The ferocious last gasps of the religion of Christian America

[Ken]

By the way: We Europeans have the advantage that here there have been actually open and honest Anti-Christian movements, parties, political projects and persecutions. That's why we have Christian Parties, as a means to protect ourselves!

What is an example of an anti-Christian party in a country like Germany?

And are they actually ANTI-CHRISTIAN or just secular? By which I mean do they actually advocate and pursue policies that would undermine and persecute Christianity (like in Saudi Arabia). Or do they simply advocate for a purely secular government with no specific role for Christianity?

[temporal1]

Page 5:

PetrC:
But - and that is in my eyes the real miracle -
there is hardly anyone who questions the Christian overtones in American Leftist enterprises, from the the Civil Rights Movement to the Open Borders Movement.

Leftist American Puritans are nearly never challenged about their mixture of religion and politics;
so how can they learn to use the same standards for their opponents as for themselves?

“They” have no interest or motivation in learning.

i’d like to nominate you to lead the U.S. DOE. if not lead, at minimum, to serve as advisor.
emphasis on critical thinking is needed to prepare young minds to better sift-through partisan politics and media bias.

everything you write is an exercise in critical thinking, across cultural and language challenges. always interesting perspectives. you aren’t just reciting or responding directly to momentary whims of U.S. media. refreshing!

appleman as POTUS, PeterC leading the DOE. nice.

[ohio jones]

Jesus offers Our Daily Bread.

Oh, so that's who's behind odb.org.

[barnhart]

This is a valid point. In one sense, civil religion occurs on both sides of the political spectrum. I was thinking about this the other day in relationship to the two pictures below - as a litmus test of sorts. If a person feels positive about the civil-religion expressed in one photo, and negative about it the other, then their issue is more likely political than theological.

I agree. In the past I would have been more disturbed by the right since I felt closer to their faith, and left leaning faith seemed watered down enough to be indistinguishable from secularism. Now they seem equidistant.

[Dan Z]

I've had a similar journey Barnhart - growing up in the church of my youth, there was a time when the Dobsons and Fallwalls and Grahams of the 70's-90's would have held sway in my sympathies...but during more recent decades, my affinity and heart connection would be closer to black church, and would have made me more warm to the second photo. I think it is important to keep a check on either of these impulses - on the one hand being grateful for prayer for our government no matter which party holds sway, but on the other hand being wary of the exploitation and un-Christian power dynamics that result when faith and politic combine.

Petrchelciky's comments about "Christian Nationalism" on the right and "Leftist American Puritans" failed to recognize what I would call "a third way." There is a path of faith engagement, modeled by Jesus, that does not attempt to advance Christ's Kingdom (left or right) by co-opting the coercive power of the state...but rather plays a more prophetic and ambassadorial role in relationship to carnal power structures.

[temporal1]

Jesus offers Our Daily Bread.

Oh, so that's who's behind odb.org.

hahaha.
(your link goes to a page that has a logo, nothing else. when i searched, ditto.)

DanZ:
Petrchelciky's comments about "Christian Nationalism" on the right and "Leftist American Puritans" failed to recognize what I would call "a third way."

There is a path of faith engagement, modeled by Jesus, that does not attempt to advance Christ's Kingdom (left or right) by co-opting the coercive power of the state...but rather plays a more prophetic and ambassadorial role in relationship to carnal power and power structures.

i look forward to PC’s response, if he sees this.

i interpreted his intent above to speak to his general observations of what regularly+reliably appears in the mainstream. in his overall posts, he regularly speaks to The Way of following Jesus, it’s not at all lost on him, and, i believe it’s a central interest for him on this forum. (he may correct me.)

i find him (and appleman in Canada, HK in Honduras) interested in but more detached from U.S. mainstream chatter than most. his critical thinking inspires thinking. it does for me.

other responses to his posts suggests he succeeds in getting folks to think. some only attempt to corral his words to fit the script they have learned and prefer. (that doesn’t really count as thinking in my view.) there’s a message in that, too.

PetrC seems to recognize “scripts.” Across culture and language, interesting to read.

authentic Christianity is magnetic, no matter culture or geographic location. it’s sublime.
it’s too bad it’s such a threat to some. today, as much as in Jesus’ time on earth.

Jesus is puzzling to human reasoning. faith above human reasoning.
so simple, yet .. .. for some, intolerably elusive. battles ensue.
- - - - - - -
i’ve just viewed a historical Russian (fiction) film on 15th Century Russia. battles between EO and Catholicism, the Ottomans, etc. my head is filled with images of warring believers and heads of state, AND, many examples of Christian submission, forgiveness, obedience, all mixed together.

which is what happens IRL.
it all gets mixed together as real people attempt to live out earthly life.

[ohio jones]

Jesus offers Our Daily Bread.

Oh, so that's who's behind odb.org.

hahaha.
(your link goes to a page that has a logo, nothing else. when i searched, ditto.)

It does seem to load a splash screen first, then the actual web page. Maybe your browser is getting stuck on the first step. Regardless, it's Our Daily Bread Ministries, publishers of the little 3-month pocket devotional booklets by that name.

[temporal1]

Oh, so that's who's behind odb.org.

hahaha.
(your link goes to a page that has a logo, nothing else. when i searched, ditto.)

It does seem to load a splash screen first, then the actual web page. Maybe your browser is getting stuck on the first step. Regardless, it's Our Daily Bread Ministries, publishers of the little 3-month pocket devotional booklets by that name.

i think, and hope, it’s my browser. every attempt was the same.
this one opened:
https://ourdailybread.org/spread-the-word/

i don’t have one now, but i believe i have read a number of these booklets in my life.
i didn’t immediately make the connection.

[Dan Z]

MODERTOR ACTION: Posts in this thread related to the presence of a Conservative Mennonite young woman at the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion have been removed due to their speculative, sensitive, and personal nature.

Please carry on - DZ

[Bootstrap]

In the past I would have been more disturbed by the right since I felt closer to their faith, and left-leaning faith seemed watered down enough to be indistinguishable from secularism. Now they seem equidistant.

I agree. There's a nugget of truth in each end of the civil religion spectrum, but they are each more devoted to building their political brand than in building the Kingdom of God.

Do you know this saying?

Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.

Perhaps it could be updated:

Civil religion is the tribute worldly power pays to a Kingdom it can never grasp.

Still, I wonder if society isn't better off with at least civil order, basic human rights, etc. Romans 13 tells us that even civil authorities have a role to play.