Thread by @PnictogenHorses

I am not a #Christian; my friend Chara (who writes at @KrisAtLarge) is Catholic—albeit a heretical one—but I am no "believer". as I've said, I tend to leave religion to others.

all the same, it's tough *not* to have opinions about #Christianity—we're inundated with it.

(1/x)

in the United States especially, right-wing politics—which infallibly promotes an extremist and hyperpoliticized form of #Christianity—pours enormous effort and money into publicizing #Christian political demands.

@GOP politics and Bible-bashing are practically the same.

(2/x)

in fact, it seems like *all* public spokespersons for Christianity in the U.S. are political figures. #Christian @GOP politicians and activists and corporate executives proudly proclaim their purpose in public office to be the promotion of "Jesus" and "faith" and "values".

(3/x)

right-wing punditocracy is full of Christian moralists and crypto-theocrats‚ specially from ceremonial branches of Christianity: #Catholic hypocrites like @DouthatNYT and @sullydish, and #Orthodox hypocrites like @roddreher, freely publicize the superiority of their faith.

(4/x)

but what do these people *actually* believe in?

we can't go by what they *say*. people like @DouthatNYT and @MattWalshBlog (and all the preacher-grifters like @dalepartridge and @pastorlocke) are so inured to lying about themselves, they don't know when they're doing it.

(5/x)

they've been marinating in the values of The World™ for too long, the kill-or-be-killed world of #sales and #marketing and #business and #success—a world where anything goes, a world where a moral backbone is a liability. @dalepartridge &c. don't *really* have morals.

(6/x)

they *say* they do but in practice they're cutthroats, especially the preacher-grifters—because @dalepartridge and @pastorlocke and @PastorMark are only three pebbles in a *mountain* of money-grubbing #Christian leaders who view Jesus chiefly as a #business opportunity.

(7/x)

@dalepartridge has achieved some celebrity status, which tells us that he's almost certainly an unscrupulous and cynical businessman—in order to rise near to the top of the gigantic crowd of other preacher-grifters, Partridge has probably knifed a few people in the back.

(8/x)

that's how @JerryFalwellJr's spectacularly evil father, the fabulously wealthy and fantastically corrupt TV evangelist Jerry Falwell, got to be huge: he pounced on Jim Bakker's #Christian TV empire when Bakker was weakened by scandal, then *betrayed* Bakker not long after.

(9/x)

there's too many other examples of #Christian criminality. Christian leaders and preachers have embezzled money, committed fraud, sexually assaulted other people (even children, like @MattWalshBlog's pal @joshduggar), betrayed spouses or business partners...all of it.

(10/x)

to be *this* sort of #Christian, the right-wing @dalepartridge / @RepMTG Christian, is to be someone who has no permanent morality or ethics. they do any crime they want, and then they fake up a justification afterward: "Jesus forgave me so it's okay" is the usual one.

(11/x)

the standard #Christian defences, whenever the topic of rampant Christian criminality and immorality comes up in political conversations, is flat denial that the crimes matter. Everybody Sins™, we're told, and it's our job to be forgiving—whether we're Christian or not.

(12/x)

that brings us to a *genuine* belief that publicly-advertised #Christians adhere to, though the @PastorMark / @MattWalshBlog crowd will never admit it: they automatically assume that ALL human beings are obliged to honor the moral codes they themselves don't bother with.

(13/x)

@dalepartridge, @pastorlocke, @laurenboebert, all these people—none of these "Biblical" people, these @GOP-type Christians, practices forgiveness themselves. in fact these people are infallibly very *petty*. they're mean-minded, mean-spirited people who clutch to grudges.

(14/x)

forgiveness is how *we* are supposed to treat *them*—even if we're not #Christian and therefore not bound by their "Christian values" (whether @dalepartridge ever bothers to practice any virtues or not—it's not likely that Mr. Dale Partridge is in the habit of virtue.)

(15/x)

when a #Christian pharmacist of this sort sees a trans person with a drug prescription, the pharmacist pretends that this *stranger* before them ought to suffer the moral punishments not of the pharmacy customer's beliefs, but the extremist Christian pharmacist's morals.

(16/x)

the #conservative #Christian position on "religious freedom" says that the Christian pharmacist deserves special exemption, as if doing a secular pharmacy job was a religious duty—even though the pharmacist is supposed to fulfilling an impartial duty to the public.

(17/x)

so far as I know, none of the conservative editorialists who pretend to care about freedom so much have ever objected to this fraudulent extension of "freedom of religion" into the execution of *secular duties*.

there's one more thing I'd like to say about #Christianity.

(18/x)

it's a simple, short thing.

I've tried in this thread to elicit the true beliefs of such #Christians—not the self-flattering things that crooks like @dalepartridge SAY they believe, but their genuine motives. one is clear to me:

they're all *terrified* of #Death.

~Mona Drafter

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