Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #emptythepews
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The apocalyptic vision has been for centuries popular in the West; however, unlike Norman Cohn's observations about millenarianism and social dislocation in late medieval Europe, these modern millenarians accord more with Michael Barkun's relative social deprivation thesis.
However, unlike the real relative social deprivation of early nineteenth-century America, which Barkun highlights, modern millenarians are anxious about an imagined deprivation, which is really an anxiety over the loss of white Christian dominance in the United States.
The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, Revised and Expanded Edition a.co/d/hyjlXmS
Honestly I think this reveals a deep and poisonous weakness in a lot of formerly less overtly conservative churches—this “oh we never used to be political”
Bitch you always shoulda been political, you might have been better inoculated against this now
Bitch you always shoulda been political, you might have been better inoculated against this now
The church as an institution should not exist to make you “feel good”, it should actually have a mission, and if that mission is in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ there is no way it CAN’T be political
Standing with the oppressed and the marginalized is inescapably political, and if that’s not what your church is doing, well, Jesus had some things to say about that kind of shit
For those who didn't grow up Evangelical
Are you at your wit's end, and can't understand why the GQP don't seem to care about dead children?
Are you unable to comprehend why the GQP, even the ones not under NRA payroll, don't seem to care about gun violence?
A thread.
Are you at your wit's end, and can't understand why the GQP don't seem to care about dead children?
Are you unable to comprehend why the GQP, even the ones not under NRA payroll, don't seem to care about gun violence?
A thread.
To understand why, you have to understand the Evangelical mindset.
They live in an entirely separate world, one where demons lurk around every corner, and they're told constantly that the entire world wants to murder them.
This is not hyperbole.
They live in an entirely separate world, one where demons lurk around every corner, and they're told constantly that the entire world wants to murder them.
This is not hyperbole.
This is how Evangelical leaders keep ahold of their cultists; keep them afraid, keep them on edge, and give them an enemy to hate.
As a general rule, the rank-and-file Evies are not the problem. They're simply drones doing what they're told.
Evie LEADERS, however....
As a general rule, the rank-and-file Evies are not the problem. They're simply drones doing what they're told.
Evie LEADERS, however....
At the end of the last episode, the preacher sneaker guy says something to the effect of ‘it’s frustrating because the majority of Christians and churches aren’t like this but because Hillsong is so famous…’
My dude… wake the fuck up.
1/
#Hillsong
#YouDontKnowEvangelicals
My dude… wake the fuck up.
1/
#Hillsong
#YouDontKnowEvangelicals
Those former volunteers and students could have literally been talking about any mega church in the US. Because every single one abuses ppls time, and finances and emotionally manipulates in the Same. Exact. Way.
2/
#EmptyThePews
2/
#EmptyThePews
#Hillsong is not an anomaly. It is in fact Best Practices for the rest of white evangelical churches. They wrote the book. They laid the foundation. And every spirit filled, Bible believing church in this country has enthusiastically replicated the same system.
3/
3/
The Christians are not okay
I'm curious about what he could possibly mean -- how is "ungodliness" measured, in the entire history of our country, really? But not curious enough to listen to his annoying unhinged ranting.
I remember one time @paulcarp13 and I were in my grandma's church and they had a guest preacher whose entire sermon was about how Bill Clinton lied.
This was in, like, 2003.
This was in, like, 2003.
I wrote a thread on this a few years back, but it's even more alarming now. The Right's authoritarian-verging-on-totalitarian approach to education--ban CRT! cameras in classrooms! no thoughtcrimes!--isn't an aberration, nor will it be overcome by an appeal to "the facts." 1/
These laws spring out of the Right's own vision of what "education" really is. Whether it's the fundamentalist homeschoolers, or evangelical church camps and purity culture, or the Young Republicans, they don't attract members so much as take hostages. /2
In this vein, education is really indoctrination. There is "our" correct view (Biblical inerrancy! A Christian Nation! White Supremacy!) and the heresies of "the other." Orthodoxy is rigidly enforced, often by adults who leverage peer influence also. Deviation is shunned. /3
Looks like the Christian Post is at it again, Starting with this headline that sounds like a joke, “Heckle Christ’s bride at your eternal peril”
This is a republish of an article that originally had a less attention-grabby but equally evangelical-centric headline: “How to Stay When the World Says Leave”
This is a very common framing for evangelicals, that “the world” somehow exists over THERE, while evangelicals are over HERE being “in the world but not of it”
I don’t buy it.
