DiscussMormonism.com

Matthew Pridgen does a good job in a brief clip of identifying the discord within Christianity:

https://www.Facebook.com/reel/1125671266332061

There are a lot of different views within Christianity. There are a variety that are alien to me such as word of faith get rich schemes. I think MAGA is creating some unity in a diverse area. It's a unity not including a good many Christians themselves diverse.

The big division is over inerrancy, female pastors, and gay rights or inclusion. There are people on both sides of those differences who are against MAGA.

The Christian nationalism that animates a substantial portion of MAGA is not based in theological disagreements. It is a political identity movement using the wrathful God of the Old Testament as their role model.

Res Ipsa wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 28, 2025 6:39 pm

The Christian nationalism that animates a substantial portion of MAGA is not based in theological disagreements. It is a political identity movement using the wrathful God of the Old Testament as their role model.

Res Ipsa, I would like to take an alternative view just to help me sort some parts of the problem. Recently I have been reading portions of Proverbs. Someone once told me that such wisdom does not include some stronger spiritual doctrines. Perhaps or not. It is a hodgepodge of good and pretty good advice. Instead of fancy doctrine there is respect for what makes a person a positive contribution to society. I have some inclination to see that as fundamental and not a weak second to religious doctrine.

There is a difficulty, conventional conformity to social norms may get over valued. Or there is difficulty in determining the value of traditional norms and expectations which help people work together.

Conservative and maga leaning Christians want to express faith through support and strong allegiance to those traditions. Read no homosexual acceptance, no sex changes, it can go on to no women pastors or further to women stay away from the workplace to raise children.

I do not think this is particularly Old Testament, whose God's love lasts forever. It is a more present problem of how critical are Old traditions and when is change descent into chaos.

Hi Huck. Been a long time since I read Proverbs. I’m not surprised that one could find wisdom there. What I’m referring to is the vengeful God that ordered the slaughter of the Midianites. The one that commanded his chosen people to attack and kill the idolatrous.

Christian nationalists view themselves as a literal army of God straight out of the Old Testament. Many portray their opposition as literal demons and not fellow humans. It’s the same thing that led Chad to murder his wife and two children.

There is no resemblance to the Jesus of the New Testament.

Res Ipsa wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 29, 2025 1:48 am

Hi Huck. Been a long time since I read Proverbs. I’m not surprised that one could find wisdom there. What I’m referring to is the vengeful God that ordered the slaughter of the Midianites. The one that commanded his chosen people to attack and kill the idolatrous.

Christian nationalists view themselves as a literal army of God straight out of the Old Testament. Many portray their opposition as literal demons and not fellow humans. It’s the same thing that led Chad to murder his wife and two children.

There is no resemblance to the Jesus of the New Testament.

The old testament is bogus.

Res Ipsa wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 29, 2025 1:48 am

Hi Huck. Been a long time since I read Proverbs. I’m not surprised that one could find wisdom there. What I’m referring to is the vengeful God that ordered the slaughter of the Midianites. The one that commanded his chosen people to attack and kill the idolatrous.

Christian nationalists view themselves as a literal army of God straight out of the Old Testament. Many portray their opposition as literal demons and not fellow humans. It’s the same thing that led Chad to murder his wife and two children.

There is no resemblance to the Jesus of the New Testament.

Res Ipsa, I had to pause to respond. I was attempting to think about my sister's drift toward increasingly conservative Christianity. I am uncomfortable with it but view it as far away and remote relative to Chad. I see him as taking the worst Old Testament ideas distorting them with witch paranoia and amplifying that with delusions of personal power grandure and authority. It is religious imagination unhinged from personal and social responsibility filled with lust for power and intoxicated with delusions of imaginations.

I can see some conservative Christians imagining themselves as Joshua's army blowing their horns expecting the walls to tumble down.

In the Old Testament I see images of a God of War protecting his people and protecting social rules. There is also a God of social justice forgiveness and renewal. Those general ideas exist in all societies I think so the puzzle of how to negotiate them is not escaped from or left behind. The ideas are human whether one believes the religious story or not.

Thinking of Chad I was reminded to think witch fear and attacking witches is spread much wider than any religious tradition.

Sometimes when my imagination sees 666 on Trumps face I must remind myself witch panics should be avoided as they replace clear sight with noise.

As a targeting officer, my duties during the Iraq war included identifying and characterizing targets, developing weaponeering solutions against them, and performing collateral damage assessments in line with the Law of Armed Conflict.

Part of my internal reconciliation of Christian thought with participating in a war involved serious contemplation about the reasons we became involved, the manner in which we conducted warfare, and a sense of duty associated with military service.

My study led me to Augustinian “Just War” theory, as well as, frankly, a single passage in the New Testament in which soldiers ask John the Baptist, in Luke 3:14, that soldiers came asking what they should do. I believe those soldiers were among those uncomfortable with serving in a military capacity, and sought guidance. John simply told them “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be content with your pay.” That response was helpful to me.

While this anecdote doesn’t directly respond to questions about reconciliation of Old Testament conquest and violence with the Jesus found in the New Testament, it did introduce me to Augustinian thought, and by extension, Origen, and their responses to that tension.

The Church Fathers (Origen, at least) explained those wars not as a template for violence, but as a foreshadowing of the inner struggle every believer faces.

Origen said: “When you hear of these wars in Scripture, understand that they signify the wars of the soul. The Canaanites are the vices within us, the Hivites and Perizzites are our evil dispositions. We must not spare them but utterly destroy them, lest they live and become thorns in our sides.”

There are some modern echoes of this thought by theologians, though I am not certain the thinking is necessarily pervasive.