It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

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vnatale
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It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by vnatale » Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:38 pm

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... nce-466034


It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

There’s a “strong authoritarian streak” that runs through parts of American evangelicalism, warns Elizabeth Neumann. What should be done about it?



Over the last year or so, a number of evangelical Christian leaders have shared their alarm at what they’re seeing with members of their churches being pulled into the QAnon world. You are a Christian raised in the evangelical faith. Do you see anything about the evangelical tradition that could make its believers more susceptible to QAnon?

I really struggle with this question. I’ve been trying to figure out how it is so obvious to me — and I don’t mean to pat myself on the back. I actually do read the Bible. Yet there are people who read scripture and attend church but are also die-hard into believing the election was stolen or have gone down the QAnon rabbit hole. What’s the distinction there? I find that hard to answer.

There is, in more conservative Christian movements, a strong authoritarian streak, where they don’t believe in the infallibility of their pastor, but they act like it; they don’t believe in the infallibility of the head of the home, but they sometimes act like it; where you’re not allowed to question authority. You see this on full display in the criticisms of the way the Southern Baptist Convention is dealing with sexual abuse, which is so similar to the Catholic Church [sex abuse scandal]. There is this increasing frustration that church leaders have [this view]: “If we admit sin, then they won’t trust us to lead anymore.” But if the church is not a safe place to admit that you messed up, then I don’t know where is — or you clearly don’t believe what you preach.

The authoritarian, fundamentalist nature of certain evangelical strands is a prominent theme in the places where you see the most ardent Trump supporters or the QAnon believers, because they’ve been told: “You don’t need to study [scripture]. We’re giving you the answer.” Then, when Rev. Robert Jeffress [a prominent conservative Baptist pastor in Dallas] says you’ve got to support Donald Trump, and makes some argument that sounds “churchy,” people go, “Well, I don’t like Trump’s language, but OK, that’s the right thing.” It creates people who are not critical thinkers. They’re not necessarily reading scripture for themselves. Or if they are, they’re reading it through the lens of one pastor, and they’re not necessarily open to hearing outside perspectives on what the text might say. It creates groupthink.



Now, here’s the caveat: Some of that fear is not out of thin air. There is a real “cancel culture,” where you see a mob mentality swarm on somebody who holds a biblically based viewpoint on, say, gay marriage, and you see someone forced out of a position or lose sponsorships or advertising. But they follow that to what they think is a logical conclusion — that eventually, pastors will not be able to preach against homosexuality or abortion, and if [they do], they’re going to end up arrested and unable to preach. I’ve heard that argument made multiple times over the last 10 years. The irrationality is the idea that there are no protections, that the courts wouldn’t step in and say, “No, the First Amendment applies to Christians as well.”

It tries to assert that they are losing power and must regain that power by any means necessary — which is why you can justify voting for Trump, so that we can, for God’s purposes, maintain this Christian nation. But that’s nowhere in scripture. Scripture, when it talks about what “Israel” is in the New Testament, it explains that it’s the church — which is not owned by any one nation; it’s a global church. And even if somehow you wanted to say that the American church is what [scripture is] referencing, [the Bible] tells us [to do] the exact opposite of what they’re talking about. We are told not to seek power. We’re told to be humble. We’re told to turn the other cheek. Jesus, in confronting Caesar’s representative at his trial, says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “My fight is not here,” basically. Our purpose as believers is to be salt and light; it’s not to force everybody else to hold our beliefs.

To fix that, you really have to go back to scripture. You can’t just be like, “Christian nationalism is wrong.” You have to go back to what the Bible says, versus what you were taught as an American Christian, where it was so interwoven. It took me a while to even discover it. Once somebody pointed it out, like, “Oh, my gosh. I was taught that, and you’re right, that’s not correct.”

But it’s a very hard thing for people to [address], because it requires acknowledging that how you were raised or the people that you trusted either intentionally lied to you or were just wrong. It’s hard. It takes humility to go there. It’s a hard thing for people to recognize and escape from. But sadly, it’s a security issue that we have to address, because it has led to this.





