Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US? And so anti far left?

[nec209]

Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US? And so anti far left?

Why is christianity in the US very different christianity brand than other countries is that because of the strong baptist and born again in the US?

In the US Christian’s don’t really seem to view millionaires and billionaires being sin. They say if you rich you have God blessing and if you poor you have to turn to God and God will help you.

The Christian’s in the US are against raising taxes for the rich and against state run universal healthcare, they believe God created rich people and poor people and it just part of society.  They say people can volunteer and donate money to help the poor and homeless to do Gods work for needy but the government should stay out of it. They also say homeless people and poor people are lazy and don’t want to work and turn away from God and the government should not help them.

How did the US Christian’s become so reactionary like this? So far right in the US.

[swansont]

It’s a false premise to suggest that there is only one version of Christianity.

There are over 45,000 denominations worldwide, with over 200 in the US

https://www.livescience.com/christianity-denominations.html#

My guess would be that the denominations that take root in a country have to do with the culture in that country. Some of the ones in the US are here because the people fled their home countries, where they weren’t able to freely worship.

Others took root later. The US has freedoms that aren’t found in some other places, or manifest themselves differently (e.g. our right to free speech is not identical to a similar right in other democracies)

So, which denomination(s) are you talking about?

 

 

[pzkpfw]

Are they all greengrocers too?

[nec209]

37 minutes ago, swansont said:

It’s a false premise to suggest that there is only one version of Christianity.

There are over 45,000 denominations worldwide, with over 200 in the US

https://www.livescience.com/christianity-denominations.html#

My guess would be that the denominations that take root in a country have to do with the culture in that country. Some of the ones in the US are here because the people fled their home countries, where they weren’t able to freely worship.

Others took root later. The US has freedoms that aren’t found in some other places, or manifest themselves differently (e.g. our right to free speech is not identical to a similar right in other democracies)

So, which denomination(s) are you talking about?

 

 

How would I know what group they are, they seem to have very large voice in the US and political party called the republican party that carries them.

[iNow]

18 minutes ago, nec209 said:

How would I know what group they are

Review the concept of Evangelicals.

You can also lookup the concept of Christian Nationalism.

However... You have SO many misconceptions that I trust this recommendation won't help.

Edited August 19 by iNow

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US?

I know LOTS of Christians and they are very far from reactionary.

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

And so anti far left?

Most of the ones I know are left and far-left.

22 minutes ago, nec209 said:

How would I know what group they are

Well, you could ask...

[swansont]

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

How would I know what group they are, they seem to have very large voice in the US and political party called the republican party that carries them.

Then it seems you need to do some research, instead of broad, and thus inaccurate, accusations

[nec209]

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

I know LOTS of Christians and they are very far from reactionary.

Most of the ones I know are left and far-left.

Well, you could ask...

You need to read more about the history because it is shocking you just talking about your young friends. The US is not some atheist country but extremely rooted with far right Christians when you read history.

 

This explains how Christians took over the Republican Party and why they are the way they are.

Before I start, it’s important to note that Christians in the United States make up the majority of both political parties and are relatively evenly split politically. According to Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey from 2014, 40% of Christians identified or leaned Democratic while 44% identified or leaned Republican. African American Christians have been among the most solid supporters of the Democratic party, while Catholics and Mainline Protestants are divided. Simply being Christian is far less of a predictor of political leanings than gender, age, income, or race.

Why Do We Associate the Republican Party with Christianity?

The reason why you associate Christianity with the Republican Party (also known as the Grand Old Party, or GOP) is because the party has white evangelicals as a core constituency. White evangelicals currently make up about 25 percent of the American population and are a particularly visible group. Theologically, evangelicals teach that the Bible is without error, and they often hold a belief in an imminently forthcoming apocalypse that would be linked to the return of Christ (the most common of these views is called dispensational premillennialism, and is what evangelicals mean when they talk about believers ascending to heaven during the rapture). Republicans sought voters, and white evangelical leaders hoped to achieve their social agenda, so the two sides courted each other starting during the 1930s. However, it took until the 1980s for evangelicals to become a solidly Republican voting bloc.

