Donald Trump, a 77-year-old Bible salesman from Palm Beach, Florida, has emerged as the nation’s most prominent Christian leader. Trump is running for president as a divinely chosen champion of White Christians, promising to sanctify their grievances, destroy their perceived enemies, bolster their social status, and grant them the power to impose an anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, White-centric Christian nationalism from coast to coast. That Trump doesn’t attend church and has obviously never read the book that he hawks for $59.99, seems of interest exclusively to his political opponents.
What might catch the attention of some evangelical conservatives, however, is that Trump’s ostentatious embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, one-quarter of Americans in 2023 said they were religiously unaffiliated. “Unaffiliated” is the only religious category experiencing growth. In a single decade, from 2013 to 2023, the percentage of Americans saying that religion is the most important thing, or among the most important things, in their life plummeted to 53% from 72%.
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It’s not CinemaSins style, but Satan’s guide to the Bible is certainly an interesting watch.
https://youtu.be/z8j3HvmgpYc?si=Zrpy2pXIEcfcCl_u
I’m sure we weren’t the first generation to question religion, I’m your age and my dad did, and there were hippies and beatniks and I’m sure some version of freethinkers before that. My mom used church more like a social group and I think we ARE missing that in society now. But agree it’s reached a critical mass now in my kids’ generation, their friends from school mostly are nonreligious, a few are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu but overwhelming majority just not religious.
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Your last paragraph - I sure hope so.
My extended family all complains about how their church attendance is declining and people are being let go from leadership because the tithing isn’t coming in like it used to and etcblahetc…
I don’t fucking care. Burn. Topple. Go away. We’ll all be better off.
Religious affiliation often goes up under harsher times. If economic woes and global warming continue, I think we’ll see the trend reverse.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean Christianity, mind you. It might be some form of neo-paganisim. I’ve been noticing this trend among some of my ex-Christian friends.
Was also born in the 70s, feel the same way. I was raised Catholic, but we were taught that abortion and gay people were absolutely fine no matter what the church said. When I left home I left Catholicism simply because I didn’t relate to it, what does a voluntary eunuch have to say to a young woman about her life, was my reasoning?
But in the last few years I started going to a very lefty inclusive and completely welcoming non-denominational Christian Church. I still think much of the Bible is loony tunes, but applying some of the wisdom of the teachings of Christ to life is appealing to me, and there’s just something about singing in an old building with stained glass windows on a Sunday morning that feels sacred in a way nothing else does. This church is actively trying to find a path forward to be good humans together while acknowledging and trying to repair the damage Christianity has done, we have openly gay and trans people who attend and participate fully, and I don’t know why they all can’t be like that. Conservatives suck the life breath out of everything they touch.
Have you heard of the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible? It’s probably the closest thing to CinemaSins on the subject of the Bible.
A Youtuber called Mindshift is doing a secular bible study from the perspective of a deconverted evangelist, where he goes trough each book of the bible and points out its flaws. He’s got the Old Testamsnt down and will start with the new Testamsnt in a couple of weeks.
I recommend it, I think he has a lot of interesting views to share.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLecYLkaBsy1XKwQ5eWYwufAUnfrA-4tF
My understanding is that Christianity is dwindling in numbers but Islam and Judaism are growing.
I also think religion is on the downswing, I’m fascinated by how we’re seeing people like Trump accelerating it.
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LoL. Ya, one of those certainly isn’t known for forcibly converting people at the threat of death or for force converting part of an entire continent and not a single one of those raped choir boys was born into that environment.
This is the best comment I’ve seen online today and I’m not complementing you.