Evangelical theologically seems to have a knack for always claiming that Jesus Christ would support whatever most directly aligns with political views its followers already had. Even when it seems to directly contradict what he said in the gospels!
Modern Evangelical theology seems to be conspicuously based on Southern Antebellum Christianity that weaponized cherry picking and slant to their interpretation of the religion.
For example, they argued slavery would help convert slaves to Christianity and when many slaves did….just kept them as slaves. They also removed the book of Exodus from sermons to slaves for…some reason.
Barf Ninjason
Friend of mine said once “much of the American South can be summed up by the idea that Jesus was a NASCAR driver” and it has never left my brain
deliverything
But… NASCAR drivers always turn left!
Rimwalker55
Good one. đ
SillyGoose
To be fair, the brand of Christianity I was raised in does the exact same thing, just in reverse. We happily cherry pick hippie Jesus, and ignore the rest.
Or aren’t taught the least savoury parts, which comes with its own problems. But also hilarity at times when we discover, hmm, other interpretations. Like the Prosperity Gospel, which is really funny, in a dark, twisted way.
morleuca
A lot of it has to do with the covenants. The rainbow is one of them. Jesus’ teachings and death issupposed to be one of these big “contracts with God”. A covenant replaces all the stuff that was rules before it. So while the older stuff is there for historical relevance, all the hippy Jesus stuff is supposed to be the important thing.
thejeff
But since what’s in that new Covenant (other than faith in Jesus being needed to be right with God) is never explicitly spelled out, you still have to cherry pick which parts don’t count anymore. Much of the New Testament involves various authors arguing about that.
Iâve recently had an American Christian try to convince me that Jesus was all about leaving a big inheritance to your children, and besides that totally apolitical.
They donât understant the core tenets of their own proclaimed religion.
ResRam
One should imagine that the “needles eye” and “give all you possesions to the poor” passages where sufficiently clear on the topic.
But then, so should “thou shalt not kill” or “live by the sword, die by the sword”, yet most of that crowd are steadfast militarists and 2nd Amd. fans.
eh, whatever
To bend over backwards… it doesn’t say anything as general as “kill” in the original. It’s much more like “murder”.
But “those who live by the sword shall die by the sword” is in there.
ResRam
I wasnt aware of that.
Thanks for pointing out a bad argument.
I only ever read translations in english, polish and german which all use the generalized wording I cited.
But shifts in meaning due to translations are another can of worms for a supposedly infallible text.
BorkBorkBork
I can’t tell you how many sermons, or Bible studies, or whatever, I have sat through and they go over the rich man being told to sell all his possessions, and the very, very first thing that the pastor says is something along the lines of, “… but Jesus isn’t actually saying in this that he WANTS you to go and do what he told the rich man to do… this is just to demonstrate that we can’t be perfect and why we need Christ!”
You know. As he speaks to an audience of older white boomers, the men who have cushy well-paying jobs, and the women who live as homemakers for children long gone, as they complain to their friends that no one wants to work anymore.
They can list off how many verses that say something along the lines of “sExUaL iMmOrAlItY!” but face them with something that looks directly at them, they’ve got a convenient out.
Even when I was a believer, I was frustrated at the knots some of my fellow Christians would tie themselves into trying to explain how the “eye of a needle” wasn’t literal (while everything else is.) They love the (completely unsubstantiated) myth that there was some gate in the city called “Eye of the Needle” and so it’s not impossible for rich people to go to heaven, they just have to “unburden themselves” like camels do to go through that gate! In other words, so long as they’re going to church and say the right words, they can be as rich as they want, and somehow aren’t contradicting anything Jesus said. They’re like that with anything that actually confronts them with something uncomfortable.
Tequila Mockingbird
Quote: “You should not be afraid of someone who has a library and reads many books; you should fear someone who has only one book; and he considers it sacred, but he has never read it.” Couldn’t find a source for this, but feels at least relevant-adjacent.
Their supporters OR their own pockebook.
I still marvel at how that scene managed to make follwing a guy, who supposedly raged against the moral toxicity of personal wealth, morph to a point where preachers flex personalized Caddillacs and buy private jetplanes.
