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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34749 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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He Gets Us

There has been great controversy over a recent Christian ad that played during the Super Bowl.

“He gets us,” the ad in question, and the organization that created it, is a subsidiary of the ‘The Signatry,’ a fund that aims to spread biblical teachings around the planet, which is also a business alias by another organization called “The Servant foundation.” It is one of the largest Christian Grant foundations in the world, with donations from many of the top churches in the country as well as billionaires such as David Green, the owner of hobby lobby. It has pledged over half a billion dollars to the spread of their message on a global scale, with a large portion going to America exclusively.

This has caused habitual controversy within secular circles among those blue tribe adjacent, with many of their reactions being familiar to those already within religious denominations. What is ironic, however, is that these ad campaigns were modeled in a way that was specifically tailored to the leftist worldview by very modern sects of Christianity. The campaign focused on a perception of Jesus with traits that are explicitly progressive. Examine some of the perspectives given by the organization

-Jesus was a refugee and an Immigrant

-Jesus was an ‘influencer’ who got ‘cancelled’ after standing up for something he believed in

-Jesus was wrongly judged

-Jesus had to control his outrage too

Take a look for yourself at some of the ads in question.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0z0J-2P8a3s&ab_channel=HeGetsUs

https://youtube.com/watch?v=v1IJFJwexus&ab_channel=HeGetsUs

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QEEq5VTfmic&ab_channel=HeGetsUs

Since I assume most members of this forum are atheists, most would not look any deeper into the motivations or presentation of this ad campaign with any closer analysis than they would any other form of Christian evangelism. But the point of my post is not to examine this ad campaign, but to extrapolate on a current trend of modern Christianity that is exemplified within it.

To say that the ad campaign was a complete failure is an understatement. It resonated with very few non-religious people, failed spectacularly with leftists in general, and came with the same amount of pushback that any other Christian sentiments in popular media would receive.

AOC claimed that the ads “Makes fascism look benign.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/aoc-jesus-ad-fascism-definition-superbowl-he-gets-us-b2281862.html

For full disclosure, I am a Christian who converted as an adult, and have perspectives of both religious and non-religious worldviews. There is a succinct lack of understanding of the goings on in the Christian community by non-religious people and I wish to shed a light on some of the current underpinnings.

Unbeknownst to many outside the church, Christians are dealing with a type of heretical civil conflict within their own faith. ‘Progressive Christianity’ has become commonplace in most urban centers around NA, and it is exactly as it sounds. They usually set up their own churches so they may freely practice their beliefs. Usually, they attract members with a more serious Christian appearance and then slowly ingratiate their own ideology as time goes by. They are a denomination that has made multiple doctrinal changes that are completely against more traditional Christianity.

  1. They do not accept the divinity of Jesus. While traditional Christians believe Jesus to be the literal incarnation of God that walked the earth, progressive Christians merely believe that Jesus was a man who set a good moral example. This also implies that they deny the literal resurrection of Jesus. While these beliefs are not universal, the importance of faith in general is placed very low on the totem pole of progressive Christianity. This turns their interpretation of salvation into human self-actualization. Along with this, there comes with it a denial of the bible as ultimate authority. They believe the bible only goes so far as to give guidelines, but ultimately puts the bible secondary if it contradicts modern sensibilities.

  2. Due to the first point, this lack of belief in the Divinity of Jesus and with the resurrection turns something that was once about salvation into simple moralism. This allows the Christian doctrine to be molded into something that fits more contemporary progressive worldviews, and gives them authority to shame and accuse other churches or Christians of not following 'correct' christian doctrine.

  3. They embrace homosexuality. Gay people can become pastors and other authoritative figures within their churches. While traditional Christianity considers homosexuality a sin, progressive Christian will spout Jesus’ example of love and kindness to trump any biblical teachings that come from other writers in the New Testament. This allows them to still maintain some moral high ground that they accuse other churches and Christians of "unchristian like behavior" and "Not true Christians."

These are the churches that are heavily advertised on Tik-Tok and other social media websites and are extremely popular in that niche. The reality of the churches, however, is vastly different. I have been to many of these churches out of sheer curiosity, and I have never seen any of them survive for any significant period of time. The numbers they draw will repeatedly dwindle, as many of the congregation begin to understand the perspectives being espoused, and will leave the church for a more traditional one. I have many in my Church who are refugees from progressive churches and most of the stories are very similar. Over time their numbers will progressively dwindle, until they cannot afford to stay open and have no congregation. People who are not religious are not interested in becoming religious for simple political motivations, and people who are religious are interested in the legitimate spiritual traditions of the faith, not materialist interpretations of said traditions. Leftists who already hate Christianity are not going to be convinced by a softer form of it. Likewise, people who are already Christians are not going to be effected by people who don't even really believe in the core tenets of Christianity to begin with.

Everyone is familiar with the trend of progressive ideologues infiltrating certain niches and groups and slowly turning them into spokesman of their causes. Regardless of your views of religion or Christianity, it is an extremely durable belief system. It has survived for thousands of years, multiple empires, countless plagues, and disasters, and I don’t think far leftist types yet have an understanding of why that is. Christians don’t go to church or believe out of a hatred or dislike of Homosexuals. Christianity promises eternal life and spiritual salvation for just the simple belief in its figurehead. Progressive Christianity will always fail, because in order to justify their own inclusion of contemporary social beliefs they must subtract the very things about the philosophical aspects of Christianity that make it appealing in the first place.

I have seen this take many times but I have never taken the take from the other side: someone who admits openly that they just want a video game checklist for their own morality. It is so far away from anything I would ever want that it's impossible for me to imagine that real people would reach that conclusion. Do the people who want to live that way know that's what they want? Would they be turned off if they heard their views described the way you've described it?

They don't say it in those words. Instead, they suggest that without the fear of god and the set of rules there's simply no other way to create internal drivers for morality.

It's tough to keep your face straight when someone says the only reason they don't act like a piece of shit is the fear of eternal damnation. The vast majority of Christians aren't like this (IME) but they're out there.

Instead, they suggest that without the fear of god and the set of rules there's simply no other way to create internal drivers for morality.

No -- instead I'll suggest that without the fear of God "morality" is an unintelligible term.

If you think it's somehow 'wrong' to put your unwanted infant on a dung heap to die of starvation or be sold into prostitution; if you think it's 'wrong' to sail down the coast to where the people talk funny and kill the men, rape the women, and enslave the children; if you think that all humans are of equal (and infinite) moral worth; you just might be descended from a Christian culture.

Baseline human 'morality' looks like Genghis Khan, and I don't recognize it as such. It's just game theory.

China and india in the middle ages and early modernity were more orderly and advanced societies than europe without knowing christianity. IMO what brings order in society is not any particular ideology but the enforcement, through violence, of the rule of law.

Religion in this sense, probably just offers a cope: human justice isn't perfect but those who escape it will be punished in the next life.

BTW, thinking that morality descends from god directly is not universal in christian theology, IIRC aquinas believed that it was derived from human nature.

IMO what brings order in society is not any particular ideology but the enforcement, through violence, of the rule of law.

Yes. We're not talking about order. We're talking about morality.

You'll have to clarify, then. I'm not sure what you are talking about. Are we talking about morality of the individual (as in: the ability of an individual to know good from evil) or are we talking about the moral basis of laws? Something else?

Right, my point here is that without reference to God 'morality' is an unintelligible term. We can talk about order, or smooth social functioning, or game theory -- all kinds of things! But those are not what we mean when we talk about morality. Morality is what is right above all those other concerns by dint of our relationship to our creator.