When Did the Relationship Between Evangelicals and Republicans Start?

In the 1930s, some of the forerunners of modern white evangelicals, the fundamentalists, quickly grew to hate Franklin D. Roosevelt with a passion. There were many reasons for this; FDR repealed prohibition, which was a key issue for these Christians, and they saw the creation of Social Security and other social welfare programs as destroying individual agency. These fundamentalists also complained that Roosevelt’s administration was too dominated by academics and Jews, and they saw modern liberalism as satanic.

By the mid-1930s, a number of fundamentalists had become convinced that FDR was associated with the Antichrist, a theological figure of ultimate evil that would presage the end of the world. Leaders of what would become evangelicalism. like Harold Ockenga, saw Hitler, Stalin, and Roosevelt as roughly equivalent figures. Because of their hatred of of FDR, fundamentalists were receptive to supporting the Republicans.

Fundamentalists saw their hatred of FDR as an extension of their feud with Protestant modernists, the forebearers of contemporary Mainline Protestantism. Modernists thought the Bible was an ancient text that should be viewed metaphorically and did not believe in an imminent end of the World. Modernists embraced a “social gospel,” where Christianity required caring for the poor and disenfranchised and making structural changes to society to reduce or eliminate this kind of suffering. Fundamentalists worried that FDR’s liberalism was essentially a governmental version of modernist ideas.

Nixon and the Emergence of Republican Evangelicalism

Despite fundamentalism's flirtation with the GOP, when their successors, modern evangelicals, formed into a distinct movement by the 1940s, they were not yet a politically uniform group. During the 1964 election, the magazine Christianity Today surveyed evangelical publishers, and found they supported Johnson against Goldwater at roughly the same rate as the rest of the U.S. population.

Many evangelicals' views aligned more with Republicans. They were zealously anticommunist. They were also either very tepid supporters of civil rights or outright opposed to it, which would lead them to gravitate away from the Democrats during the 1960s. They were concerned about the growing political and social power of Catholics and Jews, who tended to be more affiliated with the Democratic Party. They were enraged that a liberal Supreme Court removed prayer and Bible reading from public schools. Yet evangelicals worried about being too politically involved, and evangelical leaders like Billy Graham were initially reluctant to openly support any candidate. Baptist minister Jerry Falwell denounced the political involvement of ministers like Martin Luther King in 1965, declaring, “Preachers are not called to be politicians, but soul winners.”

During his presidency, Richard Nixon began to court evangelicals. He had lost the support of mainline Protestants over Vietnam, so he used evangelicals to fill the void. Nixon invited the head of the Southern Baptist Convention to preach in the White House, and Nixon managed to convince the Southern Baptist Convention to pass a resolution in 1970 endorsing his policy in Vietnam.

Nixon made a case to evangelicals that he was their man. He publicly known to be friends with evangelical minister Billy Graham, who campaigned for him. Harold Ockenga, the first president of the National Association of Evangelicals, endorsed Nixon in 1972. In that election, 82% of evangelicals voted for Nixon.

Carter

Yet Democratic evangelicals still existed. In 1976, Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist and a Democrat, won the presidency. Carter nearly split the evangelical vote, though his opponent Gerald Ford won a slight majority, with 51% of the vote.

Carter managed to alienate many evangelicals. By 1978, Carter suggested that gays and lesbians were not a threat and there should not be limits on gay rights. He also was supportive of feminism and backed international efforts for women’s equality, such as the UN’s International Women’s Year in 1975, which evangelicals saw as a threat to traditional gender roles.

Abortion was also becoming a major issue for evangelicals in 1970s. Evangelicals initially did not engage much with the issue, seeing it as too Catholic, and even sometimes supported abortion rights. But by the 1970s, they increasingly were opposed to it, and the Democratic Party was becoming more in favor.

