This post at Skepchick got me thinking about one of my bugaboos, the willingness of the press and most writers, no matter how liberal they might be, to call a certain brand of fascists that are common in this country “White Christian Nationalists”, a title that confers respectability on horrible people. They are not Christians, if you define a Christian as a person who believes in the teaching of Jesus, and while they may be “nationalists” that term is not one understood for what it is by most people in our polity.
It is a fact in this country that the more a person claims to be a Christian, the more likely they are to commit what the Christian religions formally label sins and the more likely they are to be against all the things for which Christ allegedly advocated. As an example, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, routinely lies to the press, which according to my understanding (I have an advanced degree in theology from Our Lady of Sorrows grammar school, formerly (god be praised!) in Hartford, Connecticut) violates the eighth commandment, which despite the fact that it was handed down to a Jew, is still binding on Christians. Those same professed Christians are also against things like helping the poor, sick and homeless, all things for which Christ advocated, choosing instead to make it even harder for the rich to get through that proverbial eye of the needle, by making their further enrichment their sole priority.
The post to which I’ve linked is about the fact that studies have shown what I and others who have escaped religion would have predicted: that people who move on from religion are most likely to drift left in their political views. That is, they are more likely to believe that one should actually live according to the principles for which Christ advocated than the people they left behind. I suspect this is particularly true of those, like Skepchick herself, who come from an evangelical background. As a point of information evangelicals are commonly referred to in this blog as “whackjobs”. The post also highlights the fact that more and more people in this country are replying “none” when asked about their religious preferences. This is not truly probative, but I have noticed on my Sunday bike rides that the whackjob churches I pass are generally pretty full, while the parking lots at the “mainstream” churches can be pretty empty. A number of those mainstream churches here in Groton have closed in the last few years, either replaced by whackjobs, or remaining empty, all of which supports the finding that “none” is rapidly becoming the religion of choice for many people, particularly those in the non insane (i.e., blue) states.
So, the long and short of it is that many, if not most, of the people in this country who actually believe in following the teachings of Jesus Christ are people who reject religion itself. They are the only ones who have a right to call themselves Christians. They may not believe in Christ’s divinity, but they agree with his principles.