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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> Politics, Religion (Tall Table) >> American Heretics /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1562877919 Message started by T And T Garage on 07/11/19 at 13:45:18 |
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Title: American Heretics Post by T And T Garage on 07/11/19 at 13:45:18 This looks good! I may have to check it out. (Sero, maybe you too?) Film Review: ‘American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel’ “American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel” is a documentary about an idea that’s now such a contradiction in American culture that it has come to feel like an oxymoron, or maybe an M.C. Escher brain teaser: liberal Christianity. I mean liberal in the classic sense (per Webster’s: “marked by generosity…associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom [and] greater individual participation in government”), and I also mean Christianity in the classic sense (the teachings of Jesus Christ). It’s far from counterintuitive to point out that those two things actually fit rather well together. So why is the political face of Christianity in the United States today exclusively, and dogmatically, Republican? Is it because Jesus himself would have cheered on tax breaks for corporations? Or would have embraced New York Times headlines like “‘There is a Stench’: Soiled Clothes and No Baths for Migrant Children at a Texas Center”? (Oh, sorry, I forgot: Jesus would never have read The New York Times. He’d be a Fox News Messiah all the way.) The central figure in “American Heretics” is Dr. Robin Meyers, the senior pastor of the Mayflower Congregational UCC Church in Oklahoma City, Okla., who wrote the fearless book “Why the Christian Right is Wrong” and has a singular knack for using words to reveal the bent morality of those who would claim the moral high ground. “The interesting thing about people who say they’re certain,” he observes, “is then you need no faith.” He’s talking about those on the right who have transformed Christianity into a closed system, a faith-based version of circular reasoning that reduces the world to two camps: Join with us, or you’re the enemy. But Meyers is also referencing what Christianity was before the absolutists got their ideological mitts all over it: a religion of mystery, of doubt as well as faith, of pain as well as salvation. The new mass fundamentalism doesn’t hide its priorities. They’re as real as the 40-karat rotating globe that sits behind the superstar preacher Joel Osteen during his megachurch sermons. (Jesus would have looked at that aspirational luxury orb and wept.) But in demonizing the Democratic Party, the Christian right has made it virtually impossible for liberal Christians to declare their faith in an organized fashion without feeling like…well, heretics. Jeanine Isabel Butler, the director, co-writer, and co-producer of “American Heretics,” shot her movie in Oklahoma because it’s one of the reddest states in America, without a single county that voted for Obama (or didn’t vote for Trump). The religion in Oklahoma is largely Southern Baptist, and Meyers, who has the high whitish hair and avuncular beard of an aging Christian summer-camp counselor, says, “I’m always joking that in Oklahoma you can be a Democrat or you can be a Christian, but you can’t be both. That would be peculiar.” But it’s the conviction of Meyers, and of other Oklahoma gadflies with congregations who the film profiles, that the movement of Christians against the Christian right is more than an anomaly — it’s an earthquake waiting to happen. Bishop Carlton Pearson, a fourth-generation Pentecostal who was the associate evangelist on Oral Roberts’ TV ministry during the ’70s, is now a liberal outlier, and he says it makes total sense that Christianity has forged an alliance with Donald Trump, since Trump comes close to the image of an angry vengeful (white) god that the new Christianity, with its “very parental and very punitive” model of morality, is selling. Pearson was a rising star of televangelism until he embraced the gospel of universal reconciliation and began to downplay the centrality of hell in Christian theology. In truth, there isn’t much of an image of hell in the Bible; most of the imagery we think of comes from Dante. But Pearson became a pariah, even within his own family, although he speaks here with great eloquence of finding “a new spiritual paradigm,” and predicts that churches like the Mayflower will be the new megachurches in the next 10 years. “American Heretics” is, among other things, a fascinating history lesson, especially when Bernard Brandon Scott, professor emeritus of Oklahoma’s Phillips Theological Seminary, discusses the ways that the codification of Evangelical righteousness is based on deeply flawed notions of how those certainties first came into being. Scott, who’s like a wilier Joseph Campbell, talks about what a scrappy and disparate and, at times, random document the New Testament is — and makes the point that the be-all-and-end-all faith now placed in the Bible as the defining totem of Jesus’ teachings is misplaced, since the Bible as we know it didn’t even exist until several centuries after Jesus’ death. Scott points out that in the formative years of Christianity there were female apostles, as well as images in catacombs all over the world of women praying. But that image of a devout woman as the archetypal Christian began to be suppressed with the council of Constantine, who sought to unify the Roman Empire and used the Nicene Creed as a thunderous manifesto that shifted Christianity from a religion of doing to a religion of, simply, believing. “American Heretics” is eye-opening, but it’s never explosive. What it shows us is several devoted men, and one devoted woman, the Reverend Lori Walke, trying to lead a movement by staying true to their own idealism. Yet the film shies away from showing us the conflict between liberal Christianity and the target-happy forces of the Christian right. In this movie, the movement that was started by leaders like Jerry Falwell in the late ’70s consists of people who have sold out Christianity (and maybe themselves) by turning it into a moral and political battering ram. It would be foolish to deny, though, that they’re more mesmerizing than the do-gooder heroes. It’s far more dramatic and commanding to see them flip “compassion” on its head, turning it into a movement of showbiz wrath, than to watch a bunch of true Christians try and save the world the old-fashioned way, one soul at a time. http://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/american-heretics-the-politics-of-the-gospel-review-1203262358/ |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by WebsterMark on 07/11/19 at 15:25:32 This looks good! I may have to check it out. (Sero, maybe you too?) Hmmm..... so you thought Sew, a fellow atheist and Democrat, would be interested to watch a movie who's thesis is to question the validity of the relationship between Christianity and Republicans so you could no doubt laugh and poke fun of all the apparent contradictions? I think you should stop for a minute and consider that you pretty much proved the movie is worthless. Think about it. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by T And T Garage on 07/11/19 at 15:39:19 7B494E5F58495E614D5E472C0 wrote:
