Since I'm a rare Millennial evangelical here, I'll give my two cents:
1. Christian Zionism is always and everywhere a Boomer phenomenon. I've intentionally brought up the topic with Millennial and Zoomer conservative Christians of my acquaintance many times. All I've ever heard is utter apathy towards the state of Israel. It might as well be Myanmar as far as they're concerned. Those raised in Christian homes will sometimes think of it as this weird or funny thing that dad is into that causes them to roll their eyes.
2. Within the church, this generational change seems to be driven by a combination of the rise of Reformed theology (which has historically taken a dim view of Dispensationalism and assorted premil eschatological weirdness) and the rise of more "seeker-friendly" non-denominational churches that try to stay away from eschatological weirdness for more tactical reasons.
3. It's worth noting that guys like Hagee do not interface with -- and exist independently from -- what we might call "core evangelical institutions". Hagee doesn't interface with what's known as "Big Eva", i.e. the evangelical establishment: The Gospel Coalition and the like. Nor is he part of the SBC. To my knowledge he's not at all allied with, nor does he overlap with, what we'd think of as the various "celebrity pastors" that sometimes generate followings and controversy.
4. I have heard a fair amount of over-the-top, religiously-grounded Zionism and philo-semitism when I talk to Boomer Southern Baptists (many of whom have never really interacted with a Jew; I live in a county with zero Jewish places of public worship). I have such an acquaintance that tells me his top three issues are "pro-America, pro-life, and pro-Israel".
But like Inez, I've never heard the end-times arguments as a reason for support. By far the verse most commonly cited is Numbers 24:9: "Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed." For the record, I understand the church to be Israel and therefore understand this as a reference to the church, not to the post-1948 secular state.
Isn’t that sort of the Trump story? His strength I think hasn’t been with mainstream evangelical institutions, but outside of them. Like Hagee, he seems not to need it while reaching a lot of people who call themselves Evangelicals.
That's fair, but it's worth highlighting the divide.
There are a lot of what we might think of as normal evangelicals who are strong Trump supporters. But over-the-top Christian Trumpism seems to be led by figures that are marginal, obscure, or even deemed heretical within mainstream evangelicalism. And not only seen that way by elite leaders, but by many ordinary people in the pews. Paula White comes to mind here as well.
It's difficult to be an over-the-top Christian Trumpist, because it's very obvious to anyone who pays a smidge of attention that DJT is an atheist. So you have to lie and contort heavily even by the standards of crazy evangelicals, or just be very low-info. He would've fit in much better in the alternate universe where Gore won Florida in '00 and DJT ran as a Populist Democrat. It's even more embarrassing than trying to watch Obama -- who was raised entirely by howlies and Indonesians -- fit in with what used to be known as the American Negro community before that commie asshole Stokely Carmichael convinced everyone the term was offensive. At least there's some biological component to race that brings some commonalities to people who don't actually have any meaningful cultural connection, so it makes some sense for a community to cluster together even when said people pretend they're not solely doing it for biological reasons.
I recall someone who spent time in Syria's Christian community once sharing with me that they have an over-the-top local mythology when it comes to the goodness of Assad (their protector vs. Islamist forces). For example, that he will go about in secret and do good deeds for people, much like Good King Wenceslas. That anything bad said about him is lies and propaganda.
Now, it should be plain to anyone that Assad is just another self-interested dictator doing whatever he must to hold onto power. I can't help but feel the Trumpist "contortions" you describe represent the same psychological impulse, for a certain type of person who feels sufficiently embattled by the culture.
Much as I agree with you, in many ways, that's an insult to Syrian Christians. Bashar kidnapped a thirteen-year-old boy, cut off his penis, and tortured him to death for the crime of attending a non-violent protest against his shithole, parasitic, slaver government. There's no force that impunisticly terroristic in American politics today. We've just grown that soft and stupid from our prosperity, and refusal to accept that the reasons for our disparatelife life outcomes, though oft' unfair, are noneleless hardwired into the fabric of the Universe, and the attempt to seriously socially engineer this away can only eviscerate law and society while perpetually falling far short of its goals.
But your right in that it hits at the same shameful impulse. Namely, a desperation for the Messiah so great that even the least-believable, most-blatantly fraudulent candidates will be received as such by the public as long as they check the right boxes and hate the right things and people.
It will do long-term damage all the same. Much as I'm happy Soleimani's dead and we have the 6-3, it's not gonna be worth June and Eric coming out about their best-friendship with Michael Jackson, or whatever other shameful thing finally does for DJT what the rape of Czechoslovakia did for the USSR. 2016 was a fluke, and I say this as someone who genuinely thinks Barack and Biden have both been utter disasters whose primary merit is that for all their completely wrong views about the world, they still at least wouldn't try to start a civil war just to keep from losing an election. DJT's downright Arafattian in his hedomism and inability to just take an extremely lenient 'L' and spare the needless suffering of millions for his bottomless hedonism and criminality. He raped his wife, the mother of his children, for a fucking vanity hair surgery only the vainest of fucking manchildren could've thought was worth more than just shaving it off. If there's an awful thing he hasn't done, I'd be surprised, and it can't stay hidden forever.
