Very fine people

On Friday and Saturday, a small group of right-wing activists, led by radical religious-right bigot Dave Daubenmire, carried out a series of protests outside the home of Joe Biden in Delaware, as well as the home of former president Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., demanding that the Democratic presidential nominee and the president for whom he worked as vice president be arrested, tried, and executed for treason.

On Saturday afternoon, Daubenmire and crew took their protest to the home of Attorney General Bill Barr, who personally came out to meet the group, pray with them, and take photos with them. (...)

“The greatest example of love is discipline,” he added later in the program. “The greatest example of love is to kill those traitors, so others learn never to do it.”

Daubenmire is a deeply bigoted, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ, right-wing conspiracy theorist—the sort who proudly declares that women become lesbians because they are so ugly that no man could ever love them, asserts that Barack Obama was “a quasi-Muslim freak” and “an emissary from Hell,” warns that Oprah Winfrey was planning to run for president in order to carry out a white genocide, complains that he is not allowed to say the “N-word,” gripes that the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was a “psy-op” intended to promote “the blending of the races,” and calls interracial marriage “spiritual AIDS.”

Seeking power in Jesus’ name: Trump sparks a rise of Patriot Churches

Standing in a circle, the dozen or so men and women, young and old, lay their hands on their pastor, Ken Peters, as he raises their requests to God.

He prays that “communism and socialism and transgenderism and homosexuality and abortion will not have their way in this land.”

The 50 or so people in attendance may identify as born-again or just as generic “Bible-loving” Christians. Peters’s flock is not affiliated with a specific denomination, but it does have a distinct identity. The Patriot Churches belong to what religion experts describe as a loosely organized Christian nationalist movement that has flourished under President Trump. In just four years, he has helped reshape the landscape of American Christianity by elevating Christians once considered fringe, including Messianic Jews, preachers of the prosperity gospel and self-styled prophets. At times, this made for some strange bedfellows, but the common thread among them is a sense of being under siege and a belief that America has been and should remain a Christian nation.

“Black Lives Matter isn’t being powered by the Holy Spirit. Antifa isn’t being powered by the Holy Spirit. They can’t save this land,” Peters says. “There’s only one organization that has a shot at saving America, and that’s the church of Jesus Christ.”

How Mormons Fed Up With Trump Could Help Lift Biden in Arizona
Loyalty to the Republican Party is ingrained in the Latter-day Saints religion. But in Arizona, some find the president’s behavior at odds with their values and are shifting to Joe Biden.

“For almost four years, we’ve lived through nothing but drama,” Mr. Worsley said. “I’m ready for a no-drama president again, and I really don’t care which party he comes from.”

Lance Wallnau Calls on God Not to Let Trump ‘Be Ingloriously Beaten and Embarrassed by Your Enemies’

“Father, in the name of Jesus, we believe that you’re going to have mercy on America,” Wallnau declared. “I believe Donald Trump has unfinished business in the nations. And I believe you will not let someone who has stood with Israel and stood with Christians, you will not let them be ingloriously beaten and embarrassed by your enemies. Because your name is part of this, Lord. What would the heathens say? What would the radicals say? What would the communists say when someone who stands with you so conspicuously does not have a friend in high places watching over them? But I believe you are going to watch over this president.”

Robert Henderson Says Trump Was Chosen by God and ‘Should Never Be Criticized’

 R_P wrote:
 



Well obviously, that's what Jesus would do.

Christian Activist: Let’s Show Love By Putting a “Noose around Hillary’s Neck”

 R_P wrote: 
thanks for that link

that led me to yougov

yougov led me to this

(short video with three pollsters, their methodology and what they believe about the election coming up)

Is Trump secretly ahead? Or is he toast?

video posted in the 2020 thread

 miamizsun wrote:

Not exactly

 sirdroseph wrote: 
the bigger problem is that it seems people have shielded certain issues from their own rational decision making framework

it's certainly possible to engage someone and get good answers and then changing subjects you'll get another answer that is irrational

 miamizsun wrote: 
And incredibly frustrating trying to articulate this position if you look a certain way.  It's almost as if everyone is judging everyone by the color of their skin or something.

in a hyper-connected world there's always some instantaneous ignorance and stupidity to see

when put into perspective and viewed through a rational lens it tends to lose its bombastic aura 

however, the marketing on anything race related has gone into full mega-super-duper-turbo-charged mode

the kicker is that dredging up crazy from the past to recreate new and refreshed victims is dynamite for news ratings

we're literally witnessing the birth pangs of a new religion and it's a homerun for bias confirmation

zealots to the far left, zealots to the far right, stuck in the middle with who/you

I think Americans on the left are striving, they’re fighting with their maker. Fighting with Trump is fighting with God. This will really get them all torqued. They’re fighting God because they’re fighting Trump. Not because Trump is Mr. Perfect, it’s because the Lord anointed him to be a wrecking ball. And he’s doing what he’s supposed to do—to pull down, to tear down​ so that he can build and plant. ​And all of the animosity, hatred, venom, and vitriol that is stirred up is nothing more than the unsanctified flesh in the resident hidden demons that are inside of journalists, looking for a way to express themselves.​

 R_P wrote:
 

A sociology prof showed my class a film of a group in West Africa speaking in tongues after being possessed by spirits of the High British Officials

Happy-clappy Catholics
What is charismatic Catholicism?

