Formed in pure freedom of conscience, a branch of the American church is trying to destroy the freedom that birthed it.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2025/01/pseudo-christian-intruders-are-wolves.html

The term "pseudo-Christian" is accurate in describing the political extremists on the far right who have intruded--an accurate term--into conservative, Evangelical Christianity, as well as into other groups of Christians, including many American Catholics. I use the term pseudo-Christian, because many of these people have come from within the churches and denominations of far right wing Christianity in the United States, including a large number of Fundamentalists along the lines of Jerry Falwell, and the Pentecostals and Charismatics along the lines of Pat Robertson.

It would be difficult for Christians, committed to the theology, doctrine and practice of Christianity produced by following the gospel of Christ, to take the lead in identifying the intrusion, and then in isolating the message and preventing the perversion of Christians because so many of the people in these churches have been deceived themselves. One of the characteristics of those within the conservative, Evangelical branch of the American church is a strong resistance to any kind of formal, higher education among their pastors and clergy. This has produced doctrine that is based on a very literal rendering of English translations of the Bible, rather than on any study of the historical context in which it was written, the meaning of its original language, and the use of figurative and symbolic writing, or on any of the traditions that developed in the church, even before the New Testament was officially canonized and recognized as an authoritative document.

So, in this pseudo-Christian political movement, there is as much error, leading to practices that are contrary to every principle of the Christian gospel, and to widespread ignorance among a majority of members of the churches who have little knowledge or understanding of the Bible as an authoritative document for their church's faith and practice. That's made them easy marks for the deceitful phony nature of everything touched by the pathologically lying Trump.

The current push toward Christian nationalism comes through this particular branch of the Christian church, classified as "Evangelical" because of a heavy emphasis they place on conversion, and also their distraction from the economic inequalities, class struggles and racial discrimination in society, in favor of an emphasis on the afterlife, and on end-times scenarios and threats of the "judgement of God" on the nation because of the manner in which it has chosen to govern itself. It is a relatively new movement in the long history and tradition of the Christian church, almost uniquely American in its identity, with theology and doctrine created by clergy who lacked any formal education, or theological training.

It has existed and developed into what it is in an atmosphere of complete freedom of religion and conscience, preventing the state from interfering in any matters pertaining to the church, and now, a good segment of it wants to destroy the constitutional democracy that gives them the freedom to believe as they choose. How ironic is that?

[Karadeniz]

1. Ive been reading a lot about the original christian beliefs. You may not believe it,

but the four gospels and Paul's accepted letters all display many elements that show they could only have been written by early Gnostics. I won't go into all the proofs of that assertion, but there's a major difference in how Gnostics and Orthodox increased membership. For several centuries the Gnostics were by far the prevalent Christians. The Orthodox had to scramble for new members, so all an interested party had to do was to express belief in Jesus as savior and that was it. Like nowadays. But the Gnostics had a tiered education program that took quite a while to accomplish... and if a student showed no real affinity for spiritual reality, he was dismissed from the program. There were no set creeds or declaration of knowledge, because the teachers would have known if the applicant could be relied upon or not.

The Christian Nationals, fundamentalists, literalists, probably holy rollers couldn't pass a test to be a Gnostic Christian, although with schooling I'm sure some could. Now we see that unchecked inclusion, which sounds sweet, has the drawback of giving a shield to people who violate every Christian standard.