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IIRC aquinas believed that it was derived from human nature

Okay, this needs clarification. What we are talking about here are the three Theological Virtues - Faith, Hope, Charity/Love - and the Four Cardinal Virtues - Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. The three theological virtues are only known by divine revelation and the grace of God. The four cardinal virtues arise out of natural law/human nature and can be held by anyone, including pagans.

Hit me up, Tommy A:

Summa Theologiae > First Part of the Second Part > Question 61

Question 61. The cardinal virtues

  1. Should the moral virtues be called cardinal or principal virtues?

  2. Their number

  3. Which are they?

  4. Do they differ from one another?

  5. Are they fittingly divided into social, perfecting, perfect, and exemplar virtues?

Taking an excerpt from Article 1:

I answer that, When we speak of virtue simply, we are understood to speak of human virtue. Now human virtue, as stated above (I-II:56:3), is one that answers to the perfect idea of virtue, which requires rectitude of the appetite: for such like virtue not only confers the faculty of doing well, but also causes the good deed done. On the other hand, the name virtue is applied to one that answers imperfectly to the idea of virtue, and does not require rectitude of the appetite: because it merely confers the faculty of doing well without causing the good deed to be done. Now it is evident that the perfect is principal as compared to the imperfect: and so those virtues which imply rectitude of the appetite are called principal virtues. Such are the moral virtues, and prudence alone, of the intellectual virtues, for it is also something of a moral virtue, as was clearly shown above (I-II:57:4). Consequently, those virtues which are called principal or cardinal are fittingly placed among the moral virtues.

From a different question about the moral and intellectual virtues:

Reply to Objection 3. Faith, hope, and charity are superhuman virtues: for they are virtues of man as sharing in the grace of God.

And then another one about the theological virtues:

Article 2. Whether the theological virtues are distinct from the intellectual and moral virtues?

Objection 1. It would seem that the theological virtues are not distinct from the moral and intellectual virtues. For the theological virtues, if they be in a human soul, must needs perfect it, either as to the intellective, or as to the appetitive part. Now the virtues which perfect the intellective part are called intellectual; and the virtues which perfect the appetitive part, are called moral. Therefore, the theological virtues are not distinct from the moral and intellectual virtues.

Objection 2. Further, the theological virtues are those which direct us to God. Now, among the intellectual virtues there is one which directs us to God: this is wisdom, which is about Divine things, since it considers the highest cause. Therefore the theological virtues are not distinct from the intellectual virtues.

Objection 3. Further, Augustine (De Moribus Eccl. xv) shows how the four cardinal virtues are the "order of love." Now love is charity, which is a theological virtue. Therefore the moral virtues are not distinct from the theological.

On the contrary, That which is above man's nature is distinct from that which is according to his nature. But the theological virtues are above man's nature; while the intellectual and moral virtues are in proportion to his nature, as clearly shown above (I-II:58:3). Therefore they are distinct from one another.

I answer that, As stated above (I-II:54:2 ad 1), habits are specifically distinct from one another in respect of the formal difference of their objects. Now the object of the theological virtues is God Himself, Who is the last end of all, as surpassing the knowledge of our reason. On the other hand, the object of the intellectual and moral virtues is something comprehensible to human reason. Wherefore the theological virtues are specifically distinct from the moral and intellectual virtues.

Reply to Objection 1. The intellectual and moral virtues perfect man's intellect and appetite according to the capacity of human nature; the theological virtues, supernaturally.

Reply to Objection 2. The wisdom which the Philosopher (Ethic. vi, 3,7) reckons as an intellectual virtue, considers Divine things so far as they are open to the research of human reason. Theological virtue, on the other hand, is about those same things so far as they surpass human reason.

Reply to Objection 3. Though charity is love, yet love is not always charity. When, then, it is stated that every virtue is the order of love, this can be understood either of love in the general sense, or of the love of charity. If it be understood of love, commonly so called, then each virtue is stated to be the order of love, in so far as each cardinal virtue requires ordinate emotions; and love is the root and cause of every emotion, as stated above (I-II:27:4; I-II:28:6 ad 2; I-II:41:2 ad 1). If, however, it be understood of the love of charity, it does not mean that every other virtue is charity essentially: but that all other virtues depend on charity in some way, as we shall show further on (Question 65, Articles 2 and 5; II-II:23:7).

I was also thinking about quaestio 90 and following of the first part of the second part.

I don't think Israel is descended from a Christian culture, and it's a lot closer to Western morality than its neighbors. I don't think Japan is descended from a Christian culture either, but if you went to Japan and started preaching about how you should sail down the coast and rape and enslave, people would think you're insane.

if you went to Japan and started preaching about how you should sail down the coast and rape and enslave, people would think you're insane

Boy of all the examples to pick. Japan was precisely that way within living memory. What changed?

As to Israel, modern Judaism is younger than (and a reaction to) Christianity, and also Israel is heavily populated by Western (somewhat Christianized) Jews, and if you go ask the Jews who are still fairly un-Christianized they'll gladly tell you that non-Jews are only there to serve Jews.

if you go ask the Jews who are still fairly un-Christianized they'll gladly tell you that non-Jews are only there to serve Jews.

What? No.

What? No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovadia_Yosef

Ovadia Yosef (Hebrew: עובדיה יוסף, romanized: Ovadya Yosef, Arabic: عبد الله يوسف, romanized: Abdullah Yusuf;[2] September 24, 1920 – October 7, 2013)[3] was an Iraqi-born Talmudic scholar, a posek, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, and a founder and long-time spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party.[4][5] Yosef's responsa were highly regarded within Haredi circles, particularly among Mizrahi communities, among whom he was regarded as "the most important living halakhic authority".

So, what was his attitude towards non-Jewish people?

In a sermon he delivered in October 2010, Yosef was strongly condemned (including, among others, by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee)[81][82][61] after stating that "the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews".[61][62][83] In his sermon, he said:

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.[84]

In Israel, death has no dominion over them... With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they'd lose their money. This is his servant... That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew," Yosef said.

"Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.

That is why gentiles were created"[84]

More comments

Boy of all the examples to pick. Japan was precisely that way within living memory. What changed?

One could argue that they ended up that way because of forced contact with Christian cultures (i.e. Japan's history before and after the Meiji Restoration). Japan had something approaching a democracy before an ultranationalist junta sent it down the path to the 1930's and beyond.

Speaking of which, perhaps one could have argued that, from a Shintoist perspective, the Empire's actions had so offended the gods that they didn't lift a finger to stop the Enola Gay when she took off on that fateful day. Or, for the Buddhists, perhaps the sheer karmic weight of everything going on caused Shiva himself to manifest in the world, and J. Robert Oppenheimer's recollection of that quote from the Bhagavad Gita was no mere coincidence...

Okay, okay, more seriously, I think it's generally more that religion is necessary, but perhaps not sufficient when it comes to morality--or at least morality at scale. As per Hoffmeister's thread above, the requirements to prevent chaos and destruction--the things that work--may well change as you increase the size of civilizations. When things don't look anything like the Jesus-era Roman Empire, you need something else to enforce civility and niceness.

It's just game theory.

Sure, and there are social pressures that make developing a game-winning strategy look an awful like morality. Even if it's just "Game Theory" instead of divine edict, that doesn't make it any less good for society or yourself.

I'm a lifetime atheist, but I'll be the first to admit that a subset of the 10 commandments are fine items to start living by. You're inferring that we're all just copying off of Christ's work, I'd say that his was all rooted in basic tribal cooperation.

Gonna press x to doubt on this one. What is the protocol when another tribe has nothing at all to offer one's own besides their land, accumulated wealth (if any), and expendable labor?

