Faith without morality or theology, much less that "soyboy" Jesus? Sign Republicans up!

Faith without morality or theology, much less that “soyboy” Jesus? Sign MAGA Republicans up!

Earlier this week, Donald Trump unveiled his newest grift to squeeze money out of his cult followers: Trump-branded Bibles. Claiming the book contains the “King James version” and “also includes the Founding Father [sic] documents,” Trump promised “you have to have it for your heart, for your soul.” The screenshots of the video are funny by themselves, but I highly recommend watching the ad Trump cut for these Bibles. Trump radiates total contempt for Christianity.

This is Trump in his angry-bored mode, letting viewers know with his listless tone and posture that he thinks all this Bible stuff is dumb. The not-at-all subtle message of the video is that Trump doesn’t believe any of this faith-in-God crap, but he definitely believes in using Christian identity as a weapon to make money and dominate his foes.

Many Trump opponents on social media replied with video clips underscoring how Trump may be the single most ignorant person in the country about the contents of the Bible.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
    1301·
    9 months ago

    It is not for the followers to buy, although they probably will buy some number of them. It is chiefly a money-laundering vehicle for people to channel money to Trump without it being an official contribution. It is an update to the tactic of mass purchases of conservative-politician books which no one is planning on reading.

  • locke@sopuli.xyz
    66·
    9 months ago

    If I was a christian, I’d be 95% certain that Donald Trump is the anti-christ.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
      43·
      9 months ago

      I am, and I am.

      And really, a lot of Bible scholars think that the word “antichrist” from the Epistles of John isn’t referring to a single person, but to a progression of people who try to destroy Christianity by either killing Christians (Caligula, Nero) or by tricking them (Arius, Constantine). There’s a whole theme in Protestant literature during the Reformation where Luther and other reformers call the Pope or even the institution of the Papacy “antichrist.”

      So even if Trump isn’t the capital-A Antichrist some people say will come with the Tribulation, he’s definitely deceiving Christians by using the name of Christ in order to amass personal power; which means he’s definitely an antichrist.

      And on that level, I think the American church needs a new Reformation.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        17·
        9 months ago

        I think America as a whole needs to come to serious questions about our relationship with religion and our nation. At this point it is clear that christians of most denominations in our country, even Catholics, are struggling to separate their religious beliefs from nationalism. And it’s getting worse. It got easier to see as I began intentionally dechristianizing my paganism.

        To put it bluntly, the difference between how many American christians treat the founding fathers and how many Catholics treat the saints is smaller than many would like to acknowledge. They don’t want to hear that these men were flawed humans whose ideas had problems and they knew it and that they knew they’d be damned by their sins against humanity. They want to treat noted deist Thomas Jefferson as though the was Thomas aquinas and fully sanctified. The American civil religion is killing Christianity

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
          8·
          9 months ago

          the difference between how many American christians treat the founding fathers and how many Catholics treat the saints is smaller than many would like to acknowledge.

          That’s fantastic and absolutely correct.

          They want to treat noted deist Thomas Jefferson as though the was Thomas aquinas and fully sanctified. The American civil religion is killing Christianity

          You may be a pagan, but that’s one of the best Christian sermons I’ve read in a while.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
            5·
            9 months ago

            Thanks, I’m catholic raised and educated and had a childhood priest who was very much like Sazed and encouraged me to think for myself. Christianity is the religious water we swim in and air we breathe and in that it becomes nothing but a symbol of in group status. Turning the other cheek goes from a command from one’s god on how to live your life to a platitude like a penny saved is a penny earned. And by that means with the justification of sola fide and sola gratia and a handful of calls to violence, a religion that can demand radical pacifism eventually finds its way to ripping the tongues out of the living skulls of those who profess our non belief. Christianity when it holds the power of the state has never been a religion of peace because by handing it the power to do violence those who wish to do violence celebrate this justification and warp it to whatever ends justify it. The American civil religion is one manifestation of this but it wasn’t the first. And my religion is no better on that front. Eventually the religion falls to the power it holds.

            And these people don’t even understand that they are apostates as much as I am. We have all rejected the teachings of Christ. But I rejected them knowingly, I didn’t buy it and found my way to a religion that spoke what my soul had ached to hear.

            And I should be clear here, when I call the founding fathers deists I don’t mean it as the same as the deists of today. Deism of the time was a hedging of one’s words against religious violence. To deny the Christian god outright was not safe even when you were founding a nation. The professions of belief under duress no matter how mild cannot be taken as certain though we also cannot boldly assume they’re not true either.

            • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
              2·
              9 months ago

              Indeed, Christianity was never meant to have power. Christ laid his power down in order to found the religion itself. The progenitor of Christianity—ancient Judaism—was the religion of a nation hemmed in on all sides by enemies, always on the ropes, often carried away to captivity. It is constructed upon a trust in God, not earthly power; and so when it has earthly power, the entire foundation crumbles.

            • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              I’m catholic raised and educated and had a childhood priest who was very much like Sazed

              It’s been remarkable to me how spiritually valuable Mistborn is. I guess I’m not alone.

              • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
                2·
                9 months ago

                Oh absolutely. And it’s not just Mistborn, all of Sanderson’s writing is deeply infused with thoughts on religion that are seriously considered and I find spiritually valuable. Mistborn is probably the most hard hitting to my experiences as someone who left Christianity initially due to its use as a cudgel against me. And the way that era 2 shows kelsier treated is very insightful.

                Elantris hits pretty hard on its takes on religion where there are two dead gods and a religious war. Stormlight feels like a scathing critique of America and its Christianity with the Alethi also worshipping a dead god, but also deeply following absurd and stupid religious rules. They worship Honor and have none. It’s also a fantasy take on the author’s religion of Mormonism where you can see some of his struggles with it but also his valuation of it.

                And that’s not even getting into Sanderson’s depiction of sacred violations of gender roles which absolutely must be noted.

                Yeah I can really geek out about this. The only author to come close in speaking to me religiously is Pratchett.

                • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  Yeah I can really geek out about this. The only author to come close in speaking to me religiously is Pratchett.

                  I feel like I’m reading something I wrote right now. 😂

                  Have you read the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks? It’s not quite as good as the Cosmere works, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and it plays with some similar themes. It’s also a great hard magic system.

        • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          9 months ago

          I get tired of the argument from conservatives that the US was founded on Christian ideals, because it wasn’t. Instead it was designed to resemble Christianity, much like how Christmas co-opted Saturnalia. The US Civic religion was meant to bring together disparate groups of people with a common belief system. At some point I think this religion actually replaced Christianity in the US. If those J6 rioters had looked up they would’ve seen the Apotheosis of Washington and realized that’s who they are actually worshipping.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
            4·
            9 months ago

            I don’t even know how much they intended for it to become a replacement religion. These were enlightenment philosophers. It was their grandchildren forming a religion around it. A secular nation building monuments to its models makes a certain sense, but they become deified. And as you say we sit in the shadow of statues of our fellow humans.

            And the thing is I’m not even immune to all this. I live in fear of American nationalism but by fuck sometimes I still find myself appealing to the authority of men who I believe to be genuinely monstrous. I still struggle to remove Lincoln from his pedestal.

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 months ago

          Ahh, sorry, that’s a bit of Christian-ese. So, within Christianity, we actually think of “church” as being a word that means…basically like four related but distinct things.

          1. It can mean “every Christian who has ever lived” (usually you see that form capitalized, as “the Church.”)

          2. It can mean “a particular expression/denomination/subset of that universal Church” (e.g. Presbyterian, Pennsylvanian, Peruvian, etc.)

          3. It can mean “a local congregation that meets and worships as a group” (e.g. Downtown First Baptist of Nowheresville)

          4. It can mean “the building where that congregation meets” (e.g. 123 N Main St, Nowheresville, PA)

          There are some other, lesser-used definitions of that word, but in the end you kind of have to figure it all out by context. “The American Church” is a pretty common term in some circles, referring to meaning #2–a particular subset of the global church in America. The reason it’s particularly common in the circles I run in is because we talk about it like a toddler that’s running around smearing poop on everything and knocking glassware off of tall shelves, and laughing at anyone who tries to tell him to stop.

    • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      212·
      9 months ago

      Honestly that fact alone makes me question my atheism sometimes.
      He fits the bill for the Antichrist in Revelations almost word for word, his followers wear his mark on their foreheads, it’s been 7 years since he gained power, and there’s a war in the Middle East that has the potential to spiral into World War III, which would be Armageddon.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
      12·
      9 months ago

      Funny thing: there are well meaning christians who are >51% convinced that he actually* is*, and they’ll still vote for him.

