Evangelical Christian leader Russell Moore revealed this week that many evangelical pastors have become alarmed that their Trump-loving congregants have become so militant that they are even rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ.In an interview with NPR, Moore said that multiple pastors had told h…
Then maybe they should have corrected them when they were just starting out on all the crazy, rather than endorsing the dude that’s literally the closest thing this world has seen to the anti-christ.
Yeah this is a very leopard ate my face kind of moment
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Really, the closest?
considering his cult worships as the 2nd coming… he himself described himself as “the chosen one”, parrots reiligious one-liners while leading those who do worship him- and yes, that is the appropriate term- away from the teachings of christ.
He’s a bargain bin Mussolini. Unfortunately, nothing he did is particularly new.
Fun fact, there are many antichrists, biblically speaking, not just one.
Yea, it’s an archetype, but it’s funny how some predictions are oddly specific for such a broad recurrent archetype:
“… a despicable person will arise… a man of contempt… to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will slip in when least expected and will seize the kingdom through flattery and intrigue.” Daniel 11:21
“He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior… He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.” Daniel 8:25, 2 Thess 2:10
“But then the court will convene, and all his power will be taken away.” Daniel 7:26
From these, the Antichrist’s description is starting to sound like Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil and how that is scarier than fictional supernatural evil with horns and pitchforks.
Probably bc these are descriptions of prior people summarized. Like its all happened before.
Don’t forget holding a bible upside down in front of a church… like hello?
He’s just a fascist wannabe dictator and some people want that. It’s really nothing new or special
yep there are many like him around the world, and I’d wager to say that most of them are actually potentially more dangerous than Trump because they’re smarter and actually have an agenda of their own. What really did the USA in was not the person Trump, but rather that the whole republican apparatus and especially the corporate media went all in with him after it became clear he’d win the primaries. With the 2 party system, that means that basically half of the country was set up to deify him in a way that they haven’t really tried with previous republican candidates
Remember, the Antichrist is not just “really evil person”. It’s “really evil person who convinces a lot of people that he’s a good person and a prophet”.
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The term is open to interpretation, but it certainly doesn’t simply refer to non-christians.
Some interpretations view the antichrist as a specific individual or figure who opposes Christ in some hypothetical, end of days type situation, while others see it as a broader symbolic representation of a certain figure or person that represents the complete opposite of Christ’s teachings or the spirit of Christianity.
“Anti” can mean “opposite” just as much as it can mean “against”.
That is a whole lot of “probably” and “looks like” disclaimers for such an absolute claim.
So Jewish ppl?
At the time, it was more the Romans. It’s only after Rome became Christian that the narrative shifted to blame the Jews for everything.
If you’re thinking of the modern pop-culture version of the anti-christ, then no.
If you compare his behaviour to how the bible actually describes the anti-christ, then yes.
According to the bible he is supposed to:
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Be a divisive non-politician who comes into power against peoples expectations.
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Be overly arrogant with great boastful speeches
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Lead many people away from Jesus and cause them to blindly follow himself.
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Lead a very powerful military nation
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Publically threaten people as a common tactic
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Be very focused on winning/conquering
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Rise to power through collusion, lies and corruption.
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His election into power will by some be seen as a miracle
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Will use his power to enrich themselves and their allies
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Spread lies and falsehoods as truth, general lies and deception.
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It specifically says he will reward his allies with land/property
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Become angry and threaten the “King of the south”(Mexico)
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Be supported by some of the nations most powerful religious leaders(super churches and such support him)
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See themselves as above everyone else
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Disregard the needs of the most vulnerable in society
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Some will rise up in protest and face violence in return
Some things that are almost too on the nose:
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Only see one term
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Attempt to stay in power but defeated by the legal system
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Use his armed forced to remove people from a church for their own nefarious needs
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During their rule there will be large inflation in food cost, while oil remains cheap
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There will be a pandemic and mass death during their rule
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Supposed to worship the “god of fortresses” (in reference of walls and keeping people out)
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Followers will wear a mark on their forehead (maga caps)
The Bible made predictions about oil prices?
People have been pressing olives for a long time.
That’s an interesting read, thank you! Although I would still say most points on this list still apply to many fascist dictators
I’m not sure about the point regarding “one term”, surely the bible didn’t know about the system of presidential terms? How exactly does it say there? Same about oil, what is the biblical equivalent?
This is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but it’s still pretty damned accurate
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Man there was this (satirical, but not inaccurate) blog about how trump actually matches many features of the anti-christ, but I can’t find it now, only a bunch of blogspam copying it
this is what you’re looking for.
https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/That’s the one!
Change your window width to 760px to get the maximum horizontal readability on this terribly formatted website, or switch to reader mode
Brilliant! Thank you
I agree, you don’t have to look far down the road to see even worse (DeSantis).