I don’t buy it.
Everything you need to know about #America’s latest #antitrans #legislation from the #RepublicanParty
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQIA #TransKids #Education #Sports #Healthcare #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Discrimination #Transphobia #ThePartyOfHate
xtramagazine.com/power/anti-tra…
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQIA #TransKids #Education #Sports #Healthcare #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Discrimination #Transphobia #ThePartyOfHate
xtramagazine.com/power/anti-tra…
#RepublicanParty Don't #deny #trans #rights in our name. As #women who have played #sports our entire lives, we feel compelled to #standup against this attempt to #discriminate in the name of #Women #Athletes.
missoulian.com/opinion/column…
missoulian.com/opinion/column…
[Video] How #JoeBiden can #build on his #message of #hope to #transgender #Americans in the face of #RepublicanParty #Attacks.
msnbc.com/american-voice…
msnbc.com/american-voice…
There’s a direct line between Christian #purityculture and the racist Atlanta shooter. Purity culture is not conducive to a healthy sexual ethic. Men raised in it are taught to view women with suspicion, as objects whose purpose is to draw them into sin.
#EmptyThePews #churchtoo
#EmptyThePews #churchtoo
You’re also taught that your sexual urges are completely uncomfortable, that it’s only a matter of time until you hurt someone. In my Sunday school, they taught us that having sexual thoughts was akin to “raping a woman in your mind.”
#EmptyThePews #churchtoo
#EmptyThePews #churchtoo
Combine all of that with an intense “warrior for God” philosophy, a desensitization to violence as well as emotion, and the racism baked into American Christianity, then physically violent action is sure to follow.
#EmptyThePews #churchtoo
#EmptyThePews #churchtoo
CW /// Sexual Assault
There's something I want to clarify about this person, in regards to the abuse I went through. He was not a pastor. He was not a volunteer in the youth group. We were both 14 to 16 when he abused me.
#churchtoo #sbctoo #EmptyThePews
There's something I want to clarify about this person, in regards to the abuse I went through. He was not a pastor. He was not a volunteer in the youth group. We were both 14 to 16 when he abused me.
#churchtoo #sbctoo #EmptyThePews
Abuse is encouraged in the #SBC, in many different ways. Here's a good thread from @ErikMKort about it. But the way I'm most familiar with is interpersonal male violence, which is both encouraged and indeed taught in the SBC.
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
The violence in my @livinghopebg youth group was emotional, physical, and sexual. We would be berated in front of the entire group if any of the leadership found out we had done something they considered sinful.
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
CW — sexual assault
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
Last December was a year since I came forward about being sexually assaulted at @livinghopebg.
I didn’t mark it in any way.
One reason is because I don’t feel like anything has happened since.
But there was another reason:
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
Last December was a year since I came forward about being sexually assaulted at @livinghopebg.
I didn’t mark it in any way.
One reason is because I don’t feel like anything has happened since.
But there was another reason:
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
Awhile back I decided to find out what it looked like to report SA to a larger #SBC org, to see what their process was, to see if they were really “Caring Well,” as @jdgreear and the rest of the #SBC resolved to do.
Awhile back I decided to find out what it looked like to report SA to a larger #SBC org, to see what their process was, to see if they were really “Caring Well,” as @jdgreear and the rest of the #SBC resolved to do.
#churchtoo #EmptyThePews
So I contacted @IMB_SBC via their instant messaging service on their website (using a fake name), and asked where I could report sexual assault. They directed me to this woman, Somer Nowak.
So I contacted @IMB_SBC via their instant messaging service on their website (using a fake name), and asked where I could report sexual assault. They directed me to this woman, Somer Nowak.
