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Since religion is also part of culture wars, it is time for sharing some latest religious culture war battles, this time on Judeo-Christian front, originating from the crucified bird site.
1/ Case of Lizzie Marbach
Lizzie Marbach, Republican and anti abortion activist from Ohio, person with 7k followers and otherwise not notable, posted this.
There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.
This is Christianity 101, this is exactly what Christian is supposed to say and believe. There is no reason for anyone to be surprised.
Except Max Miller, Jewish Republican representative of Ohio with 52k followers who was not amused.
This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen
Mega dead bird storm ensued, and many people came to Lizzie's side to support her.
Including Ilhan Omar.
Things went so far that Max Miller was forced to apologize.
GOP lawmaker apologizes for ‘religious freedom’ tweet
But, nevertheless, Lizzie Marbach lost her job.
Pro Life Advocacy Group Fires Comms Director After GOP Rep Called Her A ‘Bigot’ For Sharing Her Faith
By sheer coincidence, Miller’s wife, Emily Moreno Miller, sits on the board of Ohio Right to Life.
This thing will continue, and it is not looking good for official GOP.
2/ Case of Darryl Cooper, rather lighter one.
Darryl Cooper, known as Martyr Made on the interwebs, substacker, podcaster on several sites and dead birder with 173k followers.
So this is rather important person, in internet terms, who suddenly decided that this is the time, of all things, to preach to Jewish people and convert them to Christianity.
It turned out that lot of his followers are Jews who do not appreciate being evangelized, especially by such D- apologetic piece. Massive dead bird storm ensued, and DC doubled, quartupled and octupled his efforts.
Darryl Cooper himself seems to be rather unorthodox Christian of somewhat Marcionite tinge. This makes the whole thing more confusing, what exactly are his Jewish followers supposed to convert to?
What have these cases in common? They illustrate the difficulty of actual interfaith cooperation between sincere believers in different faiths. If you really believe in truth of your religion, it is realy hard to desist from preaching and evangelizing, and even harder to do not take offence if you are (or perceive to be) preached at and evangelized by your fellows.
The first issue is fascinating: there is a serious disagreement between the left and the right in the US about what freedom of religion actually means. I think the left qualifies it in a sort of paradox-of-tolerance way: you don't get to excuse intolerant views by claiming that they are part of your religion. Otherwise, religion just becomes a giant loophole in the rules that make the pluralistic society of the US actually work: believe whatever you want as long as it doesn't make you impose anything on other people. All the recent fights about LGBT rights vs. religious freedom are a pretty strong demonstration of this actual fundamental values difference.
Therefore, for a lot of the left, the actual answer here is bluntly that these parts of Christianity are actually bigoted---drop them or deal with the justified condemnation. Omar/Miller's particular fight is just an important reminder that the divide on how much deference to give religious beliefs doesn't cleanly split left/right. If you feel that this divide is important, maybe you should rethink whether certain politicians are actually on your side or not. I personally much preferred the political alignment from back in the day of internet atheism fights.
Not this again!
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