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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34915 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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I see this type of rhetoric a lot in my internet bubble. What I don't understand is how any 'true Brother in Christ' Christian can look at themselves and go 'yep, we're the true ones, unlike those fake progressive ones'.

Christians in the past would do things to protect their religion. Like, kill people. Heresy was an actual thing, not just a word. Comparing that with contemporary 'true Brothers in Christ' characters you are no more a true Christian than the progressive ones. At best you are a progressive inbetweener.

There is nothing special or amazing about the 'survival' of Christendom in that regard. It's been 'fake' for over a thousand years. What kind of a Chrsitianity lets Constantinople fall? Was that real Christianity? Compare that with the 'real' Christianity on display in France today where churches either go up in flames or get used as public urinals so much that they become a construction hazard from the damage. There are no drums of war, no public demands for retribution. 'True Brothers in Christ' Christians just gather up and cry together before going back home to functionally support the system that enables it all.

Progressives are not wearing Christianity as a costume any more than the traditionalists are. Both have their own wants and needs and they contort the image of Christ to suit themselves. Modernity is comfortable. Going to jail for life is hard. So 'true Brothers in Christ' won't actually do anything truly Christian in the face of satanic tyranny. We know this because the last time a Christian man of action tried to rally the troops our 'true Brothers in Christ' of the 1930's stopped bothering with him when the powers that be made it inconvenient to catch him on the radio.

a Christian man of action tried to rally the troops our 'true Brothers in Christ' of the 1930's stopped bothering with him when the powers that be made it inconvenient to catch him on the radio.

I am unfamiliar with this specific incident, could you elaborate?

Father Coughlin. An anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-war Catholic preacher who utilized the radio to reach an unprecedented amount of listeners. He was eventually shut down by the government for his rhetoric in the lead up to WW2 and especially after the Pearl Harbor attack.

OP meant most probably late Father Coughlin.

What I don't understand is how any 'true Brother in Christ' Christian can look at themselves and go 'yep, we're the true ones, unlike those fake progressive ones'.

Same way the progressives can look at themselves and go "yep, we're the true loving merciful Gospel-messengers, not those fake bigots".

That doesn't help me understand how they do it, nor does it help me, as a 'non-religious' person, understand why I should elevate their brand of Christianity over the other.

There is nothing special or amazing about the 'survival' of Christendom in that regard.

I disagree, at least as far as the early history of Christianity is concerned. That fact that (what started as) some tiny Jewish sect managed to survived centuries of persecution from the largest and most powerful empire in history, forming a massive underground network of believers through preaching and genuine belief alone, and managed to convert said prosecuting empire to Christianity is nothing short of remarkable. In some sense the conversion of Rome to Christianity is the promise of Christian redemption manifest on a civilisational scale.

Before someone mentions Manichaeism, I will point out that Manichaeism is partially based on gnostic Christianity, and that Manichaeism/gnosticism clearly lost the theological battle with (now) orthodox Chrsitianity as embodied by Saint Augustine.

There is really nothing compariable with early Christianity. The closest thing is Buddhism, where the blood thirsty and tyrannical Emperor Ashoka who became so distraught about the destruction and violence he had committed in the Kalinga War he had a religious experience and converted to Buddhism and became a pacifist and virtuous (at least as the myth goes), and is responsible for Buddhism becoming a world religion rather than some tiny obscure or dead Hindu sect.

I don't see how that's in disagreement with anything I said. The symbolism survives, but in what way is that meaningful? What was the "genuine belief" carried forward? Taking a look at modern Christianity even the biggest denominations don't agree on some of the most fundamental aspects of alleged Christian belief. And as has been mentioned in the thread, many self described Christians can't even recognize their own denominations expressed doctrine and are just as likely to dip into heresy about the nature of this allegedly historically passed down belief.

You're basically just asking what is the "True Church" of Jesus Christ which is a much larger question, and something a non-believer probably isn't qualified to answer as it goes to theology.

That's not what I'm 'basically just' asking. I am actually asking the people who stand by the rhetoric made in the OP how they justify their stance in contrast with progressive Christianity. I am being asked as a person who is not involved with religion to respect the stance of traditionalist Christians as expressed here. To see them as the true expression of Christianity, not the progressive ones. So I see no reason to accept my question being minimalized and then handwaved away because I am not religious enough.

Not only that, If it turns out that the true teachings of Jesus Christ happen to comfortably conform to ingrouping football teams, consuming corn syrup and watching Tucker Carlson then I don't see the proposition as being serious. There are profoundly negative aspects of modern American culture that ruin a lot more kids than transgenders and gays. Yet this is where Jesus wants you to circle the wagons? The whole story, from a rationalist perspective, is absurd. I see no reason to accept it at face value.

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