Things must have changed since I was a Millennial evangelical, because no evangelicals I interacted with doubted that Israel re-appearing in the Middle East was at least a bit relevant to God's plan, much less had a pro-Palestine position--even if they weren't putting out VHS tapes about all the signs and coincidences leading up to it like the Boomers were. Which I agree they were not.
It doesn't matter if there's a specific passage in the Bible that you can cite though. There's no passage in the Bible that specifically supports most positions that seem intuitively obvious to evangelicals.
"By far the verse most commonly cited is Numbers 24:9: "Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed." For the record, I understand the church to be Israel and therefore understand this as a reference to the church, not to the post-1948 secular state."
Both interpretations are actually pretty ridiculous. Believe what you want, but don't act like your interpretation is somehow more rational or would be taken seriously by any biblical scholar using a philological or historical approach.
No, I'll keep on acting like the traditional Reformed understanding is the most internally consistent and hence logical way to understand Scripture, thanks. I'd fear for my soul if my theology overlapped with that of critical scholars. Jesus saves.
"Sola Scriptura! Understand the true meaning of the text without received interpretations and traditions! Plunge Europe into two centuries of wars because Catholics don't read the Bible properly!"
Right, so if you abandon all pretensions to intellectual rigour and just lean on slogans, then you might as well just be a Pentecostalist or whatever. Certainly, at any rate, you forfeit any right to sneer at Dispensationalist readings of the Bible, which are no more or less anchored in tradition, and no more or less based on serious biblical scholarship than your thing.
I want to be clear that I'm not sneering at Dispensationalists. I think they're wrong about a number of things, and I've told some of the men I've referenced they're wrong to their faces when we've had these discussions, but it's a friendly argument. I do believe they're saved.
I'm sure that I'm wrong on some points of theology, and I'll find out about it in heaven. The purpose of apologetics and the study of theology is to aid our faith. I'm too old and have been on the Internet too long to get pulled into Christianity vs. atheism arguments. No one is saved as a result of them.
If anyone who reads this finds he wants to believe but is troubled by thoughts that Christianity lacks intellectual rigor, then look into apologetics resources. These days I recommend Shenvi's book "Why Believe?"
I'll also call out Aron Wall's blog as an interesting and seldom-referenced place:
I use the term 'Cathedral' in accordance with how it is defined and explained by the person who coined the term. He has written, of course, at great length, but here are two relatively short pieces:
Of course, if lowbrow Rightoids want to have an alternative theoretical account of modern society, they are welcome to do so, but they shouldn't appropriate other people's terminology because it just leads to confusion.
I completely disagree with this view. The likes of Hagee were viewed by Reddit liberals as a serious Republic of Gilead type threat in the 2000s and now a couple of decades after all the idiocy and failed wars and corruption and gay scandals are now near universally regarded as weird freaks and too marginal to even actively mock and make fun of. They do obviously have their low IQ boomer followers who are not insubstantial in number but the decadal #downonly charts of religiosity and Zionophilia in the US tell the story. That story is one in which the Hageesphere has consistently lost intellectual debates, because it is stupid and evil, and been deserted by youth, the computer literate, and ever broader masses of society.
I think you’re making the same mistake I highlight. History won’t just reward the Palestinian side because they are good. People can consider Hagee a freak. The fact is that they got the embassy moved to Jerusalem in 2018, which wasn’t even under consideration in the Bush years. Republicans will be in office 40% of the time probably in upcoming decades and they’ll give Hagee and his ilk everything they want.
Have you ever expanded on the "40% of the time" argument? That sounds wild to me if we're talking about the White House (for which the current GOP coalition is structurally incapable of winning the popular vote) and probably requires one or more major additions to the GOP coalition. In which case who's to say Dispy Boomers have the same sway?
Just looking at recent history. I think the parties adjust over time. Public opinion is often thermostatic, so when one party is in power for a while the other gets support, especially when the economy takes a downturn. Plus the electoral college advantage. That’s why I say Republicans will be in office 40% of the time and not 50% or more.
If you want to look at history, what I see is that these things are often streaky, with maybe 1 or 2 opposition wins in the middle of a 20-to-40-year era dominated by one party. I'd say those opposition wins -- the Grover Clevelands, Jimmy Carters, and Donald Trumps -- represent the thermostatic forces you describe, and they seem to get you to about a 20% opposition win-rate amidst an era dominated by the other party.
Right now, we're clearly in the middle of a Democrat-dominated era of the White House, and between demographics increasingly on their side and the GOP being culturally resistant to learning lessons, their coalition's dominance will only grow until something or someone big comes along to disrupt the coalitions (and presumably a number of influences within them).
I don't think we need something to come along and disrupt the coalitions. The coalitions are already unstable. I think Donald Trump somewhat started the ball and won office by pointing out that Democrats are the party of the rich and the poor and getting a lot of lower and middle wage democrats to cross over for an election (granted Hillary being extremely unlikable was a huge part of being able to do that).
