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MAGA are bad Christians, but progressives are anti-Christian. MAGA are ostensinsibly Christian, or at least like Christians and will generally let them be, but progressives hate Christianity and will continue attacking it at every opportunity, or at least just stand by and watch while it is destroyed by their extremists. It's not a difficult choice, though Schmidtz seems to have misunderstood the situation.
Progressives are anti-Christian? Every progressive I have met in my life has espoused the tenets of Christianity more than the sum total of Christians I have known in my life.
If anything from my experience, Christians hate Christianity. I can think in my 20+ years of living two Christians that met the minimum definition of a Christian, while I can think of plenty of atheist progressives who have gone beyond the minimum.
What are the tenets of Christianity, as you understand them?
What is the "minimum definition of Christianity", in your view?
The tenets of Christianity include the Ten Commandments and the principles of tranquility, forgiveness, humbleness and charity.
The minimum definition of Christianity, as stated by Christ when asked, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
These seem like reasonable definitions.
I know neither the Christians you've met in your life, nor the Progressives. Maybe the Christians were really awful, and the Progressives really saintly. I am curious as to how you see the Progressives "loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind"; what does that mean to a non-Christian observing non-Christians? Likewise "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
My suspicion, perhaps unfounded, is that you are rounding these principles to "is a progressive". Perhaps I'm wrong, and there's more to it.
Do you believe your experience generalizes? Moving beyond Christians and Progressives you've personally met, I presume you'd agree that we can observe Christians and Progressives in society generally, and identify notable examples. When drawing from a reference class that broad, we ought to see extremes both ways. I can certainly find cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Progressives are acting in a significantly more Christian fashion than the Christians. Would you agree that there are identifiable, individual cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Christians do in fact seem more Christian than the Progressives?
Take the cake shop guy versus the trans activist; does it seem to you that Phillips was acting in a more Christian fashion, or Scardina?
I could see arguments either way, but I lean pretty hard toward "no".
For the same reason that I don't think we should have laws requiring Church attendance. Christianity's first-order ends cannot be achieved by coercion. Christian charity is not enforced by law; charity enforced by law is not meaningfully Christian. See my post here for more elaboration of the argument.
What would the argument in favor be?
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