We don't have to ask; history is replete with examples of how this plays out in the absence of an otherwise-unaccountable conviction that those people somehow matter as much as ours do.

Gonna press x to doubt on this one. What is the protocol when another tribe has nothing at all to offer one's own besides their land, accumulated wealth (if any), and expendable labor?

This is short term thinking IMO. Slavery isn't a viable economic model, raping and murdering only is fun if you can outrun the burnt fields behind you your whole life, and stealing resources in a one time event instead of managing their creation is a surefire way to stay poor.

history is replete with examples of how this plays out in the absence of an otherwise-unaccountable conviction that those people somehow matter

Of course if you think of other humans as pathetic animals you won't treat them well. Once again, this boils down to stupidity. Blind, ignorant racism can make a society immoral, I won't dispute that.

It's tough to keep your face straight when someone says the only reason they don't act like a piece of shit is the fear of eternal damnation.

If everyone you know is a lovely person who doesn't need rules or regulations, they absolutely would act morally and ethically even if they had been raised by wolves with no pre-existing moral system in place, I'm happy for you.

Looking around at the world, I don't see that collection of "humans are naturally good, it's only laws make them into criminals"

And for myself, absolutely I would be a piece of shit without an external regulatory system. And even secular laws might not be enough, because if I decide "that law is bullshit and I reject your values", then nothing will stop me (except maybe, and don't count on it always and totally working, fear of things like 'the cops'). So yeah - fear of eternal damnation is the external limit that does keep me from doing some shit.

I know good, pro-social, well-regulated people. I know crappy, anti-social, disordered people. I know devout religious people (mainly Christian), and I know totally secular atheists. I have yet to notice a strong correlation on the scatterplot of those two axes.

I would add that it's not like secular atheists don't have external regulatory systems, it's just more "I'm not going to do this thing that I might want to do otherwise because all of the people I know and like will think I'm a bad person for doing it" than "God will send me to hell if I do this thing".

Looking around at the world, I don't see that collection of "humans are naturally good, it's only laws make them into criminals"

I'm not making that representation, only that in a middle-class western context being good is pretty easy.

Morality was explained to me in a logical way. People cooperating is generally good. Progress is easier to attain when you don't have to expend resources on defense.

You shouldn't need the fear of god. Start with just small units of people as an exercise. Is it rational to steal from your roommate and put your stuff in their bed? Leave the kitchen covered in food until you all have an infestation of bugs or vermin?

The viciousness, violence, and immorality you see in many places is the result of ignorance and necessity. If you're in an environment where violence is expected, you must prepare for it and perhaps even dish out some of your own. Quite frankly it's a waste of time to be a jerk, since the probability of it paying off for your entire life is minuscule.

I personally suspect that laws, whether of Man or of God, are merely backstops or last-resorts against defection. What's special is when things are built and rules are followed without the enforcment of limits--or maybe even just the knowledge or visibility of limits. I suppose I'm imagining a world of arrows on floors in opposition to a world of chain-link fences.

After reading

I want to live in an ordered, hierarchical society in which routes for advancement and demotion are clear and in which most people’s life path (including my own) is largely prescribed

I was expecting:

This is not an uncommon sentiment among investment bankers.

Since banking is stereotypically a risk averse career choice and young aspiring bankers are stereotypically preoccupied (maybe even obssessed) with following the predefined One True Path to Greatness: HYPSW UG -> BB/EB IBD Analyst -> MF PE Assoc. -> HSW MBA -> Post-MBA MF PE Assoc. -> Greatness

Ok I give up, what's the W?

Wharton

TIL Wharton does both MBAs and UG degrees, I'd have thought it would have been UPenn.

Rule-following is Judaism with its 613 commandments, not Christianity. Much ink was spilled in the New Testament about how true religion is a spiritual orientation toward God and not following rules to the letter (the flesh of the letter which worketh death is contrasted to the spirit of the law which is fulfilled in Christ). People do certainly want to understand their place in the Universe and who to trust, and this Christianity attempts to answer comprehensively. I would note, though, that news sites for the irreligious function the same way, where the news du jour takes on existential importance and much E-Ink is spilled on who is the most trustworthy anonymous source in news. If not news, then scientists and sciencism, with its illusion that the fullness of an ocean can be understood by analyzing the contents of a bucket.

Rule-following is Judaism with its 613 commandments, not Christianity. Much ink was spilled in the New Testament about how true religion is a spiritual orientation toward God and not following rules to the letter

And yet, Paul basically recreated standards of conduct for the Corinthians when they reached precisely this conclusion (the Law was superseded, they were saved so they didn't need to behave)

I'm not denying that there is a difference between Islam/Judaism and Christianity in terms of nomos.

But I think it should also be considered just how much of that is just aeons of religious polemic. First against Jews since Christianity's split and Jesus' significance (when the Law already saves) had to be explained. Then it was having to fight the Catholic Church. This provided an incentive to overestimate how burdensome nomistic religions are.

In terms of day to day life it's debatable that pre-secular Christianity didn't place significant enough boundaries on behavior or provide a roadmap for most people. If anything, Christian behavioral - if not ritual- standards were higher than the standards of the pagans they replaced.

Consider three approaches to a marriage:

"My marriage feels good, and that's why I'm in it. Being together makes me feel good, so I try to be together, and maybe that involves doing things she likes, if they're not too much of a drag. But if what I want and what she wants diverges, I'm going with what I want, and if she doesn't like it, she can go find someone else."

"My marriage is a contractual obligation with clearly defined responsibilities and benefits. I fulfill my responsibilities and am entitled to my benefits. I tell my wife I love her three (3) times a day, spend a minimum of one hour each day engaging in social interaction with her, take care of my hare of the chores, work my job, offer flowers and presents on the appropriate holidays. In exchange, she holds up her end. Beyond this, my life is my own to do with as I please, and her feelings are more or less irrelevant."

"Our marriage is about serving, and supporting each other. I try to please her, she tries to please me. If we can't agree on what to do, we find a compromise. We each have a responsibility to manage our desires, to want our mate and their happiness over our own, to prioritize the other over the self."

The first approach is "I do what I want", and it fails because people are selfish and often want bad things.

The second is analogous to a rules-based approach. It fails because no set of rules is ever actually sufficient to constrain human will: malicious compliance is still compliance, and self-interested interpretation and loophole hunting are always available options.

The third is attempting to align the will with the ends sought. There is no set of discrete, granular rules that ensure a good marriage, nor can one simply do as one pleases. Good marriages come when "having a good marriage" is treated as an end to be actively pursued, rather than a means for some other goal like selfish gratification. Whenever rules are treated as an end in themselves, they fail. When they are treated as a means to an end, they can succeed.

"My marriage is a contractual obligation with clearly defined responsibilities and benefits. I fulfill my responsibilities and am entitled to my benefits. I tell my wife I love her three (3) times a day, spend a minimum of one hour each day engaging in social interaction with her, take care of my hare of the chores, work my job, offer flowers and presents on the appropriate holidays. In exchange, she holds up her end. Beyond this, my life is my own to do with as I please, and her feelings are more or less irrelevant."

I don't think I've ever heard a Muslim state something like this growing up.

This actually sounds like a highly (and Allah forgive me for uttering this word) liberal worldview. "It's not God's business what you do in X past Y" was a staple of early 2000s atheist rhetoric, but would be utterly blasphemous to most devout believers.

The second is analogous to a rules-based approach. It fails because no set of rules is ever actually sufficient to constrain human will: malicious compliance is still compliance, and self-interested interpretation and loophole hunting are always available options.