For the nearly 20 years since 9/11, to counter violent extremism, the U.S. government has done outreach to imams and other faith leaders in Muslim communities. In light of the QAnon problem, should we be doing the same with leaders in evangelical Christian communities?

I think we need to learn from the mistakes of the last 20 years. And I am very mindful that there are places where things went very well [with Countering Violent Extremism outreach], and there are also places where things did not go well. It’s a mixed bag.

I personally feel a great burden, since I came from these communities, to try to figure out how to help the leaders in those communities. I don’t know that I’m a credible voice anymore because of my political outspokenness, but there certainly are pastors who are struggling with these questions: How do I help somebody that has gone down the QAnon rabbit hole? Or, to put it in biblical terms, how do I help somebody who has made Trump an idol?

Pastors, church leaders, faith leaders — when you frame it that way for them, the answers start to come: “Oh, we know how to do this.” Usually, pastors have done a lot of counseling or shepherding in their lifetimes. They know that you don’t approach people head-on with dogmatic arguments; that tends to not work. You need to recognize that there’s often something else going on that has made somebody vulnerable to being deceived, and coming out of that deception can be painful and humbling. But faith leaders — the good ones, at least — are perfect for that kind of work. So even though the particular topic itself may be different than they’re used to, they have many of the skill sets you need.

“For QAnon, January 20 may historically be looked at as a light-switch moment.”

Some of [what we need to do is] supporting them, because it’s disheartening work. It takes a long time for somebody to disengage. It’s usually not a light switch — although for QAnon, January 20 may historically be looked at as a light-switch moment. [QAnon lore has long held that on January 20th, Joe Biden would not be inaugurated, Donald Trump would remain president, declare martial law and many prominent political leaders would be arrested.] You’ve seen many people go, “Oh, I was conned,” and they’re out. But for others, it may be a longer journey.

Certainly, what they teach from their pulpits [is relevant], even going back to the basics. Scripture teaches us not to spend time in conspiracies. You don’t have to say anything about “stop the steal” or whatever. Or teach the Ten Commandments and the fact that bearing false witness and slander are actually what conspiracy theories do: You are believing made-up sets of “facts” about people you don’t have firsthand knowledge of.

There are ways pastors can address it. But it’s hard, and they need a community where they feel safe to be encouraged to do this work.

Your question is about the government. And I’m intentionally avoiding that — in part because, in this particular case, I don’t know if the government is a credible voice at all. They probably would do more harm than good. The best thing they can do is provide fact-based resources — for example, threat briefings to educate [ordinary citizens] on signs of individuals who might be radicalizing into violence. Providing that information would be helpful, but you kind of want there to be a cut-out. You don’t want “Big Brother” calling the local pastor and saying, “Hey, here’s your tips for the week.” That’s just going to breed more conspiracies.

What can government do? Well, they’re resourced to help state and local governments, to do research, to identify best practices, to keep us informed about the threats, to give grant funding for prevention work. But those concepts are inherently built around the idea that it’s a multidisciplinary approach. And when we say “multidisciplinary,” it’s mental health, it’s human services, it’s education.

The disinformation problem is not going away. We can build more resilience. We can put more guardrails in place. But it’s going to be a problem for us for a long time.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by pp4me » Sat Feb 06, 2021 8:12 pm

I think I'm pretty well on the record as being an ex-Christian and even somewhat antagonistic to religion but if push comes to shove and I can choose I'll take my chances against Christian extremists over Islamist or purely political extremists any day of the week and twice on Sundays. We have a lot of churches here where I live and I don't fear any of them.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by whatchamacallit » Sat Feb 06, 2021 9:28 pm

Yeah that is BS. Left is so much more authoritarian with religion of "science".

Christians by definition are most moderate people in the world.

They by definition accept that people are flawed.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by Maddy » Sat Feb 06, 2021 11:35 pm

If you take a recorded hymn and run it backwards at low speed in an empty sanctuary at night, you can often hear the faint pleas of long-deceased children wailing, "I'm cold."
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by I Shrugged » Sun Feb 07, 2021 10:30 am

The western world owes its civilizations and tolerant societies to Christianity.
I'm not much of a Christian but even I can see that.

