"... whose adherents find spiritual sustenance in political action. The Christian right has been intertwined with American conservatism for decades, culminating in the Trump era. And elements of Christian culture have long been present at political rallies. But worship, a sacred act showing devotion to God expressed through movement, song or prayer, was largely reserved for church. Now, many believers are importing their worship of God, with all its intensity, emotion and ambitions, to their political life.... 'What is refreshing for me is, this isn’t at all related to church, but we are talking about God,' said Patty Castillo Porter, who attended the Phoenix event... [One woman, Tami Jackson, said] 'This is a Jesus movement.... I believe God removed Donald for a time, so the church would wake up and have confidence in itself again to take our country back.'"
From "The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’/Rituals of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as praise music and prayer blend with political anger over vaccines and the 2020 election" by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham (NYT).
Is this something new or is this how Americans generally behave? I tend to think the latter, but rather than musing on that topic, I just want to publish this quickly because I can see that I've got tags that will pull up whatever I've blogged about this sort of thing over the years.
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49 comments:
"But worship, a sacred act showing devotion to God expressed through movement, song or prayer, was largely reserved for church."
Wrong premise. The "church" is not a building or an agreed upon meeting time, the church is the people, when and wherever they gather.
The agnostics at the NYT are just mad that the Right is fighting back and winning.
The Christian right has been intertwined with American conservatism for decades
Yeah, for about 19 decades - for most of the country's history, people recognized the U.S. as a country founded on Christian principles. Started going off the rails in the 60's, slope of the slippery slope has been increasing exponetially ever since.
This is not news in any fashion. Blending religion and politics dates back as far as human history. See Rome, see how all European kings bowed to the Catholic pope before Protestantism arose in the 1500s. The blended model still dominates many traditional cultures, including those of Japan, India, Israel/Judaism, etc. The modern notion of a fully secular government and the separation of church and state is very modern indeed -- See the English Civil War, French Revolution, and US Revolution.
This story confirms that Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham of the New York Times are ignorant of history and suffering from Trump angst. Nothing more. If these two authors don't comprehend that Woke/Green has become a lefty religion as well, then they are doubly blind.
I expect nothing else from the NYT these days.
I go to a conservative Christian chruch. It has changed. For quite a while, there was informal networking, but a sense that Caesar's dominion and Jesus' dominion are not the same. Plus, there was a strong sense of following the rules re: Chruch and politics and the IRS. Then, Clinton and, espeically, Obama started politicing from Church pulpits. Blatantly. Without the LBJ smack down on non-profits.
And the Woke attacks on bakeries (CO and Oberlin), and marraige, and the Gospel (attacks on teaching re: homosecuaity), and it has changed what a lot of the churches will passively take.
To be clear, what Christians should take, what the Church so take, is different than what groups of humans WILL take.
So, claim hypocrasy or human nature or what have you.
But politics in the American Church is changing, and, frankly, not for the better. But American Culture is provoking a lot of this,
It's not new. Big Tent Revivalism is as American as apple pie. And it's not particularly a right-wing thing either. At least the right is open about its religious ties, the left is every bit as religious as the right. Left-wing gatherings are worship services, full of prayers and incantations and affirmations of proper belief, but they pretend it's not by hiding their religious tendencies behind superficially secular terminology.
But you will rarely hear a left-winger talk about how left-wing movements are religious fundamentalism by another name.
This Is OUTRAGEOUS! This "Americans" will soon start saying bizarre statements, like:
ONE NATION, UNDER GOD
IN GOD WE TRUST
SO HELP ME, GOD
Republicans NEED to realize, that the Only True GOD; is THE STATE
All Hail THE STATE!!!
What's NEXT?
having a Senate Chaplain?? That opens each session of the United States Senate with a prayer,
and provides and coordinates religious programs and pastoral care support for Senators??
What SORT of country are we becoming!?!?!
I don't often do this, but - now do black churches (where the preacher will often, I'm told, explicitly endorse one candidate and invoke the approval or disapproval of God according to electoral choice, and where the congregation will often, I'm told, go directly from the service to the polls, such that not having polling places open on Sunday is considered "voter suppression" by the Democrat party).
Nothing new. Been going on for 250 years.
Just trying to stir up the fears of the anti religion crowd
Pro tip voting progressive may let you shut up religion. It won't stop you from goi going to hell when you die.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
"But worship, a sacred act showing devotion to God expressed through movement, song or prayer, was largely reserved for church. Now, many believers are importing their worship of God, with all its intensity, emotion and ambitions, to their political life..."
What is so astounding to me about the dumbness of this is that it actually sums up perfectly the entire tone of the woke left, including even that term "woke." Here in Michigan, I recall our governor, having hectored all of us about proper COVID behavior, was photographed kneeling -- yes, KNEELING -- in a worshipful posture at a BLM sponsored demonstration in the wake of George Floyd. She had a mask on, but pressed up against her on either side were people who did not. That particular ceremonial item, I guess, was optional that day in the Church of the Enlightened. The rest of us must just get in line and follow the priestly class wherever it directs and whatever it says.