Reagan and the Moral Majority

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a watershed moment for evangelicals politically and saw the creation of the modern Christian right. In 1979, Baptist minister Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority, which began to register voters and try to mobilize evangelicals to vote for socially conservative candidates. It succeeded in flipping votes; almost 20% of Moral Majority supporters had backed Carter in 1976.

Reagan, like Nixon, courted evangelicals. He spoke at Liberty University, which was an evangelical school run by Falwell. This became a tradition for Republican presidential candidates. Evangelicals liked the fact that Reagan favored a military buildup against the Soviets.

In 1980, Reagan won 67% of the white evangelical vote. In the election of 1984, Reagan managed to get an astounding 80% of white evangelical votes. The Republican Party began to feel it needed to win evangelicals.

Yet Reagan did not achieve many of the goals evangelicals set for his presidency. He appointed a Supreme Court justice who favored keeping abortion legal (Sandra Day O'Connor). He did not reinstate school prayer, or erect legal obstacles to gay rights. Yet evangelicals could not get the Democratic Party to do these things, so they kept voting Republican.

In short answer it is the evangelicals that causing the problems in the US.

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

I know LOTS of Christians and they are very far from reactionary.

Most of the ones I know are left and far-left.

Well, you could ask...

Read the part about key issue for these Christians, and they saw the creation of Social Security and other social welfare programs as destroying individual agency.

Seems to be the reason why they hate social programs. I don’t know what they mean by destroying individual agency.

Modernists embraced a “social gospel,” where Christianity required caring for the poor and disenfranchised and making structural changes to society 

 

The US seems to lack these people because US had lot of evangelicals that don’t subscribe to that so does republican party do not subscribe to because the republican party is the evangelicals party.

And things like Helping the weak, feeding the hungry, helping the poor and homeless healing the sick and universal healthcare and dealing evils of capitalism. They don’t like that because they view destroying individual agency what ever they mean by that.

Only the Modernists embraced a “social gospel,” where Christianity required caring for the poor and disenfranchised and making structural changes to society.

Edited August 20 by nec209

[iNow]

You need to cite your source. You’ve clearly copy pasted since your English is normally so broken 

[MigL]

You would be surprised how many Democrats and progressives identify as Christians.
They just prefer to dissociate their Religion from their politics/governance.

You might just be confused by far-right Republicans who claim that God is on their side in order to take advantage of uneducated people who only know religion.

[nec209]

9 minutes ago, MigL said:

You would be surprised how many Democrats and progressives identify as Christians.
They just prefer to dissociate their Religion from their politics/governance.

You might just be confused by far-right Republicans who claim that God is on their side in order to take advantage of uneducated people who only know religion

And base on that article I posted it shows According to Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey from 2014, 40% of Christians identified or leaned Democratic.

So I was wrong as 40% of Christians identified or leaned Democratic.

 

But I’m not sure what they mean by destroying individual agency that evangelicals have problem with. 

 

And things like Helping the weak, feeding the hungry, helping the poor and homeless healing the sick and universal healthcare and dealing evils of capitalism. They the evangelicals don’t like that because they view destroying individual agency I’m not sure what they mean by that? What do they mean by destroying individual agency?

 

Where it shows.

 

Modernists embraced a “social gospel,” where Christianity required caring for the poor and disenfranchised and making structural changes to society.

Edited August 20 by nec209

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

You need to read more about the history because it is shocking you just talking about your young friends. The US is not some atheist country but extremely rooted with far right Christians when you read history.

 

Wouldn't this be a lot more efficient if I debated with the person who wrote this post rather than the person who lifted it word for word from someone else?

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, nec209 said:

This explains how Christians took over the Republican Party and why they are the way they are.

Before I start, it’s important to note that...

!