Bro. There is a guy who literally started a war over nothing, killing and raping indiscriminately, and threatening with nukes.
And there is a dude in a nation of more than a billion people, running concentration camps, possibly committing genocide as we speak.
And to define the Antichrist, you’re focused on U.S. politics???
Someone mentioned this somewhere else in the thread, but the antichrist isn’t just a super-duper evil dude; he’s an evil dude with a religious following. He’s a guy where people voluntarily worship him. Not because they’re forced, not because they’re apathetic and just going with the flow, they willingly worship him. Additionally, trump has had pastors claim him to be sent from God, or that he is some kind of savior, which, iirc, is another characteristic of the antichrist. As evil as the others are, I’m pretty sure trump fits the bill better than they do.
There is a guy who literally started a war over nothing, killing and raping indiscriminately, and threatening with nukes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if DeSantis did this, given the opportunity.
a dude in a nation of more than a billion people, running concentration camps, possibly committing genocide as we speak.
Now that definitely sounds like DeSantis.
Just think about how many of the seven deadly sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth) Trump embodies. Like… fuckin’ all of them?
Again, how is that special?
I’m not saying it’s “special”. Hypocritical, counterintuitive, ironic, sure…
What I’m saying is that Trump represents the very antithesis of what Christianity preaches. He is a very high-profile and public embodiment of their “seven deadly sins”. Which, to me at least, is very anti-christ-like. I’m not sure why you need that spelled out…
It may be there are worse people but they are morr akin to satan (e.g Hitler was atheist (well not really he believed in the occult but didn’t go down religion). This guy claims to be some sort of Jesus figure to religious so hits some.of the “pretends to be Christ” points of.the antichrist
I’m going to take issue with your simplification and classification of Hitler, and the wider Nazi ideology here because I think this is very important given some of the patterns we see repeating from the early 20th century. There was a lot of nuance to the public and politically expedient viewpoints that Hitler professed regarding religion throughout his life versus his private viewpoints which colored the ideological mechanisms of Nazism.
It is tacitly incorrect to state that Hitler was an occultist, or an atheist by modern convention.
Regarding Occultism: He detested the mysticism, neo-paganism, and occult underpinnings that Himler brought to the party (specifically the SS). Hitler made it very clear that he considered these viewpoints to be sophistry and repugnant to his own view of the world, but he allowed them in so far as he supported Himler as a leader of the party.
Regarding atheism: Hitler, likewise, considered atheism to be an ideological evolution of Jewish Bolshevism that he believed was essentially responsible for the rise of Soviet Communism. It is well documented from close confidants who surrounded Hitler, and wrote about his views contemporaneously that he believed atheism was an ignorant and dangerous return to the animalistic hedonism of humanity.
Why am I bothering to quibble over these distinctions? Well, for one thing because truly dangerous political leaders generally possess the intelligence, as well as tactical forethought to manipulate and twist at the very heart of the tribal labelism that proliferates through the uneducated masses of society. They then warp these convenient in-group / out-group dynamics to fit the needs of their political ambitions. We see this today, although in a much lazier fashion, with the alliance of convenience between the neo-conservative and christian nationalist movements that have proven to be a foundational undergirding to the “Trump Cult” as it were.
We should all understand the complicated historical relationship of religion and politics from the 20th century. Especially regarding the manipulation of those relationships which lead to the rise of authoritarianism on a scale never seen before or since. Lest we go down that same road again, except the next time will invariably be the last time because the power of the technological panopticon we are now capable of creating would enslave humanity or destroy our species.
PS: If you’re interested in understanding the complexities of the religious and ideological positions espoused by Hitler throughout his life as well as the Nazi party as a whole this Wikipedia article on the subject is actually really good.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler
I’m not surprised. I’ve heard stories as far back as 2015 or 2016 about people storming out in the middle of their pastor’s sermon because the pastor directly quoting Jesus’ sermon on the mount was too “woke.”
Mark my words: if conservatives can no longer advance their cause under the guise of Christianity, they won’t abandon conservatism. They will abandon Jesus.
This is an extremely interesting thought experiment, and one that is not without precedent. I left a comment below about the misrepresented and often repeated claims regarding Hitler’s (as well as the Nazism more broadly) views on religion, occultism, and atheism.
I bring this up again here because what happened in Germany was essentially the opposite of the proposition you are suggesting. Instead of throwing Jesus out of Christianity, Hitler made a specific and distinct push to remove any perceivedly Jewish teachings from what became German “Positive Christianity”. This included the removal of the Old Testament, the Pauline epistles, and the framing of Jesus as a dogmatic Aryan ideologue who opposed the teachings of Jewish mysticism.