What makes you think that members of the more nomistic faiths believe that the purpose is to close out all malicious compliance and loophole abuse? Is it just that they don't see this problem, or the entire theory simply doesn't accurately map to how they view the world?

This seems like one of those arguments that's devastating from within Christianity but not other views - like the "well, no one can truly earn righteous" one.

This actually sounds like a highly (and Allah forgive me for uttering this word) liberal worldview. "It's not God's business what you do in X past Y" was a staple of early 2000s atheist rhetoric, but would be utterly blasphemous to most devout believers.

Practical examples are not hard to find. Have you heard of bubble porn? I've been plagued by similar delusive desires to have my cake and eat it too. It's a very human failure mode, not at all confined to any particular worldview.

What makes you think that members of the more nomistic faiths believe that the purpose is to close out all malicious compliance and loophole abuse? Is it just that they don't see this problem, or the entire theory simply doesn't accurately map to how they view the world?

I'm not really familiar with the term "nomistic", but going from context... I think that confusing the rules for the ends the rules aim for is a basic failure mode of human thought. I see it absolutely everywhere, in the secular world and the religious, in a variety of cultures and faiths, including various branches of Christianity. The case of particular strains of Judaism comes easily at hand because it's used as the go-to example in the bible, old and new testaments alike. I don't claim that particular strains of Judiasm or Islam have this problem; I don't know enough about them to make that claim. I suspect that at least some do, as some branches of Christianity do, because it seems to be a very easy mistake to make. And if some religion doesn't see it as a mistake, but asserts it as basic truth, I think they're just flatly wrong.

Have you heard of bubble porn?

Fair point. I would say that, theologically, such things would probably not be looked kindly upon when I was growing up but that doesn't mean it never happens.

Though, a lot of the "problems" I saw with rituals were people who would overweigh in-group markers (e.g. not drinking alcohol) while doing other bad shit moreso than something like bubbleporn.

I'm not really familiar with the term "nomistic"

I just meant religions with law codes like the Torah or Sharia.

in the secular world and the religious, in a variety of cultures and faiths, including various branches of Christianity. The case of particular strains of Judaism comes easily at hand because it's used as the go-to example in the bible, old and new testaments alike.

That's actually the site of a bit of a debate. Just how much Judaism actually fits the hyper-transactional viewpoint* criticized by Christian scholars is one of the questions raised by the New Perspective

Sanders' work actually goes and looks at the sources in Paul's time (since Christians assume Paul must have been responding to some major deviation) and...it was more complicated. As I said, I'm not against there being a distinction, but there are strong incentives for polemics and contentious descriptions of other faiths that they themselves wouldn't necessarily have used ( e.g. your second approach)

* Though there is an argument that it applies more to Islam than Judaism

In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) after the rise of Islam there was much concern with Christianity's dearth of rules and codes of conduct compared to the ascendant Islam. The belief of the day, which everyone assumed as true, was that the fate of the Empire was directly linked to the proper religious conduct of the people and Emperor. The only logical explanation for the Muslim military's victory over the Empire was Loss of God's Favor. It actually took two centuries before the Roman elite even recognized that Islam existed as a separate distinct religion (the historical record of the Arab's themselves also lacks good evidence of Islam being a fully formed, distinct religion for about 2 centuries after the death of Mohammad, when the very earliest accounts of his life first start appearing. This is not a can or worms I'm trying to open here). Many in the Empire's elite considered them to be Jewish heretic fundamentalists. Either way God obviously let them win so there has to be a reason(s). Multiple attempts to flush out of a more attractive set of personal conduct guidelines and criminal law based on the Old Testament while keeping within the Empires traditions were launched after various military defeats. Its both a very broad subject and one that lacks much satisfying primary sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_law#Middle_Byzantine_period has a very incomplete overview laundered through modern understandings.

The only logical explanation for the Muslim military's victory over the Empire was Loss of God's Favor

Funnily enough, this is a very common (maybe the most common) line in Islamism: Muslims are in an abject state today because, unlike at the peak of their power, they are less devout and hardline.

However, I don't think this would suffice as proof that modern Islam doesn't have pre-existing behavioral prescriptions right?

This is just the most common theme in Abrahamic faiths. There were plenty of Jewish apocalyptic movements that insisted on stricter requirements or more purity. But it didn't mean Judaism didn't have an existing set of prescriptions.

A big part of Christianity is to turn the soul naturally good, that is, it doesn’t do things out of guilt or “slavery to the law” but because it loves God. As such, these aren’t really behavioral prescriptions. Someone who loves their child and does things for the child naturally is not obeying a mental list of rules, they are being guided by the spirit of love without the involvement of forcing oneself — this is grace. This is how the Christian sees God working in their world, how they see Christ behaving in the world, and what they have faith to receive by worship and prayer — not strenuous effort or rule-following.

Consider 1 Corinthians 13:3: “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Traditionally Christianity did not have 613 mitzvot, but it was very much about ‘you are X, you need to do Y and obey spiritual authority Z’.

It may be least rule-based of any ancient religion known, especially in the early days. Colossians 2:16, romans 4:15, and Galatians 4:10 prove that there were no significant rules on holidays or diet. 1 Corinthians 6:12 implies that the religion has an entire spiritual dimension in which nothing is forbidden. Romans 14 strongly suggests that judgment should not be passed on a Christian for earthly things.

Proof text much? Colossians 2:16 goes on into verse 17. Pay attention to your translation, and notice which word isn't present in the Greek. Romans 4:15 is written by the same guy who went on to write chapter 6 of that same book. And Galatians 4:10? I mean, I don't even know if I have a complaint. It's straight impressive how magically you read something into here that isn't remotely present. Like, kudos for whatever kool-aid you've got in your cup. And man, 1 Corinthians 6:12? This guy wrote the previous three verses; what do you make of them? Do they imply that nothing is forbidden? Did you just skip the first part of the chapter of Romans 14, where it indicated the types of things it was talking about, rather than being a free-floating license to do literally anything. I mean, you can't really believe that. You can't really believe that if Paul was standing in front of you right now, and you asked him, "Hey yo, this passage here. This be where it says that it's totes cool to rape, murder, and pillage, right?" that he would say, "Abso-toot-o-lutely! Hop in my ride! We're heading for a rape off right now!"

Why stop at verse 18 when can study the whole passage

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions,d puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. 20If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22(referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Now in 17, substance means body. Remembered that the fulfillment of the Old is found in Jesus. What’s more, in Christianity there’s a process by which a “child” in Christ becomes an “adult” in Christ. The astute Bible fan would now note that the chapter divisions are a later division. So let’s move on to the continuation of the teachings:

then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth

It’s very clear then that the intention is not to focus on the human-made rules and regulations, which are a shadow of the true light of Christ.

Nothing in Romans goes against what I am saying. In Romans 6 we read

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. […] But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Your criticisms are convoluted and purposely opaque. You don’t seem understand that a thing can be bad, and also that hyper-focusing on rules regarding the bad thing can also be bad and ineffectual. If I have a wife whom I love, I may decide on a list of 80 things which a lover does with his wife. And if I hyper-focus on adhering to these 80 things when I am with my wife, then I will never be able to actually love my wife. Those 80 rules or principles may be of some use in diagnosis, but has no use in treatment. To love your wife you must focus on your wife as a person and yourself as a person, and if the love is true then it may line up with the “80 rules” produced. The key distinction is that the treatment is not the diagnosis. This is Christianity in a nutshell: it is not a rules-based religion, but a spirit-based religion. Although there does exist somewhat amorphous criterion for measuring righteousness, the only thing of value is the inner disposition. And this is exposed by Jesus again and again in the Gospel where he breaks letter to perform the spirit

Now in 17, substance means body. Remembered that the fulfillment of the Old is found in Jesus.

