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MAGA are bad Christians, but progressives are anti-Christian. MAGA are ostensinsibly Christian, or at least like Christians and will generally let them be, but progressives hate Christianity and will continue attacking it at every opportunity, or at least just stand by and watch while it is destroyed by their extremists. It's not a difficult choice, though Schmidtz seems to have misunderstood the situation.
Progressives are anti-Christian? Every progressive I have met in my life has espoused the tenets of Christianity more than the sum total of Christians I have known in my life.
If anything from my experience, Christians hate Christianity. I can think in my 20+ years of living two Christians that met the minimum definition of a Christian, while I can think of plenty of atheist progressives who have gone beyond the minimum.
This is an unflattering paraphrase of what the author purports to be a progressive position. It is not a good example of progressive attitudes toward Christians, because it was not written by a progressive. I find it a useful text to encapsulate what I perceive to be a common attitude among Progressives, but if you want to assert that this attitude really is widespread among progressives, you need to provide actual examples of the behavior, not the mocking paraphrase.
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Do any of these progressives believe in God or go to church?
Because I'd say that's the absolute bare minimum. Someone who doesn't believe in God isn't a Christian, and someone who doesn't go to church isn't a practicing Christian.
Christian isn't a synonym for 'virtuous' or 'progressive'. It's a religion.
No. Most I know were raised Christian, then left the faith.
Progressives loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind means exactly that. Loving God is not following Christian doctrine; notice how when asked what the minimum was Jesus did not say "believe in Jesus", otherwise all of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica were doomed because they missed the Jesus boat. Loving God is loving God; and what is God? Love. And what is love, according to the Bible? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Therefore, to love God is to love those things; kindness, patience, humbleness, honor, tranquility, etc. When love manifests, God manifests, and when that love is loved in return, God is loved as well.
I'm sympathetic to your point here, and certainly deeds tell more than words, cf. Matthew 7:21-23. However, I would be concerned that defining Christianity exclusively in terms of love is too broad. The category 'Christians' doesn't just mean everybody who loves, or everybody who loves the concept of love. That's a criterion that would capture many atheists, as well as practitioners of any number of non-Christian religions. I (though a Christian myself), find, for instance, Santideva to be one of the most eloquent religious exponents of unconditional love, and I would never call Santideva a Christian.
I suppose I think I would define Christianity in the broad, or visible, sense in terms of both doctrine and behaviour. A Christian is one who believes certain propositions (we can roughly summarise those with the Apostles' Creed, I suppose; you might reasonably object to me that the Creed doesn't mention any ethics, but I'd hold that taking the Creed seriously implies some downstream ethical commitments), and then behaves as if those propositions are true. It is necessary to be a Christian to believe that Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God died for the sins of the world and was raised to fullness of life, but to properly or fully be a Christian, that belief must shape and condition your behaviour. And that is what leads the Christian to do things like listen to what Jesus taught and attempt to behave accordingly (cf. John 14:15), or attempt to follow his example (cf. Philippians 2:5), and so on.
So while I certainly agree that patient, radical, self-sacrificing love is something that Christians are called to, I wouldn't say that it suffices as a definition of Christianity.
For what it's worth, on my understanding there are true Christians who are dyed-in-the-wool progressives and who are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives. I think that much more important than whether a Christian is progressive/conservative is how that Christian goes about being progressive/conservative. But I tend to think that most prudential political judgements properly belong to the conscience of the individual Christian, though, as with all things in life, they ought to be informed and nourished by a properly Christian moral formation. That is much harder than it sounds, but all of us are fallible works in progress, and I suppose there's no Christian alive who can be confident that their politics perfectly match those of the Kingdom.
I think C. S. Lewis had something to say on that....
--The Last Battle
Certainly that represents my hopes.
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What are the tenets of Christianity, as you understand them?
What is the "minimum definition of Christianity", in your view?
The tenets of Christianity include the Ten Commandments and the principles of tranquility, forgiveness, humbleness and charity.
The minimum definition of Christianity, as stated by Christ when asked, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” and ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
I find it oddly bizarre that you've been down voted here for answering a question sincerely, without rancor.
