[gboone]

I can understand your view on it. My hope is to broaden your understanding of what Christian means so that you might ultimately say "so-called Christians".

The difficulty in your argument is you are suggesting that those who are NOT like these so-called Christians who are extreme and incendiary, be LIKE those and oppose/crush their efforts.

As we say in America, it's a free country. There is freedom of speech and it is the responsibility of the listener to work to make sure they are not being duped. Assuming you are a thinking person, allow me to share my view more.

I am a Christ-follower. I follow Christ. I don't follow Christians, organizations or politicians. A life of following Christ is a life of submission to Christ. I therefore will not be expected to do something contrary to what he has said to do. He has said to love my enemies and do good to those who persecute me or give him a bad name. I have been told to expect that there will be those who pretend to be real Christians but are not and are only doing things for their selfish gain. I have been told to expect that there will be times when I am criticized or ridiculed for simply identifying as a Christian.

So, as a Christian, I understand your point of view of them, but you might be misunderstanding me.

[feet]

See, I think I understand what it means to actually follow the ideals of Christ. I think it's a pretty good way to be. But that isn't my point here.

My point is that the image of Christianity is being twisted and used in the public eye and I haven't seen any actual Christians come out and condemn the behavior.

We have all these self proclaimed Christians in government, claiming to have God on their side. They keep getting voted in. Why do we still have homeless people? Why are there billionaires who take advantage of the poor? Why are they trying to control who can marry and how much control people have over their own bodies? Why do we have people going hungry while corporations throw away food to protect their profits? If these self proclaimed Christians in government really were, would they be writing and voting for legislation that help to enable the state of society that seems to be antithetical to what Christ taught?

I hear no actual Christians saying anything about it, but they keep voting. The result is people actively being harmed with Christ's name being thrown on top

[skissane]

You mention many of the ideals valued in contemporary society, especially by people who identify as liberal/progressive-and you seem to think they are “ideals of Christ”-but how likely do you think it really is that a 1st century CE founder of a Jewish apocalyptic sect would have actually agreed with those contemporary ideals? Even if you are convinced that they are entailed by his (reputed) teachings - how likely would he have been to agree with that entailment if it had been presented to him? And do you approach any other pre-modern religious leader in the same way?

[feet]

There was the whole eye of a needle thing about rich people, loving thy neighbor, feeding the poor...

[skissane]

But what did they see as the answer to social problems? Changes to government policies, or divine judgement in the afterlife and at the end of the world?

Rather than being a religion of the poor and downtrodden, early Christianity spread primarily among the middle and upper classes - and while it encouraged charity, and personal decisions to voluntarily renounce wealth, it never presented that as mandatory for its followers - if it had, it would never had succeeded as it did.

[feet]

So why are there people who call themselves Christians who want to make the US a theocracy? The people that those vote for enact incredibly harmful policies in the name of religious morality

[skissane]

A theocracy is a political system in which religious leaders have formal control over the state, and the state directly favours the doctrines of a particular established religious sect–it is standard in a theocracy for the head of state to be a cleric (bishop, mullah, ayatollah, lama, etc). Among internationally recognised sovereign states, there are only three contemporary examples of theocracies – Afghanistan (whose de facto head of state is the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, an Islamic scholar); Iran (whose head of state is its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei); and Vatican City (whose head of state is, of course, the Pope). I'm not aware of any significant movement advocating the adoption of such a political system in the United States.

[trelane]

> If these self proclaimed Christians in government really were, would they be writing and voting for legislation that help to enable the state of society that seems to be antithetical to what Christ taught

Maybe you should befriend some right-wing Christians and discuss this with them instead of complaining about them in this left-wing echo chamber? I suspect you don't really understand their perspective, and I don't think you truly care to. But, if you did want to actually understand, that would be my recommendation.

[feet]

The purpose of a system is what it does.

Ideals don't matter when you vote for politicians that enact harmful policies.