I have some thoughts about this thread. He brings up several valid points, but based on my experience walking away from a cultic Christian group in 2004 (the generation before exvies), yet w/connections to evangelicalism afterwards I have some critique 1/
Many evangelicals (I use that word in a very broad sense to include Pentecostals, charismatics, and even some religious right Catholics) see *any* criticism of their beliefs and practices as undermining their faith. It's not lack of curiosity. It's fear. Even rage. 2/
It's a very fragile belief system with a less than omnipotent God. Any criticism threatens it. Any perceived transgression away from patriarchal authority threatens it. 3/
So here's the thing.
For all of you looking on in bewilderment, shaking your heads, asking how ANYone can truly believe that 45 won the election, that massive voter fraud occurred, that Biden is a cannibal/pedophile/insert Q crap here...
Here's why.
(A thread.)
For all of you looking on in bewilderment, shaking your heads, asking how ANYone can truly believe that 45 won the election, that massive voter fraud occurred, that Biden is a cannibal/pedophile/insert Q crap here...
Here's why.
(A thread.)
Dinosaurs and man co-existed; God created North America as a place for Protestants; all dogs come from one pair on the ark.
tinyurl.com/y657ys8y
Note: *MY* pastor said dinosaurs were fake & that the commies buried the fake bones to prove evolution & make us all atheists. 1/
tinyurl.com/y657ys8y
Note: *MY* pastor said dinosaurs were fake & that the commies buried the fake bones to prove evolution & make us all atheists. 1/
Having "learned" from ACE, aBeka, and BJU in my homeschool career, 100% can confirm.
Note: We were homeschooled because in the ACE private school where my older brother attended kindergarten, his teacher wore pants on her days off. 3/
journalgazette.net/news/local/201…
Note: We were homeschooled because in the ACE private school where my older brother attended kindergarten, his teacher wore pants on her days off. 3/
journalgazette.net/news/local/201…
Like #ParisHilton, I Am A Survivor Of A Troubled Teen Treatment School And It Was A Nightmare- My school #EscuelaCaribe was religious, featured in @kidnpd4christ @BreakingCodeSi1 @huffpost #breakingcodesilence #EmptyThePews @C_Stroop @parishilton bit.ly/3jzZXsq
I discovered that in 1979 both my school & #ProvoCanyon were the focus of a congressional inquiry , 10 years before I was sent away, 2 years before Hilton was born @BreakingCodeSi1 @huffpost #breakingcodesilence #EmptyThePews @C_Stroop @parishilton bit.ly/3jzZXsq
Activist Kenneth Wooden censured my school, then known as Caribe Vista, for having low-paid, untrained staff who “brainwashed” students, put them into solitary and beat them. IN 1979. @BreakingCodeSi1 #breakingcodesilence @C_Stroop @parishilton bit.ly/3jzZXsq
On the same day Breonna Taylor's killers went free, the president said he wouldn't accept a peaceful transition of power.
American authoritarianism is exhausting, violent, and confusing. To bring some clarity to the chaos, I'm compiling trusted writing on the subject here:
American authoritarianism is exhausting, violent, and confusing. To bring some clarity to the chaos, I'm compiling trusted writing on the subject here:
Forgive me for starting with my own writing -- I just happen to know what I'm talking about. I've been writing on the subject of American authoritarianism and democratic decline from various angles for years. The work has all held up.
I founded a nonprofit with the mission of helping Americans adapt to the new reality of American authoritarianism, by chipping away at the ignorance American exceptionalism, and pushing us to resist and oppose in productive ways. This is our early work:
Saw a closeted Christian rockstar friend of mine while I was in Nashville last week, and my heart is just broken for them. I love them so much. And I’m also pissed off. There is a dark cloud over the Christian music industry, and several things anger me about all of this...
1. People who work with him and don’t have a relationship with me anymore know he is gay or convince themselves that he struggles with “same sex attraction”, but as long as he don’t say those words and they all pretend he’s not, they work together and they can love him.
2. The Christian music industry thrives in hiding things that are supposedly wrong and make it all taboo. If this person would come out it could change countless lives & possibly force the Christian music industry to change or crumble. Either one would be a positive step forward.