I, sadly, don't.
A bump of that sweet, smoking gun, as you write in your bio. I sense you're here not exactly as a troll, but that you don't particularly feel you're among like minds.
It's sarcasm. Dry as dust sarcasm. I'd put an /s, but that's not my style of humor. I had a hunch when I made the step from lurker to poster that no matter what I said, and I mean what, I'd be downvoted and called a troll or a man; hence my username. My hunch was proven correct. There is a small fraction of users on here who genuinely want to debate, and the great majority else want to boo outgroup.
One has to wonder, though, if those who do the downvoting are those same users with whom you are debating. As you must realize, having been one, there are many lurkers here. I find that almost any civil reply, even if it is in extreme disagreement, is preferable to the smug dismissal, or the silent downvote.
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The Christian theological virtues are faith, hope, and love. The cardinal virtues are temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice. I see ‘charity’ which is a synonym for love in your list. I don’t see anything, uh, supernatural.
I'm confused what you're trying to say.
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These seem like reasonable definitions.
I know neither the Christians you've met in your life, nor the Progressives. Maybe the Christians were really awful, and the Progressives really saintly. I am curious as to how you see the Progressives "loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind"; what does that mean to a non-Christian observing non-Christians? Likewise "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
My suspicion, perhaps unfounded, is that you are rounding these principles to "is a progressive". Perhaps I'm wrong, and there's more to it.
Do you believe your experience generalizes? Moving beyond Christians and Progressives you've personally met, I presume you'd agree that we can observe Christians and Progressives in society generally, and identify notable examples. When drawing from a reference class that broad, we ought to see extremes both ways. I can certainly find cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Progressives are acting in a significantly more Christian fashion than the Christians. Would you agree that there are identifiable, individual cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Christians do in fact seem more Christian than the Progressives?
Take the cake shop guy versus the trans activist; does it seem to you that Phillips was acting in a more Christian fashion, or Scardina?
Progressives loving the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind means exactly that. Loving God is not following Christian doctrine; notice how when asked what the minimum was Jesus did not say "believe in Jesus", otherwise all of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica were doomed because they missed the Jesus boat. Loving God is loving God; and what is God? Love. And what is love, according to the Bible? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Therefore, to love God is to love those things; kindness, patience, humbleness, honor, tranquility, etc. When love manifests, God manifests, and when that love is loved in return, God is loved as well. Progressives loving their neighbors as yourself is also...just that.
I do believe my experiences generalize. My anecdotal evidence is just that; anecdotal. On its own it's not good evidence, which is why that isn't my only evidence. Observing Christians and progressives in society in general, it is obvious to me that progressivism is more aligned with the principles I described above; Christians, in general society, promote social conservatism, and God - who is love - is not compatible with social conservatism. I would agree that there are identifiable, individual cases of Christians interacting with Progressives where the Christians do in fact seem more Christian than the Progressives, but seeing as how Christians are famously homophobic and transphobic and progressives are not, I imagine those cases are rare.
Obviously Scardina; unless Phillips also refused to bake a cake for alcoholics, murderers, adulators, liars, thieves, and all of the other sins, which are seen as equally bad as homosexuality, then he is judging and condemning based on his own preferences and not because of his religion, which is un-Christian. Scardina called on Phillips to be truthful when he said he would serve LGBT customers, and Phillip was caught in his lie, which is also un-Christian.
I can readily agree that under a definition of "Christian" that considers social conservatism disqualifying, most Christians are not actually Christian. Likewise, under the definition of Christianity employed by the Westborough Baptist Church, only themselves and those who agree with them are the true followers of Christ. This is an obvious feature of arbitrary, bespoke definitions, which is why most people who wish to communicate clearly try to avoid them.
I do wonder, though: have you ever interacted with a serious addict? Suppose a meth junkie asks you for help securing more meth so that they can get very high. Under your definition of Christianity, what is the properly Christian response? What is the proper Christian response to a heroin addict asking to use your bathroom to shoot up?
