Anonymous #3 2w

Saying bad people who are professed Christians “aren’t actually Christian” just plays into the idea that Christian = Moral, and as an atheist watching professed Christians wreck my county, I don’t appreciate them being whitewashed.

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Anonymous #3 2w

If I wore one of those really weird looking facemasks in your likeness and started committing crimes while telling everyone I was you, you’d be justified in saying I am not you, because I am clearly not you. To be a Christian, you need to believe certain things. If you do not believe those things, you are literally and definitionally not a Christian. It’s not a no-true-Scotsman the same way you can’t point to a plucked chicken and say that it’s a man

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Anonymous #3 2w

they are the pharisees.

5

Anonymous #4 2w

Look, I know why you don’t think they’re Christian. It’s because you have a very empathetic interpretation of your own religion. That’s good. That means you are a good person. But these people profess the same religion as you do. They claim to be Christians also, and plenty of them call others fake Christians for accepting gay people or supporting abortion rights.

-3

Anonymous #3 2w

You believe in a kind of Christianity which has emphasized the most empathetic teachings of Jesus, while eschewing the murderous parts of the Old Testament, and tries to exclude the often violent nature of pre-1800s Christianity. I can respect that. I know why you, you believe in a kind Christianity, thinks those who are cruel aren’t true Christians.

-2

Anonymous #3 2w

But for me looking in from the outside, you are all Christians. Some good, some bad. There is no “true Christianity” because for me, it’s all differing interpretations of the same religion. You can point to Jesus being kind. They can point to passages about homosexuality being bad and killing God’s enemies. You are a better person. But you both are Christians.

-2

Anonymous #3 2w

For most of its history, Christianity as a whole has supported slavery, misogyny, and war. Post-enlightenment this changed, and you got liberation theology and abolitionist Christianity. But that’s not the standard. It’s not like Christianity only started existing in the 1500s once the first few monks began speaking out against slavery.

-2

Anonymous #3 2w

I’m not a Christian. I’m agnostic leaning atheist. I just know what they believe. Christian nationalists defy most, if not all of the core teachings of Christ. Christianity has its problems. A bunch of greedy and powerful people had 2000 years to twist and taint the words of a prominent philosopher. Nietzsche’s teachings were twisted into Nazi ideology before he even died. This is not the same. It is a fundamentally different belief system backed by the delusion that they are God’s favorites.

4

Anonymous #4 2w

Has Christianity not defied parts of the Bible for 2,000 years?Jesus spoke out against the wealthy, but Christianity was spread by Roman Emperors, and persisted through monarchical states. Anyone who doesn’t give up all their worldly possessions for a communal semi-monastic life isn’t really following Jesus’s teachings. But few people do that, that’s a consequence of Christianity adapting to the Roman world.

0

Anonymous #3 2w

Yes, obviously you can point to maga christians defying Jesus’s teachings. I think that is a useful tool. But that doesn’t make them not christian. People defy parts of their religion all the time. ISIS isn’t following Muhammad’s orders to respect christians. Buddhists committing genocide in Myanmar aren’t following teachings on non-violence. They still are those religions, though they don’t define it.

0

Anonymous #4 2w

Christian Nationalists preach that empathy is a sin. Starve the hungry. Kill the sick. Blame the Samaritans for all of the people left beaten and bloody on the side of the road. Worship false idols. Covet everything. Only the rich go to heaven and only the virtuous are rich. Hate your enemy. Hell, hate your neighbor. But be sure to stand for the national anthem and say a little prayer for prosperity before dinner. Everyone you don’t like is corrupted by satan and can’t be forgiven

4

Anonymous #3 2w

It’s not possible for a Christian to follow the Bible completely, because not only is the Bible contradictory, Christianity itself is made up of the traditions accumulated after the New Testament books were written.

0

Anonymous #4 2w

Did crusaders and conquistadors not also do all those things? They were still Christians. Modern Christians also commit usury and work on the sabbath and eat pigs and don’t get circumcised. I agree that maga are pieces of shit but they’re still part of their religion. Because religious affiliation is not determined by a checklist of how much one adheres to the holy book.

1

Anonymous #3 2w

If you follow literally NONE of a religion’s teachings, you aren’t that religion. If I say I’m a pacifist and then kill a bunch of people, I’m not a real pacifist. If I say I’m vegan then eat meat every meal, I’m not a vegan. To say that they are just as Christian as someone who genuinely strives to be the best they can be, to love their neighbor and enemy alike, even if they will never be perfect and will never even know what good and bad may be, is simply incorrect

1

Anonymous #3 2w

There are Christians who go against biblical homophobia and misogyny too. Many Christians like that, and I respect them highly. Bigots will call them fake christians. But they aren’t, because Christians are just those who identify as Christian.

1

Anonymous #4 2w

It’s not a fallacy to say that no true Scotsman has never been to Scotland, never had Scottish family, and never partaken in any Scottish culture. That’s just simply true. So no true Christian completely abandons the teachings of Christ to pursue selfish agendas while weaponizing their personal delusions of divine authority, while not even attempting to consider what Jesus or the God they claim to believe in might actually want them to do

1

Anonymous #4 2w

I mean it all depends on if you care more about the Old Testament or the New Testament then. The more emphatic strains of Christianity will emphasize Jesus’s empathy and charity. And the authoritarian vengeful types emphasize the Old Testament. Each group goes against parts of the Bible to varying degrees. The empathy ones are clearly the better people, but like I think it’s arbitrary to say only the empathy parts are the parts of the book that matter. The Old Testament is really fucked up.

1

Anonymous #3 2w

Christians follow the teachings of Christ. I challenge you to point to something, literally anything, that Jesus said or did at any point that Christian Nationalism as an ideology follows and takes inspiration from

4

Anonymous #4 2w

I was going to point to when Paul explicitly endorses slavery in Ephesians but I guess that isn’t actually Jesus saying it

1

Anonymous #4 2w

I was gonna do the second epistle of John where he calls non-believers of the Antichrist but I guess that technically isn’t Jesus either. Perhaps “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” as an endorsement of government authority but that’s pretty flimsy. I have to acknowledge this is an effective gotcha, but I think it has to do with how much Christianity exists as an entity beyond just the four gospels. So much Christian stuff just comes from Paul.

1

Anonymous #3 2w

Like if we establish the four gospels as the essential source of what being Christian is, basically no Christianity has been true Christianity. Like sure, I agree that Christian nationalists don’t adhere to Jesus’s teachings. But I fundamentally don’t think that make them “less Christian” because Christianity itself is a theological that exits outside of just the four gospels.

1

Anonymous #3 2w

Meant to say “theological entity” there oops

1