'Rituals of Christian worship' were commonplace at public functions late into my youth, and I expect not uncommon to most commenting here with sufficient seniority. A meal was just about guaranteed to get a generically religious blessing, and many other ceremonies included at least a brief message from a religious figure, if not a full prayer.
As has been noted before, the excising of any reference to Christianity, even just in generic terms, really started in the 1990s, as Christmas parties were replaced by Holiday gatherings.
This is more evidence of how thoroughly any religion but Woke has been excised from public view.
Why go to such an unlikely source to find understanding of any kind of phenomenon not in their ken?
Maybe Christians are the folks smart enough and brave enough to point out the Emperor's complete lack of clothes. The left/liberal/Socialist mass cultural hysteria is finally dying. Praise God.
The left disdains faith in a higher power. So a good smear is to accuse others of what they themselves practice.
Who was that guy? The one with a funny name and literally stopped the water from rising, Barret, Barry....something. But guy was worshiped and had never done or said anything out of the ordinary, nothing to set himself apart, yet, worshiped he was.
Seems the author needed a smear Tump piece to meet the quota, to keep getting invited to the cool parties.
I would guess that Trump rallies feature a lot of praise music because everyone else has asked him to stop playing theirs.
All of what leftist do at their rallies is religious.
The chanting (hey hey ho ho stuff we hate has got to go).
The weird repetition instead of a loudspeakers thing they did at occupy.
The belief in unproven and disproven things like Marxism.
If you’ve lost your faith the orange ersatz god is as good a replacement as anyone or anything else.
“ Why go to such an unlikely source to find understanding of any kind of phenomenon not in their ken?”
It’s the ideal source for understanding what I’m looking to understand: media and political rhetoric and so forth.
It’s the ideal source for understanding what I’m looking to understand: media and political rhetoric and so forth.
What's to understand?
Democratic good, Republican bad.
How many pictures of Trump have halos on them?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
“Why go to such an unlikely source to find understanding of any kind of phenomenon not in their ken?”
It’s the ideal source for understanding what I’m looking to understand: media and political rhetoric and so forth.
How many examples of stories like this does it take to understand that the first thought that should occur after seeing anything in the NYT is that it's more likely that the opposite is true than what they are feeding the lemmings?
Nothing I enjoy more than a preacher who brings the present culture into clarity by showing it from the heavenly point of view. For me the past five, six years have secularly been all about Trump and how the globalists wanted to destroy him. But the real part for me was why. Why did Trump gain the trust of evangelicals? Why would God use this vulgar man? When Covid came along I immediately sensed this was a counterattack by the Dark Forces to bring down Trump. Again, why? Why did Trump pose such a threat to that world?
I have my opinions why but what’s germane here is that I believe we should look at the present from the Ephesians perspective, the heavenly point of view as well as the from the Acts perspective, the earthly point of view. Bethel is, after all, the node where heaven and earth meet.
Religion and politics..
You might want to investigate how the late MLK used them.
Seems to me that we have a long history of this. On both sides. (William Jennings Bryan, anyone?) Today's Left is much more zealous about their religious beliefs than the Christian Right. They chase after apostates regularly.
Greta and her throngs
Barack is still being worshipped. Holding court- glowing like a light bearer…
Cult of personality.
One thing strange to me about churches that aren’t Catholic. No kneeling. No point of reference Tabernacle. We can pluck our Lord from thin air or the inner being. It’s disorientating to me.
The churches were hammered by the Covid shutdown, being one of the last places 'allowed' to reopen. Many churches lost attendees so what is happening now is the churches are making an concerted effort to bring back those who left as well as bring in new parishioners. This is not a liberal or conservative thing from the churches point of view. Churches teach their values, not Democratic or Republican values. But because these values align more (but not 100%) with values the Republicans hold (at this point in time anyway), this scares the left, so they see it as a threat and try to tie this effort to bring back church attendance as some Republican plot. But the Hispanic population is largely a deeply religious population so once again, by attacking churches and calling them Republican institutions, they are loosing more and more Hispanic votes.
"We can pluck our Lord from thin air or the inner being."
It's the American Religion, I think Harold Bloom said. A gnostic heresy.
Anyway, nothing new here. Except that the American Religion now confronts a progressive attack it has never faced before. God or Gaia, that is the question. The new congregationalism is on the left. The resulting conflict drives intensity on both sides. In the short run, it leads to further losses on the right, as young people fear the taint of right-wingerism associated with traditional religiosity.
Perhaps another article can explore church-state mingling on the left. Maybe even interview pastor-senator Raphael Warnock.
---It’s the ideal source for understanding what I’m looking to understand: media and political rhetoric and so forth.
---How many examples of stories like this does it take to understand that the first thought that should occur after seeing anything in the NYT is that it's more likely that the opposite is true than what they are feeding the lemmings?
Seems like asking the blind man to tell you about the clouds. But maybe Althouse wants some repeated reference point. NYT will give it! They make the word "Christian" sound like a different species.
Maybe they're not so wrong, come to think of it.
Now do climate emergency. Talk about religious fervor!
NYT hates religion.
Stop the presses.