Suppose, hypothetically, that Phillips had not refused to sell a cake to a trans person, but rather had refused to customize a cake to celebrate transition itself, in the same way that he would refuse to customize a cake themed to celebrate acts of alcoholism, murder, adultery, deceit, theft, or any other sin. Suppose designing artwork whose message was celebration of sinful behavior in general was what he was objecting to, and that Scardina's request was not to buy a cake generally, but to commission exactly this sort of sin-celebratory confectionary. In this hypothetical scenario, would your assessment of either Phillips' or Scardina's actions change?
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Being a troll (and using Satanist imagery as part of trolling) does not seem particularly compatible with
I've met a lot of Christians that fail to live up to those things! Myself included, for all have sinned and fall short. But by goodness I find it a tough pill to swallow that you've met so many progressives who aren't impatient, hateful, envious, boastful, prideful, self-seeking, angered at the slightest whim of disagreement, who don't seek to get people fired and depersoned for decades-old offenses, and who don't treat the truth as little more than a tool to be disposed of when it's not in their favor.
Should artists be required to paint anything that someone asks in commission?
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I could see arguments either way, but I lean pretty hard toward "no".
For the same reason that I don't think we should have laws requiring Church attendance. Christianity's first-order ends cannot be achieved by coercion. Christian charity is not enforced by law; charity enforced by law is not meaningfully Christian. See my post here for more elaboration of the argument.
What would the argument in favor be?
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"tranquility, forgiveness, humbleness and charity"
I'm on board with the accusation that many Christians are only nominally so. But it is absolutely laughable that you think Progs have exemplified these values to any significant degree given the last 10-15 years, if not more. I've seen almost none of these things from the Left as of late. Nor do I recall them exemplifying these values any more than the average person on the street from my teen years to early adulthood - a time when the idea of ever voting Republican for any reason was unthinkable to me.
Well, I dunno what to tell you other than that’s not my experience. Progressives I’ve known have demonstrated those things; conservatives I’ve known are so entrenched in their mommy and daddy issues the concepts are hard to reach. Tranquility? More like constantly stressed. Forgiveness? More like gossiping for lack of conversation topics. Humbleness? More like cowardice. And charity? More like “I got mine”.
Awesome. I guess our 'lived experiences' cancel each other out, then? As in, it should have been predictable that unverifiable statements like 'Progs I know are more Christian than actual Christians' was going to be an unproductive dead-end in this discussion, and why did you even bother with it?
Maybe your friends are totally angels. It's rather weightless compared to your vanguards that freak the fuck out when they see a crucifix in a public building, or give themselves the sweats over Pete Hegseth's tattoos. For extra fun, go look up who Bernie Sanders invited to sing at his recent rally. Meanwhile, the Left (coded non-religious) reports more mental health issues and their compassion dries up the moment 'refugees' get bussed to their towns.
Who are my vanguards who are freaking out at crucifixes and tattoos? Last I checked, being discriminatory towards religion wasn't in the progressive handbook.
Bernie Sanders invited a singer who had vulgar lyrics is...what, exactly?
If you're going to pretend you're from another planet, you aren't worth talking to.
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I don't like using humor as a reference, but it was a common enough thing to be treated as a joke on Silicon Valley that coming out as Christian would be disastrous for one's business associations.
One should be cautious of gerrymandering definitions to the point of uselessness, or buying into the propaganda. In my experience progressives claim to hate racism, but for some reason that only applies when it targets certain races. Always another layer of rationalization for why that is.
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Being discriminatory against the Muslim faith (and others that are considered 'brown-coded') is against the progressive handbook. It has no problem shitting on Christianity and blaming it for much of the evil in the world. This hatred is often excused because of 'white supremacy', but also 'power differentials' before the former term really took off in the zeitgeist. It was very common for me in the 2000s to hear something to the effect of 'Islam isn't as bad as Christianity because Christianity has more power', which was hard for even me to swallow as a Democrat who posted on /r/atheism.
If you haven't witnessed the hand-wringing over Hegseth's 'Deus Vult' tattoos and how he's a closet Nazi, I can't help you. If you dont know what the Church of Satan is, ditto. And if you haven't noticed that any depiction of the 'evils of religion' in fiction invariably summons up a stand-in for a pope or a priest (never an imam) with the serial numbers occasionally filed off, then you haven't consumed media in the last 20 years.
