With the unwavering support of the religious right for roughly five decades, conservative politicians in the US have engineered staggering levels of economic inequality—eroding democratic institutions and inviting the rise of authoritarian populism.

1/ Reagan leveraged racial resentment to give middle- and working-class (white) voters the false impression that their economic interests are served by cuts to government programs that benefit undeserving (Black) welfare recipients.

2/

Ralph Reed is former executive director of the Christian Coalition, and an old school evangelical grifter.

He garnered fame for leveraging his Christian Coalition connections to lobby for stricter casino regulations *on behalf of the casino industry* in the 90s and early 00s 🧵 Specifically, by his own admission, Reed accepted payments of no less than $1.23 million from a consortium of casino operations. (In 2006, a bipartisan Senate investigation found that Reed had accepted payments in excess of $5.3 million.)

Two hours ago, as an experiment, I posted this direct, verbatim quote from W.A. Criswell (SBC president, 1968-70, pastor of First Baptist Dallas for five decades, founder and namesake of Criswell College): Aspiring SBC luminaries @William_E_Wolfe and @colinsmo , among others, have declared the author a Democratic operative, a heretic, and an unbeliever who denies the divinity of Christ.

Let’s unpack this a bit.

The image evokes mid-20th C US.

So, assuming the happy couple is meant to be homeowners, their mortgage would be subsidized by federal programs—which programs were funded by a steeply progressive income tax (top marginal tax rate in the 90% range).

1/ The equity that accrues in that home—purchased with the benefit of government wealth redistribution—will be the single largest (and in all likelihood the only) source of whatever wealth these people pass to the children pictured.

2/

It’s commonly supposed that the problem with religious fundamentalism is that its moral commitments are too rigid. In fact the opposite is true: morality based in religious fundamentalism is infinitely flexible. In the hands of ecclesial authorities who’ve insulated themselves from expert critique, sacred texts become a vehicle for legitimizing all manner of ungodliness, injustice, and abuse, in the name of an Authority that is transcendent and therefore unavailable for interrogation.

The creation science industry has come to inhabit a kind of intellectual no-man's-land in which creation scientists advance ostensibly biblical and scientific claims while avoiding substantive engagement with either biblical scholarship or legitimate science.

https://twitter.com/drfrankturek/status/1811759260226687159

Over time, this intellectual no-man's-land has proven to be a hospitable base of operation for enterprising theologians and ambitious ministers who exercise social control by framing their opposition to "secular" expertise as the definitive "biblical view"—

Since @douglaswils is in the headlines with his National Conservative colleagues @yhazony , @albertmohler , and @HawleyMO , it’s worth revisiting some of Wilson’s written remarks on race and the institution of slavery in the US context:

🧵

According to Wilson, who self-identifies as a “paleo-Confederate,” Robert E. Lee was "a gracious Christian gentleman," and "Christians who owned slaves in the South were on firm scriptural ground."

🧵 I’ve had a lot of fun discussing my book on a number of podcasts recently. For those interested, here’s a thread with links to podcast interviews. Apologies if I miss any, I’ll be adding to this over the course of the day and I’ll add more as they are released. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/str…

Note that this is all stuff this guy just made up.

The evangelical marketplace of ideas is resplendent with the uncultivated intuitions of theological entrepreneurs…

1/ promoting “biblical” perspectives on geology, political theory, developmental psychology, economics, critical race theory, psychopharmacology, gender and sexuality, media and entertainment, public health, and on and on.

2/

Within authoritarian ecosystems, men in power often lie about their opponents in a way that desensitizes their audience to some unpalatable truth about themselves. Here Joe implies that David French and Russ Moore hold liberal democratic norms on par with scripture—an obvious falsehood.

True to form, Joe doesn’t state the falsehood explicitly—he merely implies it in a way that any competent language user understands.

It’s obvious that “this book isn’t meant to be read” doesn’t imply “I haven’t read this book.”

So obvious that one has to wonder: “How could any literate person draw such an inference?”

I have no idea, so I’ll let you and your friends wrestle with that question.

That said,

https://twitter.com/mesabo86/status/1753412128759857153

The substantive point is not in dispute: you didn’t read the book prior to commenting on it.

Here you speculate about what arguments are likely to be presented in the book (see screenshot—same screenshot from before, with relevant portion circled).

misogyny, white supremacy, and abuse

🧵

Here’s the head of the CBMW promoting an article published in American Reformer. American Reformer is an organization whose leadership has documented financial ties to a notorious white supremacist and pornographer.

Hello again, Megan.

I understand they deny that they are white Christian nationalists.

But denying something doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

And then there’s the fact that they go and say stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1707047054025867547

If you say that isn’t white Christian nationalism, the disparity in our understanding of what words mean is most likely such that it’s not worth attempting to converse on this or any subject.

What do pro-slavery theologians, creation scientists, and white Christian nationalists have in common?

https://twitter.com/scott_m_coley/status/1706750592247271907

The hermeneutics of legitimization: an approach to biblical interpretation that consistently produces moral justifications for social practices and institutional arrangements that benefit oneself.

This is philosophically and theologically illiterate.

Thread: Either Bathsheba was raped or she committed adultery. There is no gray area. If you say that she wasn’t raped, you are saying that she committed adultery.

In light of the latest controversy, here’s a casual reminder that Denny Burk *habitually* misrepresents the views of those with whom he disagrees.

POLL:

TEXT A is a transcript of my comments in an interview.

TEXT B is Denny’s summary of my comments in TEXT A. POLL #1: How would you characterize TEXT B as a summary of TEXT A?

Critics of Christian Nationalism point out that it impoverishes both Christian faith and liberal democracy.

Whether one finds these criticisms compelling depends largely on prior theological and political commitments. But an underappreciated reason for rejecting Christian Nationalism is that its vision of political economy is incoherent on its own terms—i.e., for reasons that operate independently of contested theological or political suppositions.¹

Here’s what I mean.

The reason that so many conservative evangelicals these days appear to be moral relativists is that they *are* moral relativists.

They would deny this, of course. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Here’s why. They’ve bought into the premise that all statements are either fact or opinion: facts are objective and verifiable; and everything else is opinion—subjective and unverifiable.

It’s been suggested that those who promote “wokeness” or “woke theology” should be regarded as false teachers. This claim reflects a kind of theological illiteracy that needs to be exposed.

I’ll start with a brief note about terminology, since it’s a source of much mischief. Critics of “wokeness” often identify concerns about systemic injustice with Critical Race Theory (CRT).

But you needn’t endorse CRT—or care anything about CRT, really—in order to be concerned about systemic justice.

What if America is just like all the other empires in human history?

What if America's power and wealth aren't a mark of divine favor, but merely a byproduct of empire-building? And what if, by mistaking the fruits of empire for God's blessing, Christian Nationalists have gotten themselves confused about the sorts of things that God favors?

If you have any affection for the name of Jesus—and even if you don’t—you should find this disturbing.

It’s not for me to say whether John MacArthur is a wolf, but I’ll say this: when a wolf howls, this is the sound it makes.
2010, folks. This was in the Year of Our Lord 2010. John MacArthur has been at the forefront of the anti-justice movement within white evangelicalism (which has spilled over into right wing politics at large).
And here he is, using the Bible to craft a myth that legitimizes racial hierarchy.