Sure, but you didn't quite notice which word in your translation isn't in the Greek. Once we get that, we'll see how your astute observation here makes more sense.

then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth

It’s very clear then that the intention is not to focus on the human-made rules and regulations

BZZZZZZT. You added "rules and regulations" here. That's not in there. Do you think the things which are above, where Christ is, include rape, murder, and pillaging?

You quote Romans 6 well, but it seems you have not read it. Are you to sin because you are not under law but under grace? If you are obedient from the heart, what are you obedient to? Great job jumping to 7:6; perhaps check some other translations. Say, what does verse seven say?

Your criticisms are convoluted and purposely opaque. I am not hyper-focusing on anything; I'm just observing that you're hyper-focusing on a few words here and there, completely divorced from the rest of the text.

this is exposed by Jesus again and again in the Gospel where he breaks letter to perform the spirit

This is correct, but the letter of what? The spirit of what?

Remember that the devil can and will quote scripture. ;-)

The didache at a very early date shows a church with authority, holy days, prescriptions for fasting, well regulated prayers, and a strong code of behavior.

People want all-encompassing rules for life.

Or even just a set of principles to guide life.

The issue is not just that the current Western system fails to provide a "video game checklist". For many it fails to provide a strong enough set of values to hang something unto. Or, for some, the values it does propose are just intolerable or insufficient (some belief in liberty, individualism, progress and so on).

I grew up in a truly religious - Islamic, so it should be even more strict - country. I never felt like my life was a game quest.

But I also never doubted that There Were Rules, Things We Just Know - both moral and metaphysical. That there was some shared set of norms that we could go back to when having debates. I think that's more important to a lot of people than certain nitty-gritty guidelines and debates about whether to eat with the left or the right.

I think part of the appeal of Islam's rules for converts is not so much the rules themselves, and more that the religion maintains the normative power and vitality to insist upon its rules, even if they seem absolutely absurd to a modern's eyes.

Regardless of whether or not this particular group or ad worked, there does appear to be a wide scale attempt to infiltrate and subvert Christianity. It’s been around for a long time, but it seems like it’s been more intense over the last couple years.

On a unrelated note, I’ve recently learned a bit more about the Vatican II changes. I’ve been aware of VII for a long time, but after getting into it in more depth, the actual implantation of the counsel was worse than the suggestions. I only bring this up because it seems quite clear to me that loosening up doctrine is what is killing these regions. Perhaps someone should try going the other direction.

Can you cite some good sources on this? I'm not at all quarreling here - just another Catholic interested in learning about VII (and having been suspicious of it for a while)

Catholicism’s internal civil war(in which traditionalists are very strong participants) is at a fever pitch right now, unfortunately, and so you are probably not going to find a ‘good’ source because it’s all too controversial.

It is not, by the way, difficult to find polemics, including ones which site hard numbers. They are, however, polemics.

Could you give me a little background on this? I am completely unaware of the conflicts within the catholic church atm.

The Catholic Church has been riven by internal conflict over how liberal to go since Vatican II. The reactionaries(we should go more conservative than we are now) are generally referred to as traditionalists, the hardliner conservatives as orthodox, and the hardliner liberals as progressives, with conservative and moderate and liberal being fuzzier terms for people that don’t belong in those camps, more directional than indicating firm allegiance.

JPII and in particular Benedict XVI managed to keep a lid on this conflict, although there were a few notable blowups under JPII and in a lot of cases they kept a lid on it by ignoring the divisions as long as the fighting was behind closed doors. Pope Francis, alas, is not anywhere near as good of a manager. He’s probably not a progressive, but his poor management has left him with very few other allies and little choice but to implement or at least tolerate unpopular and or unwise parts of their agenda. Now you’ve got the powerful conservative former head of the doctrinal department kept from open opposition by expecting the pope to die and be replaced by Benedict XVI’s(quite orthodox) top diplomat within the next year, local bishops openly siding with traditionalist groups they had not previously been on speaking terms with to signal opposition to the pope, the German bishops conference announcing a plan to approve gay marriage against Vatican disapproval, a looming confrontation over the next Vatican doctrine chief(this is traditionally the de facto number 2 spot) in which that same former head appears to have already vetoed a progressive appointee by making threats with the backing of a double digit number of cardinals, and the American bishops literally making heresy accusations against each other to the media(which is unprecedented). All of this is against a backdrop in which more revelations of sex abuse mishandling, this time mostly with perpetrators in the pope’s inner circle, coming out.

I think Francis does at the core have a solid or at least traditional understanding. There's a couple of things going on: he's a South American Jesuit, he does have the instinct for the pastoral role as the primary one, and he tends to say things off the cuff that the media then take up and amplify as their message (the one about "who am I to judge?" was not about "the gay is okay" and if you read the full context, it's in a specific case that was presented to him in a press interview aboard the Vatican jet, but that's not how it was reported in the papers).

I don't have much personal liking for Francis as his style is completely at odds with my own tendencies, and he does have a liberal streak. But "liberal" is not the same as "progressive" and I think he does believe in things like the divinity of Christ, the Real Presence, etc. He has a taste for the kind of lay devotions that the Spirit of Vatican II crowd looked down their noses at and swept away when in power.

I wish he'd clobber a few of the ones straying off the reservation, but he does believe the job of the Shepherd is to go after the sheep, not drive them further off.

Agree that Francis doesn’t seem personally very progressive(hence why I draw the distinction between liberal and progressive), but he’s definitely increasingly reliant on progressives to do anything and his weakness as a manager is not helped by his tendency to come down like a ton of bricks to his right.

his tendency to come down like a ton of bricks to his right.

Yeah, that's the Jesuit in him (I was going to say "South American Jesuit" but it's pretty much all the Jebbies everywhere, save for a few reactionary holdouts here and there).

I had started writing an explainer but then got distracted by events in meat-space. Long story short John-Paul II and the respect he commanded had been what was keeping a lot of long simmering disagreements between the different factions in check. The sex abuse scandals have since become something of an albatross around the progressive wing's neck (this is what comes of tolerating homosexuality and all that). The expectation amongst conservatives was that Benedict XVI would "clean house" but that is not what appears to have happened and now we have pope Francis attempting to appeal to a sense of unity that simply isn't present. See @hydroacetylene's post below.

I think Benedict did try, and I personally found him very much to my inclinations and tastes (even things like the change of the processional staff to something more old-fashioned).

But he suffered from (1) succeeding the rockstar charisma of John Paul II where he was quiet and scholarly and didn't have the personal oomph to ride over the progressives and (2) having been painted as the Rottweiler, Palpatine, all the rest of the negative press that got going pretty much since he was elected. Trying to go back to more disciplined forms of liturgy doesn't work when a chunk of the faithful have been born and grown up under the new forms so have no memory of the old; those who do have the memory of how it used to be are either too old to make a difference, or are liberals who hated the old style anyway.

The Vatican II reforms were never meant to be taken as far as they went, but a lot of liberals at the time seized on them as "Gotta get rid of all this, the Council says so" and literally chopped up churches (there's a church in my town that was built in a conventional Victorian Gothic Revival style, nothing spectacular, really off the shelf, but it was destroyed by being hacked about over the years. The altar is now what I can only describe as a bundle of sticks. The laity sure didn't want the altar rails taken down and the rest of it, it was all down to the clergy). The ideals of going back to simpler, Gospel-oriented worship were great, but the effect was that schools now left teaching up to the parents, the parents thought schools would continue teaching the basics, kids never got the basics and Christian Doctrine classes (as they were in my time) now became all about what you could call social justice discussions.

