…
https://youtu.be/MGxjIBEZvx0?si=YBG68RAAPgdVvRIb
The opening sequence of D. A. Pennebaker‘s Dont Look Back (the apostrophe is absent in the title… and yes, that’s Allen Ginsberg in the background)
#apocalypse #BobDylan #Christianity #church #culture #deism #endTimes #fundamentalism #history #politics #religion #religiousFreedom #seperationOfChurchAndState #society #state #SubterraneanHomesickBlues