That’s a big reason why I say God is mostly just a rhetorical device.
God believes whatever you believe, but by attributing your opinions to a higher entity, you imbue it with more authority than if you were just some guy with an opinion, and it becomes harder to argue against.
Gangler
It can be tempting to try and beat them at their own game. To go searching for a bible verse that contradicts them as if it’s some sort of counter-spell to their bullshit.
But none of that really matters. What matters is they know a guy whose word is indisputable and who backs up everything they say, but you haven’t met him.
C.T Phipps
Frankly, this is a version of religion that makes it meaningless. If you can’t self-examine because of it then what’s the point?
Gangler
I think the point of it is pretty clear.
“I think gay people are gross and icky” isn’t a campaign platform.
“God is sending gay people to hell” is something people rally around and turn into policy.
The rhetorical benefits of attributing your own thoughts to a hypothetical entity who is above reproach are enormous. But ultimately, that’s all it’s ever been.
People who like gay people will claim that god likes gay people, and people who don’t like gay people will claim that god feels the same. It’s like that with any issue under the sun. As soon as you state your opinion that way, people can’t argue with you, they have to argue with god.
I’ve never met somebody who feels that god disagrees with them.
ResRam
Having the ultimate appeal to authority is pretty neat.
“My opinion is backed by the all-knowing expert on everything.” basically shuts down any possibility for discourse.
My understanding of American Christianity is that it’s based on just three core precepts:
1. Be loud and performative. You’re not a real Christian if you don’t make a show out of it! Pray constantly, go to Church every day, say rote phrases like “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior” and it doesn’t matter how you actually feel, what you actually think!
2. Be hateful. God put you on this Earth so that you could make your neighbors’ lives miserable. This is especially true of the poor, the downtrodden, the homeless, the minorities and the outcasts; those are the ones that you need to attack at every opportunity.
3. Be whiny. Never forget that you are the real victim here, the only real victim.
A colleague told me “we shouldn’t judge slavery by today’s standards because it was just accepted back then” and besides in the future people would judge us because of abortion.
People in the future can do whatever they need to do, but I know for damn sure that slavery was not accepted by its victims. Or by a lot of other people either. Unless nothing can be wrong if it is accepted by those in power.
I always wonder why they identify with the slave-holders (“Our heritage!”) and not the white abolitionists.
ResRam
Which one sounds more fun?
Having other people serve you hand and foot and generate free income for you?
Or fighting an opressive majority opinion enforced by the aristocracy, where nearly everybody you meet considers you a dangerous radical who ruins society?
I´ve been an enviromentalist activist most of my life, and I can tell you: my depressions are not genetic.
thejeff
Even within the abolitionist movement there were a lot who wouldn’t want to be judged by today’s standards. End slavery? Yes! Live with free black people as equals? Not so common. Lots of alternatives were suggested, including shipping them all back to Africa. Along with the pretty common assumption that slave owners would need to be paid compensation for the loss of their property.
I think there’s also a bit of humility involved in not judging history by today’s standards: The vast majority of us, if raised in past times, wouldn’t have still somehow had the moral standards of today. Whether on slavery or LGBTQ rights or something else, we’re all products of our own culture, not unique souls who would have had the same beliefs where ever and when ever we were raised.
100% chance I’d have been on whatever side I was raised on as a child, though I’ve changed in adulthood now. So probably then.
I have no problem judging the past by our best current ethical understanding now. Of course things will evolve in the future, and they’ll judge us. It’s not like I can put them in jail – I just think we should knock them off the pedestal we built for them when our understanding was, um, more basic.
And also, while this wouldn’t apply so much to American racial slavery, farther back in the past, while the enslaved still certainly didn’t want to be slaves, that doesn’t mean they were opposed on principle, just that they didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the deal.
There are, I believe, cases of people enslaved as war captives who were rescued or otherwise freed and then took slaves of their own.
It was just treated as the way things were.
By the time of American slavery, there were definitely movements opposing the institution more broadly.
Hopefully Leslie’s not in jail. Hopefully Robin got her opportunity to shout “Don’t you know who I am?!” while being shoved into the back of a police car.