You've always had political parties with factions diametrically opposed to each other (e.g., democrats being the party of Jim crow and african americans for a long time, being the party of antisemitism and the party for jewish people, etc.), but now basically neither of the coalitions make sense. There's not a fundamental reason that the party of low taxes, low illegal immigration, and social conservativism would be on the same side. There's not a fundamental reason that environmentalism and big labor would be on the same side (and reasons they should be on opposite sides).
I think the GOP is basically already toast. "Elites" are essentially rebelling whenever populists or social conservative factions appear to be getting something out of the coalition. I think you are going to see the same thing happening in reverse when more establishment, chamber of commerce type republicans win primaries. Just too much animosity between the factions.
I think the left will experience a similar breakup when safer margins make it clear that certain factions simply aren't going to get what they want and they aren't sacrificing their short term goals to get the "right people" elected, and there was never a chance their coalition "partners" were going to give them what they want.
The coalitions are still basically what Sailer called the Core vs. the Coalition of the Fringes. The Republicans just traded certain upper-middle class whites for some working-class whites. A move that began well before Trump -- West Virginia made a huge swing from Clinton to GWB.
The coalitions are mostly held together by animosity towards the other side. The reason why social conservatives and economic conservatives are bound together is neither of them offends the other all that much, compared to how much the other side offends them.
Likewise, the sort of normie upper-middle class soccer mom who swung Democrat isn't all THAT offended by Woke weirdness and the DSA, compared to how much she dislikes DJT and the pro-life movement and assorted Republican examples of cruelty and stupidity.
In America, all institutions and forms of social organization are dissolving, from national institutions down to marriage and the family unit itself. I have to think at some point if this civilization is to survive, someone somewhere somehow will start offering a positive vision and building things back up again. And maybe the next party system will have something to do with that.
And as for "The End Times". I became a Christian in May of 1973. At that time Everyone I hung with KNEW these were The End Times and Jesus was Returning..Soon. Needless to say we wee a bit off on that. Some years later I was volunteered to teach on The End Times in a Small Bible Group I was a member of (this will teach me to miss a meeting! :-)). Imagine my surprise to discover 4 different schools of thought on this. They are mutually exclusive and All have Scripture to back them up. So now when the topic comes up, my reply is 2 words, Or...Not.
You're older than me, but this sounds about right. It seems that back in the day, people had fewer resources to explore outside their narrow tradition. I gather that at one time, the Scofield Bible was a big Dispensationalist influence. For a lot of households, it might have been the only theological reference they had aside from the Bible itself.
When people are exposed to more ideas, Dispensationalism has a tendency to lose out. I don't see it winning many arguments. Evangelicals who are intellectually curious about theology (including a lot who go to seminary) tend to eventually either adopt Reformed positions or leave evangelicalism altogether.
1. I'm an unlicense, non-certified historian (That sounds better than A History Nut! :-)) I recall reading that A Lot (majority?) of 1st century Christians KNEW The Lord was going to return soon, in their lifetime. Needless to say they were a bit off on this.
2. A question I ask. IF Our Lord came and told you The Day & Hour would you change Anything in the way you live? If the answer is YES, Make those changes NOW! Because God never promised us tomorrow.
3. THIS "The End Times" interesting but it is (like some many other issues.question) is of secondary importance. Of Primary importance is a question Jesus asked Simon Peter "Who Do You Say I Am?"
Do you believe Jesus died for your sins? Do you believe He will come again to judge the living and the dead? If not -- or even if you merely "believe" in an abstract intellectual sense -- then you don't understand evangelical Christianity. I mean, if it's actually true in a literal, historical sense, then it's kind of a big deal! WSJ opinion page never asks him to write for them because they know most non-believers can't imagine anyone could take this seriously. Besides, true believers really don't care what you think.
One thing libs used to be right about was that conservatism as preached on AM radio was very different from newspaper conservatism. Those lines have blurred a bit now but it is still *kinda* true that the person who gets their political views from Mark Levin on SiriusXM* is looking at things very differently from someone immersed in the discourse. There are certain areas of overlap on things like wokeism but your average satellite radio boomer is tuned into Israel stuff in a way that even a Twitter power user couldn't wrap their head around. They also tend to be much more anti-socialism in terms of rhetoric: even if they want to keep their social security they absolutely despise welfare in a way that would make Ronald Reagan blush.
*I had a rental car a couple of years ago and checked out 'Sirius XM Patriot'. While I agree with Mark Levin on many things politically, it was such a mean-spirited and above all *dumb* show that I began to understand my educated lib relatives' complete disdain for the movement. I'm convinced several, if not most, of his call-ins were fake, too.
I feel like you are overestimating Hagee's influence. "Christians for Israel" is going to seem pretty non-objectionable for most Christians and I wonder how many of his "followers" even know of a connection to a belief that Jewish people being in control of Israel will hasten the end times.
