Members of the Christian Right may not realize this, but objectification takes at least two forms. Donald Trump is expressing the most obvious and direct form of it. But his Christian critics are, themselves, expressing the other form of it without even realizing they’re doing it–or why.
Members of the Christian Right may not realize this, but objectification takes at least two forms. Donald Trump is expressing the most obvious and direct form of it. But his Christian critics are, themselves, expressing the other form of it without even realizing they’re doing it–or why.
Fundagelicals and Republicans alike went into full damage-control mode the second this tape surfaced. They rightly sensed what a complete, unmitigated disaster it represented for their standard-bearer–and their own image. And as they panicked, so did Billy Bush. Remember, though he comes from a very religious family, he’s not terribly fervent. But Donald Trump’s supporters sure are. So both his and their responses are going to look very familiar.
They’re doing everything they know how to do as best they can, and yet they are not being rewarded by Jesus with their free boyfriend or girlfriend.
Christian leaders themselves can spin-doctor the latest bad news as much as they like (and oh, they have been!), but reality is unfolding in their ranks whether they like it or not. Their flocks don’t have the luxury of denial. They’ve had to come up with strategies for dealing with the new reality of Christianity’s demographic shift, most of it in direct defiance of their leaders’ demands.
The Public Religion Research Institute just released a new study they completed about Christianity in America. It is eye-opening and genuinely shocking, and not only for the reasons that Christians are seeing. There are some hidden messages in this study that they’re not seeing, encoded thuds of Moria drums that foretell a catastrophe for the religion that is coming–and quickly.
Located on a site called Bible Reasons and called “25 Reasons Why The World Hates Christians And Christianity,” his screed didn’t exactly inspire me to trust its level of accuracy. Christians don’t tend to have a very firm grasp about how non-Christians see them and their religion. But it did provide some insight about just where right-wing Christians in particular are deceiving themselves.
You’re probably noticing a common thread running through the messages and media aimed at fundagelicals these days: this idea that they are in the very beginnings of a desperate and dire time of dreadful persecution. And we’re not talking about this persecution happening in some third-world theocracy, either, but right here in good ole Murrka! This fantasy American Christians have concocted has them teetering on the very threshold of the end of the world.
We might laugh about or mock Christians who have entirely too high an estimation of themselves or too dramatic or fictionalized an interpretation of their experiences, but the problem of inaccurate self-perception is real–and it doesn’t go away upon deconversion from religion.
This response is something I’m starting to call the Oncoming Bus Gambit. Chances are you’ve heard it many times yourself–it’s very common among Christians of an evangelistic bent, who employ it to rationalize their mistreatment of other people. And it fails just like all of their other rationalizations. Today I’ll show you what the Gambit is, how to spot its variations, why it fails, and how to defuse it.