The pull quote that set up today’s cogent piece was, “Over the weekend, a viral snarky tweet made the point: While some claim that the problem of Christianity is that it’s not taught in schools; the real problem of Christianity is that it is not, apparently, taught in churches.” I’m gonna use it when I share the article. Thanks, again!
The pull quote that set up today’s cogent piece was, “Over the weekend, a viral snarky tweet made the point: While some claim that the problem of Christianity is that it’s not taught in schools; the real problem of Christianity is that it is not, apparently, taught in churches.” I’m gonna use it when I share the article. Thanks, again!
The people are deluded. I had the misfortune of speaking to one of my church-going neighbors yesterday, who referred to the Trumps as “a god-fearing family with dignity and grace.” I couldn’t even.
I listened to the book, "Fever in the Heartland" by Timothy Egan, over the weekend. It's about the rise of the KKK during the 1920's. It focuses primarily on Indiana and the grifter Grand Wizard whose parallels to Trump are staggering. One of the Klan's biggest grifting schemes was to use Evangelical churches as recruitment centers. Lots of money paid to preachers to grease the wheels of Good Christian Hate. By 1925 the Klan ruled most levels of Indiana's government. I did not realize the Klan was that big of a movement in the West and Rust Belt. Dues paying members in those areas dwarfed those in the South. It's a very informative book with the main story centering on the Indiana grifter...who was a real piece of work.
Yes, Indiana used to have a large KKK presence. I'm from Ohio. We did too, I hear. In 1923 southwest Ohio had a Klan rally 30k strong and 7k pledged to them that night. I never understood that thinking. My grandparents came over on a ship from Sicily in 1911. Grandpa worked in the steel mills, and they settled in an Ohio river town across from Wheeling WV. They were often treated as 2nd class and he never wanted us to do that to anyone else.
My great grandfather fought the KKK in Oregon, finally getting a case to the US Supreme Court, to stop the Klan Governor and his minions from eradicating private education.
Having grown up in the deep south I was stunned to move to Colorado and find out there had been a huge KKK presence here. May explain why we have so many armed militias still.
Thanks for the book rec. Among the best I've read re slavery specifically is "Dark Places of the Earth."
That was brought up in the book and it was led by a couple of the 'Four Horseman' of ND football fame. It was about the only time anyone really stood up to Klan intimidation.
You would probably enjoy Rachel Maddox’s podcast series Ultra, which explores the fascist strain of politics in the US during the 30s on up through the 50s. Staggering.
I had listened to Ultra and that led me to get this audio book. The US certainly has a strain of white supremacy that needs it's 'others', especially blacks and Jews.
Back in the day when Judge Roy Moore wanted to post the Ten Commandments in the courthouse. I surveyed the churches in my town to see how many of them had them posted, and it was only one church, and that one was an Episcopal Church.
I think TS Eliot made the same point about Christianity when asked. He said something to the effect that Christianity was very good, if it were actually practiced.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Chesterton. "A Christianity which will not help those who are struggling from the bottom to the top of society, needs another Christ to die for it." HENRY WARD BEECHER. And to make Easter "perfect", last year Lauren Boebert supposedly said if Christ had an AK-15, he wouldn't have been crucified. Blasphemy, thy name is "Christian".
It highlights exactly how poorly people like Boebert actually understand their own supposed religion. Just like all the people who are angry at "the Jews" for killing Christ.
Except, of course, it wasn't the Jews that did it, but the Romans--and if you think that a Roman official would have had any qualms or questions about (or would have agonized over) crucifying someone, you don't really understand your Romans.
But when you are trying to build a religious movement in the Roman Empire, it isn't very helpful to blame the Romans, eh?
I am watching "Risen", which I watch every year around Easter. It's a film about a Roman military Tribune, played by Joseph Fiennes, who works for Pilate and is tasked by him after the Crucifixion to find the dead body of Jesus to prevent unrest. The story revolves around him meeting the risen Jesus and traveling with him and his disciples to figure out what is going on. I highly recommend it; it's the story of the very beginning of Christianity from a different viewpoint.
