"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

That NYT article on Trump evangelicals in Iowa glosses over a key distinction: these aren't evangelicals, they are an incredibly small group of rural Dutch Calvinists. It mentions Dordt College, the site of Trump's 2016 rally being "named for a major church assembly in 1618 and 1619 that declared salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed", which is the exact opposite of the American Evangelical belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again". What difference does that make? It means that the people interviewed in this article believe that they are "God's chosen people" and live their entire lives attempting to demonstrate evidence that they are part of that chosen in-group, lest they be expelled from it. So, when they talk about their religious freedom being impugned, they're really saying that they've always lived in this insular environment where homogeneity = salvation, and the only way they can continue the faith of their fathers is to keep all outsiders out of it. It's telling that their ancestors fled the Netherlands over this same false sense of "persecution", the Dutch government wouldn't let them kick anyone who disagreed with them out of the country, so they came to these rural Iowa towns where they were left alone for 100 years, and now they're confronting the fact that embracing Trump's racism and misogyny is the closest thing they'll get to preserving their "religious heritage" in 2020.

That's a v good point.

I wasn't going to read that article but oh hell yes, Dordt College, I can attest the above is accurate.

That NYT article on Trump evangelicals in Iowa glosses over a key distinction: these aren't evangelicals, they are an incredibly small group of rural Dutch Calvinists. It mentions Dordt College, the site of Trump's 2016 rally being "named for a major church assembly in 1618 and 1619 that declared salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed", which is the exact opposite of the American Evangelical belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again".

i can see some disagreement about whether that congregation technically counts as "american evangelical" or not. i think their current state (bitter resentment and a false sense of overwhelming persecution) is roughly the same, though.

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

or...something like that. of course it's a hopeless jumble of contradicting ideas, but that's evangelicalism ime, and if the dordt college people ever feel too over-oppressed, they'd fit right in with thousands of other communities and churches that are virtually indistinguishable from them

Also, something that only a former Iowan Dutch Calvinist would likely recognize about that photo of the family praying at the dinner table: all three kids have forks in their food already during the prayer, revealing that they probably started to eat before the parents sat down to pray, which never would've happened when their parents were that age. Just a small detail, but I can tell you, having grown up in it (my sister actually went to Dordt College), those are the kind of things that Iowan Dutch Calvinists obsess about - you had to pray and read the bible at every meal and the church elders would come to your house for "visitation" to observe that your family accurately demonstrated that you were in fact, still part of God's chosen in group. Even this family is not managing to keep the outside world at bay, their kids aren't stopping to pray before touching their dinner. Re-electing Trump is not going to help them with that, and soon enough this tiny, insignificant demographic of Trump voter would go away on its own.

Oh god I clicked on it, and the article just clowns itself and its subjects over and over.

“I guess the biggest concern for me is trying to keep our country the way it was. Conservative. The values. For us, I mean, this is as good as it gets. We can do whatever we want,” said Mr. Driesen

They want the Christian education for their children “so we don’t have to have them indoctrinated with all these different things,” he said. “We are free to teach them our values.”

She worried that the school might be forced to let in students who were not Christian, or hire teachers who were gay.

“People in my circles, you don’t really hear about racism, so I guess I don’t know too much about it,” Mr. Driesen said of the protests.

I don't think either the CRC or the RCA are evangelical denominations, that is, I don't think they're committed either doctrinally or habitually to spreading awareness of salvation by conversion. They would probably be offended to be compared to Baptists, for example.

yeah baptists are total heretics! you think YOU can choose whether to be in god's elect?? pah!

calvinism has this real crazy edge of anxiety and paranoia to it. how will i know if i'm in the elect?? i mean, i can't, but surely someone in the elect would behave in a certain way.. so let's look for those outward signs.. in others... in myself... AAAGGGGHHH

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

Uh I think most evangelicals, particularly liberal ones, would loudly call bullshit on the idea that God would willingly exclude anyone who chose salvation.

Yeah but the point is these are Calvinists not evangelicals

Yes, and Karl's arguing that there isn't a difference between them.

Wait nevermind

Yeah i agree with you. Evangelicals evangelize—spreading the faith and saving souls is as important or more than personal virtue, the sole concern of the predestination folks

I attended a CRC church for several years (but that was 20 years ago, I married rather than was born into it, etc). The denomination reiterated repeatedly that it is an evangelical denomination, the church does mission work at a denominational level, etc. That's in obvious tension with its ethnocentrism, and this ethnocentrism will be the death of the denomination in a few years (my f-i-l is longtime C@lv1n faculty and has commented on declining enrollment, particularly of their "traditional" student, for many years).

Yeah, I've seen plenty of commentary over the past few years that these sorts are fighting for their way of life because their way of life is literally dying out.

My favorite part of the article is the mom talking about how she likes living in a bubble where she doesn't have to worry about her kids going outside to play with the neighbor kids, even though they go to another church, and then catches herself, "I don't know, maybe that's naive." - Yes, you absolutely need to be more concerned about your kids mixing it up with kids from other denominations, they might put dangerous ideas in their heads like it's okay to browse the Internet on Sundays.

