MAGA: We need to run the country based on the Bible
Leviticus 19:34: The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself
MAGA: Not that part
Deut 27:19: "Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner."
MAGA: Or that part
Russell Moore in an interview with NPR:
"It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis."
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity
@ericjmorey @QasimRashid The American folk religion that calls itself Christianity has never been all that Christian, this had and has a lot to do with slavery, and it's not even slightly Christian now. What we're seeing is a bid to become the official, enforced by state power, imperial religion. (In large part because the aftermath of WWII left the US exercising imperial hegemony without the institutions to do so which warped its existing institutions into autocratic and absolutist shapes.)
@graydon @ericjmorey @QasimRashid So what is actual Christianity?
@sentientmortal @ericjmorey @QasimRashid Technically it's the folks who know and believe the Nicene Creed.
@graydon @ericjmorey @QasimRashid There technically weren't Christians before 325?
@sentientmortal @ericjmorey @QasimRashid Before 325, there was no basis for taxonomic identification of Christian beliefs. Even the folks identifying as Christian didn't agree as to what that meant.
Lots and lots of beliefs have called themselves Christian; taking their word for it requires you to consider Copts and Cathars the same thing. That's not practical or productive.
@graydon @ericjmorey @QasimRashid Not sure that folks identifying as Christian agree to what it means now. Doesn't stop the search for the true believers.
@ericjmorey @QasimRashid
Dismissing the Sermon on the Mount as "those liberal talking points" shows that US evangelicals now spend more time watching Fox than reading scripture.
@ericjmorey @QasimRashid the teachings of Jesus have always been subversive though.
@ericjmorey @QasimRashid It's wild how he paints the pastors as the victims here.