Have we really gotten any moments of Leslie being a mother figure to Becky since the timeskip? I feel like we must have, but it is a dynamic that felt more prevalent before the timeskip.
i’m sure she’ll be around. unless tehre’s some last min parental visit by /her/ parents or so but i’m sure she would take the time to shoot becky a text
This is extremely not true. He’s like family to her, and I’m pretty sure it was stated that he helped her set up a bank account, get her own phone, sign up for financial aid, and get enrolled at the school. I think she just can’t stand to be around Joyce and Dorothy being all cutesy right now.
I have had no judgment one way or the other towards Joyce but if she doesn’t immediately run after her BEST FRIEND WHO IS HURTING SO BAD,she will have lost me.
I think that would be the most self-serving and inconsiderate thing for Joyce to do. There is quite literally nothing at all that she can do or say to make this situation less of a knife in the heart for Becky RIGHT NOW. Sure, she’ll come to terms with it… but not because it’d be nice for others if she could hurry it up and do so right now so they don’t have to feel anything but the thrill of their new love situation.
As a card-carrying White Person, any other white folks over 30 should definitely, definitely go back and read newspapers and magazines about politics from when they were kids. It’s Fun*!
* Fun is the thing where you hurt a lot and then get really angry, right?
The main newspaper and magazines stuff I remember seeing when I was a kid as far as politics went was about 9/11. Definitely, uh… definitely lots of ‘LOOK AT ALL THIS DEATH!! WE GOTTA GO KILL THOSE BAD GUYS!! YEEHAW AMERICA OOOOH SAAAY CAN YOU SEEEEE”.
yeah that’s about when I became politically aware and also decided that america must some kind of dystopia
C.T Phipps
I remember trying to explain to some forum goers from different parts of the country that in my part of America, the Confederacy did nothing wrongTM. No, it was the barbarian Northern murderers who stopped the South that would have eventually made slavery illegal on their own peacefully. Oh and they were treated well.
And no, we’re not racist!
ResRam
Sometimes looking back at your own self only a few years ago and can do nothing but cringe and shudder, right?
G´damn I used to be sexist af at twenty, all the while considering myself a feminist ally. Thank godess my first SO was a strong gal who patiently beat me onto a better path.
I’ve already seen it a few times as an adult, but a couple of months back I unpacked my adjectives rewatched my Schoolhouse Rock DVDs. The ones about American history are just chock full of Bicentennial-era propaganda for the kiddies – the “Great American Melting Pot” (assimilation), “Elbow Room” (lebensraum “manifest destiny”), “No More Kings” and so on. Hooo boy.
300 thoughts on “Dad pizza”
NGPZ
“acceptable” to who????
it’s this weird fill-in-the-blanks dealio where the “correct” answer just so happens to always favor the white establishment (-_-)
Ravian
Evangelical theologically seems to have a knack for always claiming that Jesus Christ would support whatever most directly aligns with political views its followers already had. Even when it seems to directly contradict what he said in the gospels!
Just impressively convenient
C.T Phipps
Modern Evangelical theology seems to be conspicuously based on Southern Antebellum Christianity that weaponized cherry picking and slant to their interpretation of the religion.
For example, they argued slavery would help convert slaves to Christianity and when many slaves did….just kept them as slaves. They also removed the book of Exodus from sermons to slaves for…some reason.
Barf Ninjason
Friend of mine said once “much of the American South can be summed up by the idea that Jesus was a NASCAR driver” and it has never left my brain
deliverything
But… NASCAR drivers always turn left!
Rimwalker55
Good one. đ
SillyGoose
To be fair, the brand of Christianity I was raised in does the exact same thing, just in reverse. We happily cherry pick hippie Jesus, and ignore the rest.