I think lots of Christians just have an affinity for Israel because it looks very obviously non-barbaric and their moral view is going to align with Israel's in general where as what they see of Hamas and Hezbollah seems barbaric and contrary to their moral views. Certainly the commonality of religion doesn't hurt, but it would mean nothing if Israel was going around and using citizens as shields and committing acts of terror and proclaiming that they were going to exterminate Palestinians. It's not like there isn't some commonality between Christianity and Islam.
To the extent he is getting play from republican politicians, I think it's simply because he supports what they already want to do, not because he is influencing them.
Good post. Some well constructed surveys would be good, to find out what regular voters care about, what influences them, what their information sources are, etc. Twitter will be low on the list for most actual voters, is my guess. Embarrassed to say I had not heard of Hagee, though I knew about Dispensationalism and the Christian basis for widespread support for Israel. That sort of thing makes liberal Jews of my acquaintance uncomfortable. I tell them any friend in a fight is good to have.
I would say discussing theological minutia endlessly and obsessively is an Anglo-Saxon (or maybe just American) thing. I'm not sure Americans realize that the whole interest-in-religion-distribution is shifted towards more-interested in the US.
Ah, yes, the (ironically) old story: once those geezers croak, there will be nobody to replace them ideologically, and we'll get our political utopia. I've been hearing this one on guns since at least two decades; yet, public support for gun rights vs. gun control has remained pretty much the same. Same for Israel: significant demographic changes since the Iraq War, not to mention massive secularization of society in that time period; yet, public sympathy for Israel still far outpaces the one for Palestine. We're talking supermajorities here. But sure, keep believing it's just hillbillies, Boomers, and evangelicals if it makes you feel better.
Israel has a lot of fucking up to do before they stumble into theocratic fascism. The Haredim, the largest group of religious Jewish reactionaries in the country -- and in the world -- still refuse to serve in the military, or even to have their men actually do anything aside from studying the Tanakh all day. This is not a negligible group. They make up roughly the same percentage of Israel's population as black people in the US, and catering to these parasites is one of many, many reasons the general puplic of Israel despises Netanyahu.
Although thankfully, October 7th has spurned the community to some action, and the Haredim are actually starting to volunteer for their homeland's war effort in meaningful numbers in non-combat capacity:
And they'll be replaced by rightwingers like me who'll likely only get more right-wing with age, with all the Israel support that goes with it. Not to mention American jewelry has moved right due to differential birth rates.
And in the meantime, Jewish settlers are expanding in the West Bank. So, sure, America can become pro-Palestinian in 30 years all it wants.
On social issues, it's mostly a myth that people get more right-wing with age. It's really hard to actually find it in the numbers. They just seem right-wing relative to the youth as society continuously ratchets left.
US Jews as a group are slowly shifting right, but for the most part their numbers and influence are evaporating because the ultra-orthodox are only like 10% of the US Jewish population and post-Boomer the secular and Reform Jews are intermarried and only tenuously connected to Jewish identity.
In any case, the generational gap on US support for Israel is massive. It's larger than gay marriage. It might be larger than literally any other political issue. It's unavoidable that something big is going to change in the US stance towards Zionism when the Boomers are gone.
It doesn't mean the US will be pro-Palestinian. I think the default stance among younger generations is just apathy. Israel will be treated more like Myanmar or Malaysia.
It's interesting to me that people can openly cheer on the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and this is considered socially acceptable (and people are proud of it), but if someone said Palestinians are pushing Israelis out from the West Bank, everyone would scream anti-Semitism and genocide. You are openly advocating for Israel taking the West Bank without the people on it. It's ethnic cleansing but seemingly justified. It's this just he "river to the sea" but the Jewish version?
I was watching interviews of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Their hatred and contempt for Palestinians was clear. When confronted with the violent attacks on Palestinians and their fleeing their homes and land, one man lied and said they were just immigrating. He then went out saying he was all for it because "it is our land, not their land." The pogrom in Huwara was described as violence or a rampage, never terrorism or Jewish violence.
"It's interesting to me that people can openly cheer on the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and this is considered socially acceptable (and people are proud of it), but if someone said Palestinians are pushing Israelis out from the West Bank, everyone would scream anti-Semitism and genocide."
Wot? Pushing Israelis (settlers) out of the West Bank is literally the official position of the US government and every western government. Why can't Palestinian supporters ever say anything remotely true?
For all their obesity and recreational-drug issues, Boomers are on average in better health than their preceding generations to a noticeable degree. They'll be with us, and alert, for a long time.
Since I'm a rare Millennial evangelical here, I'll give my two cents:
1. Christian Zionism is always and everywhere a Boomer phenomenon. I've intentionally brought up the topic with Millennial and Zoomer conservative Christians of my acquaintance many times. All I've ever heard is utter apathy towards the state of Israel. It might as well be Myanmar as far as they're concerned. Those raised in Christian homes will sometimes think of it as this weird or funny thing that dad is into that causes them to roll their eyes.