GK Chesterton and Graham Greene were favorites of mine for a very long time. They really made me thing about the moral consequences of life decisions on other people as well as their main characters.
Where's Christianity without a crucifixion? Yesterday I learned that Easter used to be on the same time-table as Passover, but that Christians' resentment of the Christ killers caused a a disconnect.
Also, a Christ who preached “love your enemies” but who then mowed down his enemies with an AR-15 would be sending pretty a mixed message to his followers.
The good ones - limbo, a kind of neutral plane, kind of like a spiritual vacation. The bad ones get to hang out with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Caligula and listen to their rantings every second for eternity. I wonder if the employees at Mar-a-Lago feel like they're already in hell with Trump around!
One of the dirtiest looks I got was from a Bible Study classmate who remarked, "America must get taken up in the Rapture because America's not in the Bible."
I responded, "I would think not. We weren't around back then."
The thing is that these so called "evangelicals" go to church less than once a month. I really want to know why and how they started to call themselves "evangelicals". I am not saying that we do not have a "politics" problem in churches in the US. But substantial number of the people who call themselves Christians are name only and rarely go to church, and those people call for teaching Christianity and the Bible in school most loudly, I think. As a born again Christian, I am so saddened by those who use the name of Jesus to get or keep their power and money. They will be judged, but many people are completely turned off by these so called Christians.
Fellow BA Ev Xn here, we’ve been had, SoCal. So glad you commented.
There was a deliberate, planned, systematic effort to tie Christians into Republican politics and it worked. I don’t agree with everything Dr. Kristen Kobes Du Mez writes in her “Jesus and John Wayne” but I think any Xn wanting to know how we got here ought to read it. And after that, Kevin Kruse’s “One Nation Under God” on how Jesus became a RW pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps capitalist.
Re: your comment: Matt 6:2 always comes to mind -- some people will get their tawdry “reward” here on earth.
100%! Also the podcast Straight White American Jesus is fabulous and has really helped this former evangelical get herself deprogrammed. Bradley Oneshi, one of the founders, is out with great but terrifying book about Christian Nationalism and what comes next. I caught one of the events when the book was published. And yes, we've been had and then some.
It's because of politics. Republican politics these days is all about identity, and part of having the correct identity is being "Christian". So people who were already conservative are starting to pick up the label even if it has no real meaning behind it.
As far as why "evangelical" as opposed to just "Christian"? I imagine a lot of that has to do with the way those terms are portrayed in media. Catholics, mainline protestants, and other forms of Christianity are usually portrayed as insufficiently conservative or suspiciously foreign.
Plenty of Catholics are happy to throw in with the Evangelicals. Dump the wishy-wishy social justice aspects of Catholic Social teaching, go hardline on sexual morality (which they are happy to back up with a gajillion encyclicals because the new testament is almost totally void of it), and argue that the Catholic church ought to lash itself to the Republican party to ensure cultural and political relevance (see DeSantis). They see the "normie" Catholics as "cafeteria Catholics".
Of course, if the the Evangelical/Catholic right coalition ever came to power, the Catholics would be jettisoned faster than you can say transubstantiation. I mean Pence an Pompeo are both former Catholics who found Evangelicalism more...animating. And so many of Catholics are Hispanic, I mean, that's gonna make them nervous. And then there's that awkward stuff with the latest pope saying "maybe helping poor people should be a bigger priority than denying "the gays" communion". I mean, they wont let that stand! That sounds socialist to me!
A story from my parenting days: I had been talking with my young daughter, who is a beautiful ethnic mixture of African-American, Mexican-American, Native American, and Caucasian, about Jesus. We are Catholic. I told her that Jesus had brown skin like her because he lived in a part of the world where people had brown skin. She went across the street to play with her friend, whose blond-haired, blue-eyed family would probably now be described as White Nationalist Call-me-Christians who didn't know much about what Jesus really taught. My daughter came back home and said, "Mom, Tanya's mom said Jesus did NOT have brown skin!" I just said to her, "Well, honey, Tanya's mom is wrong."