Worthless for you perhaps. It sounds quite entertaining and spot on for me (I can't speak for Sero). To think that Jesus would be a republican in today's world is hilarious. I know the right tells themselves that, but it's not even close to being accurate. I'm not saying he'd be a die-hard dem either (what with all the sex scandals and what have you), but the liberal POV is far more leaning in his favor than the conservative one. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by Serowbot on 07/11/19 at 15:41:19 I think there may be some Christians questioning the morality of caging children, and grabbing women by the pu**y... Taking away people's healthcare, validating racist Nazi's, and name calling everyone. Here's a list of the 7 deadly sins... ...envy, gluttony, greed or avarice, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath. Which one of them doesn't Trump embody?... That's a trick question. ;D |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by T And T Garage on 07/11/19 at 15:50:11 1305120F17020F14600 wrote:
Game. Set. Match. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by WebsterMark on 07/11/19 at 15:59:36 My support as Trump for President over a leftist liberal has nothing to do with whatever belief he has. But from a big picture point of view, the Republican platform is more moral that the liberal platform. But again, that's morality as defined by mankind, not divinity. I'm not claiming Jesus as a Republican or a Democrat. You are at the very least labeling him as a non-Republican and then attempting to portray yourself as more worthy of him. Go ahead. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by Serowbot on 07/11/19 at 16:02:33 Jesus was a Buddhist. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by T And T Garage on 07/11/19 at 16:11:15 0D3F38292E3F28173B28315A0 wrote:
I think the ideals of the democratic party of today are definitely more in line with how Jesus is portrayed. You don't find it just a little hypocritical that the right-wing Christians embrace a guy like trump over someone like Obama? This brings me back to my post about how many, many of the people I used to interact with in my various church experiences were gigantic hypocrites when it came right down to it. They called themselves Christians, but rarely, if ever, acted like one. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by WebsterMark on 07/11/19 at 16:18:26 I don't buy that. The republican platform's "morality" can't be taken seriously when you have the likes of mcconnell and trump heading up the party. Its "morality" isn't worth the paper it's printed on. As compared with who? I think the ideals of the democratic party of today are definitely more in line with how Jesus is portrayed. I don't think so. This could lead down a big rabbit hole which could be fun, but I'm out of town for work and going to eat. Going to spend about $75 on a steak dinner which I presume while very Republican is not very Christian is it?.... This brings me back to my post about how many, many of the people I used to interact with in my various church experiences were gigantic hypocrites when it came right down to it. They called themselves Christians, but rarely, if ever, acted like one. And I've met more who would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by Eegore on 07/11/19 at 16:30:13 "They called themselves Christians, but rarely, if ever, acted like one. And I've met more who would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it." Aren't those two very different things? Couldn't one donate every dollar they ever had, live out of a car and give billions of dollars to orphans, cure cancer, eradicate hunger, give someone every shirt off of their back and still not act like a Christian? I would have to say most Christians I know act nothing like the portrayals of Christian behavior indicated in what I know of the Bible. If anything the only constant is that they are all sinners, but are working on getting better using strength from God, and ask to be forgiven. Some can be very charitable even. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by T And T Garage on 07/11/19 at 16:38:47 5F6D6A7B7C6D7A45697A63080 wrote:
Sure, if you're white, right? |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by thumperclone on 07/11/19 at 18:55:14 1107100D15000D16620 wrote:
Jesus was a Jew. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by WebsterMark on 07/12/19 at 06:11:34 And I've met more who would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. Sure, if you're white, right? oh please..... massive eye rolling..... |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by WebsterMark on 07/12/19 at 06:12:51 This could lead down a big rabbit hole which could be fun, but I'm out of town for work and going to eat. Going to spend about $75 on a steak dinner which I presume while very Republican is not very Christian is it?.... OK...Whatever. (why the need to tell us you're going to spend $75 on a steak? Is that you being a big shot, or being taken for $60?) Maybe a lame attempt at humor? This forum isn't life or death.(And it turned out to only about $40) |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by Serowbot on 07/12/19 at 07:24:16 Was it a Trump steak?... |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by WebsterMark on 07/12/19 at 08:05:35 Trump steak? You mean one that wins all the time? No. Clearly that steak lost its battle against my knife and fork. |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by Serowbot on 07/12/19 at 08:42:06 I'm alluding to yet another one of Trump's myriad failed business ventures. Of course, any trump steak should be cooked well-done enough to stand on edge and then smothered in ketchup... Top it off with some Trump spring water or vodka. So many fails, so little time. Thank God for daddy's deep pocket bail-outs.... |
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Title: Re: American Heretics Post by thumperclone on 07/12/19 at 15:29:28 5741564B53464B50240 wrote:
Nathans' tube steak |
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