*Heavy Sigh* This chucklehead, Couy Griffin is from the town I was born in and grew up in. I know folks in his family. This is my roots. This is the kind of nonsense I left. 1/
While this may seem on the surface as "small town politics" this has wider reaching implications. Couy Griffin is more than just a County Commissioner. He's one of many Evangelical threats to the United States. @C_Stroop might be interested in this. 2/
Before becoming a County Commissioner, Couy Griffin was a pastor at New Heart Cowboy Church in Alamogordo. Cowboy churches is a melding of the Evangelical church and Cowboy Culture. Its' like "Gospel Bill" for grown ups. 3/
newheartcowboychurch.org
newheartcowboychurch.org
We're a society that treats children as afterthoughts and raises girls as products.
1/
1/
Our schools are cesspools; training centers designed to churn out worker bees and corporate drones who serve at the altar of the inane between bouts for survival of the best regurgitators of answers to questions that are obsolete before they're asked,
2/
2/
while our inquisitive imaginations wither and die in a mad race for mediocrity in the guise of good grades.
3/
3/
🎧Give this a listen.
🗨️ @C_Stroop and @Alyssa_Milano talk #EmptyThePews, #exvangelicals, and what the separation of state and church—or lack thereof—means for politics and the future of this country. sorrynotsorrypod.com/episodes/empty…
🗨️ @C_Stroop and @Alyssa_Milano talk #EmptyThePews, #exvangelicals, and what the separation of state and church—or lack thereof—means for politics and the future of this country. sorrynotsorrypod.com/episodes/empty…
Remember...
🇺🇲The moment America becomes a Christian Nation, it ceases to be America🇺🇲
There is no freedom OF religion without a government that is free FROM religion.
🇺🇲The moment America becomes a Christian Nation, it ceases to be America🇺🇲
There is no freedom OF religion without a government that is free FROM religion.
As @profagagne pointed out, #SatanicPregnancy in this context doesn't mean what people think it means. Paula wasn't calling on God to abort people's babies. This is just spiritual warfare talk. So let's get weird. 1/
I have wine now, so let's go down the rabbit hole of Evangelical fascination with spiritual warfare. It's a little (a lot) weird. 2/
First of all, let's get something straight. A lot of people find the whole miscarriage statement as asking for God to abort babies. Just stop. Evangelicals, as a rule, do not equate miscarriage with abortion. You ain't convincing nobody of nothing by saying God aborts babies. 3/
Thread: My nephew sent me a link to an article about Evangelical terrorism in Brazil. I haven't really paid attention to Brazil, other than knowing it was right wing clusterf*ck led by a Trumplike maniac named Bolsonaro. But damn, this article is crazy 1/
washingtonpost.com/world/the_amer…
washingtonpost.com/world/the_amer…
If you think Evangelicalism in America isn't scary enough by itself, look at Brazil where it's become a powerhouse in just a few years. Keep your clutching pearls close by, though, because the U.S. is on the same path. 2/
Highlights in the story focus mostly on the "Soldiers of Jesus" an Evangelical gang which terrorizes religious minorities and forces them to shut down places of worship while wielding guns. Brazil has already seen children stoned by zealots. 3/
g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro…
g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro…
Kids know a bully when they see one.
Sometimes I think growing up, becoming "civilized," is a process of having a natural moral sense based around values like care & kindness brutally crushed & abused, until the point you can look at cruelty and see "strength"
That's why so many schools display such abject helplessness in the face of bullying -- they can't endorse it officially, yet they still recognize it as imparting all the desired lessons.
Because he tells them it’s okay to be those things.
I keep thinking about what my nephew said at Thanksgiving shortly after the 2016election. He worked with a bunch of “blue collar” Maga types & to him their narrative seemed to be:
“Ah, at long last, I can finally stop pretending to be a halfway decent person.”
1/ Robert Jeffress declared on Fox News that the move to impeach POTUS had angered Evangelical Christians and that if the effort was successful, would lead to "a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal." This shouldn't be suprising
2/ Jeffress is a Southern Baptist. The Southern Baptist convention exists as a reaction to abolition in the South. They were strongly opposed to the end of slavery and represented a powerful religious force for the South during the Civil War. civilwarbaptists.com/featured/slave…
3/ Southern Baptists history shows that, as a denomination, they were founded due to conflict and used to being on the defensive side of actual war as well as wars of words. When they have an authoritarian grip on the U.S. They are loathe to give it up.