Here's where I am willing to help out, though!
[Verse 1] Does his D go deep So deep it puts an ass to sleep? Who’s the 6 to his 9 And what are his other kinks? If he grows all the trees Does he taste every peach? Is your god fucking you and fucking me? I know creation must get lonely After all he’s one and only And his son was so well hung I think the big man deserves one
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heaven's keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
[Verse 2] When he whips out his meat Does your world fall to its knees? Does he shoot wads of honey And cum twice on Easter Sunday? What’s his favourite position? Missionary? Magic bullet? We all give him no lover Just a hand and a mother Can he cum a shotgun blast And shoot salvation up your ass? Does he chew cunt like bubblegum And give blowjobs like a vacuum?
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heavens keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Does your god have a big fat dick? CAUSE HE’S FUCKING YOU AND ME!
Feelin' cute today, felt like droppin' a lil' vulgarity. Teehee!
Very few people would be comfortable if this song made reference to the Quran or something related to Judaism. But it's fair game because we all know who the singer is targeting. I know it, and so do you. And it can be belted out a political rally hosted by a Darling Of The Left - with the speaker entirely comfortable with it and an audience that has no problems accepting it. Frankly, they like it. One would think that if you actually liked or respected Christians enough (or feign such things in an attempt to ply votes from them), one would reconsider the wisdom of letting this kind of thing take center stage at your political event. But they don't care, because Fuck Christianity and its woman-controlling, gay-hating, Sky Daddy nonsense.
But you're familiar with this. You can't not be if you've hung around in liberal circles for any extended time in the last two decades. And I know it exists, because I sang those same songs when I was of that tribe - before progressivism, atheism, and 'intellectualism' bottomed out and I had to concede that they were not bearing the fruits I expected.
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Even granting the framing that progressives are anti-Christian and MAGA are bad Christians, I'm not sure where that implies that Christians shouldn't challenge MAGA bad Christianity, attempt to drag it towards better Christianity, or even simply warn Christians against imitating MAGA? Christians can be in a tactical alliance with MAGA while also needing to maintain a sense of why MAGA is bad and they must not become MAGA.
Arguably under those circumstances, it's more important for Christians to clearly articulate criticisms of MAGA. Progressivism is obviously an enemy and there is no temptation to imitate it. But Christians might be tempted to imitate MAGA. So that path must be guarded more fiercely.
Christians are used to being the junior partner in a coalition with the big bully that can protect us from scary progressives. We don’t like musk’s or Trump’s personal behavior but we shut our mouths because the alternative would be to have our institutions forced to support abortion and push retarded gender ideology.
It does not seem Christian, to me, to excuse or justify what is evil? What you've said reminds me of the "we need our own Putin" argument from conservative Christians circa 2016 (criticised here). The last I checked Christians were not supposed to act out of fear. When Musk or Trump behave badly, it seems entirely appropriate, to me, for Christians to say that behaviour is bad and to issue a call to repentance.
Christians are supposed to be signs of contradiction to the world. As that blogger says, "the idea that we should keep our mouths shut instead of "dividing"... is an insidious falsehood that is totally off the mark".
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What's your evidence that they aren't doing any or all of these three things?
The chain of inference here seems quite long. Is Musk MAGA? When he claimed that massive "skilled" immigration was a good thing and got immediately hammered by the grassroots, were the people hammering him rejecting MAGA? Is MAGA bad, and if so, why?
From the inside, the proper way for Christianity to interact with politics is a very interesting question. Let's presume that "MAGA" stands for right-wing politics not explicitly guided by Christian principles; that seems to be your general intent here, though if you'd disagree I invite you to offer a more fitting definition.
Christianity tried right-wing politics explicitly guided by Christian principles during the Bush administration, and it seems to me the result was disaster, even from a Christian perspective. The reasons for this disaster seem pretty straightforward to me: first-order Christian ends can't really be secured by Government power, second-order Christian ends mostly can't be secured without social consensus, and the Christians (along with everyone else, for the most part) were sufficiently blind to the realities of their situation that prudence in the exercise of power never materialized, and their political capital was entirely wasted.
