Important to understand that there’s also a form of civil war going on within the Church in the US between the more liberal churches, which this pastor represents, and the conservative, evangelical churches, which Mike Johnson represents.
Can confirm.
In my town, a lot of the churches are more about peace and love and helping the community. They fly lgbtq+ flags. Their biggest outdoor events involve feeding homeless, or cleaning the parks.
They absolutely hate these mega church types, and often get lumped into the shit.
That sounds a lot more Christ-like (feed the hungry, give as much as you can to the poor etc) than whatever mutation the evangelicals are worshipping.
There’s a church near me that flies a pride flag. Now, I’m not Christian (or LGBTQ) so I wouldn’t go to pray there, but I was happy to see it. Too many places of worship make the news for how hateful they are. It’s nice to see one advertising how inclusive they are.
Again, I’m not Christian and thus not an expert on Jesus, but from what I know his message was a pretty good one. Help the poor, the sick, and anyone else who needs assistance. If more churches actually followed Jesus instead of screaming that the Bible says you should buy more guns, assault immigrants, hate people different from you, and worship Trump while giving the pastor as much money as possible, then maybe they would be in better shape.
Important to note that the sides are in like a 5:1 ratio and Johnson is on the larger side.
Also the liberal churches are far older and are shrinking; denominations and mega-churches who act like Johnson’s are growing.
Young people see it all as a bunch of bs, except the radical ones, which drives religion to greater and greater insanity.
It’s also a simple matter of funding.
The megachurches preaching prosperity gospel, cramming 10,000 people into a building, and hoarding their wealth (most don’t pay apportionments to a larger denomination that is used to fund service projects) find it easier to keep the doors open than the little churches that focus on compassion and community service.
It just dawned on me that evangelicals are the evangélicos in South America. Let me tell you, South America being 90% Catholic, we see evangelicals as crazy fanatics. If someone told me that an evangélico was part of the government in the country I grew up with, most people would immediately dismiss whatever they have to say about people going to hell or whatever.
I guess the only difference with this guy is that he’s wielding too much power, which makes him dangerous. But other than that, anything he has to say will be met with “sure, sure, old man, praise the lord whatever, go pray somewhere far away from me.”
You know, watching religion decline in the west largely as a result of the more fanatical like Johnson, I kinda hope their side wins so we can be done with it. There are few things that are more of a cancer on society (globally as well) than religion and the dogmatic approach to the world that it espouses.
