Alabama Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville had a stark warning for the approximately 100 Utah GOP delegates who crowded into a Bluffdale warehouse to hear him speak on Friday afternoon: Malevolent supernatural forces are working to undermine America.
This is just a quiet part out loud thing again. Remember, to most American evangelicals, anything less than a devotion to evangelical Christianity is satanism. It’s a binary thing to them, so whether you’re actually Jewish, or Hindu, or atheist, or whatever, it doesn’t matter; if you aren’t American evangelical Christian, then you are Satanist. I’m not being hyperbolic, this is a core tenet of American evangelical Christianity.
Make no mistake: Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Christians Universalists, Christians who happen to vote Democrat, and other Christian or near-Christian faiths will not be spared. This is certainly a religious movement, but it does not have Jesus of Nazareth at its head.
This movement has more in common with the Westboro hate/terrorism group than with orthodox Christianity, and Christians who do not espouse the right political hatred will absolutely be labeled Satanists too.
They won’t spare their own, either. Fascists turn on their own for bullshit purity tests every time. This is always just a grab for power and religion is just the excuse.
Yep. Look no further than the spats between Marge and Bobo for a preview. Or between tiny d and…well, nearly anyone that’s ever worked for him.
They certainly were not spared during the original exercise of fascism.
And I’ll go one point further and assert that the closer a single individual is to walking the tenets of classical Christianity – compassion, honesty, practicing ethical consideration in choosing personal acts, abhorring unnecessarily hurtful acts – not only will they NOT be spared, they will be among those most violently targeted, as soon as they become known to the persecutors.
Why? Because these are True Believers, and they are what real resistance is made of.
Regardless of the belief system underlying a True Believer, that’s what makes a True Believer tick: the belief itself. It doesn’t have to be Christianity, or even any specific religion; just their own belief system and their near-exclusive personal reliance upon it in daily life, and especially in times of crisis.
Nothing outside that belief system moves them in matters that are important to them, nor do they require external validation for their choices. That makes them impossible to control, hard to spot because they are not necessarily talkative or participative on social media, and frequently impossible to predict if you don’t know them personally.
So when that belief system involves a deep abhorrence of all things unnecessarily hurtful to others (or “evil” if you will), when they are the ones who actually decide to be that One Good Man in their current reality when they hear the old maxim “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – classic Christianity, in a nutshell – they are deeply threatening to authoritarian governments and regimes that rely on manufacturing fear and the manipulation of personal belief to maintain control over individual citizens.
You are 100% correct.
"Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over."
—Emo Phillips
My favorite thing was noticing how many of them also call any non-xtian religion (but also includes Mormons and JW and Catholics, too, lol, WUT) “pagan”.
First time I ran across such a thing, I was like…“wait, wait, wait, what?” in the middle of one of them going through a Gish Gallop of evangelical bullshit.