I’ve played for Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal and Catholic Churches.
Every one of these denominations has been under lawfare attack by the left for decades. Except for the Catholic Church, the others are near death.
Leftist activists forced gay, trans and female clergy on these denominations. I’ve seen the result. Families walk out. They refuse to be indoctrinated in Althouse’s fag hag feminism. It’s precisely what they don’t want for their kids. They want traditional family values. The Catholic Church continues to thrive by refusing to cave in to Althouse’s evil doctrine.
This has not stopped the left. Activist gay, trans and female clergy preach to empty churches. I’ve played to Sunday services attended by as few as 5 people. Many of these churches, particularly the Episcopalian, have big endowments. The activists seized these churches so that they would have a salary for their political activism and to have a title that gives them access to media.
When you read stories about crazy Woke stunts by clergy, what’s really going on is that they have no congregation to attend to, so they spend their days trying to attract media attention. They have nothing else to do.
The left will continue to milk the endowments of these denominations until the money runs out and then those denominations will die. This is particularly awful when you consider the great musical traditions these churches developed. Those traditions will simply disappear. Among the elderly this is a terrible tragedy. They are marooned, without the traditions they grew up with, without even a place to sing the traditional hymns on Sunday.
Trump is clever. He piggybacks on religion for their epic ability to get money and obedience from a dependable percentage of deplorables. He's taken Karl Roves Southern Strategy to the next level.
State-cultists complaining about religious fervor on the Right. Priceless.
"Is this something new or is this how Americans generally behave?"
The NYT disparaging Christians? I guess it's kind of new. Like, last few decades or so. Not new-new, as Whoopi would say.
Making a political rally into a church service? That seems new. The civil rights movement had a religious side but that was because the basic message was, We all worship the same God who says we are his children. So treat us as all one family.
But going to a political rally to pray?
ShoutingThomas …
Appreciate your perspective. I have spent a lifetime in the Protestant waters and know the death throes are upon many. I think the Baptists will survive because they are so Bible based. But they are under assault too.
Myself I escaped those waters and have had a unique church experience, one which began in my home and has evolved to a building we built in part with our own hands and paid for in full with our own wallets. We follow the Watchman Nee model of a simple, unnamed church life or, being more precise, we identify with the community as simply the “church in ___.” We sing hymns, though we don’t eschew some current songs. We have written many of our own. We cater to old people, pick them up at the nursing home, and have them stay for our periodic lunches.
Anyway, my Baptist brother-in-law gave his life preaching to a shrinking congregation that is now on the verge of extinction. He’s despondent. But the gates of Hades will not prevail against the builded church. That I believe deeply.
Now do the Unitarians.
The NYTimes. As always it is battlefield preparation for the democrat party.
Once again, no context. Falwell and Robertson in the 80s and 90s and George W. Bush in the 00s made a lot more use of religion than Trump did. Political Evangelicalism (and Evangelicalism in general) are on the downswing today, and have been for some time.
People are angrier now, and they bring that anger to what they do and say and they mix their usual preoccupations in with that anger about politics, so if they are religious, they do bring religion into their politics, but the Great Awakening has already crested and broken and the tide is going out.
You won't see any critical scrutiny of angry Times readers and their beliefs and rhetoric in the paper, though. Start with "In this house we believe science is real ... No person is illegal ... Diversity makes us stronger."
Progressive atheists have a religion. It's called politics.
Like Trump needs our $$- so full of it, you are.
Tell me- what charities has Biden donated his presidential salary to?
Lurker22-
And from the other side of their mouths:
Science is real} except when a male is a female, life can be destroyed in utero & masks are mandatory… 6feet 6feet apart!!
No person is illegal} except January 6th prisoners held w/out bail or fair trial indefinitely
Diversity makes us stronger} except when you’re white. White is not a race…
And the people bowed and prayed
To the orange god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
Of the 11 churches in my neighborhood 10 of them are LGBT friendly and 9 of them teach critical race theory theology even though they are probably 97% white. No church is going to save America from itself.
Christians have either been lead astray or become too insular. God may save us from ourselves but no church will. And certainly no overly emotional devotional crap will. This country wasn’t founded by people who danced in the aisles or banged tambourines in church. Honor, duty and a stiff upper lip are what Christians need to cultivate within themselves and their communities. Not boho hoodoo.
People who banged their heads against the floor five times a day in the direction of Barack Obama have no room to talk about others.
The NYT hates Christianity and Trump in equal measure.
"Trump is clever. He piggybacks on religion for their epic ability to get money and obedience from a dependable percentage of deplorables."
He's being attacked by the same group of liberal fascists as they are, so they feel a certain kinship with him. Though he doesn't exactly live the life of a righteous man (to say the least), they know he isn't out to destroy them. They'd really like to be left alone, but that's not currently an option.
Blogger Chris Lopes said...
"Trump is clever. He piggybacks on religion for their epic ability to get money and obedience from a dependable percentage of deplorables."
He's being attacked by the same group of liberal fascists as they are, so they feel a certain kinship with him.
Unlike the GOPe types like Bush, he actually kept promises.
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