Give Me That Old Time Religion!

As we see the courts enshrining the evangelicals Christians I think back to the Monkey Trails where Tennessee embraced “Divine Creation .”

I came across this on Facebook… an article by Susan Campbell in the CT Post what caught my eye was…

Case in point: As we dive into 2024, a year with equal parts possibilities and danger, we are still arguing over the role religion should play in the culture. A certain brand of Christians still agonizes over imagined threats to their faith (which tells us that their faith is vulnerable and small). And we still have legislators who play to the basest members of their base — Christians who quote Two Corinthians (see the former president’s attempt at quoting scriptures) and wouldn’t know a parable if it chewed on their leg.

And so it has ever been. Nearly 100 years ago, the forefathers and -mothers of today’s hard-shell Christians were also worried about the sinful culture that surrounded them. Modernity was lapping at their shores — and in some cases, Christians believed it had completely washed over what they called a Christian nation. There was right. And there was wrong. Moving pictures, evolution, and flappers were all wrong. Old-time religion? Inherently right and righteous.

Where did we see that before? In the Scopes Trial, the History Channel says,

The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” With local businessman George Rappleyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged with this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. Hearing of this coordinated attack on Christian fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a fundamentalist hero, volunteered to assist the prosecution. Soon after, the great attorney Clarence Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the defense, and the stage was set for one of the most famous trials in U.S. history.

Now a days instead of Divine Creation we have anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ laws and the courts ruling that that there is a god giving right to discriminate against us.

Ms. Cambell’s article ends with,

It is small comfort that nuance was lost in public discussion as much in the 1920s as it is today. Some things do not change and some things change only after decades force the point. Modern-day Butler Acts — laws that would limit reproductive freedom, medical care for members of the trans community, and voting rights — are created to satisfy a minority who worship a small and angry god.

Again we are torn apart by religion as more and more people turn away from religion those sects that are evangelical, they are becoming paranoid that the world world is after them. But in reality it is leaving them behind. Their nineteenth century world view is all about supremacy, oppression, fire and brimstone, they fear being a minority. They fear being minority in a heathen world full of sinners. They fear living in a country where Blacks, foreigners overrun them. They fear living in an immoral world with gays and trans people. They fear...