There's a reason for the joke about "When God saw the Church was no longer suffering persecutions, He sent liturgists".

So Benedict was standing in a razed-flat wasteland trying to get the people who had only known that to come back to the way it used to be, and the press was too busy laughing about his red shoes to try and understand what he was doing.

God rest the man. He at least stood at the tiller and tried to steer the ship.

If you want to get into the doctrine, the Dimond Brothers (VaticanCatholic.com) have some good explainers from the ultra-traditionalist perspective. They’re more than a bit controversial (they go so far as to deny the legitimacy of the post Vatican II popes), but they explain everything well and quote the relevant sources.

Take it with a grain of salt but this does show you what was changed and gives some context. Episode 2 specifically. You can skip 1.

https://latinmass.com/watch

I was Jesuit educated and honestly, it was all very palatable when I was 16 and could talk circles around my parents on current doctrine. But I’m starting to wonder, what if they were wrong? The video above shows some examples of the church really taking the edge off things. Specifically what St Paul said about how unworthily taking the Eucharist is inviting Gods judgement. I haven’t been to confession in 2 years…

The Jesuits teach you extremely abstract concepts of heaven and hell. To the point where you can conclude that one can pretty much sin as much as you want and you will be forgiven. And hell is an absence of god for eternity, not the fire of damnation.

What if they’re wrong and what they teach is either intentionally or unintentionally the product of being on the wrong track for generations?

As for Vatican 2. The suggested reforms seem fairly reasonable. The actual implantation was left to a smaller committee where one cardinal ran roughshod over the process and radically changed everything. And why? In the name of ecumenicsm? If that’s even remotely true, it’s an awful shame.

Im rambling a bit but you should check it out. I will say that the more I engage with more traditional Catholicism, the more fulfilling it is. I happened to luck into finding a very good parish when I was getting married. It’s still a novus ordo mass, but radically different than your cookie cutter Irish or Italian American suburban parish.

one can pretty much sin as much as you want and you will be forgiven

Is this not standard Catholic dogma? So long as you are truly contrite, of course.

Yes. But the vast majority of people either don’t really know what that means or really think about it to it’s logical conclusion. At least I don’t think they do.

Regardless of whether or not this particular group or ad worked, there does appear to be a wide scale attempt to infiltrate and subvert Christianity.

The infiltration in my denomination happened at least 30 years ago, and now the long march is close to its end point. The theology professors have have been motte and bailing the administration and alumni while turning out progressives pastors for the last few decades and now they have a large enough base to go mask off and directly attack current doctrine.

Assuming you are Protestant, is it as easy (acknowledging that this is no way “easy”) as finding a new church?

As a Catholic, this is quite a big problem as the whole apostolic succession thing is pretty important to us. Kinda hard to leave. Though I seem to understand that Orthodox Church makes the same claim. And it seems many Catholics do make that jump.

This also varies with the region from which a Catholic comes, in my experience. For example, I knew a lot of Polish Catholics who attended Episcopalian or even Presbyterian churches, where these were the dominant Christian denominations, because for them a church was primarily about the general idea of worship rather than the specific details of worship or the doctrines that the church professed. (Of course, I am sure they would have some limits, e.g. there would presumably be some Unitarian things they wouldn't sing.)

On the other hand, I have some Catholic friends who would actively avoid being in a non-Catholic church, and one who told me that they were more comfortable in a mosque or temple. These were from America, Ireland, or Italy, and they were more into thinking of themselves as members of "the Church" rather than "Christians".

That’s an interesting obvervation. I’ve heard the poles are quite Catholic but if that is even remotely generalizable, that is a major problem and they have missed the point.

I’ve heard the poles are quite Catholic

The people informing you might have been conflating agreeing with Catholic social teachings or the prevalence of Catholicism with people actually having the type of attachment to Catholicism that Catholic doctrine says that they should have, or a general comprehensive adherence to Catholic doctrines. I can understand people, especially lonely Trads, mistaking the sizzle for the steak.

Yes, there are plenty of non-denoms that would be close enough. Part of me doesn't like how pastor centric those churches are, nor do they seem to establish long running institutions. They can have a very hard time surviving pastoral transitions, then again that has been becoming more and more true within denominations and my denominations long standing institutions were a source of the corruption. Most likely there would be a schism and my current congregation would split along with a good portion of the western congregations and practically all the non-western congregations.

there does appear to be a wide scale attempt to infiltrate and subvert Christianity

They said this about the Arians, and the Waldensians, and the Lutherans, and the Fourth Congregation Southern Baptist Communion Restorationists.

Surely this time, though.

Are you suggesting "they" weren't right every time?

Perhaps that you are what they in the past warned about.

I hear there’s this Paul guy going around telling people they don’t have to follow the Torah. He never even met Jesus.

I seriously believe Pope Paul VI was a miracle, because of Humanae Vitae. A lot of people criticise him as being squishy, and you get the extremists quoting the smoke of Satan thing (then again, some of the extremes don't believe there's been a proper pope since Peter).

It really was expected that this being the modern age and so forth, that the Church would change the ruling on artificial contraception. The Pontifical Commission had made a positive recommendation on this. The Second Vatican Council was concluding. Other Christian churches had long accepted some form of birth control. Surely now was the time, particularly after all the changes that had already been made!

And yet he came out with the reaffirmation of the traditional teaching. This is why I take things like the guidance of the Holy Spirit seriously - not that individual clerics and even popes won't go astray, but that wrong teaching will not be made the official doctrine.

They do not accept the divinity of Jesus.

Wait, what? That is literally the one thing you have to believe in to be a Christian. Even a doctrine as foundational as the Trinity has had sects who don't believe in it. But if you deny the divinity of Jesus, you can't be a Christian, full stop. In any other context if someone said "hey there's a group of Christians who deny the divinity of Jesus" I would assume they were joking, but I imagine you are not joking about this. I seriously do not understand what goes through people's brains to want to identify as something they disagree with so fundamentally.

As an ex-Christian I find this view somewhat flawed. To me Christianity and religion in general are things that people do. If Christians start disbelieving in Jesus's divinity that seems totally fine from an outsiders perspective. Lot's of tiny Muslim sects in the Middle East believe in later prophets after Mohammed and other things an orthodox Muslim would decry. The most fundamentalist Muslims consider almost all practicing Muslims today kafirs due to the practices they follow.

I don't think God came on down from heaven and created some platonic definition of Christianity. I think it has changed a lot since it was founded and the early Christians would likely consider your practices far outside the acceptable range and you a non-Christian. I don't really care and trying to push this sectarian line as if it was some kind of obvious ground truth that can't be argued with is silly from an outsiders prospective.

Though the inner Catholic in me agrees with you, just another reason why I can't ever consider myself a Christian again.

The problem with your argument is that denying the divinity of Jesus goes way far beyond the other examples you mentioned. There are a lot of dogmas in Christianity that you could deny and be super heretical: the Trinity, that Jesus was legitimately human, and so on. The Muslim example, or the early Christian practices differing from today, are in that ballpark. Orthodox Christians (small-o, not the denomination) would be aghast at a lot of things and say "this is heresy and you are bad", but at least those people would still be nominally Christian.

Denying the divinity of Jesus is in a whole other ballpark. That's the one thing Christianity is about at its core. The entire point of the faith, in every denomination, is "Jesus is God, and so we worship him". That's the fundamental split with Judaism (and with Islam too for that matter). If you don't agree on that, then you are not Christian and there's no two ways about it.