2. Within the church, this generational change seems to be driven by a combination of the rise of Reformed theology (which has historically taken a dim view of Dispensationalism and assorted premil eschatological weirdness) and the rise of more "seeker-friendly" non-denominational churches that try to stay away from eschatological weirdness for more tactical reasons.
3. It's worth noting that guys like Hagee do not interface with -- and exist independently from -- what we might call "core evangelical institutions". Hagee doesn't interface with what's known as "Big Eva", i.e. the evangelical establishment: The Gospel Coalition and the like. Nor is he part of the SBC. To my knowledge he's not at all allied with, nor does he overlap with, what we'd think of as the various "celebrity pastors" that sometimes generate followings and controversy.
4. I have heard a fair amount of over-the-top, religiously-grounded Zionism and philo-semitism when I talk to Boomer Southern Baptists (many of whom have never really interacted with a Jew; I live in a county with zero Jewish places of public worship). I have such an acquaintance that tells me his top three issues are "pro-America, pro-life, and pro-Israel".
But like Inez, I've never heard the end-times arguments as a reason for support. By far the verse most commonly cited is Numbers 24:9: "Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed." For the record, I understand the church to be Israel and therefore understand this as a reference to the church, not to the post-1948 secular state.
Isn’t that sort of the Trump story? His strength I think hasn’t been with mainstream evangelical institutions, but outside of them. Like Hagee, he seems not to need it while reaching a lot of people who call themselves Evangelicals.
That's fair, but it's worth highlighting the divide.
There are a lot of what we might think of as normal evangelicals who are strong Trump supporters. But over-the-top Christian Trumpism seems to be led by figures that are marginal, obscure, or even deemed heretical within mainstream evangelicalism. And not only seen that way by elite leaders, but by many ordinary people in the pews. Paula White comes to mind here as well.
It's difficult to be an over-the-top Christian Trumpist, because it's very obvious to anyone who pays a smidge of attention that DJT is an atheist. So you have to lie and contort heavily even by the standards of crazy evangelicals, or just be very low-info. He would've fit in much better in the alternate universe where Gore won Florida in '00 and DJT ran as a Populist Democrat. It's even more embarrassing than trying to watch Obama -- who was raised entirely by howlies and Indonesians -- fit in with what used to be known as the American Negro community before that commie asshole Stokely Carmichael convinced everyone the term was offensive. At least there's some biological component to race that brings some commonalities to people who don't actually have any meaningful cultural connection, so it makes some sense for a community to cluster together even when said people pretend they're not solely doing it for biological reasons.
I recall someone who spent time in Syria's Christian community once sharing with me that they have an over-the-top local mythology when it comes to the goodness of Assad (their protector vs. Islamist forces). For example, that he will go about in secret and do good deeds for people, much like Good King Wenceslas. That anything bad said about him is lies and propaganda.
Now, it should be plain to anyone that Assad is just another self-interested dictator doing whatever he must to hold onto power. I can't help but feel the Trumpist "contortions" you describe represent the same psychological impulse, for a certain type of person who feels sufficiently embattled by the culture.
Much as I agree with you, in many ways, that's an insult to Syrian Christians. Bashar kidnapped a thirteen-year-old boy, cut off his penis, and tortured him to death for the crime of attending a non-violent protest against his shithole, parasitic, slaver government. There's no force that impunisticly terroristic in American politics today. We've just grown that soft and stupid from our prosperity, and refusal to accept that the reasons for our disparatelife life outcomes, though oft' unfair, are noneleless hardwired into the fabric of the Universe, and the attempt to seriously socially engineer this away can only eviscerate law and society while perpetually falling far short of its goals.
But your right in that it hits at the same shameful impulse. Namely, a desperation for the Messiah so great that even the least-believable, most-blatantly fraudulent candidates will be received as such by the public as long as they check the right boxes and hate the right things and people.
It will do long-term damage all the same. Much as I'm happy Soleimani's dead and we have the 6-3, it's not gonna be worth June and Eric coming out about their best-friendship with Michael Jackson, or whatever other shameful thing finally does for DJT what the rape of Czechoslovakia did for the USSR. 2016 was a fluke, and I say this as someone who genuinely thinks Barack and Biden have both been utter disasters whose primary merit is that for all their completely wrong views about the world, they still at least wouldn't try to start a civil war just to keep from losing an election. DJT's downright Arafattian in his hedomism and inability to just take an extremely lenient 'L' and spare the needless suffering of millions for his bottomless hedonism and criminality. He raped his wife, the mother of his children, for a fucking vanity hair surgery only the vainest of fucking manchildren could've thought was worth more than just shaving it off. If there's an awful thing he hasn't done, I'd be surprised, and it can't stay hidden forever.
Things must have changed since I was a Millennial evangelical, because no evangelicals I interacted with doubted that Israel re-appearing in the Middle East was at least a bit relevant to God's plan, much less had a pro-Palestine position--even if they weren't putting out VHS tapes about all the signs and coincidences leading up to it like the Boomers were. Which I agree they were not.
