Christians in the Hand of an Angry God

Christians in the Hand of an Angry God is a great 5 part article by bradhicks (the link is to the last part, which itself links to the previous parts). The title of the article is a reference to the famous sermon of Jonathan Edwards.

There's some interesting historical analysis in it. bradhicks argues that Bible-believing Christianity in the USA sold its soul to the Republican party in exchange for protection from Communism, in a literal Faustian bargain. He says that, taking what the Bible says, the majority of these Christians are following a false gospel and are probably damned for it.

As usual, "what the Bible says" means "what it says when you it the way evangelicals are supposed to", but then, in this case, that's the whole point. While bradhicks is an ex-Christian, he studied at an evangelical college and has a good knowledge of what the Bible does say. As he writes:

I'll still debate Christian theology at the drop of a hat, I still love it, even though (as I've said in part elsewhere) I consider monotheism itself to be toxic to human freedom and many of the the distinctive doctrines that separate Christianity from other religions to be potentially toxic to decency and sanity. To me, it's a game. And when I'm playing a game, it really pisses me off to see other people cheat. And it pisses me off even more to lose to a cheater, let alone an army of cheaters.

He's not the only one to have realised that Jesus doesn't necessary vote Republican, some Christians have realised it too.

I don't recall seeing anything like the political distortion of Christianity which bradhicks describes during my time as an evangelical, in fact, I assumed that as a group of middle-class young professional types, a lot of us voted for Tony, though we didn't really discuss it much. I'd be interested to know whether that's changed since I left.