That's the one thing Christianity is about at its core. The entire point of the faith, in every denomination

And, yet it moves. And, yet we are arguing about Christian denominations that don't believe in this immutable fact.

Well no, it doesn't. That's kind of the point. A person can call themselves anything they want, but that doesn't make it so. These people calling themselves Christian is kind of like me calling my fat ass athletic. It's certainly something nobody can stop me from doing, but it doesn't somehow make it true.

I don't accept the ground premises you do physical and metaphysical. If I accepted your premises I would agree with your definition of Christianity and agree these people were not Christian. The epistemological and inferential differences between us are to great for us to really resolve this debate. I am just giving my materialist, sociological view on the issue. You are free, from your devote Christian view, to believe the Progressive Churches to not be real Christians, but this debate can't be resolved by appealing to these definitions that rest on assumptions I don't agree with, you have to defeat the assumptions first.

That some Christians consider others not really Christians is completely meaningless to my epistemology of religion.

I don't know why you're claiming materialistic worldview as a reason why we can't agree. What we are talking about is a materialistic matter. One need not believe in the divinity of Jesus (or even that such a man existed at all) in order to evaluate whether or not the church teaches that it's true. That is a materialistic matter, not a spiritual one. Similarly, I don't need to believe in the tenets of Hinduism to say whether or not they teach that reincarnation is real.

Ultimately it sounds to me like you just don't care about the issue of what the church teaches, which is fine. But that doesn't mean we can't resolve the debate because I believe in spiritual things and you don't. It means we can't resolve the debate because you don't really care to hammer out what the church teaches.

One need not believe in the divinity of Jesus (or even that such a man existed at all) in order to evaluate whether or not the church teaches that it's true. That is a materialistic matter, not a spiritual one.

From a materialistic point of view, "Jesus is the son of God" and "Jesus is God" look pretty much the same. The followers are still ascribing supernatural power to Jesus and still believe that he teaches morality and forgives sins. There's no practical difference between those at all, except that it's used as a shibboleth by some Christians.

This is especially so since "Jesus is God" isn't a straightforward belief that Jesus is God; it involves the Trinity, which to non-Christians usually seems incoherent. Why would it matter if Christians adhere to a belief that nobody can understand?

Which church is that again? The multitude of them disagree heavily, including very conservative ones considering other conservative denominations as hellbound. For example, a lot of the people in this thread arguing against these progressive churches being a type of Christian appear to be Catholics. The "trad" evangelical church I went to growing up taught that Roman Catholics are not Christians, they practice a form of Roman pagan polytheism and constantly demonstrate their break from monotheism by:

-  Groveling before graven images and idols.

  • Use of magic talismans like rosary beads and "holy" water, belief in sacred relics and those having magical powers.

  • Belief in literal cannibalism in the form of transubstantiation.

  • Worshipping humans and pagan deities with the serial numbers filed off labeled "saints.

  • Treating Mary like a goddess and often absorbing Mesoamerican pagan deities renamed Mary through all the "Virgin of [location] stuff.

  • Belief in spells resolving sins in the form of confession and stuff like reciting Hail Mary's rather than faith alone, and the historic practice of indulgences.

  • The most powerful Catholic religious leader and most powerful Roman pagan religious leader both sharing the title Pontifex Maximus and being based in Rome.

Catholicism's historic hostility to making the Bible accessible to normal people was also interpretated as being a move by this pagan religion to keep people from reading the Bible and noticing discrepancies between Catholic teachings and "real" Christianity, the persecution of other denominations being persecution of many "real" Christians, use of priests for confession and praying to saints as a way to minimize people trying to directly contact god, and infant baptisms as invalid and a way of tricking people into not getting "real" baptisms as a conscious adult choice.

I'm sure the Catholics in turn have plenty of reasons arguing how these are compatible with Christianity and why that evangelical sect is wrong about them and damned. From an outside perspective this stuff is just like watching Sunnis and Shia arguing and insisting the other isn't a type of Muslim when both are clearly divergent branches of the same religious traditions.

Are Arians Christian?

I'm not familiar with the nuances of that school of thought, but a quick skim on the wiki page says to me no. They believe Jesus is the son of God, but not God, therefore they aren't Christians.

Then you are denouncing many early Christians as not being "real" Christians. Which I suppose could be valid. I think the more common sentiment is that they were misguided heretics.

heretic

That word typically meaning someone who does not believe correctly (with implications of having chosen that path). Or in the vulgar form, not a real believer.

Indeed. Pagans, Jews and atheists are not and cannot be heretical Christians. To be a Christian heretic one must be a Christian and also be wrong about some important theological point.

And Arianism was historically referred to as heresy.

No, even Santa Claus knew they were heretics who needed to be excommunicated and placed on the naughty list.

The arian heresy is the most common non-mainstream christian belief. And for good reasons: many early christians didn't believe it, it's based on the flimsiest of biblical interpretation, it's basically incompatible with some metaphysical understandings of god (unmoved mover etc) and just plain bizarre.

I wonder if it didn't simply win because it's a civilizational tier shit test: getting people to hold absurd beliefs is a good way to insure that they are politically loyal.

Or because Trinitarianism is weird. Is it more or less absurd to ask how a Son is the same person as His Father?

The formula for the Trinity is 'three persons, one Godhead' (that is, divine nature). So the Trinity maintains that the Son is a *different *person than the Father, but they both share the same single divine nature.

That’s all well and good until you start asking about monotheism. I understand that Nicaea sorted out the official response to it, and that it’s internally consistent. But the need for discussions like these are the kind of reason Arians got a foothold.

You might be interested in checking out the latest State of Theology survey. 43% of respondents who identified themselves as Evangelical Christians agreed with the statement "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God", up from 30% in the 2020 survey.

The respectable protestant intellectual tradition is still around, it's just a bit smaller. You see splinter groups from the mainline branch—OPC from the PCUSA, ACNA from TEC, LCMS from ELCA (I think? although is LCMS bigger?), etc.

Well, your objection only makes sense if you believe the original concept of Christianity matters more than what currently living people make of it.

Unitarians charge that the Trinity, unlike unitarianism, fails to adhere to strict monotheism. Unitarians maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet of God, perhaps even a supernatural being, but not God himself.[2] They believe Jesus did not claim to be God and that his teachings did not suggest the existence of a triune God.

Unitarian Christology can be divided according to whether or not Jesus is believed to have had a pre-human existence. Both forms maintain that God is one being and one "person" and that Jesus is the (or a) Son of God, but generally not God himself.[36]

So supernatural, privileged by God, His son—but not God Himself, because rejecting Trinitarianism ties your hands. If that’s the only difference, I’m not surprised they wanted to hold to the other articles of faith. They hew closer than groups like the Mormons.

Indeed, there's a schism over LGBT between the declining progressive English Anglican Church and its more hardline African branches which now far outnumber the home source: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/church-of-england-crack-up/

“All the evangelical denominations are growing, except for the Brethren,” he writes. “By contrast, all the mixed denominations are declining, with the liberal ones declining the most.

Pretty sad that there's no future for these religions in the countries in which they were born! 1% of UK's 18-24 year olds were Anglican, apparently.

Since I assume most members of this forum are atheists, most would not look any deeper into the motivations or presentation of this ad campaign with any closer analysis than they would any other form of Christian evangelism.

On the contrary, I find the progressive arguments for Christianity pretty repulsive. It's just signalling 'enemy, enemy, enemy'. I'm with AOC on it making fascism look benign, the woke are more correct than the mainstream on this at least.

I'm with AOC on it making fascism look benign

This part really threw me when she said it, and since you seem to agree I'd like to ask: What? How? Is Christianity fascism now?

