“As a Christian, I don’t think you can be both MAGA and Christian,” one person wrote in the comments of the video.

Two weeks ago, Jen Hamilton, a nurse with a sizable following on TikTok and Instagram, picked up her Bible and made a video that would quickly go viral.

“Basically, I sat down at my kitchen table and began to read from Matthew 25 while overlaying MAGA policies that directly oppose the character and nature of Jesus’ teachings,” she told HuffPost.

In the comments of the video ― which currently has more than 8.6 million views on TikTok ― many (Christians and atheists alike) applauded Hamilton for using straight Scripture as a way of offering commentary. Others picked a bone with Christians who uncritically support Trump.

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    If you interpret monotheism as incompatible with materialism and as prescriptive of equality, most Jews, Christians and Muslims lose it at the first commandment.

    Edit: Self included, naturally.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      Like Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum?

      The more conservative American Catholics have a theology that’s close to the right-wing, protestant-derived groups around them. Ask Paul or Rick about how their views on evolution jive with the Vatican’s official position, and they’ll start to squirm.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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      I don’t think the US evangelicals really qualify as christians. They’ve created their own thing based on the same symbology, and have kept some of the names, but it has very little in common.

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    I wish Christians in red states were Christians.

    I’ve taken to begging churches in my state to investigate the states systemic refusal to investigate the physical and sexual abuse of children. I’ll see if our “Christians” believe in the words of Christ.

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      Strictly speaking, I don’t think there’s a single scripture that specifically calls out sexual abuse of children. There’s general prohibitions against sex outside of marriage and such, but nothing that applies directly to pedophilia.

      You get there by not being a monster. Literal, direct interpretations of the Bible won’t do it.

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        If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

        Matthew 18:6

        It often interpreted to refer to people who are new to the faith, but I think that it includes children too.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      I wish Christians in red states were Christians.

      They are whether you like that or not.

      I’ll see if our “Christians” believe in the words of Christ.

      Pretty sure your savior had a lot to say about judging others.

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        I don’t think they are. Just calling yourself Christian doesn’t mean you are.

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          Oh? Please, explain to me how the “No true Scotsman” fallacy doesn’t apply to the argument.

          And do I really need to quote the verses about judging not lest ye be judged, and the plank in your own eye, etc?

          I have a pretty deep understanding of Christianity, which is why I’m disgusted by it.

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        Matthew 25:41-46 is pretty clear on who the “goats” are.

        I’m not even a Christian, but that’s a really cute way to understand Matthew 7:1-3, and not really relevant here :)

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          Oh so you have authority to judge other as being “real” Christians or not? You sure your book supports that?

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    I’ll tell you exactly why these trump supporting Christians don’t realize this, it’s because most of them don’t actually think critically about what’s actually in the Bible. They have piss poor media literacy, and their example of Christianity is what their probably racist parents and community instilled into them. That’s how my father is.

    • ...m...@ttrpg.network
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      …pretty much this: they’re conformant authoritarians and christian nationalism just happens to be the cultural identity in which they were raised…

      • mcv@lemm.ee
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        Exactly. It has nothing to do with following Jesus, and everything with cultural identity. They identify as Christian because they were raised that way, not because they actually care about anything Jesus said.

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    So, which one keeps giving it septic tanks full of dead babies?

    And why the fuck do we tolerate this shit existing when that’s the benign version?

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      Most white evangelical Christianity is a cult as well, with beliefs that directly contradict their own scriptures.

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        Most blatant is the “Prosperity Gospel”, which blatantly and directly preaches the polar opposite of what Jesus said explicitly several times.

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          “Prosperity Gospel” seems such a copout for cult-leaders to justify getting rich on their congregation.

          So much for “eye of a needle”…

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    I read about this story today and looked her up. Why do so many people watch her content? I genuinely couldn’t get through more than 30 seconds of anything she’s posted. Not that she’s a bad person, and I hold nothing against her personally, but it’s just utterly uninteresting to boredom. Like photos of food but of people.

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    They (Christian MAGA) don’t care. I have a family member I shared this verse, and many others with, and they only got angry at me. This was months ago.

    They simply don’t care. Not about what Jesus said, and not about any of us.

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      It’s always best to address stuff like this with a very wide grin and say “Ah, it’s good to know that for all your self-righteousness and false piety, you will burn in hell, and Jesus will weep knowing his sacrifice meant nothing to you. Ta!”

      You don’t even need to believe it, it just really gets under people’s skin. Fuck 'em.

    • CH3DD4R_G0B-L1N@sh.itjust.works
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      My brain is still as broken as my relationship with my father when he looked me straight in the eyes and told me that yes, Jesus would be ok putting kids in cages.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        Yeah shit is rough, man. I haven’t spoken to my parents since January 20.