The notion that the modern crypto-fascist & christian-nationalist movements might take the opposite approach by throwing out or obfuscating the teachings of Jesus which they perceive as liberal or socialist in nature and therefore counter to the authoritarian hegemony they seem to be advocating for is a fascinating proposition. I also happen to believe you are correct, and that we have been seeing this happen in real time over the last several decades at least.
I am sincerely afraid that the most damaging threads of the 20th century will be repeated again, and I’m not so sure that humanity is as prepared as it should be to fight against that potentiality. The destruction of education in this country, and the tears in the facade of infinite-growth-capitalism have made the United States the perfect hotbed for this kind of ideology to rise again…
I am sincerely afraid that the most damaging threads of the 20th century will be repeated again
Looks at Uyghur camps in China
No country joined WW2 to liberate the Jews. No one is going to fight China for the Uyghurs. These are atrocities that help sell the morality of a war fought for other reasons. Defeating the Nazis was certainly a moral victory and they were a great evil, but that’s not why we fought them.
No one is coming to the rescue of the Uyghurs. Enduring sanctions is likely to be the worst consequence China faces.
While not the worst consequence, there’s also been a great destruction of culture.
Japan and Korea have been becoming more popular on the world stages, where they’re celebrated for anime and pop songs. Meanwhile, for all its money, and all its genuinely rich and interesting history, entering a forum to announce you’re Chinese might end up prompting snarky responses like “Oh hey, do they give you your own Uyghur family to treat as slaves?”
Interesting. Same with slavery and the American civil war I guess.
They won’t think they’re abandoning Jesus. They will start worshipping some different badass with the same name who brings vengeance upon his enemies with swift application of firearms. They’ll call that entity Jesus, but it will have no relationship to the Christian concept of Jesus.
Republican Jesus has been a thing for a long time.
Supply side Jesus. A classic.
That link is to something different, but yes, Supply Side Jesus should be required reading for this thread. It’s a bit dated, though.
https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx
Well, that’s what religious people have always done. They follow a religion until it disagrees with them, then they leave and start a new ‘slightly different’ branch which agrees with them.
You know, sort of like how Catholicism was founded about 30 years after Jesus’ assumed death date, but then 1600 years later, Baptists decided to branch off create their own flavor.
Bruh. They abandoned “conservatism” and jesus a long, long, long-ass time ago.
…did the pastor just wake from a 6 year coma?
‘Christians’ switched to Cult-45 the day Trump entered into politics.
I grew up fundamentalist, and they had abandoned his teachings in the 80’s in service to Emperor Reagan.
I mean, really, when did Christians ever follow Jesus’ teachings considering how many people were converted by the sword…
It’ll be the ones you don’t hear about, for example my grandparents who are some of the kindest, most compassionate people you’d meet. They hosted refugees, consistently voted progressive, and changed church when their previous one started being more anti-LGBT. There’s just no headlines in Christians actually acting like Christians.
they need to break out a whip and turn over some tables!
I think they’re a bit past those days!
If my kin are anything to go by, youre never too old to kickass and take names. Hell my great grandfather won his first bout against death, lost the second though.
Because they’re actually following the teachings of the Bible especially the notes on the hypocrites. They just do good, they don’t talk about doing good in places where people will hear them.
Good on them :)
I wasn’t alive during the crusades, but I think that would be a pretty good starting place.
The leopard is still hungry
Christians have ignored the teachings of Jesus from the start. Just one example: You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24. I think Jesus was a communist who would probably also be crucified today by the people who proclaim to be Christians.
Paul derailed the Church right out of the gate. Here’s a guy who has had an absurd amount of control over the fate of Christianity who never met Christ, and who advocates principles that directly contradict Christ’s own teachings while being very similar to the teaching of the Jewish temple Paul previously held power in as a Pharisee. Paul took Christ’s teachings and merged them into a contemptible, incoherent hybrid of Christ’s message and the Jewish law-focused faith, brought full circle back into a religious bureaucracy by the Roman Catholics.
Total agreement. His message was revolutionary.
No one hates Jesus and his teachings as fiercely as a Christian. Christians would be the firsts in line to crucify Christ for his hippie, soft ideas again if he were to resurrect, this has been known for centuries.
I have a 20 year old t-shirt that says “If Jesus comes back we’ll kill him again” on it in tiny white script. People always thought it was a statement of my intentions but it was always just a comment on society.
Reminds me of the South Park ep Hare Club for Men, when Bill Donahue, of the Catholic League (read: assholes with persecution complex), says to kill the Jews (Jesus was Jewish). Jesus wasn’t hardline enough.
He’s not wrong. But what he’s leaving out is that all this is very rich coming from him personally, a bit of too little too late when he was actually well-placed in 2016 to make a real stand.