Is Christianity fascism now?

Isn't everything to the right of the far-left fascism (in the rhetorical eyes of the far-left)?

I'd add that the vatican, on some issues, is aligned with left wing position. For example it has been very pro immigration for many decades. It has also opposed every war in the past 60 or so years which was usually considered a left wing position (not so much recently).

"The poor you will always have with you" doesn't work so well for economic leftism either.

More generally, though, Leftist salvation is physical, while Christian salvation is spiritual. That's not a difference that can be papered over, and it will always resolve one way or the other.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the Bolsheviks and other revolutionaries in Russia also align themselves against the Church (Orthodox or otherwise), seeing it as an element of the oppressive Empire? That probably didn't help the relationship between Christianity and the Left.

In principle, no. In present-day United States culture, I think yes. It didn't have to be this way, but it turned out this way. Kind of analogous to how the "we take covid super duper serious" position didn't have to be left-coded (and at first it wasn't), but in the US at least that's how it shook out.

No.

There is... I don't have the number, but I keep seeing them pop up in forums all over the place(and for several years), so there's at least an amount of left-aligned individuals whom are absolutely convinced that America is only One Bad Day away from getting turned into a Christian Theocracy.

AOC is presumably one of those people.

I believe this was most lucidly established in the Hulu documentary "The Handmaid's Tale".

Didn't find it especially persuasive, myself, but have no shortage of female friends and relations who whisper about it in hushed tones with many significant glances.

Then again, I could possibly be described as a Christian theocrat.

I've seen the argument touted about for far longer than Hulu's version of the Handmaid's Tale, so. (And I won't go into a minor aside regarding Margaret Atwood, or the fact that said book was taking pages from what happened in Iran, or...)

I think it's a fairly silly take, myself.

I think they're not entirely wrong, but if I had to put money on it, I'd predict that, in the event of FedGov collapse/takeover, things would actually continue as normal and not go fascist at least for a while--maybe even long enough for things to return to something resembling the status quo ante. America is big and spread-out enough to keep all of it from going all red-banners-everywhere.

To back this up: Imperial Germany collapsed economically and politically in 1918, and Weimar Germany never obtained political stability (rapidly emerging and disintegrating governments) but it didn't succumb to totalitarianism until the early 1930s. For most of the intervening period, the social democratic left pushed for reforms, and even the (significantly large) authoritarian right almost all pined for the good old days of pre-WWI Germany, rather than the totalitarian revolution of Nazism.

I was having a hard time parsing that, too.

I think it’s because the group behind these ads is explicitly Lausanne-Covenant evangelist.

She's saying this is fascism and that the ads make it look benign. I'm saying that the ads make fascism look benign, in a joking sense, that the ads represent a similarly totalitarian, all-encompassing worldview.

It’s because she watches The Handmaid’s Tale.

Because these days the word "Fascist" is not understood as describing a specific variety of totalitarian technocratic socialism (IE the politics of Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Et Al). It is understood as a "boo-light" indicating any political position that a progressive college professor or media personality might disagree with, and by those criteria mainline Christianity is very obviously "fascist".

Remind me again - what ethnicity is AOC today? She started off Puerto Rican descent (presumably nominally Catholic), discovered her Jewish roots and last I heard she was all about the Taino.

I suppose when you could wake up in the morning and discover that actually you are really South-East Asian, anything can be fascism, too.

My problem with the ad campaign is that the money is spent poorly. With that amount you could wrangle Christians together to produce a victim complex lobbying arm that demands one attractive crucifix-wearer in every show and on every board of directors.

My problem with the ad campaign is that the money is spent poorly. With that amount you could wrangle Christians together to produce a victim complex lobbying arm that demands one attractive crucifix-wearer in every show and on every board of directors.

Emphasis mine; and in the words of a small green Jedi, "That is why you fail".

@TracingWoodgrains you can accuse me of being "uncharitable" (you may even be correct) but this right here is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about when I claim that the woke left and the alt right are fruit of the same tree.

Is this relevant? Is Cafe an alt-righter?

I recognize that the parent comment is probably deserving of a modhat, but at the same time, from one perspective--a rather jaded perspective, mind--Cafe is simply recognizing that furthering a group's power in the modern first world requires getting the management on your side.

Believing that their power needs to be furthered is a pretty good indicator that the person speaking has a perspective utterly alien to Christianity. More generally, a belief that power itself is what determines outcomes is a big part of the commonality we're mutually groping toward.

That's a more fair and direct criticism.

I don't know, but based on their comment history I would argue that they are at least alt-right adjacent.

As for the rest, I feel like this might just be one of those fundamental points upon which we must disagree.

Well let’s discuss it.

Many powerful groups in America use a victim narrative to further their interests, in particular Jewish Americans (discussed in the recent “Day of Hate” topic you can find in my reply history). Recently, Asian Americans (the least assaulted group in the nation, the doors for whom were open in a way they would never be in Asia for Americans) have also been winning publicity with claims of extreme assault, and perhaps Oscars with claims of under-representation (they are the most over-represented group). Indigenous groups just a few years ago burned down many Catholic Churches over a largely meritless victimhood-promoting report on the Komloops School burials. There is no group but White Christians who fail to use a victim complex. But this was not always so.

Christians once thrived on a victim narrative. This “saving victim” narrative was once crucial to Christians, who prayed “O Saving Victim lend thine aid, our foes press hard on every side”. Early Christians talked about “being persecuted for righteousness sake”. Jesus says that blessedness (happiness) lies in being persecuted as a Christian which leads to heaven. Jesus pointed the finger at a powerful group as causing this persecution and cursed them; early Christians too were persecuted by Jews and Romans and were venerated as martyrs. The Mass focuses not on the resurrection of Jesus, but on his death and sacrifice.

The Church in its earliest days saw themselves as God’s true victims. When presenting their message to others, they preached the glory and memory of their savior who was willing victimized. And in their rituals, the feeling of pity and love is stirred up by acknowledging the torture of God at the hand of sinners. This is enough to consider a victim narrative natural to Christianity. If a victim narrative is natural to Christianity, then it should be used to benefit Christians.

I think the theology of O Salutaris Hostia differs slightly from Help, help, I am being oppressed!

Many powerful groups in America use a victim narrative to further their interests,

And do you expect me to see this as something good or admirable? If so why? What value does it add? What sort of principles are being maintained?

You say Christians once thrived on a victim narrative, but as @FarNearEverywhere observes, there is a world of Difference between the attitude espoused by the Apostles and the early Church fathers and that embraced by both contemporary Jews and modern-day progressives. I would go so far as to argue that this difference is in fact one of Christianity's core strengths.

Rather than wallowing in self-pity or demanding worldly restitution we are urged to literally "rejoice in our sufferings" because by enduring them and "bearing the cross" as Jesus did, we make ourselves more worthy.

Have them literally fund anime--might be less dangerous than when Happy Science does it.

That's actually a brilliant idea, imagine an anime about St. George slaying the dragon with lots of Christian metal for the soundtrack. And tons of animes have excessively long internal monologues, so you could have him thinking to himself about the nature of faith, temptation, or whatever the message of the week is etc.

Well, I'm sold. So do you go with Narnia or with Stryper for the soundtrack?

What do you mean by a crucifix? Do you just mean a cross? Do you even understand the difference, and why doctrinally it was treated as such a difference between Protestants and Catholics? Is the crucifix-wearer just going to be "generic non-dom Christian who carefully avoids any real doctrines and instead is just 'let's all be nice and do good things' version"?

There's a lot going on, and just slapping in Gene