        I put the ball in their court and said that all they need to do is disavow Trump, or even just say they made a mistake by voting for/supporting him. That’s it.

        Nothing. Apparently clinging onto this hatred is more important than having a relationship with their son.

    • Demdaru@lemmy.world
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      They got…angry? What, typical “don’t sass me” or what? What did they saaaay?

      I know it’s not my place to ask but just soooo curious ;-;

      • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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        Not the person you were asking, but I got kicked out of youth group for saying evolution and the bible could co-exist. There’s that verse about how a thousand years is like a day for god, so clearly the 7 days of creation means evolution could have been god’s mechanism of creation, right?

        The youth group leader just told me I was wrong and said I could leave if I wanted to disagree, so I left.

        A few years after that, I quit the church for good because they didn’t want to help the community after a tornado because said community was full of demon worshipers (aka, catholics). It made me realize the bible was full of shit, because the pastor was able to believe that god somehow loves sinners, and but also we shouldn’t help sinners, because god wants them to suffer for not loving him back the right way? If heaven is full of those people, I really don’t want to go there.

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          If heaven is full of those people, I really don’t want to go there.

          Matthew 25 is pretty explicit about that that’s not where they’re headed.

        • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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          got kicked out of youth group for saying evolution and the bible could co-exist

          That’s now accepted Catholic doctrine.

          because said community was full of demon worshipers (aka, catholics)

          Yeah, I was brought up as one. Now there’s a reactionary fringe within Catholicism that allies itself with the fundies, and the fundies no accept the traditional Catholic loathing of abortion, which Protestants used to tolerate.

          My own journey that led me away from the Church started because the Dominican brothers that taught catechism encouraged critical thought. And one day, I realized that Adam and Eve didn’t know the difference between good and evil until they ate the apple. So they were thrown out of Eden because they were being punished for their God-given innocence. And, of course, there are all the other contradictions, bigotries, cruelties and outright stupidity. The extent to which St Paul contradicts Jesus is quite breathtaking, to name one instance.

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            Not just Catholic. Most Christians understand very well that if God created the universe, he also created all the mechanisms within that universe, including evolution.

            Seeing God as contradictory to evolution to me betrays a very small and limited view of God, as if he’s just some Slartibartfast creating just this one planet.

        • Demdaru@lemmy.world
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          Thanks for the response anyway! So basically “Don’t sass me”. This is simply sad, but even more sadly fits our current times :/

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    I always laugh when I hear shit like this, there is an old german saying my father taught me. “When there are 9 Nazis at a table, and you go sit with them, there are 10 Nazis at the same table”.

    If you are sharing the same church with them then you are sharing the same ideology. Start kicking these maga fucks out of your churches and I might start believing you.

    • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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      They will never kick out a donor. As long as they keep tossing cash or checks into the donation plate, then they will accept them with open arms.

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      It’s a crying shame that I’ve had to do the same with some of my extended family. They’ve gone ultra MAGA and I’m sorry I cannot support you when you want to harm others.

      • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world
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        I lost a childhood friend to the MAGA cult. It sucks, I knew him since elementary school. He slowly became angrier, then he one day was just all out hateful saying the most vile hateful crap he could and I just cut ties completely.

        The stupidest part is I heard through someone else that “he has no idea why I wont talk to him”. I didn’t ghost him, I told him to his face on my way out his door for the last time that “I will not tolerate hatred, never speak to me again.”

        I suspect most of maga are the same way, they know full well what a massive piece of shit they are, the problem is that they are proud of it.

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            I haven’t seen that page before but its the way things are. My parents died last year and I didn’t go to their funerals. They of course had a opportunity to reach out but doing so would have been an admission that they had done something wrong. I had a couple of their flying monkeys come at me from time to time. I just call them fools and move on with my life. That is what you have to do. You will never get resolution from narcs. They can never see any wrong they do as wrong. They will never seek help because they fear it.

            Edit: I will say one of the things I miss about reddit is the raisedbynarcissists sub. It is where I discovered I wasn’t alone. That in itself was validation for me. Reading about others in similar situations to mine really helped me end a life long cycle of depression, anxiety and anger.

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            Damn, that is incredible. I am somebody who comes from a conservative white religious family. I am not estranged from them and we actually have a good relationship, but I do keep them at a certain distance because of it.

            But while the estrangement context is unfamiliar to me, all of the issues discussed absolutely ring true.

            The whole “emotion creates reality” versus “reality creates emotion” thing is a fantastic was to phrase it. I think that simple description might hit the nail on the head for what the hell is going on with conservatives/religious constantly trying to fuck up the world and having ridiculous beliefs.