Or aren’t taught the least savoury parts, which comes with its own problems. But also hilarity at times when we discover, hmm, other interpretations. Like the Prosperity Gospel, which is really funny, in a dark, twisted way.
morleuca
A lot of it has to do with the covenants. The rainbow is one of them. Jesus’ teachings and death issupposed to be one of these big “contracts with God”. A covenant replaces all the stuff that was rules before it. So while the older stuff is there for historical relevance, all the hippy Jesus stuff is supposed to be the important thing.
thejeff
But since what’s in that new Covenant (other than faith in Jesus being needed to be right with God) is never explicitly spelled out, you still have to cherry pick which parts don’t count anymore. Much of the New Testament involves various authors arguing about that.
Adeptus
Iâve recently had an American Christian try to convince me that Jesus was all about leaving a big inheritance to your children, and besides that totally apolitical.
They donât understant the core tenets of their own proclaimed religion.
ResRam
One should imagine that the “needles eye” and “give all you possesions to the poor” passages where sufficiently clear on the topic.
But then, so should “thou shalt not kill” or “live by the sword, die by the sword”, yet most of that crowd are steadfast militarists and 2nd Amd. fans.
eh, whatever
To bend over backwards… it doesn’t say anything as general as “kill” in the original. It’s much more like “murder”.
But “those who live by the sword shall die by the sword” is in there.
ResRam
I wasnt aware of that.
Thanks for pointing out a bad argument.
I only ever read translations in english, polish and german which all use the generalized wording I cited.
But shifts in meaning due to translations are another can of worms for a supposedly infallible text.
BorkBorkBork
I can’t tell you how many sermons, or Bible studies, or whatever, I have sat through and they go over the rich man being told to sell all his possessions, and the very, very first thing that the pastor says is something along the lines of, “… but Jesus isn’t actually saying in this that he WANTS you to go and do what he told the rich man to do… this is just to demonstrate that we can’t be perfect and why we need Christ!”
You know. As he speaks to an audience of older white boomers, the men who have cushy well-paying jobs, and the women who live as homemakers for children long gone, as they complain to their friends that no one wants to work anymore.
They can list off how many verses that say something along the lines of “sExUaL iMmOrAlItY!” but face them with something that looks directly at them, they’ve got a convenient out.
ADD
Even when I was a believer, I was frustrated at the knots some of my fellow Christians would tie themselves into trying to explain how the “eye of a needle” wasn’t literal (while everything else is.) They love the (completely unsubstantiated) myth that there was some gate in the city called “Eye of the Needle” and so it’s not impossible for rich people to go to heaven, they just have to “unburden themselves” like camels do to go through that gate! In other words, so long as they’re going to church and say the right words, they can be as rich as they want, and somehow aren’t contradicting anything Jesus said. They’re like that with anything that actually confronts them with something uncomfortable.
Tequila Mockingbird
Quote: “You should not be afraid of someone who has a library and reads many books; you should fear someone who has only one book; and he considers it sacred, but he has never read it.” Couldn’t find a source for this, but feels at least relevant-adjacent.
Furie
See, Jesus waaaaanted us to interpret his words in the ways that would be most likely to get his preachers a yacht…
hatman
Hey, if he wanted his words to be clear he woulda wrote something down.
ResRam
Their supporters OR their own pockebook.
I still marvel at how that scene managed to make follwing a guy, who supposedly raged against the moral toxicity of personal wealth, morph to a point where preachers flex personalized Caddillacs and buy private jetplanes.
Gangler
That’s a big reason why I say God is mostly just a rhetorical device.
God believes whatever you believe, but by attributing your opinions to a higher entity, you imbue it with more authority than if you were just some guy with an opinion, and it becomes harder to argue against.
Gangler
It can be tempting to try and beat them at their own game. To go searching for a bible verse that contradicts them as if it’s some sort of counter-spell to their bullshit.
But none of that really matters. What matters is they know a guy whose word is indisputable and who backs up everything they say, but you haven’t met him.
C.T Phipps
Frankly, this is a version of religion that makes it meaningless. If you can’t self-examine because of it then what’s the point?
Gangler
I think the point of it is pretty clear.
“I think gay people are gross and icky” isn’t a campaign platform.
“God is sending gay people to hell” is something people rally around and turn into policy.
The rhetorical benefits of attributing your own thoughts to a hypothetical entity who is above reproach are enormous. But ultimately, that’s all it’s ever been.