Moderator Note

Always include a link when you copy/paste from another source. This make it look like you wrote it, which is plagiarism.

 

[swansont]

7 hours ago, nec209 said:

What do they mean by destroying individual agency?

They don't want the people to think or act for themselves. They want mindless obedience and compliance.

[Sensei]

Quote

Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US?

One look at them, what they do, what they say, what they think, what they believe, to know that they are not Christians..

On Donald's election rallies we just see promotion of hate, love for guns, petrol industry, white supremacy supporters, neonazis, fascists, nationalists, complacent, ignorants..

The purpose of this thread is to offend and/or discredit true Christians?

Being in church every Sunday and holiday does not make someone a Christian (the same goes for Muslims or Jews with their own holiday dates).

I would say that it is exactly the opposite. People show their religiosity for the sake of others, for publicity, so that they may be regarded as such. More than once I have seen and heard old ladies going to church every day at 6:30 in the morning and their conversations were just gossiping about their neighbors and friends. Not a single worthwhile things worth saying with their mouths.

Add to this preachers who have a distorted view of reality, and themselves incite to hatred, injustice, and encourage meanness, and that's total pathology.. Such are found on all sides of the barricade, both among Jews, Muslims and Christians.

[Peterkin]

17 hours ago, nec209 said:

Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US? And so anti far left?

Jesus fled that big revivalist tent decades ago and has been too ashamed to look back.   

Why did you bother to ask that question?   

Edited August 20 by Peterkin

[harlock]

politics...

the real christian way is an agreement between christians etc...

elections're an agreement, but they aren't really an agreement(this's the real problem!!!).

the left power is against religions so a christian'd be against the left because of the same existance of christianity.

obviously a christian can be a left-wing christian..however he'd have to be for social well-being(important for christianity...).   

my opinion is that if the right-wing politics takes care about work, democracy, wages, richness(important for social well-being) it'd be the best way. 

[swansont]

5 hours ago, harlock said:

the left power is against religions so a christian'd be against the left because of the same existance of christianity.

Baloney.

The left in the US is more supportive of equal rights than the right. It’s the GOP that has acted against Muslims, not the left. The right is supportive only of Christianity. 

This alleged stance is because there has been bias in support of Christianity. When that bias is removed in the effort to provide equality, it feels like being against, but it’s not.

[John John]

The US is very loud in many areas of politics, religion, and the general public in general.

The military isn't backward in going fords as well. So called supper powers tend to be very vocal.

I live in Australia and we tend to say who gives a shit.

[harlock]

8 hours ago, swansont said:

Baloney.

The left in the US is more supportive of equal rights than the right. It’s the GOP that has acted against Muslims, not the left. The right is supportive only of Christianity. 

This alleged stance is because there has been bias in support of Christianity. When that bias is removed in the effort to provide equality, it feels like being against, but it’s not.

the left has the same problems today: social well-being comes later. it's not a priority. 

[swansont]

2 hours ago, harlock said:

the left has the same problems today: social well-being comes later. it's not a priority. 

The same as what? Your accusations are both vague and unsupported.

[ExquisiteOtter]

On 8/19/2024 at 8:14 PM, nec209 said:

Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US? And so anti far left?

Why is christianity in the US very different christianity brand than other countries is that because of the strong baptist and born again in the US?

In the US Christian’s don’t really seem to view millionaires and billionaires being sin. They say if you rich you have God blessing and if you poor you have to turn to God and God will help you.

The Christian’s in the US are against raising taxes for the rich and against state run universal healthcare, they believe God created rich people and poor people and it just part of society.  They say people can volunteer and donate money to help the poor and homeless to do Gods work for needy but the government should stay out of it. They also say homeless people and poor people are lazy and don’t want to work and turn away from God and the government should not help them.

How did the US Christian’s become so reactionary like this? So far right in the US.

