Why not distinguish the bad Christians as Evangelicals or Fundamentalists?
Answering a reader’s question.
Comment by Reader:
You know, I’ve been a Christian my whole life — and don’t disagree with your points. I realize folks like to paint with broad strokes — but how about using “Evangelicals” or “Religious Fundamentalists” or “Religious Nationalists”, or even my favorite “right-wing nut-jobs”?
This is like saying all white-woman are “Karens”… ~Zeke Woollett
Dear Zeke,
One of the most difficult understandings for Christians is that they are not diverse; they are a “mostly” homogenized group despite claiming not to be. The difficulty in understanding this point stems from the fact that Christians are indoctrinated with not just a faith but also by their various cultures that differ only in irrelevant ways except in the extremes, such as the fundamentalists. These cultures, only within the Christian worldview, hold importance but lack substantive meaning, e.g., who cares if Southern Baptists have ministers and Catholics have priests when they both want abortion outlawed? I have discussed this problem many times in the past as a form of Christian Washing, which allows the worst Christians to hide behind religious diversity. Just because a small number of churches or believers claim to be liberal does not make Christians a diverse group — at all.
The core belief in Christ, the Bible, values, and their political motivations consistently reveal the majority in consensus. This idea of diversity is further rendered nonsense in the fallacy of the “true Christian,” I also discuss at length to dismiss the idea of the Christian Imposters infiltrating the religion.
The majority of Christians vote Republican, and this voting evidences their belief in racist, authoritarian, theocratic goals since that is what the Republican party currently represents.
Calling the bad Christians “‘Evangelicals’ or ‘Religious Fundamentalists’ or ‘Religious Nationalists’, or … ‘right-wing nut-jobs’” is grossly inaccurate because of the small number of evangelicals and fundamentalists compared with the larger Christian mainstream populations. This Christian washing is part of the fraud committed by Christians, consciously or unconsciously, that makes it appear that somehow a small band of “fake” or “misled” Christians managed to elect a racist, authoritarian President when half the country did so, and, the majority of them were Christians, not fundamentalist Christians, but Catholics, Protestants, and other mainstream groups.
Blaming fundamentalists and evangelicals is a lie.
My article concerning satire, on which you commented about distinguishing Christians, holds one of the most important reasons for not differentiating them. If Christians are so biased they cannot rationally deduce the truth about themselves, referring to them as “evangelicals” or “fundamentalists” is a disservice since it provides a means to project criticism on others. Christian dominance in society places them in a power dynamic that allows them to excuse the religion or downplay its impact by governing which Christians get blamed and how we blame those Christians for the problems. This domination of the discussion makes satire one of the only effective means to criticize Christians.
Thanks,