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“The Evangelical “brand” has gone from being an asset to a liability, and it is helpful to understand the transition in precisely those terms.”
Back before 9/11 indelibly linked Islam with terrorism, back before the top association to “Catholic priest” was “pedophile,” most Americans—even nonreligious Americans—thought of religion as benign. I’m not religious myself, people would say, but what’s the harm if it gives someone else a little comfort or pleasure.
Back then, people associated Christianity with kindness and said things like, “That’s not very Christian of him,” when a person acted stingy or mean; and nobody except Evangelical Christians knew the difference between Evangelicalism and more open, inquiring forms of Christianity.
Those days are over. Islam will be forever tainted by Islamist brutalities, by images of bombings, beheadings, and burkas. The collar and cassock will forever evoke the image of bishops turning their backs while priests rub themselves on altar boys. And thanks to the fact that American Evangelical leaders sold their congregations to the Republican Party in exchange for political power, Evangelical Christianity […]
I abhor the continual use of the word “evangelical” to describe a certain group of “Christians.” IMHO, these who (1) call themselves “evangelicals” or (2) are called “evangelicals”, have nothing whatsoever to do with the Jesus of the Gospels — the radical Jew, the socialist who was against the status quo, the healer, the one who was inclusive – the man who was executed by the Romans.
I await the time when those who takes Jesus’ words seriously begin to identify these people as demonists or such like. So long as they are considered ‘brothers in Christ’ or what have you by other Christians, you are tainted by them. The deity they worship, were it human, would be locked up as criminally insane. It seems to me it is up to Christians to make that case.