As I see it, Christianity's interaction with MAGA has abandoned pursuit of first- and second-order Christian ends through the exercise of Government power, and are aiming exclusively for prudent exercise of power. That is, Christians are spending their political capital in an attempt to prevent rule by people who hate them, to secure some modicum of political and social stability, and to attempt to preserve and maintain peace and plenty. The hope is that if prudent exercise of power can be obtained, first- and second-order Christian ends can be pursued outside the arena of political power, as individuals and as churches.
Let's leave aside MAGA for the moment. What does "Challenge Bad Christianity" look like? To me, it seems like this involves preventing people from pushing non-Christian values and positions while claiming the mantle of "Christianity". An obvious example would be Pope Francis's various shenanigans. But neither Musk nor Trump are making any credible claim to be Christian, nor indeed any claim to speak for Christians. Both are very clearly pagans, and never made any notable attempt to claim otherwise. And indeed, this is how most Pro-Trump Christian discourse has gone: Trump is compared to Nebuchadnezzar, say, a pagan monarch with no claim to righteousness who can nonetheless serve as God's instrument. There hasn't been nearly as much discourse on Musk, but I'd expect it to evolve in a similar fashion.
I see no evidence that Christians have endorsed the paganism of either Musk or Trump. What I see is Christians accepting the evident reality: we no longer have the power to impose our values through law, even were it desirable to do so, and we no longer have the consensus necessary to impose our values on society, even were it desirable to do so. We cannot compel, but can only attempt to persuade, and those unwilling to be persuaded will do what seems right in their own eyes. Our fight now is centered on what Christianity actually is within itself, not on how best to impose Christian values and rules on the pagans without. It seems to me that people arguing for a Christian broadside against Musk's or Trump's paganism come mainly in one of two varieties: Christians who haven't grasped the scale of the change in our society and of Christianity's position in it, and non-Christians who for reasons of mental habit or momentary expedience prefer the Christianity of the past to the Christianity of the present. Neither, it seems to me, really has a coherent argument here.
If people actually want Christians to start policing non-Christians again, they should present a general case for when and why this is desirable, and also for why the desirability of such policing was not evident in the past. Absent such a case, it is difficult to take their arguments seriously. "Family Values" as a going concern died with the introduction of ubiquitous internet porn; people appealing to it now as though it were a live political entity are either deeply confused or lying.
I think they are doing most of those things, and I commend them for it. My top-level post here was in fact about a conservative Christian attempting to both issue a call to reform and repentance to MAGA and warn Christians away from being influenced by MAGA.
I'm not sure I'm arguing for a broadside, or for any kind of concerted political campaign. I'd hold that Christians ought to, where possible, speak the truth and call people to better behaviour. That may take a different form when it is issued to other Christians as when it is issued to secular society (and Christians should of course try to improve secular society), but either way I don't see a valid argument for Christian quietism.
It is, incidentally, worth noting that Trump himself claims to be a Christian, and Elon Musk, though stopping short of saying he's a Christian himself, identifies as a 'cultural Christian' and says that he's 'actually a big believer in the principles of Christianity'. For Christians to issue a call for Trump and Musk to live out Christian values more fully is not actually a call to pagans in the first place. Trump claims to be inside the tent; Musk has at least one foot in. So Christians asking Trump or Musk to behave in more Christian ways is by no means "policing non-Christians".
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This is an excellent take. I have tried to explain these things to people I know, but not half as well. A couple of points, though:
I think that Bush sincerely wanted this to work, but his personnel decisions did not reflect that. He largely chose neocons associated with his father’s administration, and they didn’t care about this at all. He also didn’t account for resistance from the permanent bureaucracy that has become so conspicuous since. So I think that there are some approaches left untried here, even if Christians no longer have the political power to attempt them.
Trump has occasionally expressed the fig-leaf level of Christian pretense expected of U.S. politicians, but this is even more transparent than it was with Obama. I do think that that, combined with outgroup homogeneity bias, has sincerely confused a few people on the left.
This is the heart of the matter.
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