I'm sure that I'm already reiterating things that have already been said in this thread, but this seems like a rather broad generalization... It more or less depends on the denomination too, take for example the united Methodist church which in recent years have shifted their political values more towards the left, which has even caused a bit of split between UMC members more of which can be found here: https://religionnews.com/2024/01/26/the-umc-lost-a-quarter-of-its-churches-most-in-the-south-reflecting-political-patterns/. There is a lot more that goes into political affiliation then just religion such as where you live geographically and your family (or so im told... Im not a political scientist so someone correct me if I'm wrong there...). I myself am a non-denominational Christian and I don't really associate myself with either political party. Any Christian church (or other religious gathering for that matter) that emphasizes one political party over another and claims that you are not X if you don't vote for X party, is probably leaning more towards the definition of a cult.

[KJW]

34 minutes ago, ExquisiteOtter said:

I'm sure that I'm already reiterating things that have already been said in this thread, but this seems like a rather broad generalization... It more or less depends on the denomination too, take for example the united Methodist church which in recent years have shifted their political values more towards the left, which has even caused a bit of split between UMC members more of which can be found here: https://religionnews.com/2024/01/26/the-umc-lost-a-quarter-of-its-churches-most-in-the-south-reflecting-political-patterns/. There is a lot more that goes into political affiliation then just religion such as where you live geographically and your family (or so im told... Im not a political scientist so someone correct me if I'm wrong there...). I myself am a non-denominational Christian and I don't really associate myself with either political party. Any Christian church (or other religious gathering for that matter) that emphasizes one political party over another and claims that you are not X if you don't vote for X party, is probably leaning more towards the definition of a cult.

And Jehovah's Witnesses do not vote, not even in countries where voting is compulsory.

 

Edited August 24 by KJW

[Night FM]

On 8/19/2024 at 3:14 PM, nec209 said:

Why are Christian's very reactionary in the US? And so anti far left?

Why is christianity in the US very different christianity brand than other countries is that because of the strong baptist and born again in the US?

In the US Christian’s don’t really seem to view millionaires and billionaires being sin. They say if you rich you have God blessing and if you poor you have to turn to God and God will help you.

The Christian’s in the US are against raising taxes for the rich and against state run universal healthcare, they believe God created rich people and poor people and it just part of society.  They say people can volunteer and donate money to help the poor and homeless to do Gods work for needy but the government should stay out of it. They also say homeless people and poor people are lazy and don’t want to work and turn away from God and the government should not help them.

How did the US Christian’s become so reactionary like this? So far right in the US.

I'm not entirely sure. It could be various factors, such as:

*The fact that "far-left" politics might be associated with Communism, which is hostile to religion.

*The fact that many of the beliefs that Christians have don't actually originate from the Bible or historical Christian texts. (For example, some who claim to be Christians support views espoused Ayn Rand, despite her possibly having been part of the inspiration behind the Satanic Bible. Just as how most Christians in the US support the Enlightenment era politics of the US Constitution, such as the 1st Amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion). Supposed views that all "poor are lazy" are usually just popular political talking points which "some Christians" might espouse, but likely have more basis in popular culture. (Though I'm not of the opinion that laziness or apathy isn't a factor at all in some people's lifestyle choices).

The reality is that many popular religious views simply don't originate with any of their source texts, and simply arose from whatever cultural elements were existent at the time they became popular. (For example, many of the stricter Christian views on sex may simply be holdovers from the Victorian era, and have little to no basis in the text of the Bible; for that matter the Bible itself contains several explicit references to sex and nudity, such as in the Song of Solomon, so any excessively sex-negative view which is conflated with "Christianity" wouldn't be an authentically Christian or Biblical perspective).

Edited August 28 by Night FM

[npts2020]

2 hours ago, Night FM said:

*The fact that "far-left" politics might be associated with Communism, which is hostile to religion.

AFAIK Communism doesn't take religion into account, that would be Marxism which uses a communist economy as part of broader social structure...

Edited August 28 by npts2020
clarification