It is true that Russell Moore has been speaking out to some extent against Donald Trump for years. But it is also true that when it would have counted most, during the 2016 campaign season, Moore walked back the strength of his anti-Trump statements in order to keep his highly-positioned job as president of the internal ethics board of the Southern Baptist Convention (an organization I consider to be deeply corrupt anyway):
On June 1, 2013, Moore became President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns. . . . [Three years later,] Moore’s vocal criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election season drew a backlash from fellow Southern Baptists, triggering a crisis in which more than 100 churches threatened to withdraw donations to the denomination’s Cooperative Program in protest of Moore’s stances and leading to calls for his resignation. After Moore issued statements of apology in December 2016 and March 2017 for “using words… that were at times overly broad or unnecessarily harsh,” Southern Baptist leaders affirmed their support for his leadership and he remained in his post. (Wikipedia)
It’s hard to call upon the rules and be taken seriously when you have not taken the rules seriously yourself:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth." – Jesus
EDITED TO ADD: I am not a Christian myself, just comparing idolatry to idolatry here.
They keep saying that Jesus will return. Yet if he ever did they would dismiss him as a “dirty hippie” and cheer for the cops who beat him to death.
Then crucify him. Then glorify him for dying for their sins again.
They’d be too confused by the fact that he isn’t white.
I like messiahs who weren’t crucified.
They like the “is Lord” part. The idea of divine royalty and unquestioning loyalty. They aren’t so keen on teachings of kindness, introspection, self awareness, caring, mutual respect, humility, poverty, etc.
It’s kind of weird to accept someone as your Lord white disobeying all his instructions.
In the 30+ year old words of Bill Hicks:
They believe the bible is the exact word of God - Then they change the bible! Pretty presumptuous, huh? “I think what God meant to say…”
Almost as if they never gave a shit about Jesus’s teachings in the first place and only cherry picked a couple of things that fit their existing desires.
Now they’re just going mask off.
It doesn’t take much. For starters “Greed” is one of the 7 deadly sins…
The last true Christian was a Middle-Eastern socialist Jew.
Peter?
I think he means The Jesus
Santa?
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“Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — ‘turn the other cheek’ — [and] to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’” Moore revealed. “And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.’”
Looks like these “churches” are in desperate need of salvation. If only they knew someone who could provide that…
If only they knew someone who could provide that…
Uh, is it Trump? It is, right?
Moore also said that one problem is that many Christians simply feel alienated and lonely, as politics have come to take over the community outlets that churches once held.
Oh, hey, it’s basically me. There isn’t room for “love your neighbor as yourself” in the Republichristian party. I don’t feel welcome at church anymore.
You’re at the wrong church then. A good one can be hard to find in some areas…
Sounds like you should find a new church then.
There you have it. They’ll turn away from Jesus before they turn away from Trump.
There’s something in the Bible about that, if I remember correctly… ahh here it is - 1 John 4:3:
And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Who am I to argue with one of the 12 disciples?
Disciples of Trump. That’s who would.
I find it absurd that evangelicals support Trump so hard. A man who is quite literally the exact opposite of what they are asked to be in scripture. He throws them a couple of pieces of red meat and they dive on it. How sad.
Christianity was never about following scripture, it’s always been about using scripture to maintain power over others. If a personis going to put christians in that position of power, they’re going to follow that person, simple as that.
Authoritarians don’t vote for other authoritarians, they vote for charismatic strongmen who don’t share their political beliefs. It’s literally crazy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarian_personality
“Charismatic”
“I never thought the leopard would eat MY face.” These people got in bed with quite possibly the most godless person on Earth, Trump is very likely one of the first true Atheist Presidents we’ve ever had. He’s probably paid multiple women for sex and abortions, cheated on all of his wives, lies on a constant and regular basis, and is just generally a shitty person on every level. This is the person they hitched their wagon to to get Roe v Wade overturned. I sure as hell hope it blows up in their face.
I think it already is blowing up in their face, and agree fully with your sentiment. While atheists dont depend on religion to define their morals, they get the opportunity to self-define their morals. A narcissistic egotisticial born-with-a-silver-spoon person like Trump is a wolf in sheep’s clothing parading as one of them. He decays or corrupts everything he touches, and the GOP and evangelical Christians have been rubbing all up on him for 7 years. Both groups are in crisis these days.
The GOP has no true platform beyond revenge politics, and the churches are bleeding congregation members… people leaving either because they aren’t on board the crazy train of their church peers or leave because they’ve allowed their beliefs and morals to twist out of whack in conflict of scripture.
Not only that, but all of that was well known prior to him winning the election.
They don’t care.
All that immoral behavior you mentioned reads much more like the behavior of an outspoken conservative Christian rather than an atheist. You know, all the “rules for thee but not for me” type stuff.
It may be true that neither of them really believe deep down, but only one is using it to look good while being shitty.