Contrast the tolerant mainstream Christian view with the intolerance of the atheist left. Big difference. Yeah, gimme Christian society any day.

Even the evangelicals I know are very aware of man's failings and are quite tolerant. They might think I'm going to hell, but that's different.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by sweetbthescrivener » Sun Feb 07, 2021 11:20 am

It's time to talk about people killed by airbags and mice who chase cats. We can't wait any longer.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by sophie » Sun Feb 07, 2021 11:41 am

OK so let me get this straight.

BLM/Antifa protestors riot for months, doing billions of dollars of property damage and killing a number of people.

Left-wing governors implement lockdowns, interfering with citizens' lives and destroying their livelihoods in many cases, all without a shred of scientific evidence of any benefit and with no regard for the damage inflicted.

Prior to Trump coming into office, ISIS (a militant/fundamentalist version of Islam) was regularly conducting or instigating mass attacks on civilians in Europe and the US. And, I'm anticipating that those attacks may start happening again, given the Biden administration's quick reversal of many of the policies that were put in place to stop them.

Nearly all the mass shootings that aren't attributable to one of the above turn out to be committed by a mentally ill person who for one reason or another went unrecognized, or wasn't receiving appropriate care.

A single protest by people angry over perceived voter fraud that they felt was never satisfactorily answered resulted in their committing some property damage in the US Capitol.

But, somehow Christian churches are the problem? Please justify this in some way that satisfies the rules of basic logic. For starters, you'll have to make the case that fundamentalist Christians were behind the majority of the above incidents, and that their religion and church teachings specifically were the responsible factors. That will take some doing.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by flyingpylon » Sun Feb 07, 2021 12:38 pm

sophie wrote:
Sun Feb 07, 2021 11:41 am
Please justify this in some way that satisfies the rules of basic logic.
Sadly, logic is no longer required. If it ever was.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by SomeDude » Sun Feb 07, 2021 1:13 pm

The group that has seized power through fraud is extremely anti-christian. They've spent decades ridiculing it and attacking it legally and in media/entertainment. They are moving to the next phase, where this particular group of people always go once they seize total power.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by pp4me » Sun Feb 07, 2021 4:58 pm

I've observed that Christian militia groups are getting very popular in movies and TV series. One that I recently watched was the movie about Richard Jewel. According to the movie, not just militia groups but the whole town of Murphy, N.C. helped Eric Roberts, who was the real bomber, evade capture because he was attacking abortion clinics. Problem was that if you look up the real story nothing is known about Eric Roberts whereabouts and/or who might be helping him. It was all a work of fiction. One lifelong resident of Murphy posted on a website that this was the first time he had ever even heard of either Eric Roberts or the so-called Christian militia.

Another one I remember from just recently was Showtime's "Homeland". I think it was the next to last season where you see a showdown between the FBI and Christian militia groups. At least that show was an obvious work of fiction.

In the meantime you can turn on the news unless it's CNN, MSNBC and cohorts and see Antifa and BLM taking over whole cities and declaring autonomous zones like in Seattle, rioting, looting, and building down buildings in others. Do you think we will ever see a movie or TV show about any of that?
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by SomeDude » Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:09 pm

pp4me wrote:
Sun Feb 07, 2021 4:58 pm
In the meantime you can turn on the news unless it's CNN, MSNBC and cohorts and see Antifa and BLM taking over whole cities and declaring autonomous zones like in Seattle, rioting, looting, and building down buildings in others. Do you think we will ever see a movie or TV show about any of that?
Those are just "mostly peaceful protests".

Remember Biden's inauguration speech? He stated the policy. "White supremecists" aka hetro, Christian, white men are the enemy of the government. Since probably 80-90% of that group voted for Trump, it's no wonder he would call them the biggest threat.
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Re: It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Post by sweetbthescrivener » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:49 am

Even if there were hundreds of violent Christian militias just waiting to take over, they would only be people who failed to understand Christianity.

Failed Christians.

Other potentially violent groups we have seen recently, not so much.

They are following their philosophies to the letter.
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