For Catholic charismatics, the central experience is “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” The baptism of the Holy Spirit differs from the traditional Catholic infant baptism with water. Adults baptized in the Holy Spirit have their faith reborn and strengthened by members of the congregation laying their hands on them.

Often a sign of baptism of the Holy Spirit is “glossolalia,” or “speaking in tongues.” Speaking in tongues refers to using an unintelligible language, which is often interpreted by someone else in the congregation. Usually glossolalia is considered a form of prayer. But other times, glossolalia is believed to contain prophecies about present or future events.

Participants in the Catholic charismatic movement also claim spiritual and physical healing associated with the power of the Holy Spirit working through believers.

Catholic charismatic prayer services are enthusiastic and involve energetic singing, hand clapping and praying with arms outstretched.

Christian Reconstructionism at Liberty University’s Falkirk Center ‘Get Louder’ Summit

Liberty University’s Falkirk Center held “Get Louder,”a day-long “faith summit” Thursday that included Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar among its speakers. DeMar’s presence at “Get Louder” reflects the widespread influence of Christian Reconstructionism and ​contemporary religious-right leaders’ embrace of Christian nationalism.

The Falkirk Center was co-founded last year by ​Jerry Falwell Jr.​, who until recently led Liberty University, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk with the stated purpose of “mobilizing, educating, inspiring, and mobilizing Christians in the battle to preserve American liberty and rally citizens in an effort to shape government policies, national institutions, and American society through a Biblical worldview.” (Falwell recently suffered a spectacular fall from grace and left his position at Liberty due to public revelations of a sexual relationship between a young man and Falwell’s wife, reportedly with Falwell’s involvement.) Since Falkirk’s founding, Kirk has openly allied himself with dominionists and Christian nationalists in a “spiritual war” for the future of America. (...)

In an interview, Ingersoll told Right Wing Watch that she was not surprised by DeMar’s appearance at the Liberty University event. She has been making the argument that Reconstructionist ideas have infused the Christian ​right, Tea Party​ movement, and “patriot” right as well as the conservative Christian home-schooling movement. She said that during the current COVID-19 pandemic, more families have been thrown into homeschooling, and many may end up unwittingly using curricula that is shaped by Reconstructionist ideology.

Many of Rushdoony’s concepts, like his teaching that the Bible puts some activities, like care for the poor, outside the jurisdiction of government, are embraced widely across the religious right—even by leaders who would not call themselves Reconstructionists, or who might distance themselves from some of Rushdoony’s more extreme positions, ​which include, for example, the application of Old Testament punishments for gay people or rebellious teens.

Trump announces new Supreme Court justice options in apparent appeal to religious base

"The devil wants those 100,000 students turned away from the Word of God," he asserts. "If you look at the history of our universities, they were all started by Bible-believing evangelical Christians — even Harvard and Yale and Princeton — but they end up going liberal and preaching socialism and turning their backs on the Word of God. That's what's at stake here."

News Flash: Christian Supporters of Kenosha Killer are Christians

This Christian supremacism, however, which is very much white Protestant inflected, overlaps heavily with white supremacism. Inasmuch as the two are intertwined, it’s impossible to dismantle the one without tackling the other. It may seem like an innocent reaction on the part of progressive Christians to denounce their authoritarian coreligionists as “fake Christians” or “not following the teachings of Jesus,” but it’s neither innocent nor accurate, as I have previously discussed on my blog and at Playboy.

The Jesus portrayed in the Bible is a complex and contradictory figure, and there’s nothing resembling a universal consensus among Christians about how to interpret the teachings attributed to him. Christianity has, since the fourth century, frequently gone hand in hand with imperial power, and the existence of liberationist strains of the faith does not negate the existence of these punitive, power-grabbing strains.

Finally, when Christians deflect from addressing the bad behavior of other Christian individuals and groups by writing them out of “true” Christianity, they’re essentially equating Christianity with goodness at the direct expense of nonbelievers and religious minorities who are afforded no equivalent deference. Christians are as capable of atrocities as members of any group and adherents of any ideology, and so long as polite American society proceeds as if this isn’t the case, polite American society is complicit in the normalization of Christian extremism.

American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem

Early on in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” the first of three autobiographies Douglass wrote over his lifetime, he recounts what happened—or, perhaps more accurately, what didn’t happen—after his master, Thomas Auld, became a Christian believer at a Methodist camp meeting. Douglass had harbored the hope that Auld’s conversion, in August, 1832, might lead him to emancipate his slaves, or at least “make him more kind and humane.” Instead, Douglass writes, “If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways.” Auld was ostentatious about his piety—praying “morning, noon, and night,” participating in revivals, and opening his  home to travelling preachers—but he used his faith as license to inflict pain and suffering upon his slaves. “I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture—‘He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes,’ ” Douglass writes. Douglass is so scornful about Christianity in his memoir that he felt a need to append an explanation clarifying that he was not an opponent of all religion. In fact, he argued that what he had written about was not “Christianity proper,” and labelling it as such would be “the boldest of all frauds.” Douglass believed that “the widest possible difference” existed between the “slaveholding religion of this land” and “the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ.”