      Speeds up the end times apparently

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
    544·
    9 months ago

    I think the point that everyone is missing here is that MAGAts aren’t Christians and never have been. Christianity is one of many identity sticks they whip out to beat others with: see, you’re not Christian like us, therefore you’re bad; same with race, class, perceived social status, gender, etc. Their arguments aren’t logical or consistent because they don’t need to be, they use whatever convenient weapon is at hand to justify whatever violence they want to inflict at the moment because the infliction of violence is the point. They don’t give two shits about Christianity and will only hang on to it as long as it’s a useful weapon. Hence the trump bibles, now that Christianity isn’t as useful as mango Mussolini’s cult of personality get ready for the Bible thumping to fall by the wayside - the Trump Bible is just a transitional weapon along the way.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      372·
      9 months ago

      I get what you’re saying, but Christianity has been used for literal millenia to justify atrocities.

      This is Christian behavior. They follow a “different Jesus” than humanist Christians, but as someone who grew up in an Evangelical church, they 100% believe that they are the true heirs of Jesus’ message.

      • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
        45·
        9 months ago

        And this is why Abrahamic religions must be either heavily regulated or abolished outright. No, I dont GAF about your First Amendment from 250 fucking years ago

    • EatATaco@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      This doesn’t make sense to me. Christianity has been a theme of these people long before Trump came around. The evangelical vote had been courted since at least the 80s. It’s not some new phenomenon and they’ve latched onto trump, they aren’t a creation of him, and they’ll be around voting along with their religious beliefs long after he is gone.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
      21·
      9 months ago

      Nah don’t do that. They are Christians. If you’re a Christian, it doesn’t help to act like these people aren’t the ugly side of your religion. Christianity led to much of their prejudices and intolerance, and I hate the “they’re not a REAL Christian” argument that simply brushes these people away as not real, so you don’t have to face that many many Christians are this hateful. But they are.

  • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    9 months ago

    Fundamentalist Christianity makes a mockery of Christianity. This is perfectly on brand for them.

  • 4grams@awful.systemsEnglish
    18·
    9 months ago

    I can’t wait to see these decorate the homes of my “religious” turnip loving family.

  • Ludwig van Beethoven@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    13·
    9 months ago

    As someone raised Catholic, and now just generally Christian who goes to mass whenever I feel like it, if any politician ever uses the religion card, I might just commit some act punishable by the TEK (Hungary). /hj obviously, but ffs man! Freedom of religion is being eroded by the Hungarian government as well. Why does anyone’s faith have to control others’?

    So as a technically Catholic: I am not persecuted. I am being privileged way too fucking much.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      3·
      9 months ago

      You’re being privileged but by privileging you they’re taking away something from you in the process: the right to grow and change. Even if you never do the freedom to do so is liberating

      • Ludwig van Beethoven@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        The brainwashing is mental. Just about a month ago some secretary of state came to our town and preached that ‘science without faith is science without morality (and that is bad), so therefore teaching without teaching faith is teaching immorality. West does that, West bad.’ On 15 March, the national holiday, our dictator Vezető prime minister preached the same thing.

  • MilitantVegan@lemmy.world
    41·
    9 months ago

    Came in to ask, “Is it kjv? Is it kjv? I bet it’s kjv.” Didn’t even have to ask, of course it is.

    But it includes the constitution? In a sense that’s almost too on the nose - if you’re familiar with fundamentalist hermenuetics, then the parallels between their exegetical methods, and the constitutional interpretation methods of conservatives is too clearly identical to be accidental.

    There are likely some Christians - even fascist ones, maybe particularly them - who likely find this offensive because they interpret it as an attempt to “add to the Word of God.” The freaky thing is there is a nonzero chance that some Christians might actually see this as an “inspired” event, and embrace these added documents as being canonical parts of the Bible. Just as Trump is doing a fantastic job of cleaving the republican party in two, could we be witnessing what could turn out to be another major schism within the Christian sects?

    Aside, this quote from the article doesn’t seem entirely accurate to me. While it is true that there are likely a lot of conservative Christians that this portrays, it should also be known that some of the most passionate and dedicated fascists view the Bible as the only actually legitimate law, and most definitely study it as dutifully as a trained lawyer:

    “Not that it matters, of course. The pages of Trump’s “Bible” could all be blank, and there’s a good chance no one would ever know it. In the right-wing publishing industry, books are not made to be read. They are to be displayed on your shelves, unopened, so you can glance at them and feel that somewhere, a liberal is “owned.””