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>” Jesus as represented in the US seems more like an authoritarian, gun toting, intolerant, white washed perversion of the brown skinned, middle eastern opponen

>” Jesus as represented in the US seems more like an authoritarian, gun toting, intolerant, white washed perversion of the brown skinned, middle eastern opponent of oppression and intolerance that I always imagined him to be.” I find this whole “Republican Jesus” image to be held by people on the left and its existence is a caricature that is a result of contempt and/or unfamiliarity.

scrollaway 5y ago
Unfamiliarity with what? The people hanging out outside abortion clinics and gay clubs with all caps boards such as "GOD HATES F**S" and "YOU WILL BURN IN HELL"? Sorry, maybe those guys are just "people on the left" too, I never asked them when I encountered them. I tend to stay away. I guess that does make me unfamiliar with them.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  >” The people hanging out outside abortion clinics and gay clubs with all caps boards such as "GOD HATES F*S" and "YOU WILL BURN IN HELL"?” Do you believe the majority of churches have attendees like this? Westboro Baptist is not at all representative of the local congregation but plenty of people think that kind of behavior you mentioned is common. I believe it is due in-part to unfamiliarity.
  - WaxProlix 5y ago
    No, but I also have never seen a self-professed christian come out to call those folks out. I was raised christian and one of our new pastors was forced out because he was gay, and some of the charities our denomination supported got canned because they also ministered to gay people. I don't think it's at all weird to point out that christians have a long and robust anti-gay streak going for them, and that's just one type of intolerance.
    - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
      >”but I also have never seen a self-professed christian come out to call those folks out.” To this I would say, the number of Christians who would enthusiastically denounce Westboro-Style beliefs and hostility to LGBT in the name of Christianity is very high. Especially in the contemporary era. There are plenty of reports in the news where Baptist churches have denounced the signs, slogans, and actions of the repugnant “god hates ***s” Westboro Baptist types and copycats. At the end of the day, this is all anecdotal and the sheer number of Christians means you will find people that I mention, and people like you have mentioned. But based on the faithful I interact with as a non-Christian, I asset that the tolerant ones are far larger in population than the intolerant ones.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        > I asset that the tolerant ones are far larger in population than the intolerant ones. Who is casting votes for the intolerant politicians supporting intolerant laws then?
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    This isn’t just about the Westboro church. And yes, albeit less explicitly homophobic or such, there are a LOT of churches and movements in that style. Can find lots of street corners with someone preaching by guilt, telling you this is your last chance not to burn in hell, and indeed not at all following in Jesus’ footsteps. American Christianity is gross. Megachurches are gross. It’s all capitalistic, a massive industry, and consistently knee deep in homophobia, misoginy and more. Everyone uses God as a way of justifying whatever shit they’re into. “Guns are my god given right! God is on my side!”. It is all the absolute opposite of what Christianity supposedly stands for. And just because some cute little hometown church in the south only has sweet old ladies and is super tight knit etc doesn’t mean this doesn’t apply at scale.
  - bigbillheck 5y ago
    I grew up in highly religious (calvinist) farming country, then did grad school in highly religious (mostly baptist) west Texas , and since then have had many highly religious coworkers (a variety of denominations). I say this to give context to the next paragraph. It is my sincere and honest belief that for an awful lot of churchgoing people their disagreement with Westboro Baptist is not the content of the message but rather how they go about spreading it.
- mattcwilson 5y ago
  When you reread your own comment, does it strike you as being narrow-minded?
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Swap a black stereotype in there and marvel at the human mind's ~~inconsistency~~ flexibility.
    - dang 5y ago
      Please stop posting flamewar comments. I don't want to have to go back to penalizing your account but this is the kind of thing that makes us do that, and it looks like you've been swerving back into ideological battle comments lately. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - mistermann 5y ago
        Are my comments pushing a particular ideology, or are they pushing a different way of thinking about ideological matters? Is what I say incorrect? Is the phenomenon I refer to not an example of the very thing that causes you problems moderating this site? HN (and the world it is contained within) is not perfect dang, and if we ideologically refuse to even contemplate how we go about discussing and thinking about things, should we expect it to change? Might some of your pain be caused by us "doing it wrong"? Climate change, racism, wealth inequality, general pain and suffering throughout the word...are these things going to go away on their own? Is democracy and rules going to save the day? If the sole goal of this forum is to establish and maintain a safe space for mostly privileged people to discuss the problems of the world in a purely pleasant, conflict free manner, that's fine, but I think it would be more optimal and honest if we all admitted to ourselves just what it is we're actually doing here. I ask that you consider this deeply. Thought Has Produced Our Problems - David Bohm (the physicist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T9AFWfyymI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T9AFWfyymI
        5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please do not take HN threads further into flamewar hell. This was a big step downward. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dunnevens 5y ago
You'll most often see "Republican Jesus" brought up by the people who were born and raised in the evangelical church. People quite familiar with the subject. I am one of those people. I guess if you want to ignore the movement of evangelicals to the right wing over the past 40+ years, then perhaps you could pretend it's just an invention of the "Left". But as someone who was alive for this transition and was once deeply embedded in American fundamentalist culture, I can tell you it's no invention. There are countless books on the subject if you want to understand the history. "Jesus and John Wayne" is a recent release on the evangelical move to the right, and the evolution of "Republican Jesus". It's a good introduction if you're not familiar with the background. Written by someone who was once a member of such churches, and is still a practicing Christian. It's true that not all Americans have this particular view of Jesus. Non-evangelical, non-fundamentalist denominations will give you a different viewpoint. If the Christians you know belong to those faiths, then "Republican Jesus" would seem quite alien. But the evangelical faiths have had much more success in broadcasting their version. Which makes their version of Jesus the one most prominently seen in the public square and the one currently in use by one of the political parties.

scrollaway 5y ago

Unfamiliarity with what? The people hanging out outside abortion clinics and gay clubs with all caps boards such as "GOD HATES F**S" and "YOU WILL BURN IN HELL"? Sorry, maybe those guys are just "people on the left" too, I never asked them when I encountered them. I tend to stay away. I guess that does make me unfamiliar with them.