            It also speaks a lot to narcissism, which does admittedly go hand in hand with the whole conservative need for social hierarchy and the expectation that oneself is obviously at the top.

          • Sam, The Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            23 hours ago

            This is an absolutely fascinating read; as someone with parents that tread a very thin line this is an incredible validation of what I’ve observed. And with multiple examples.

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          Are you me?

          I had a very similar experience, except it involved them running after me and trying to punch me in the face, after I’d walked 5 minutes down the street.

          Then a few weeks later they messaged an “apology” saying we’re both to blame that things got out of hand.

          Fuck Trump, fuck Farage, fuck Republicans, fuck Reform, fuck racists, fuck hatred, fuck intolerance. I just want my dumb, funny, stoner friend back, but that’s not possible now that he’s a hate filled arsehole.

          • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world
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            I was genuinely sad when it happened. I miss my friend he was a fun goofy guy, I just deal with it as if he died because it hurts less than knowing hes become everything he hated.

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      30But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? 31And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. 32I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

      Luke 5

    • Basic Glitch@lemm.ee
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      Red-Letter Christians

      Red-Letter Christians is a non-denominational movement within Evangelical Christianity. “Red-Letter” refers to New Testament verses and parts of verses printed in red ink, to indicate the words attributed to Jesus without the use of quotation marks.

      The organization was founded by Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne in 2007 with the aim of bringing together evangelicals who believe in the importance of insisting on issues of social justice mentioned by Jesus (in red in some translations of the Bible). They believe Christians should be paying attention to Jesus’s words and example by promoting biblical values such as social justice issues. These issues include the fight against poverty, the defense of peace, building strong families, respecting human rights and welcoming foreigners.

        • zloubida@sh.itjust.works
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          But it was a generalization all the same. Who says there are MAGAists in the church of the person who commented that one can’t be Christian and MAGA?

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              Sorry, English, as you probably understood, is not my first language. But I think my idea is quite simple: asking all Christians to eject the MAGA from their churches is like asking all Muslims to eject terrorists from their mosques, or all Jews to stop supporting the Gaza genocide. A lot already do, so that demand makes no sense, and is just bigotry.

              So, when someone posts: “As a Christian, I don’t think you can be both MAGA and Christian,” answering saying that all people eating with Nazis are Nazis makes no sense and is bigotry, as the author of the comment doesn’t necessarily prays with people supporting Trump. They even probably doesn’t.

              • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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                is like asking all Muslims to eject terrorists from their mosques, or all Jews to stop supporting the Gaza genocide

                Both of those are perfectly reasonable things to ask.

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                This is a terrible statement on ethics, or an excellent condemnation of organized faith under authority.

                You can choose a mosque or church or temple, or choose not to associate at all where the common practice is to include unrepentant authoritarians. This does not require you to abandon your core beliefs.

                The basic lesson of the 20th century, for all humanity, is to tolerate all behaviour except the oppressive and, ironically, the intolerant.

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                  I’m sorry, my English must suck quite more than I knew: my message is in favour of kicking the oppressive and intolerant. The thing I oppose is to consider by default that the Christian who published the Tik Tok comment tolerated the MAGA Christian, when they probably didn’t.

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          And what I’m saying is that Christians will accept hateful people because they believe God’s love will change them.

          So… yes, acceptance is kind of the point.

          Edit: we’re saying the same thing, I’m saying that expecting any kind of worthwhile change from Christians is unrealistic.

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              No, former Christian disillusioned with Christians. Easy misunderstanding to have, though — in these troubling times. I understand you.

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          What I’m saying is that Christians will accept MAGA because that is the point of Christianity.

          Sinners are sinners waiting to be saved.

          Edit: I’m not Christian.

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    I think most atheists I know are much closer to the christian values that the church and people who consider themselves christians are. Almost funny how a religion that’s supposed to be built on sharing, tolerance and love have produce to most selfish intolerent people filled with hatred.

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      This pissess me off so much. I was raised in christian family. And I mean motherfucking christian. I was taught from young age to show compassion, to help other, to help others up even if I don’t personally like them. This is what it means to me to be christian. Compassion, love, and charity. Help others without asking for anything back.

      Which is also core of fucking theoretical communism, so no wonder that also fell.

      But it pissess me off when I meet people who are soooooo fucking hardcore believers, each sunday in church, always praising god and then they start the goddamn gossip of the day. Because Annie has a man of a slightly darker carnation, it’s obvious Annie is abused, poor Annie but in the end Annie knew what she was doing, oh that poor hoe hope she finds god in her life. FFS these gossipin pseudo-christians should find god in their life -.-’

      There’s epigram in polish, fun little thing by Jan Kochanowski. Translation would be

      “If you’re not sinning, as you’re telling me, why are you, dear, confessing so often?”.

