"Conservative" Christianity: An Evil in America and Russia

As regular readers of this blog know, I am no fan of much of organized religion and particularly "conservative" Christians in America who either inflict evil on others in their quest to force their version of religious belief on all or sit quietly as evil occurs around them.  Their view of freedom of religion is reserved for themselves and everyone can literally go to hell.  So too can democracy if it gets in the way of their agenda as evidenced by the strong presence of white Christian nationalists among those who sacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.  Worse yet, much of the self-annoited leadership of "conservative Christianity" - think Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham and a host of scamvangelists - is motivated not by any desire to spread Christ's true gospel message but instead by a thirst for power and control and, of course, personal financial enrichment.  As a column in the Washington Post lays out the phenomenon is not unique to America. Just as white Christian nationalists flocked to Donald Trump's standard, in Russia religious conservatives are supporting the incredible horrors being done in Ukraine. In return for renewed power and wealth, the head of the Russian Orthodox  Church is lauding Russia's slaughter of civilians, including children and youths.  Here are column excerpts:

On a Sunday morning this month, Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, stood in the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces outside Moscow and called on Russian soldiers to “love our fatherland … protect it, as only Russians can defend their country.” A vocal supporter of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Kirill disdains liberal culture and the acceptance of homosexuality. And he blames the West for the conflict. Of the thousands killed and wounded in Ukraine, Kirill preached, “All these are people of Holy Russia. They are our brothers and sisters.”

An established voice in Christendom, Kirill also links Putin spiritually with God. When Putin convened a February 2012 meeting of religious leaders in advance of his campaign to win a third term, Kirill called the 12 years of his rule a “miracle of God.”

How different from here at home?

Donald Trump incited the Capitol insurrection intended to reverse the 2020 presidential election. Still, White evangelical Christian leaders flock to meet with him at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. “They do believe he’s a man who loves our country, and he’s embraced policies that are in keeping with the truth of God’s word and that’s why they selected him,” said Robert Jeffress, pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas and a close Trump ally.

How deep and abiding a faith?

On Jan. 6, 2021, some Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol carried signs declaring “Jesus Saves.” After taking over a Senate chamber hastily abandoned by Vice President Mike Pence, senators, congressional staffers and security personnel, the rioters — some clad in body armor — invoked the name of Christ as they bowed their heads and prayed. They believed they were doing the Lord’s work.

Putin’s and Trump’s people, separated by an ocean, are united in defining their countries in a view of Christianity that they believe must be fought for and preserved.

Thus in a statement before the Ukraine invasion, Kirill charged that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv was infringing on Ukraine’s Moscow-linked Russian Orthodox Church, and that Putin’s “high and responsible service to the people” required Russia’s armed intervention. The troops, Kirill said, should have “no doubts they have chosen a very correct path.”

Just as Trump stood in a small Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa, in January 2016 and said in his campaign speech, “I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it.”

“Christianity will have power,” he said. “If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”

[H]e told his crowd of supporters on the National Mall before hundreds of them marched on the Capitol, “We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen.” The Biden presidency had to be challenged, he argued.

“If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.” And on the afternoon of Jan. 6, they fought like hell, as he demanded.

This kind of White Christian nationalism has been seen at work before. And Christianity has been seen at rest, too. Both modes wreak havoc.

We saw White Christians in the South sit serenely in their pews listening to what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” as blatant injustices were inflicted upon Black people. We can’t help but notice the absence of moral sensibilities in many of today’s Christian churches, as right-wing Christian nationalists, in the name of Christ, try to overturn elections, attack voting rights and convert this country into a living hell for all unlike themselves, especially people of color and members of the LGBTQ communities.

Just as Kirill’s Russian Orthodox Church is getting away with giving aid and comfort to a Kremlin butcher of innocent souls in Ukraine.

And there it is: the sins of commission and omission — both willfulness and the failure to do what is right — played out before our very eyes, at home and abroad. Without an ounce of repentance in sight.

When added to Christianity's history of murder and mayhem against non-believers in Europe and during the European conquest of the Americas and Africa and during the religious wars between rival branches of Christianity, it's hard not to see much of Christianity as an outright evil.