People who like gay people will claim that god likes gay people, and people who don’t like gay people will claim that god feels the same. It’s like that with any issue under the sun. As soon as you state your opinion that way, people can’t argue with you, they have to argue with god.
I’ve never met somebody who feels that god disagrees with them.
ResRam
Having the ultimate appeal to authority is pretty neat.
“My opinion is backed by the all-knowing expert on everything.” basically shuts down any possibility for discourse.
someone
My understanding of American Christianity is that it’s based on just three core precepts:
1. Be loud and performative. You’re not a real Christian if you don’t make a show out of it! Pray constantly, go to Church every day, say rote phrases like “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior” and it doesn’t matter how you actually feel, what you actually think!
2. Be hateful. God put you on this Earth so that you could make your neighbors’ lives miserable. This is especially true of the poor, the downtrodden, the homeless, the minorities and the outcasts; those are the ones that you need to attack at every opportunity.
3. Be whiny. Never forget that you are the real victim here, the only real victim.
Kyulen
Acceptable to the very wealthy, usually.
Vulcanodon
A colleague told me “we shouldn’t judge slavery by today’s standards because it was just accepted back then” and besides in the future people would judge us because of abortion.
People in the future can do whatever they need to do, but I know for damn sure that slavery was not accepted by its victims. Or by a lot of other people either. Unless nothing can be wrong if it is accepted by those in power.
Tal
I mean not to mention that there was very much an abolitionist movement in the US before we were even a country. So that’s super not an excuse.
Vulcanodon
I always wonder why they identify with the slave-holders (“Our heritage!”) and not the white abolitionists.
ResRam
Which one sounds more fun?
Having other people serve you hand and foot and generate free income for you?
Or fighting an opressive majority opinion enforced by the aristocracy, where nearly everybody you meet considers you a dangerous radical who ruins society?
I´ve been an enviromentalist activist most of my life, and I can tell you: my depressions are not genetic.
thejeff
Even within the abolitionist movement there were a lot who wouldn’t want to be judged by today’s standards. End slavery? Yes! Live with free black people as equals? Not so common. Lots of alternatives were suggested, including shipping them all back to Africa. Along with the pretty common assumption that slave owners would need to be paid compensation for the loss of their property.
I think there’s also a bit of humility involved in not judging history by today’s standards: The vast majority of us, if raised in past times, wouldn’t have still somehow had the moral standards of today. Whether on slavery or LGBTQ rights or something else, we’re all products of our own culture, not unique souls who would have had the same beliefs where ever and when ever we were raised.
Vulcanodon
100% chance I’d have been on whatever side I was raised on as a child, though I’ve changed in adulthood now. So probably then.
I have no problem judging the past by our best current ethical understanding now. Of course things will evolve in the future, and they’ll judge us. It’s not like I can put them in jail – I just think we should knock them off the pedestal we built for them when our understanding was, um, more basic.
thejeff
And also, while this wouldn’t apply so much to American racial slavery, farther back in the past, while the enslaved still certainly didn’t want to be slaves, that doesn’t mean they were opposed on principle, just that they didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the deal.
There are, I believe, cases of people enslaved as war captives who were rescued or otherwise freed and then took slaves of their own.
It was just treated as the way things were.
By the time of American slavery, there were definitely movements opposing the institution more broadly.
Vulcanodon
We’re still allowed to say it was wrong. It just means… stop worshipping those people, our founders.
The 25th
Iâm sure Robin or Leslie would love to get pizza with you Becky.
Laura
Hopefully they’re not in jail!
CianM1301
I’m sure if they did, Robin could pay for bail for the two of them. Those election campaign funds are just sitting there, after all.
thejeff
Hopefully Leslie’s not in jail. Hopefully Robin got her opportunity to shout “Don’t you know who I am?!” while being shoved into the back of a police car.
Smokeysis
Have we really gotten any moments of Leslie being a mother figure to Becky since the timeskip? I feel like we must have, but it is a dynamic that felt more prevalent before the timeskip.
