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Why Claim to be Christian When You Do Not Want to Follow Christ? [1]
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Date: 2025-07-18
Bystanders and more moderate Christians must be asking themselves how right-wing Christians became so confused about and angry at Christ and his teachings.
It seems obvious that if a group you belong to no longer reflects your values, you leave the group and find a different group. Why don’t these these conservative Christians just leave Christian teachings and the church behind?
They often seem to dislike the “old” view of Christ as a weakling who allowed himself to be bullied, condemned, and killed by the Jewish establishment and the Roman government.
One of many contradictions is that while they thoroughly dislike victims, they depend on Christ, a victim, for their salvation.
But victims are weak. Love is weak. Kindness is weak, Forgiveness is weak, Prayer is weak, Helping and caring for strangers and foreigners is weak. Turning the other cheek is weak.
Christ and his message are for weaklings and victims.
Christian values seem to have become repulsive to a great many Christians.
Christ was despised and rejected by the institutions of his day.
And now he and many of his most fundamental teachings are despised and rejected by right-wing Christians.
Of course, they have excuses provided to them by “conservative” media corporations and consultants. The Republican PR machine with input from conservative Christian leaders hatched these excuses in back rooms and rolled them out to conservative clerics who spread them to their congregations.
King Cyrus was after all anointed by God. So, God can choose whoever he wants to represent him on earth. Christian ethics are irrelevant. God’s will can negate them and render them unimportant or evil.
The high-powered ministers representing large Christian populations embraced these dubious theological claims with enthusiasm and were rewarded with paltry photo ops with the President and a change in the abortion laws.
They love the president’s power and his bullying and insults, his dislike of foreigners, his dominance of Congress and the Supreme Court.
They love his strength although it is totally “unchristian” in virtually every respect.
They believe he is chosen by God. They believe a chosen leader must be supported by Christians for them to gain their salvation. The chosen leader can therefore do no wrong and he has their unquestioning loyalty. He has loosened the constraints of Christian ethics to promote hatred, fear, insult, and vengeance as Godly.
But the President has the values of championship wrestling, and of the Roman Colosseum. He produces spectacles for their entertainment and tells them how he loves “his Christians.” He knows he “owns” a great many of them.
They are spellbound with their newfound power as he steamrolls his opposition, Congress, members of other religions, Democrats, the courts, and the Constitution.
Many positively love him for that and many more make excuses for him.
Everything is great on the surface for them. They are speeding towards theocracy and a “Christian nation” where people who do not agree with their narrow version of Christianity will be punished. But God will reward them.
But I assert that they do not sleep well at night. A house divided against itself cannot stand. They have become split personalities, with one side fighting the other for dominance. God and Satan are at war within them and lately Satan has been winning.
If they read their Bible, they will likely find themselves and their values to be on the side of Satan and against God. Better to only read The Book of Revelation – the rest of the Bible is irrelevant to the new “dispensation” (more theological misdirection and sleight of hand).
Believing in the coming end of the world is all that is needed to get into heaven. Ignore the rest.
They are at odds with 1500 years of Christian teachings, and deep down they know or at least suspect it. No amount of denial or ignorance can hide their heresy and rejection of traditional church teachings, of Christ’s teachings.
The irony that these modern conservatives dislike what previous generations of Christians believed and valued is lost on them. Conservatives are supposed to honor and respect the past. Their behavior renders the term conservative meaningless.
It seems better to just forget actual Christianity altogether as it becomes just a brand used for advertising purposes that promotes political power and group unity.
I predict the false claims of being Christian, of being followers of Christ, will eventually become too much of a burden. Christian nationalists will become simply nationalists – another group among many groups seeking political and economic power for themselves using Christ as a figurehead or logo to identify and promote their interest group.
The Roman government used a similar religious strategy to hold the Roman empire together as it became weaker and more corrupt. Christian unity and a theocratic government was a band aid for the Roman emperor to maintain and increase his power.
The tragic thing is that many sincere Christians have bought into this radical (and certainly not conservative) religious world view.
The right-wing Church certainly is ripe for major reform.
Conservative Christians need a modern-day Martin Luther to lead them out of their darkness. The reform can’t come soon enough.
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