It's a lot easier to praise The Lord than it is to follow him.
Anonymous comment I heard in reaction to the rise of the so-called televangelists
So, what are the problems with this? As I said before part of the problem is that you end up with a Christianity or the traditional doctrine or the official doctrine that doesn't represent the breadth of all Christians.
But we're seeing in the United States a situation where a particular kind of government is also associated with a particular kind of Christianity. And it's not a government of the People, by the People, for the People. So we should be concerned about what that means for democracy. Another problem, and Pastor Brit Baron (I couldn't find the spelling) mentioned this the other evening, that when you construct other groups, if you construct groups as "other" then violence becomes far more likely. You have to make that connection, that if you are othering People you are also making violence against them more likely. And we can point to the murder rate of Transgender Women, for instance, or unarmed African Americans, I mean there are just a number of statistics that we can track that show the damage of othering groups.
But there's a theological problem and this is the one I want us to focus on. And it means that you're saying God doesn't listen to those People. God doesn't relate to those People,
I am always having to point out that there is nothing more radical in its egalitarian assertions, especially in its economic justice, than the Gospel of Jesus. But the history of Christianity shows there is nothing that is more opposed to that than the behavior of many professed Christians through the past two thousand years. Especially those Christians who have been in positions of power and who have held wealth and, therefore, power. It is such an obvious violation of not only the Gospel of Jesus but the egalitarian economics of the Mosaic Law that it's astounding that the practice of inequality hasn't figured as among the most dangerous and serious of sins warned against by the Christian churches. I think to the extent that inequality and discrimination against others is is practiced as Christianity, it is a good measure of the inadequacy and, in fact, evil of any sectarian structure. Though noting that is also a dangerous thing. It is a temptation to follow the same evil to practice the sin of othering against those who are members of such sects. As Cheryl Anderson pointed out in the last part of this series, there are members of even the most benighted churches who reject that sin, as expressed practically in those "white evangelicals," Mormons, white Catholics who rejected Trump and voted for the Democrats who ran against him. I think, though there are certainly secular ideologies, such as Nazism which hold that inequality is a natural good and it is impossible to be both a Nazi and to practice real morality at the same time. I would include fascism, most forms of Marxism (in practice as has been demonstrated in history), capitalism, etc. It may be possible to be an egalitarian Marxist who, I would require before I could believe it, to admit that all of the self-defined Marxist states have been immoral atrocities. It is impossible to be a Nazi, a fascist, a traditional American fascist, that is a white supremacist or to remain one while rejecting inequality because inequality is the defining aspect of those ideologies. I would point out that that is also an inherent feature of all monarchies and aristocratic systems. So long as Christianity agrees to those, it rejects the Gospel and the Epistles in their most essential teachings. I should include male supremacists in that list since they are also saturated with both a sense of inequality and personal privilege.
Of course that would include the scientific dogma of natural selection in that, it is the ultimate source of the inequality of Nazism and many forms of facism and modern capitalism. This section was added in response to a comment.
Though feudal capitalism in the form of Maltusian economics was the basis of Darwin's theory. I have pointed out repeatedly that both Christianity and natural selection cannot be true because they are basically opposed on that most fundamental point. Judaism, as well is incompatible with it if you take the Law of Moses and the Prophets seriously, though as the Biblical history of the Children of Israel demonstrates, it's not easy to maintain egalitarianism, there is always a temptation to want a king to protect you. I have also pointed out, agreeing with a statement that more than one of Darwin's closest colleagues and collaborators have agreed with, that it is impossible to support democracy and natural selection at the same time. Darwinism, natural selection, is a corrosive acid that destroys egalitarian democracy. Darwin "agreed entirely" with the book in which Ernst Haeckel made that statement, it is endemic in the eugenics of Haeckel and Francis Galton, W. R. Greg, all of whom Darwin, himself quoted to that effect in support of his theory of natural selection. The Gospel and the conclusions of the earliest followers of Jesus in Acts and Paul are certainly opposed to the scientific racism of Thomas Huxley in his putrid pro-genocidal, natural selection based essay Emancipation Black and White.
That is a point I had to bring up again just yesterday in a comment thread brawl.
There is no sin more opposed to the Gospel and The Law Than asserting inequality, any self-defined Christian church that doesn't hold that as among its most serious moral concerns has to stand as accused of hypocrisy. That certainly extends to LGBTQ+ inequality. I have been listening to more of The Reformation Project's channel content and I have to say it has been a great antidote to the usual "white evangelical" and "traditional Catholic" hate. I had heard that the coming generation of evangelicals isn't falling in line with the hatred of those of my age cohort and in middle age who are so accomplished at othering and hating. It gives me some hope, even as nothing much in secularism is giving me much of any grounds for that.
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