It doesn't matter if there's a specific passage in the Bible that you can cite though. There's no passage in the Bible that specifically supports most positions that seem intuitively obvious to evangelicals.
"By far the verse most commonly cited is Numbers 24:9: "Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed." For the record, I understand the church to be Israel and therefore understand this as a reference to the church, not to the post-1948 secular state."
Both interpretations are actually pretty ridiculous. Believe what you want, but don't act like your interpretation is somehow more rational or would be taken seriously by any biblical scholar using a philological or historical approach.
No, I'll keep on acting like the traditional Reformed understanding is the most internally consistent and hence logical way to understand Scripture, thanks. I'd fear for my soul if my theology overlapped with that of critical scholars. Jesus saves.
"Sola Scriptura! Understand the true meaning of the text without received interpretations and traditions! Plunge Europe into two centuries of wars because Catholics don't read the Bible properly!"
"OK, so here's what it means"
"[Cope]!"
This got real old round about 1710.
Uh huh.
Jesus saves.
Right, so if you abandon all pretensions to intellectual rigour and just lean on slogans, then you might as well just be a Pentecostalist or whatever. Certainly, at any rate, you forfeit any right to sneer at Dispensationalist readings of the Bible, which are no more or less anchored in tradition, and no more or less based on serious biblical scholarship than your thing.
I want to be clear that I'm not sneering at Dispensationalists. I think they're wrong about a number of things, and I've told some of the men I've referenced they're wrong to their faces when we've had these discussions, but it's a friendly argument. I do believe they're saved.
I'm sure that I'm wrong on some points of theology, and I'll find out about it in heaven. The purpose of apologetics and the study of theology is to aid our faith. I'm too old and have been on the Internet too long to get pulled into Christianity vs. atheism arguments. No one is saved as a result of them.
If anyone who reads this finds he wants to believe but is troubled by thoughts that Christianity lacks intellectual rigor, then look into apologetics resources. These days I recommend Shenvi's book "Why Believe?"
I'll also call out Aron Wall's blog as an interesting and seldom-referenced place:
http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/
If you don't want to believe, they will not convince you.
Who says that the opinion of critical scholars isn't internally consistent? You're just assuming this.
Dispensationalism absolutely _does_ serve the cathedral, specifically the Military-Industrial Complex.
You don't know what the Cathedral means.
Why do you think that the Military-Industrial Complex is not part of the Cathedral?
I use the term 'Cathedral' in accordance with how it is defined and explained by the person who coined the term. He has written, of course, at great length, but here are two relatively short pieces:
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/a-brief-explanation-of-the-cathedral
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/3-descriptive-constitution-of-the
Of course, if lowbrow Rightoids want to have an alternative theoretical account of modern society, they are welcome to do so, but they shouldn't appropriate other people's terminology because it just leads to confusion.
I completely disagree with this view. The likes of Hagee were viewed by Reddit liberals as a serious Republic of Gilead type threat in the 2000s and now a couple of decades after all the idiocy and failed wars and corruption and gay scandals are now near universally regarded as weird freaks and too marginal to even actively mock and make fun of. They do obviously have their low IQ boomer followers who are not insubstantial in number but the decadal #downonly charts of religiosity and Zionophilia in the US tell the story. That story is one in which the Hageesphere has consistently lost intellectual debates, because it is stupid and evil, and been deserted by youth, the computer literate, and ever broader masses of society.
I think you’re making the same mistake I highlight. History won’t just reward the Palestinian side because they are good. People can consider Hagee a freak. The fact is that they got the embassy moved to Jerusalem in 2018, which wasn’t even under consideration in the Bush years. Republicans will be in office 40% of the time probably in upcoming decades and they’ll give Hagee and his ilk everything they want.
Have you ever expanded on the "40% of the time" argument? That sounds wild to me if we're talking about the White House (for which the current GOP coalition is structurally incapable of winning the popular vote) and probably requires one or more major additions to the GOP coalition. In which case who's to say Dispy Boomers have the same sway?
Just looking at recent history. I think the parties adjust over time. Public opinion is often thermostatic, so when one party is in power for a while the other gets support, especially when the economy takes a downturn. Plus the electoral college advantage. That’s why I say Republicans will be in office 40% of the time and not 50% or more.
If you want to look at history, what I see is that these things are often streaky, with maybe 1 or 2 opposition wins in the middle of a 20-to-40-year era dominated by one party. I'd say those opposition wins -- the Grover Clevelands, Jimmy Carters, and Donald Trumps -- represent the thermostatic forces you describe, and they seem to get you to about a 20% opposition win-rate amidst an era dominated by the other party.
Right now, we're clearly in the middle of a Democrat-dominated era of the White House, and between demographics increasingly on their side and the GOP being culturally resistant to learning lessons, their coalition's dominance will only grow until something or someone big comes along to disrupt the coalitions (and presumably a number of influences within them).
I don't think we need something to come along and disrupt the coalitions. The coalitions are already unstable. I think Donald Trump somewhat started the ball and won office by pointing out that Democrats are the party of the rich and the poor and getting a lot of lower and middle wage democrats to cross over for an election (granted Hillary being extremely unlikable was a huge part of being able to do that).