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
>” The people hanging out outside abortion clinics and gay clubs with all caps boards such as "GOD HATES F*S" and "YOU WILL BURN IN HELL"?” Do you believe the majority of churches have attendees like this? Westboro Baptist is not at all representative of the local congregation but plenty of people think that kind of behavior you mentioned is common. I believe it is due in-part to unfamiliarity.
- WaxProlix 5y ago
  No, but I also have never seen a self-professed christian come out to call those folks out. I was raised christian and one of our new pastors was forced out because he was gay, and some of the charities our denomination supported got canned because they also ministered to gay people. I don't think it's at all weird to point out that christians have a long and robust anti-gay streak going for them, and that's just one type of intolerance.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
    >”but I also have never seen a self-professed christian come out to call those folks out.” To this I would say, the number of Christians who would enthusiastically denounce Westboro-Style beliefs and hostility to LGBT in the name of Christianity is very high. Especially in the contemporary era. There are plenty of reports in the news where Baptist churches have denounced the signs, slogans, and actions of the repugnant “god hates ***s” Westboro Baptist types and copycats. At the end of the day, this is all anecdotal and the sheer number of Christians means you will find people that I mention, and people like you have mentioned. But based on the faithful I interact with as a non-Christian, I asset that the tolerant ones are far larger in population than the intolerant ones.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      > I asset that the tolerant ones are far larger in population than the intolerant ones. Who is casting votes for the intolerant politicians supporting intolerant laws then?
- scrollaway 5y ago
  This isn’t just about the Westboro church. And yes, albeit less explicitly homophobic or such, there are a LOT of churches and movements in that style. Can find lots of street corners with someone preaching by guilt, telling you this is your last chance not to burn in hell, and indeed not at all following in Jesus’ footsteps. American Christianity is gross. Megachurches are gross. It’s all capitalistic, a massive industry, and consistently knee deep in homophobia, misoginy and more. Everyone uses God as a way of justifying whatever shit they’re into. “Guns are my god given right! God is on my side!”. It is all the absolute opposite of what Christianity supposedly stands for. And just because some cute little hometown church in the south only has sweet old ladies and is super tight knit etc doesn’t mean this doesn’t apply at scale.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  I grew up in highly religious (calvinist) farming country, then did grad school in highly religious (mostly baptist) west Texas , and since then have had many highly religious coworkers (a variety of denominations). I say this to give context to the next paragraph. It is my sincere and honest belief that for an awful lot of churchgoing people their disagreement with Westboro Baptist is not the content of the message but rather how they go about spreading it.
mattcwilson 5y ago
When you reread your own comment, does it strike you as being narrow-minded?
- mistermann 5y ago
  Swap a black stereotype in there and marvel at the human mind's ~~inconsistency~~ flexibility.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please stop posting flamewar comments. I don't want to have to go back to penalizing your account but this is the kind of thing that makes us do that, and it looks like you've been swerving back into ideological battle comments lately. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - mistermann 5y ago
      Are my comments pushing a particular ideology, or are they pushing a different way of thinking about ideological matters? Is what I say incorrect? Is the phenomenon I refer to not an example of the very thing that causes you problems moderating this site? HN (and the world it is contained within) is not perfect dang, and if we ideologically refuse to even contemplate how we go about discussing and thinking about things, should we expect it to change? Might some of your pain be caused by us "doing it wrong"? Climate change, racism, wealth inequality, general pain and suffering throughout the word...are these things going to go away on their own? Is democracy and rules going to save the day? If the sole goal of this forum is to establish and maintain a safe space for mostly privileged people to discuss the problems of the world in a purely pleasant, conflict free manner, that's fine, but I think it would be more optimal and honest if we all admitted to ourselves just what it is we're actually doing here. I ask that you consider this deeply. Thought Has Produced Our Problems - David Bohm (the physicist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T9AFWfyymI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T9AFWfyymI
      - 5y ago
dang 5y ago
Please do not take HN threads further into flamewar hell. This was a big step downward. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dunnevens 5y ago

You'll most often see "Republican Jesus" brought up by the people who were born and raised in the evangelical church. People quite familiar with the subject. I am one of those people. I guess if you want to ignore the movement of evangelicals to the right wing over the past 40+ years, then perhaps you could pretend it's just an invention of the "Left". But as someone who was alive for this transition and was once deeply embedded in American fundamentalist culture, I can tell you it's no invention. There are countless books on the subject if you want to understand the history. "Jesus and John Wayne" is a recent release on the evangelical move to the right, and the evolution of "Republican Jesus". It's a good introduction if you're not familiar with the background. Written by someone who was once a member of such churches, and is still a practicing Christian. It's true that not all Americans have this particular view of Jesus. Non-evangelical, non-fundamentalist denominations will give you a different viewpoint. If the Christians you know belong to those faiths, then "Republican Jesus" would seem quite alien. But the evangelical faiths have had much more success in broadcasting their version. Which makes their version of Jesus the one most prominently seen in the public square and the one currently in use by one of the political parties.