Astariel
We had this one, where Becky regrets teaching Dina how to meme.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/permanence/
Smokeysis
Oh good, here’s hoping we get some follow-up on that soon enough. It’s a character dynamic I’m really fond of.
Cholma
Aww, Becky! Where’s Dina when you need her?
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Right behind the door, usually.
anon
i’m sure she’ll be around. unless tehre’s some last min parental visit by /her/ parents or so but i’m sure she would take the time to shoot becky a text
Needfuldoer
Maybe teleportation is a hereditary trait.
Lars
Watching Amber/Amazi-Girl
Astariel
Coming up in a couple days, according to the Tumblr previews.
Dawn
Dina where are you please go find Becky!!!
Mollyscribbles
Quick, we can summon her by citing inaccurate dinosaur facts! Pterodactyls are my favourite dinosaur!
BadRoad
Mine’s Dimetrodons!
Bryy
….. you monster.
Dawn
Velociraptors are big enough that a human could ride them!
Taffy
I like the sabertooth tiger.
Reaver
I love the Long Necks! How they eat tree stars and go to the Great Valley!
Drew Hargrave
Childhood flashback omg
TCS
I like crocodiles because they’re still alive, unlike any other dinosaur.
(is it possible to stack too many inaccuracies? I don’t want to summon her in a stress-induced coma)
eh, whatever
HOMPK!!!
Staszu13
Anand, Becky remembered she’s sad again
C.T Phipps
Sadly, Becky doesn’t care for Hank save as being Joyce’s father.
Leorale
Hank is important to her:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/deserves/
Envy
This is extremely not true. He’s like family to her, and I’m pretty sure it was stated that he helped her set up a bank account, get her own phone, sign up for financial aid, and get enrolled at the school. I think she just can’t stand to be around Joyce and Dorothy being all cutesy right now.
Allen Alberti
I have had no judgment one way or the other towards Joyce but if she doesn’t immediately run after her BEST FRIEND WHO IS HURTING SO BAD,she will have lost me.
jfs
I think that would be the most self-serving and inconsiderate thing for Joyce to do. There is quite literally nothing at all that she can do or say to make this situation less of a knife in the heart for Becky RIGHT NOW. Sure, she’ll come to terms with it… but not because it’d be nice for others if she could hurry it up and do so right now so they don’t have to feel anything but the thrill of their new love situation.
noisy
Given why she’s hurting, I don’t know if Joyce is the person to talk to her right now.
not someone else
As a card-carrying White Person, any other white folks over 30 should definitely, definitely go back and read newspapers and magazines about politics from when they were kids. It’s Fun*!
* Fun is the thing where you hurt a lot and then get really angry, right?
Doopyboop
The main newspaper and magazines stuff I remember seeing when I was a kid as far as politics went was about 9/11. Definitely, uh… definitely lots of ‘LOOK AT ALL THIS DEATH!! WE GOTTA GO KILL THOSE BAD GUYS!! YEEHAW AMERICA OOOOH SAAAY CAN YOU SEEEEE”.
Yeet
yeah that’s about when I became politically aware and also decided that america must some kind of dystopia
C.T Phipps
I remember trying to explain to some forum goers from different parts of the country that in my part of America, the Confederacy did nothing wrongTM. No, it was the barbarian Northern murderers who stopped the South that would have eventually made slavery illegal on their own peacefully. Oh and they were treated well.
And no, we’re not racist!
ResRam
Sometimes looking back at your own self only a few years ago and can do nothing but cringe and shudder, right?
G´damn I used to be sexist af at twenty, all the while considering myself a feminist ally. Thank godess my first SO was a strong gal who patiently beat me onto a better path.
StClair
I’ve already seen it a few times as an adult, but a couple of months back I
unpacked my adjectivesrewatched my Schoolhouse Rock DVDs. The ones about American history are just chock full of Bicentennial-era propaganda for the kiddies – the “Great American Melting Pot” (assimilation), “Elbow Room” (lebensraum“manifest destiny”), “No More Kings” and so on. Hooo boy.Eyebrow
Sadly the “no more kings” and “we the people” and the one about separation of powers are kinda forgotten. Those were helpful.