To understand what’s going on today, we need to understand the 400 year story of Christian privilege in America.
The sexual abuse of teenage girls at Denton Bible Church is part of a pattern, becoming clearer and clearer, that links conservative evangelical theology to systemic injustice toward women.
Authoritarianism in Christianity is a feature, not a bug, and it is unlikely to change any time soon. Perhaps on its own it is a problem mainly to those inside the faith. But when Christian authoritarianism hooks up with fierce cultural reaction, it can become a profound problem for society.
[1]">Like authoritarian regimes throughout history and around the world, threats to cultural and political power are leading many on the Christian Right to fear declining national birth rates and promote traditional gender roles and having more babies for “the nation.”
White Christian Nationalism is being actively transformed into a theo-political program – and a grave threat to American Democracy.
The idea of opposition then is not about establishing a negative position for its own sake. Instead, to embody opposition here is to draw a line, and this line constitutes a limit-experience. It as if to say, ‘enough is enough.’ So, this opposition is an ending and a beginning.
The primacy of the inner type of freedom can produce a withdrawal from the world or an attitude of passivity towards its frustrating circumstances, particularly when the believer searches for real freedom exclusively inside the self irrespective of the conditions that exist in the broader socio-political environment.