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." - 2 Timothy 4: 3-4
Even as an atheist, I admit the bible, as I'm sure is true for many/most religious texts, contains some great wisdom. It's that it's also loaded with contradictions and nonsense which can be exploited by the opportunistic and the ignorant that concerns me.
Brought up in the Church of Christ, this was a favorite preacher's assessment of...the Roman Catholic Church.
Now, an atheist, I see it as the description of religion in general. Mark Twain's "Letters From the Earth" should be required reading to earn a high school diploma in America. He gives the bible credit, when it deserves credit, and criticism when it needs to be criticized, which is the case in much greater proportion of the time.
That explains why, over 50 years ago, my late husband’s grandfather was aghast when we entered the Catholic Church after he’d been raised in the Church of Christ.
There is still a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in a variety of Protestant and Evangelical cults. My father did not really see Catholics as true Christians... and CERTAINLY did not see Mormons as Christians.
Looking at the current Supreme Court (not to mention the 'judge' in Texas) and its actions there might well be a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment (morally and politically, not personally) in the general population.
It is ironic that it is always the Jews who are accused of having divided loyalties . . .
Just wait till the issue of which date Easter should be comes up. Or whether the host is the transubstantiated body of Christ. Or whether salvation is by faith or good works. We already KNOW of the wars fought over such things.
And the Catholic Church reciprocates those feelings, hence, among other things, the restriction on who can receive the Sacrament of Communion from a priest.
True, that. My wife is Catholic and has been denied communion in her home church for over 31 years. A year or two ago, her best friend introduced her to a young Catholic priest in Ft. Worth who assured her that restriction had been rescinded. It took a few months, but the Catholic church in the community where we now live does allow her to participate.
No, she just abided by the doctrine as she understood it. We live about 35 miles from the small town (founded by German Catholic immigrants in the 1800's) where everyone knows everyone else (and, presumably, everyone else's business). I always figured the reason the Catholic church has everyone queue to the front of the church for communion was, at least in part, to make sure that anyone on the "no-communion" list would be pulled aside. Even where we live now, the priest required her to sign some document before he would allow her to participate in the ritual.
Weird thing is, my baby sister (if a 65 y.o. woman can be called that) every bit as atheist as I, makes it a point to attend mass at as many Catholic cathedrals in Europe and the US as he can, especially at Xmas, to walk the aisle to get the "Holy Cookie" (in her phrasing), which she adds to her collection to commemorate the holiday and the location. She skips the wine. Not that she's a tee-totaler, far from it, but she prefers a bit better quality in her vino than the priest profers.
Thank you, Max, for your response. The last thing I care or want to know about someone when I meet them is their "religion." The one thing about evangelicalism that I deem as its most despicable characteristic is its mandate to shove itself down another person's throat, and if you don't immediately "convert," well then, you are going to Hell. (Which, by the way, does not exist.)
Rather interesting, though not Roman Catholic, I enjoy the liturgy and ritual of the high Episcopal church, though my favorite services are the simple ones in chapel. I do not even believe in god, but I believe in a church going community -- at least one that sees love, and grace, as its only weapons. Queen Elizabeth I invented inclusion, when she declared that she did not care what church goers believed, as long as they all worshipped together. You and your neighbor are a bit less alien, and suspect, when you have common practice.
That might depend on what form of Judaism they practise. As with any form of belief, there are varying practices from traditional to more (small l) liberal.
Good point. History unfortunately is replete with examples of that. Social systems are very slow to change; technology moves increasingly rapidly. We are losing our ability to control the advent of technology and in many ways already have. As technology continues to change our daily lives and casts us into uncharted waters, our defense is reactionary rather than proactive. But for us to rationally manage technological "progress", we need to be well-educated and rational. We (and I mean humans, not just Americans) are neither.
Mine was more simplistic than yours, but I felt yours carried the idea that we get swept away by new technologies. This I don't agree with. We have choices most of the time.
From the Chicago Tribune: When Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was running for president in the 1950s, a supporter purportedly said to him: "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you." Stevenson replied, "I'm afraid that won't do — I need a majority."
