Who is it that does not believe in getting vaccinated? Who is it that denies climate change? Who is it that is consistently bigoted, homophobic and hate filled? Who is it that lacks formal education beyond high school? Who is it that centers their belief system around what a televangelist is telling them (often to send more money so he can upgrade his Learjet?)
I remember these people well during the W. Bush years, but they are morphing into something even more sinister and grotesque than they were.
In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56. “It’s not just that they are dying off, but it is that they’re losing younger members,” Jones told me. As the group has become older and smaller, Jones said, “a real visceral sense of loss of cultural dominance” has set in.
White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.
From this fact derives much of our country’s cultural conflict. It helps explain not just the rise of Donald Trump, but also the growth of QAnon and even the escalating conflagration over critical race theory. “It’s hard to overstate the strength of this feeling, among white evangelicals in particular, of America being a white Christian country,” said Jones. “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles.” The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.
QAnon is essentially a millenarian movement, with Trump taking the place of Jesus. Adherents dream of the coming of what they call the storm, when the enemies of the MAGA movement will be rounded up and executed, and Trump restored to his rightful place of leadership.
“It’s not unlike a belief in the second coming of Christ,” said Jones. “That at some point God will reorder society and set things right. I think that when a community feels itself in crisis, it does become more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other things that tell them that what they’re experiencing is not ultimately what’s going to happen.”
White evangelicals can't tolerate becoming just another subculture.
www.nytimes.com
The current fundie movement has its roots in the schism of the Baptist Church and the formation of the Southern Baptist Church which was expressly split off over the issue of the promotion of slavery.
Who is it that does not believe in getting vaccinated? Who is it that denies climate change? Who is it that is consistently bigoted, homophobic and hate filled? Who is it that lacks formal education beyond high school? Who is it that centers their belief system around what a televangelist is telling them (often to send more money so he can upgrade his Learjet?)
I remember these people well during the W. Bush years, but they are morphing into something even more sinister and grotesque than they were.
In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56. “It’s not just that they are dying off, but it is that they’re losing younger members,” Jones told me. As the group has become older and smaller, Jones said, “a real visceral sense of loss of cultural dominance” has set in.
White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.
From this fact derives much of our country’s cultural conflict. It helps explain not just the rise of Donald Trump, but also the growth of QAnon and even the escalating conflagration over critical race theory. “It’s hard to overstate the strength of this feeling, among white evangelicals in particular, of America being a white Christian country,” said Jones. “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles.” The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.
QAnon is essentially a millenarian movement, with Trump taking the place of Jesus. Adherents dream of the coming of what they call the storm, when the enemies of the MAGA movement will be rounded up and executed, and Trump restored to his rightful place of leadership.
“It’s not unlike a belief in the second coming of Christ,” said Jones. “That at some point God will reorder society and set things right. I think that when a community feels itself in crisis, it does become more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other things that tell them that what they’re experiencing is not ultimately what’s going to happen.”
White evangelicals can't tolerate becoming just another subculture.
www.nytimes.com
The current fundie movement has its roots in the schism of the Baptist Church and the formation of the Southern Baptist Church which was expressly split off over the issue of the promotion of slavery.
They organized in 1909 in Philadelphia in reaction to science and modernity. Its quite an interesting story.
Yes, any religious group from 1909 is directly comparable to fundamentalists today, just like if you are white today you should pay reparations for what whites did hundreds of years ago.
Very sell said.
What are you talking about? They decided the Bible was to be studied literally, they embraced the Scofield heresy and Christian Zionism... and fostered the Scopes Monkey Trial. It was a reactionary period against science and modernity.
Evangelicals still reject science and education.
I'm an Evangelical and I don't reject science or education.
But you flat our reject stories like the Garden of Eden, even though such stories reveal a troubling truth today. For you see, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge which was forbidden to them. Now why do you suppose that was? Does it seem odd that the tree was so named?
But looking at the world today, what is most threatening? Is it not a virus manufactured in a lab? What could completely wipe out all life from the earth? Are they not WMD's created by scientists.
Evangelicals don't threaten all life on earth, but people like yourself do.
The message of the Garden is simple, knowledge without wisdom brings death.
As the scientist Oppenheimer said after creating the A-bomb that destroyed two Japanese cities "I have become death"