You've always had political parties with factions diametrically opposed to each other (e.g., democrats being the party of Jim crow and african americans for a long time, being the party of antisemitism and the party for jewish people, etc.), but now basically neither of the coalitions make sense. There's not a fundamental reason that the party of low taxes, low illegal immigration, and social conservativism would be on the same side. There's not a fundamental reason that environmentalism and big labor would be on the same side (and reasons they should be on opposite sides).
I think the GOP is basically already toast. "Elites" are essentially rebelling whenever populists or social conservative factions appear to be getting something out of the coalition. I think you are going to see the same thing happening in reverse when more establishment, chamber of commerce type republicans win primaries. Just too much animosity between the factions.
I think the left will experience a similar breakup when safer margins make it clear that certain factions simply aren't going to get what they want and they aren't sacrificing their short term goals to get the "right people" elected, and there was never a chance their coalition "partners" were going to give them what they want.
The coalitions are still basically what Sailer called the Core vs. the Coalition of the Fringes. The Republicans just traded certain upper-middle class whites for some working-class whites. A move that began well before Trump -- West Virginia made a huge swing from Clinton to GWB.
The coalitions are mostly held together by animosity towards the other side. The reason why social conservatives and economic conservatives are bound together is neither of them offends the other all that much, compared to how much the other side offends them.
Likewise, the sort of normie upper-middle class soccer mom who swung Democrat isn't all THAT offended by Woke weirdness and the DSA, compared to how much she dislikes DJT and the pro-life movement and assorted Republican examples of cruelty and stupidity.
In America, all institutions and forms of social organization are dissolving, from national institutions down to marriage and the family unit itself. I have to think at some point if this civilization is to survive, someone somewhere somehow will start offering a positive vision and building things back up again. And maybe the next party system will have something to do with that.
John Hagee pushes The Prosperity Gospel (Heresy)
And as for "The End Times". I became a Christian in May of 1973. At that time Everyone I hung with KNEW these were The End Times and Jesus was Returning..Soon. Needless to say we wee a bit off on that. Some years later I was volunteered to teach on The End Times in a Small Bible Group I was a member of (this will teach me to miss a meeting! :-)). Imagine my surprise to discover 4 different schools of thought on this. They are mutually exclusive and All have Scripture to back them up. So now when the topic comes up, my reply is 2 words, Or...Not.
You're older than me, but this sounds about right. It seems that back in the day, people had fewer resources to explore outside their narrow tradition. I gather that at one time, the Scofield Bible was a big Dispensationalist influence. For a lot of households, it might have been the only theological reference they had aside from the Bible itself.
When people are exposed to more ideas, Dispensationalism has a tendency to lose out. I don't see it winning many arguments. Evangelicals who are intellectually curious about theology (including a lot who go to seminary) tend to eventually either adopt Reformed positions or leave evangelicalism altogether.
1. I'm an unlicense, non-certified historian (That sounds better than A History Nut! :-)) I recall reading that A Lot (majority?) of 1st century Christians KNEW The Lord was going to return soon, in their lifetime. Needless to say they were a bit off on this.
2. A question I ask. IF Our Lord came and told you The Day & Hour would you change Anything in the way you live? If the answer is YES, Make those changes NOW! Because God never promised us tomorrow.
3. THIS "The End Times" interesting but it is (like some many other issues.question) is of secondary importance. Of Primary importance is a question Jesus asked Simon Peter "Who Do You Say I Am?"
Do you believe Jesus died for your sins? Do you believe He will come again to judge the living and the dead? If not -- or even if you merely "believe" in an abstract intellectual sense -- then you don't understand evangelical Christianity. I mean, if it's actually true in a literal, historical sense, then it's kind of a big deal! WSJ opinion page never asks him to write for them because they know most non-believers can't imagine anyone could take this seriously. Besides, true believers really don't care what you think.
Faith is not synonymous with blind trust. You've been endowed with a mind by your creator for a reason: To use it, critically.
One thing libs used to be right about was that conservatism as preached on AM radio was very different from newspaper conservatism. Those lines have blurred a bit now but it is still *kinda* true that the person who gets their political views from Mark Levin on SiriusXM* is looking at things very differently from someone immersed in the discourse. There are certain areas of overlap on things like wokeism but your average satellite radio boomer is tuned into Israel stuff in a way that even a Twitter power user couldn't wrap their head around. They also tend to be much more anti-socialism in terms of rhetoric: even if they want to keep their social security they absolutely despise welfare in a way that would make Ronald Reagan blush.
*I had a rental car a couple of years ago and checked out 'Sirius XM Patriot'. While I agree with Mark Levin on many things politically, it was such a mean-spirited and above all *dumb* show that I began to understand my educated lib relatives' complete disdain for the movement. I'm convinced several, if not most, of his call-ins were fake, too.