Here's another Adlai S joke: He was in his Senate office and an aide walked in and said "Gale Sayers is here to see you sir." He looked up and asked "Who's she?"
The pull quote that set up today’s cogent piece was, “Over the weekend, a viral snarky tweet made the point: While some claim that the problem of Christianity is that it’s not taught in schools; the real problem of Christianity is that it is not, apparently, taught in churches.” I’m gonna use it when I share the article. Thanks, again!
My fave: Envy not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways (Proverbs, 3:31).
Never heard that passage before. It’s excellent :)
The people are deluded. I had the misfortune of speaking to one of my church-going neighbors yesterday, who referred to the Trumps as “a god-fearing family with dignity and grace.” I couldn’t even.
Watch this: https://youtu.be/hj6E2_3nraQ it is Saturday night live takedown of Trump comparing himself to Jesus
Water to wine. "100% profit", lol. This one will go down as one of their best of all time, guaranteed!
Just watched it--very funny. I sent it along to my fam.
“I would have done [the ressurection] faster…possibly 2 days….I think we could have done it a lot faster”
I listened to the book, "Fever in the Heartland" by Timothy Egan, over the weekend. It's about the rise of the KKK during the 1920's. It focuses primarily on Indiana and the grifter Grand Wizard whose parallels to Trump are staggering. One of the Klan's biggest grifting schemes was to use Evangelical churches as recruitment centers. Lots of money paid to preachers to grease the wheels of Good Christian Hate. By 1925 the Klan ruled most levels of Indiana's government. I did not realize the Klan was that big of a movement in the West and Rust Belt. Dues paying members in those areas dwarfed those in the South. It's a very informative book with the main story centering on the Indiana grifter...who was a real piece of work.
One of my favorite quotes is a paraphrase I got from a Stephen King book, something like:
"Whenever someone starts talking about how Righteous and Godly they are, make sure you keep a close watch on your wallet."
It's words I live by and passed on to my sons.
The Indiana Klan's main target in the 1920s was Catholics and immigrants.
Yes, Indiana used to have a large KKK presence. I'm from Ohio. We did too, I hear. In 1923 southwest Ohio had a Klan rally 30k strong and 7k pledged to them that night. I never understood that thinking. My grandparents came over on a ship from Sicily in 1911. Grandpa worked in the steel mills, and they settled in an Ohio river town across from Wheeling WV. They were often treated as 2nd class and he never wanted us to do that to anyone else.
My great grandfather fought the KKK in Oregon, finally getting a case to the US Supreme Court, to stop the Klan Governor and his minions from eradicating private education.
Having grown up in the deep south I was stunned to move to Colorado and find out there had been a huge KKK presence here. May explain why we have so many armed militias still.
Thanks for the book rec. Among the best I've read re slavery specifically is "Dark Places of the Earth."
Ooo, Colleen, just put that book on my wishlist -- that’s the second time its been recommended this weekend.
Notre Dame's "The Fighting Irish" are so named because of a multi-day brawl in South Bend with the Klan.
Potatoes were weaponized. Windows were smashed. Klan hoods were yanked off of heads. Charlottesville-level chaos.
https://reimaginingmigration.org/secondary-source-notre-dame-versus-the-ku-klux-klan/
Good job Notre Dame!
That was brought up in the book and it was led by a couple of the 'Four Horseman' of ND football fame. It was about the only time anyone really stood up to Klan intimidation.
You would probably enjoy Rachel Maddox’s podcast series Ultra, which explores the fascist strain of politics in the US during the 30s on up through the 50s. Staggering.
I had listened to Ultra and that led me to get this audio book. The US certainly has a strain of white supremacy that needs it's 'others', especially blacks and Jews.
So true!
Back in the day when Judge Roy Moore wanted to post the Ten Commandments in the courthouse. I surveyed the churches in my town to see how many of them had them posted, and it was only one church, and that one was an Episcopal Church.
