#christlbr

[iustuspeccator]

hot take but I can't stand the little rubber Jesus figures. I have been given three of them unwillingly and don't know what I can do with this woundless cartoon Jesus. they aren't useful for devotion. but I can't throw them away. they'll eventually be tossed in landfills where they won't biodegrade except to slowly leach microplastics, smiling the whole time.

they're probably made in factories by exploited workers to be passed around by middle class Christians. I wouldn't say they're idolatry per se but they are thoughtless, useless pieces of plastic that make a mockery of my faith but are still handed to me by people who profess to be Christian and somehow....like this thing?

the tiny plastic Jesus says "Christ loves you :)" in a useless way. its love is simply a warm feeling and happiness. its love is cute and clean and not groaning or bleeding on a cross. it offers nothing and demands nothing. it suffers nothing. and without suffering there is in fact no love. it's empty. the tiny Jesus is so offensive to me that I actually can't be coherent about it. but I just look at them and it's so offensive to me that we would turn Christ into cheap, mass-manufactured plastic for profit hey you know what it is idolatry I think

[iustuspeccator]

I saw a post about the antichrist and the fact that fundamentalist christians believe it'll come to end all wars. Is this true? Ans why would people belive this, like where does it come from)? I've never heard of it

Here is the post in question: https://www.tumblr.com/glacecakes/810621283626860544/hey-so-i-still-see-people-utterly-baffled-by-how?source=share

As a disclaimer, I don't know a lot about fundamentalist belief. That said, I would rate this post as basically true but unhelpfully sensationalist. I'm unfamiliar with this belief, but yes, it some people believe this or something like it. This is the end time variant of the "new world order" conspiracy theory, which political scientists warned in the early aughts could have drastic effects in the future due to right wing populism. That prediction has come true. This belief has outsized influence in American politics. For example, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received over 200 complaints from troops who were told that the strikes on Iran were necessary as part of God's plan.

I really dislike this person's framing, which asks you to be aware and freaked out without giving you anything you can do about it. They also frame it as if you can't argue with these people ("they'll think you're the antichrist"). We live in a time of rampant conspiracy theorizing. It's important to know that you don't have to abandon people to their conspiracy theories, especially if they've just started to be drawn in. This article from MIT discusses how.

There are people who will be too deep to be reasoned with. That doesn't mean all of them are and I remain committed to compassionate discourse as means of making change. If you don't know any of these people, all you can really do is keep voting for candidates that don't believe wackadoo nonsense and aren't driven by right-wing populism. Those are my main points, but I'm still going to get into the nitty gritty of how OP is overblowing the prevalence of this belief.

23% of the US population is evangelical. That gives them a majority as any singular Christian group, but mainline Protestants, historically Black Protestant and Catholics are 35% of the US population. These beliefs are fringe and most people find them strange and off-putting. 15,000 notes in agreement with this person don't prove that it's a majority belief, it proves that it's widespread. The notes aren't a randomized survey of diverse people, rather it's spreading among people who already have this experience (confirmation bias). Overstating how many people believe this isn't helpful. As the MIT article points out, most people don't like to be extremists, and extremists usually overestimate how common their beliefs are. OP is engaging in and supporting that overestimation in a way I think is unhelpful.

On the other hand, expressing disapproval and unfamiliarity about people's extreme beliefs is helpful! it can be as simple as like, "Wow that sounds scary, where did you hear that?" or "Weird, I've never heard that." Honestly, just being mildly disapproving and disengaging in someone's conspiracy can help keep them from continuing down that line, if you have a close and trusting relationship. What's not helpful is large amounts of fact-checking, freaking out, getting angry or anything else that makes people double down.

Although this is a fringe belief, it does wield a lot of power in politics right now. The problem isn't really that some people believe this, it's that it's a belief that's useful for manipulating people, which is what politicians are doing. Here are my favorite videos on the religious right's infiltration of politics:

Samantha Bee - "The Religious Right"

Some More News - "How (And Why) The Right Stole Christianity"

Some More News - "How The Right Sold Christianity"

(As a heads up, Some More News is quite crass.)

Tl;dr: Yes, some people believe this. It's weird that they do and we should tell them that (nicely).

Thanks for the question! I hope this isn't too long haha. And for the record, this belief is completely abiblical. "Antichrist" is used four times in the New Testament, in 1 and 2 John. People create this belief by attaching that word to Revelation and ignoring that Revelation is a coded letter about Christian opposition to the Roman Empire. So on the off chance you were asking me if it's true that the antichrist is coming, it's not. "Antichrist" is just a word the author of those letters uses to describe people who don't confess Christ.