- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
James Talarico has been found guilty of quoting Jesus. The sentence he uttered, according to right-wing media, was “demonic” and “blasphemous,” exposing him as a “fake Christian.” Talarico is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas on a platform The New Yorker recently described as basically the New Testament. One Newsmax host accused him of using fake Bible passages.
The passages in question are familiar ones, found in Matthew 22 and Matthew 25. Love God and love your neighbor. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, welcome the stranger. They are, in fact, in the Bible.
The right’s attacks on Talarico aren’t about him, or at least not entirely. They’re about a much older argument — one progressive Christianity has been losing in public for 50 years — about whose version of the faith gets to count as real. The answer to that question has consequences far beyond any Senate race. When Christianity becomes a tool of power rather than a challenge to it, it doesn’t just damage the church. It destabilizes democracy. We are watching that happen in real time.
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That tracks. No one is as unfamiliar with, and vehemently opposed to, the words of Jesus more than American Christians.
Hypochrists.
I bet a large majority violate what it says to do every day.
Their ‘Christianity’ says that as long as you go to the proper church and agree with everything the pastor says, you have an automatic ‘get into Heaven free’ card, so you can be an evil, mouth breathing cunt and it doesn’t matter.
No surprise, it’s popular among the lazy set that prefer to be told they can be as evil as they like, rather than being told they have to improve themselves.
Sola fide is a scourge on the souls of Christians
Some of the very nastiest people I’ve ever met in my life were xtians that were just like that. The icing on the cake was that during a period of my life when I was in the hard atheism camp, these types would taunt me and say that I was going to (their) hell and they were going to be in heaven watching me burn.
Nothing about any of that kind of “morality” makes even the least bit of sense. Douchebags like this who claimed they are “saved” and can behave like total monsters in their lives would be eternally rewarded, while someone that didn’t accept the fairy tales they did would be eternally tormented? The only differentiating factor is that they “accepted Jayzus into their heart”.
That sounds more like the fantasies of psychopath rather than any kind of moral system.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” - Marcus Aurelius (misattributed)
A good person would reward good people for being good. If Jesus won’t reward a good person for being good just because they haven’t “accepted him into their heart” well… I said what I said.
I think you’d be surprised how many progressive and very moderate Christians there are in the US, they’re just not a political force in the same way as the billionaire-funded extremists
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I know nothing about Christ but America right now seems to be completely against it
I know an average amount about Christ, considering my upbringing… and I agree with you
I went to catholic schools and yeah America hates the sumbitch. Well except the people who dislike Christianity, we tend to be pro corporal works of mercy.
I went to a catholic high school run by Dominican nuns who were some of the least christian people it has ever been my misfortune to meet.
“American Conservative Christians” are not Christians. They never have been.
Maybe Paulians.
In actuality, their favorite parts of the bible are when God mercilessly slaughters innocent babies.
Which is still hilarious to me because even Paul straight up named the fruit of the spirit and it is not them lol.
Yeah, this unfortunately. Christian nationalists will never and cannot enter the kingdom of heaven
Is that Jack Chick?
Yup, and also a common meme template
Looks like a Chick tract. Find the one about Harry Potter… it’s hilarious.
I’ve always found the D&D one hilarious.
No, it’s Jesus
Meanwhile only the sound of crickets when Hexseth quoted fake Bible passages from Pulp Fiction.
Jesus Christ is DEMONIC!
-Christians!
He would be arrested by ICE if he was in the U.S. today.
When Christianity becomes a tool of power rather than a challenge to it, it doesn’t just damage the church. It destabilizes democracy. We are watching that happen in real time.
I’m not American, but I am a Christian, and I believe that wholeheartedly. Religions, including my own, should never hold political power. However religion can and should serve as a reminder that temporal authority is subject to something higher, thereby tempering and relativizing secular power, which is always tempted to absolutize itself.
The drive for absolute power has nothing to do with secularism. Religious power does the same thing.
Indeed. And that’s why religion shouldn’t be in power at all. Its focus on transcendent truths makes it dangerous in government, but as a counterbalance to authority it is effective and beneficial.
None of our leaders in the west believe in anything, let alone christianity, they are nihilists that believe in nothing other than self advancement, and that follows to business leaders. There will be no tempering of the temporal authority from religion, or anywhere else, absent some holy wrath.
religion can and should serve as a reminder that temporal authority is subject to something higher, thereby tempering and relativizing secular power
Until such higher power asserts itself, these people will not be deterred.
These cunts wouldn’t know Jesus if he descended from heaven with trumpets and handed them a Bible.
They’d have ICE detain him for having the wrong color skin.
They went on Fox News the other night and said “when I look at this white preacher from Texas all I can think about is MOLESTING TRANS KIDS”
They really think they got everyone hypnotized like some kinda three stooges skit
Molesting trans kids? Who do they think they are? Jeffrey Epstien?
The Xtn right is becoming the type of power our nation’s founders came here to get away from. Their influence corrupts both faith and government. Blaming cross-dressers for grooming children when the actual news headlines are pastors and priests abusing kids. They have become the American Taliban.
The xtian right wing cannot really be considered to be following the things that the character of Jesus is made to say in their own texts.
They should not really be called xtians. And no, I’m not trying for the No True Scotsman thing here…
At best, they might be considered Paulians
since they seem to be so very different…
And no, I’m not trying for the No True Scotsman thing here…
Yet you are literally doing that.
When Christianity becomes a tool of power rather than a challenge to it
🧑🏻🚀🔫🧑🏻🚀
Religion has always been a tool of power.
Absolutely. The first commandments of the Jewish and Christian faiths aren’t about obedience and exclusivity (with murder an afterthought in comparison) by coincidence.
It was always about controlling the masses, never about freeing or empowering them.
Ahh yes, the national socialists of religious demographics, hiding behind an ideology like a fucking brand while doing the exact opposite of everything it demands they practice in life, back with another thing to say. How about they fuck off. Christians need to much more vocally call out the disingenuous weaponization of their belifs in the purusit of power, I know these evangelical freaks are a minority, they just own all the major media so they get to have the loudest voice. Still, it needs to be rubbed in their face every single day that they would be the ones to crucify Jesus again if he did come back like they claim to want.
“Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?”