I think TS Eliot made the same point about Christianity when asked. He said something to the effect that Christianity was very good, if it were actually practiced.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Chesterton. "A Christianity which will not help those who are struggling from the bottom to the top of society, needs another Christ to die for it." HENRY WARD BEECHER. And to make Easter "perfect", last year Lauren Boebert supposedly said if Christ had an AK-15, he wouldn't have been crucified. Blasphemy, thy name is "Christian".
It highlights exactly how poorly people like Boebert actually understand their own supposed religion. Just like all the people who are angry at "the Jews" for killing Christ.
Except, of course, it wasn't the Jews that did it, but the Romans--and if you think that a Roman official would have had any qualms or questions about (or would have agonized over) crucifying someone, you don't really understand your Romans.
But when you are trying to build a religious movement in the Roman Empire, it isn't very helpful to blame the Romans, eh?
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3528049-boebert-jesus-didnt-have-enough-ar-15s-to-keep-his-government-from-killing-him/amp/
Do people like her even have a clue what Christianity teaches or is? Her statement is flat out blasphemy.
Like te NAZI's they paid lip service to Christanity, but really worshipped their fuhrer.
Well, Hitler was their Führer, but yeah, they definitely loved furor also. :-)
I've always been bad at spelling.
That's probably why Jesus didn't tell Peter 'to put up his sword' in the Garden. Oh wait, he did.
I am watching "Risen", which I watch every year around Easter. It's a film about a Roman military Tribune, played by Joseph Fiennes, who works for Pilate and is tasked by him after the Crucifixion to find the dead body of Jesus to prevent unrest. The story revolves around him meeting the risen Jesus and traveling with him and his disciples to figure out what is going on. I highly recommend it; it's the story of the very beginning of Christianity from a different viewpoint.
More people ought to still be reading Chesterton, IMO.
GK Chesterton and Graham Greene were favorites of mine for a very long time. They really made me thing about the moral consequences of life decisions on other people as well as their main characters.
Where's Christianity without a crucifixion? Yesterday I learned that Easter used to be on the same time-table as Passover, but that Christians' resentment of the Christ killers caused a a disconnect.
If Christ with his AK 15 wasn't crucified, wouldn't everyone be in hell? What happens when the son of god does NOT die for sinners?
Exactly. He submitted to be crucified for our sins so we could enter Heaven. Obviously Boebart is not a Christian..
Also, a Christ who preached “love your enemies” but who then mowed down his enemies with an AR-15 would be sending pretty a mixed message to his followers.
The good ones - limbo, a kind of neutral plane, kind of like a spiritual vacation. The bad ones get to hang out with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Caligula and listen to their rantings every second for eternity. I wonder if the employees at Mar-a-Lago feel like they're already in hell with Trump around!
One of my favorite Bulwark comments of all time was in response to a poll about how most "evangelicals" didn't believe that Jesus was God.
Someone typed something along the lines of "Well you can explain that that's Arianism, but then they'll just get mad at you for calling them Nazis"
Right on. Taught history of the Middle Ages for years, and it was always a chore getting college students to grasp that Arianism was not Aryanism.
Don't forget how the "evangelicals" do not like when you say there are no white people in
the Bible.
One of the dirtiest looks I got was from a Bible Study classmate who remarked, "America must get taken up in the Rapture because America's not in the Bible."
I responded, "I would think not. We weren't around back then."
He wasn't amused. 😃
The thing is that these so called "evangelicals" go to church less than once a month. I really want to know why and how they started to call themselves "evangelicals". I am not saying that we do not have a "politics" problem in churches in the US. But substantial number of the people who call themselves Christians are name only and rarely go to church, and those people call for teaching Christianity and the Bible in school most loudly, I think. As a born again Christian, I am so saddened by those who use the name of Jesus to get or keep their power and money. They will be judged, but many people are completely turned off by these so called Christians.
Fellow BA Ev Xn here, we’ve been had, SoCal. So glad you commented.
There was a deliberate, planned, systematic effort to tie Christians into Republican politics and it worked. I don’t agree with everything Dr. Kristen Kobes Du Mez writes in her “Jesus and John Wayne” but I think any Xn wanting to know how we got here ought to read it. And after that, Kevin Kruse’s “One Nation Under God” on how Jesus became a RW pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps capitalist.