I feel like you are overestimating Hagee's influence. "Christians for Israel" is going to seem pretty non-objectionable for most Christians and I wonder how many of his "followers" even know of a connection to a belief that Jewish people being in control of Israel will hasten the end times.
I think lots of Christians just have an affinity for Israel because it looks very obviously non-barbaric and their moral view is going to align with Israel's in general where as what they see of Hamas and Hezbollah seems barbaric and contrary to their moral views. Certainly the commonality of religion doesn't hurt, but it would mean nothing if Israel was going around and using citizens as shields and committing acts of terror and proclaiming that they were going to exterminate Palestinians. It's not like there isn't some commonality between Christianity and Islam.
To the extent he is getting play from republican politicians, I think it's simply because he supports what they already want to do, not because he is influencing them.
So what's popular is not always what's important. Some things never change.
Good post. Some well constructed surveys would be good, to find out what regular voters care about, what influences them, what their information sources are, etc. Twitter will be low on the list for most actual voters, is my guess. Embarrassed to say I had not heard of Hagee, though I knew about Dispensationalism and the Christian basis for widespread support for Israel. That sort of thing makes liberal Jews of my acquaintance uncomfortable. I tell them any friend in a fight is good to have.
I would say discussing theological minutia endlessly and obsessively is an Anglo-Saxon (or maybe just American) thing. I'm not sure Americans realize that the whole interest-in-religion-distribution is shifted towards more-interested in the US.
Ah, yes, the (ironically) old story: once those geezers croak, there will be nobody to replace them ideologically, and we'll get our political utopia. I've been hearing this one on guns since at least two decades; yet, public support for gun rights vs. gun control has remained pretty much the same. Same for Israel: significant demographic changes since the Iraq War, not to mention massive secularization of society in that time period; yet, public sympathy for Israel still far outpaces the one for Palestine. We're talking supermajorities here. But sure, keep believing it's just hillbillies, Boomers, and evangelicals if it makes you feel better.
Israel has a lot of fucking up to do before they stumble into theocratic fascism. The Haredim, the largest group of religious Jewish reactionaries in the country -- and in the world -- still refuse to serve in the military, or even to have their men actually do anything aside from studying the Tanakh all day. This is not a negligible group. They make up roughly the same percentage of Israel's population as black people in the US, and catering to these parasites is one of many, many reasons the general puplic of Israel despises Netanyahu.
Although thankfully, October 7th has spurned the community to some action, and the Haredim are actually starting to volunteer for their homeland's war effort in meaningful numbers in non-combat capacity:
https://www.jta.org/2023/10/27/israel/israels-war-has-spurred-thousands-of-haredi-israelis-to-volunteer-cook-and-serve-in-the-army
They will not die soon. There a huge numbers of boomers and many have long lives ahead of them.
20-30 years, and they vote.
And they'll be replaced by rightwingers like me who'll likely only get more right-wing with age, with all the Israel support that goes with it. Not to mention American jewelry has moved right due to differential birth rates.
And in the meantime, Jewish settlers are expanding in the West Bank. So, sure, America can become pro-Palestinian in 30 years all it wants.
On social issues, it's mostly a myth that people get more right-wing with age. It's really hard to actually find it in the numbers. They just seem right-wing relative to the youth as society continuously ratchets left.
US Jews as a group are slowly shifting right, but for the most part their numbers and influence are evaporating because the ultra-orthodox are only like 10% of the US Jewish population and post-Boomer the secular and Reform Jews are intermarried and only tenuously connected to Jewish identity.
In any case, the generational gap on US support for Israel is massive. It's larger than gay marriage. It might be larger than literally any other political issue. It's unavoidable that something big is going to change in the US stance towards Zionism when the Boomers are gone.
It doesn't mean the US will be pro-Palestinian. I think the default stance among younger generations is just apathy. Israel will be treated more like Myanmar or Malaysia.
It's interesting to me that people can openly cheer on the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and this is considered socially acceptable (and people are proud of it), but if someone said Palestinians are pushing Israelis out from the West Bank, everyone would scream anti-Semitism and genocide. You are openly advocating for Israel taking the West Bank without the people on it. It's ethnic cleansing but seemingly justified. It's this just he "river to the sea" but the Jewish version?
I was watching interviews of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Their hatred and contempt for Palestinians was clear. When confronted with the violent attacks on Palestinians and their fleeing their homes and land, one man lied and said they were just immigrating. He then went out saying he was all for it because "it is our land, not their land." The pogrom in Huwara was described as violence or a rampage, never terrorism or Jewish violence.
"It's interesting to me that people can openly cheer on the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and this is considered socially acceptable (and people are proud of it), but if someone said Palestinians are pushing Israelis out from the West Bank, everyone would scream anti-Semitism and genocide."
Wot? Pushing Israelis (settlers) out of the West Bank is literally the official position of the US government and every western government. Why can't Palestinian supporters ever say anything remotely true?
For all their obesity and recreational-drug issues, Boomers are on average in better health than their preceding generations to a noticeable degree. They'll be with us, and alert, for a long time.