Uh I think most evangelicals, particularly liberal ones, would loudly call bullshit on the idea that God would willingly exclude anyone who chose salvation.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, August 10, 2020 10:23 AM (thirty-two minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

Yeah but the point is these are Calvinists not evangelicals

― treeship., Monday, August 10, 2020 10:27 AM (twenty-nine minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

Yes, and Karl's arguing that there isn't a difference between them.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, August 10, 2020 10:29 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago)

i'm not arguing there isn't a difference between them. i'm arguing that to the outsider observer, in terms of actions and political beliefs, there is little to distinguish between the Dordt College crowd and white evangelicals.

i must admit i have never seen the words "liberal" and "evangelical" side-by-side, so i guess that speaks to my lack of perspective, for real. (i have to admit i googled it and found 18,500 results, heh). and not for the first time, i've said "evangelicals" when I really meant "white evangelicals". the overwhelming majority of white evangelicals i've known have been very conservative (and many are homophobic white nationalists to boot).

the seemingly incompatible doctrine thing is something else. i don't expect anyone to agree with me (a good indicator that i'm wrong), and my opinion on it is largely driven by my personal experiences with white evangelicals. all i can say is that in my experience, it is very, very possible to believe that anyone can be saved, and also that god knows who is going to be saved and counts them among his Chosen people.

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

I grew up in an evangelical church in S. Illinois and agree 100% with Karl's take. Ime evangelical congregations believe in the doctrine that you choose your own salvation, but they have to square that with a totally omniscient god who already knows the choices you are going to make, so evangelicals get to profess that they are opening and welcoming to anyone choosing to join while at the same time critical and judging of anyone who has not. At least in my experience the prevailing mood for evangelicals is a sort of early-Christian New Testament belief in the end times and that they are a persecuted minority. A certain kind of paranoia justifying the other-ing of outsiders.

I mean in grade school I was lead to believe Catholics were a fringe religious cult that might steal your children.

tbf i think dutch calvinists in 1618 taught their kids the same thing

this is reminding me how much of my information about evangelicals comes from Chick tracts

Imagine growing up in Chick tract. My parents threw out an RPG book of mine when I was in high school because it discussed witches' spells" in it. I was quoted a bible verse about not suffering witches. This was in 1987, not 1697.

my dad make me quit taekwondo because there was a yin-yang patch on my uniform

sad lol, I think you have me beat. I'm sorry Karl, but that is cracking me up.

heh, there's a lot more where that came from! but yeah, it doesn't prove anything, of course, and i know my experience isn't and can't be typical of white evangelicalism. i would just say that the liberal evangelicals are getting absolutely CRUSHED in the "influence on real life" department, compared to their white nationalist peers.

Sorry for turning the US Politics thread into a discussion on Theology but I guess it makes sense that these old protestant factions are now coming together with evangelicals under a shared persecution complex based on the exclusion of others. Obviously, Christianity has become more of a political than a religious movement in America, so I guess it no longer matters to them whether they think that they believe they are going to heaven because God chose them or because they chose God, the most important thing that they can all agree on is that LGBT people are an abomination so horrible that being forced to bake a cake for them is tantamount to being burned in a fiery furnace or fed to hungry lions. From there, they can break into religious factions again over the rest of their political views. My parents told me that they went to church this past weekend for the first time since covid hit, and they had to have separate services, one with masks and one without masks because their congregation is so divided on that issue.

tempted to put this in batshit cartoons or trenchant but in any case
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=5gGonq-e0gY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gGonq-e0gY

why not JONESTOWN

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/511333-trump-says-hell-accept-nomination-from-either-white-house-or-gettysburg

Would love to see this fucker take a header off Little Round Top on national tv.

TRUMP EVACUATED from White House press briefing room by US Secret Service. An agent locked the briefing room doors from the exterior. pic.twitter.com/El9Xi4lAlE

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) August 10, 2020

would hate to think reason for this is the same reason they pulled the basketball guys (sp?) during their march 11 press conference!!!!

Emergency #2.

A private flight from South Bend to Wilmington, Delaware, landed an hour and five minutes ago, per FlightAware. pic.twitter.com/l3XJjDFsVG

— Adam Wren (@adamwren) August 10, 2020

oh god no not pete

Remember slow news days?

Is that tweet supposed to imagine Mayo Pete meeting with Joe?

If Buttigieg is named VP I won't vote.

xp - yeah, I mean it's like a .12% chance but god it would be beautiful

Maybe every woman of color in the Democratic Party turned him down (or spoke to the Scientologists)

Ed Rendell likes the cut of Pete's jib.

It sucks so fucking bad that for the rest of my life this rodent-faced dork will almost certainly be someone in American politics I’ll have to know and hear about.

I'm sure there was lots of good ol whinin' and complainin' about it here a few months ago, but as a queer dude who is married, I've never felt more insulted by someone's existence in my life.

It's like he is the exact antipode of everything I care about and value.

I’m certainly no great judge of character but he seems transparently disingenuous, opportunist, and uhh “fake” smart or something

an absolute cipher

he basically is that character from The Politician but somehow less likeable

I didn't like him to begin with because I knew about the McKinsey period, but when I found out he *volunteered* to join the US military apparatus in 2009, I was convinced that he had nothing approaching any ethical sense. Put the garbage in the trash afaic.

Pete as veep would be the ultimate fuck-you and therefore perfect

because really what are you gonna do, not vote for them

if the reveal is that pete is actually a woman of color, i swear i'm going to cancel my subscription to this dumb channel

It sucks so fucking bad that for the rest of my life this rodent-faced dork will almost certainly be someone in American politics I’ll have to know and hear about.

On the contrary, being Biden's VP would probably tank any future career. He can make a failed run in 2024/8 then go sit on a bunch of corporate boards.

unless he becomes president