Re: your comment: Matt 6:2 always comes to mind -- some people will get their tawdry “reward” here on earth.
100%! Also the podcast Straight White American Jesus is fabulous and has really helped this former evangelical get herself deprogrammed. Bradley Oneshi, one of the founders, is out with great but terrifying book about Christian Nationalism and what comes next. I caught one of the events when the book was published. And yes, we've been had and then some.
It's because of politics. Republican politics these days is all about identity, and part of having the correct identity is being "Christian". So people who were already conservative are starting to pick up the label even if it has no real meaning behind it.
As far as why "evangelical" as opposed to just "Christian"? I imagine a lot of that has to do with the way those terms are portrayed in media. Catholics, mainline protestants, and other forms of Christianity are usually portrayed as insufficiently conservative or suspiciously foreign.
Plenty of Catholics are happy to throw in with the Evangelicals. Dump the wishy-wishy social justice aspects of Catholic Social teaching, go hardline on sexual morality (which they are happy to back up with a gajillion encyclicals because the new testament is almost totally void of it), and argue that the Catholic church ought to lash itself to the Republican party to ensure cultural and political relevance (see DeSantis). They see the "normie" Catholics as "cafeteria Catholics".
Of course, if the the Evangelical/Catholic right coalition ever came to power, the Catholics would be jettisoned faster than you can say transubstantiation. I mean Pence an Pompeo are both former Catholics who found Evangelicalism more...animating. And so many of Catholics are Hispanic, I mean, that's gonna make them nervous. And then there's that awkward stuff with the latest pope saying "maybe helping poor people should be a bigger priority than denying "the gays" communion". I mean, they wont let that stand! That sounds socialist to me!
I have found that to now be the case.
A story from my parenting days: I had been talking with my young daughter, who is a beautiful ethnic mixture of African-American, Mexican-American, Native American, and Caucasian, about Jesus. We are Catholic. I told her that Jesus had brown skin like her because he lived in a part of the world where people had brown skin. She went across the street to play with her friend, whose blond-haired, blue-eyed family would probably now be described as White Nationalist Call-me-Christians who didn't know much about what Jesus really taught. My daughter came back home and said, "Mom, Tanya's mom said Jesus did NOT have brown skin!" I just said to her, "Well, honey, Tanya's mom is wrong."
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." - 2 Timothy 4: 3-4
Even as an atheist, I admit the bible, as I'm sure is true for many/most religious texts, contains some great wisdom. It's that it's also loaded with contradictions and nonsense which can be exploited by the opportunistic and the ignorant that concerns me.
Brought up in the Church of Christ, this was a favorite preacher's assessment of...the Roman Catholic Church.
Now, an atheist, I see it as the description of religion in general. Mark Twain's "Letters From the Earth" should be required reading to earn a high school diploma in America. He gives the bible credit, when it deserves credit, and criticism when it needs to be criticized, which is the case in much greater proportion of the time.
Why is belief in a supernatural cosmic entity with absolutely zero evidence not regarded as psychotic? I’m serious. “God” is a preposterous idea.
I believe it was either Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins who said that forcing religion on children was child abuse.
That explains why, over 50 years ago, my late husband’s grandfather was aghast when we entered the Catholic Church after he’d been raised in the Church of Christ.
There is still a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in a variety of Protestant and Evangelical cults. My father did not really see Catholics as true Christians... and CERTAINLY did not see Mormons as Christians.
Looking at the current Supreme Court (not to mention the 'judge' in Texas) and its actions there might well be a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment (morally and politically, not personally) in the general population.
It is ironic that it is always the Jews who are accused of having divided loyalties . . .
There's nothing more ludicrous than a standard Christian throwing shade at Mormons for their bizarre beliefs.
Just wait till the issue of which date Easter should be comes up. Or whether the host is the transubstantiated body of Christ. Or whether salvation is by faith or good works. We already KNOW of the wars fought over such things.
And the Catholic Church reciprocates those feelings, hence, among other things, the restriction on who can receive the Sacrament of Communion from a priest.
True, that. My wife is Catholic and has been denied communion in her home church for over 31 years. A year or two ago, her best friend introduced her to a young Catholic priest in Ft. Worth who assured her that restriction had been rescinded. It took a few months, but the Catholic church in the community where we now live does allow her to participate.
Limbo a dealbreaker for sure. We kids in catholic school were like What? Nope
No, she just abided by the doctrine as she understood it. We live about 35 miles from the small town (founded by German Catholic immigrants in the 1800's) where everyone knows everyone else (and, presumably, everyone else's business). I always figured the reason the Catholic church has everyone queue to the front of the church for communion was, at least in part, to make sure that anyone on the "no-communion" list would be pulled aside. Even where we live now, the priest required her to sign some document before he would allow her to participate in the ritual.
Weird thing is, my baby sister (if a 65 y.o. woman can be called that) every bit as atheist as I, makes it a point to attend mass at as many Catholic cathedrals in Europe and the US as he can, especially at Xmas, to walk the aisle to get the "Holy Cookie" (in her phrasing), which she adds to her collection to commemorate the holiday and the location. She skips the wine. Not that she's a tee-totaler, far from it, but she prefers a bit better quality in her vino than the priest profers.
Thank you, Max, for your response. The last thing I care or want to know about someone when I meet them is their "religion." The one thing about evangelicalism that I deem as its most despicable characteristic is its mandate to shove itself down another person's throat, and if you don't immediately "convert," well then, you are going to Hell. (Which, by the way, does not exist.)
Glen
Rather interesting, though not Roman Catholic, I enjoy the liturgy and ritual of the high Episcopal church, though my favorite services are the simple ones in chapel. I do not even believe in god, but I believe in a church going community -- at least one that sees love, and grace, as its only weapons. Queen Elizabeth I invented inclusion, when she declared that she did not care what church goers believed, as long as they all worshipped together. You and your neighbor are a bit less alien, and suspect, when you have common practice.
Many of us Jews see Jesus as an outstanding rabbi (teacher) whose story was hijacked by a man named Paul.
If Jesus suddenly appeared on earth today, he would feel much more at home in a synagogue than in an evangelical super-mega church.
Or an AA meeting. Or a voter registration drive. Or a farmer's market. Almost anywhere except a church.
But would the synagogue welcome Him? A jobless hippie is a dress?
I think they would.
That might depend on what form of Judaism they practise. As with any form of belief, there are varying practices from traditional to more (small l) liberal.
It's funny how the MAGA Christians accuse everyone else of doing this with the MSM.
The Fox Dominion case sort of is the slam dunk of proving that truly Fox is literally willing to lie in order to keep its viewers' ears tickled.
It's amazing how people don't change. Over a thousand years ago, people knew their deal. We just need the wisdom to heed the warnings.
We don't change and we aren't that different from one another. That's why 'it' (whatever that is) CAN happen here.
Good point. History unfortunately is replete with examples of that. Social systems are very slow to change; technology moves increasingly rapidly. We are losing our ability to control the advent of technology and in many ways already have. As technology continues to change our daily lives and casts us into uncharted waters, our defense is reactionary rather than proactive. But for us to rationally manage technological "progress", we need to be well-educated and rational. We (and I mean humans, not just Americans) are neither.
We might not control technology, but that doesn't mean technology controls us.
Well, I agree my comment was simplistic, since I was looking at it from one side only. To look at it comprehensively, one would need to write a book.
Mine was more simplistic than yours, but I felt yours carried the idea that we get swept away by new technologies. This I don't agree with. We have choices most of the time.
I wish you were not right about that.
From the Chicago Tribune: When Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was running for president in the 1950s, a supporter purportedly said to him: "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you." Stevenson replied, "I'm afraid that won't do — I need a majority."
Here's another Adlai S joke: He was in his Senate office and an aide walked in and said "Gale Sayers is here to see you sir." He looked up and asked "Who's she?"
Ain't that the truth