  • Prehensile_cloaca @lemm.ee
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    The broader truth is that you can’t be Christian and be pro-Capitalist.

    Once you remove Capitalism as the base, the entire “prosperity gospel” falls apart.

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    Jesus is definitely an amalgamation of a variety of stories and characters. I believe a real Jesus existed and was really killed by the state for what he did on what they celebrate as Palm Sunday, he mocked the emperor and was killed. He likely also mocked the Jewish leaders of his time and the Mystery Cults/public perception of Jews in his time.

    Example; the Eucharist was an act of mockery towards Mystery Cult rituals and the negative stereotypes of Jews.

    The Bible Jesus and much of his teachings are a culmination of thought put upon one character to tell a story like Gilgamesh (who was also a carpenter), any Roman-Greco hero, King Arthur. The story of the three wise men is, in my opinion, the idea that Eastern/foreign thought is introduced somehow namely Zoroastrianism. The dude lived in Palestine and likely alongside heavy trade routes into Rome, probably got exposed to interesting folk. He’s born in both Nazareth and Bethlehem? Sounds to me like he’s all these different folks smooshed into one story.

    In my opinion, Jesus is anti-authoritarian first and foremost, likely some form of socialist. And likely a punk.

    Kurt Cobain is probably closer to Jesus than any Republican.

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      The Roman empire was putting to death many prophets and god incarnates. The innovation of the Jesus story was that he didn’t stay dead, but he also conveniently didn’t stick around.

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        Curiously in all those stories in Josephus Rome killed the messianic upstarts immediately without trial and killed the followers they could get their hands on.

        Yet the canonical story has multiple trials and doesn’t have any followers being killed.

        Also, I’m surprised more people don’t pick up on how strange it is that the canonical stories all have Peter ‘denying’ him three times while also having roughly three trials (Herod, High Priest, Pilate). Peter is even admitted back into the guarded area where a trial is taking place to ‘deny’ him. But oh no, it was totally that Judas guy who betrayed him. It was okay Peter was going into a guarded trial area to deny him because…of a rooster. Yeah, that makes sense.

        It’s extremely clear to even a slightly critical eye that the story canonized is not the actual story, even with the magical thinking stuff set aside.

        Literally the earliest primary records of the tradition is a guy known for persecuting Jesus’s followers writing to areas he doesn’t have authority to persecute and telling them to ignore any versions of Jesus other than the one he tells them about (and interestingly both times he did this spontaneously suggesting in the same chapter that he swears he doesn’t lie and only tells the truth).

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          I believe it was Josephus who pushed the theory that Paul was an agent provocateur sent by the Sanhedrin to make sure that the Christians split from the Jewish religion.

          Considering Paul’s relentless proselytizing and his martyrdom, I don’t quite buy it, but I don’t reject it outright either.

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      the Eucharist was an act of mockery towards Mystery Cult rituals

      More likely the version we ended up with was intentionally obfuscated from what it originally was.

      Notice how in John, which lacks any Eucharist ritual, that at the last supper bread is being dipped much as there’s ambiguous dipping in Mark? But it’s characterized as a bad thing because it’s given to Judas? And then Matthew goes even further changing it to a ‘hand’ being dipped?

      Does it make sense for the body of an anointed one to not be anointed before being eaten?

      Look at how in Ignatius’s letter to the Philadelphians he tells them to “avoid evil herbs” not planted by god and “have only one Eucharist.” Herbs? Hmmm. (A number of those in that anointing oil.)

      There’s a parallel statement in Matthew 15 about “every plant” not planted by god being rooted up.

      But in gThomas 40 it’s a grapevine that’s not planted and is to be rooted up. Much as in saying 28 it suggests people should be shaking off their wine.

      Now, again kind of curious that the Eucharist ritual of wine would have excluded John the Baptist who didn’t drink wine and James the brother of Jesus who was also traditionally considered to have not drunk wine, or honestly any Nazarite who had taken a vow not to drink wine.

      I’m sure everyone is familiar with the idea Jesus was born from a virgin. This results from Matthew’s use of the Greek version of Isaiah 7:14 instead of the Hebrew where it’s simply “young woman.” But almost no one considers that line in its original context with the line immediately after:

      Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

      You know, like the curds and honey ritual referenced by the Naassenes who were following gThomas. (Early on there was also a ritual like this for someone’s first Eucharist or after a baptism even in canonical traditions but it eventually died out.)

      Oh and strange that Pope Julius I in 340 CE was banning a Eucharist with milk instead of wine…

      Now, the much more interesting question is why there were efforts to change this, but that’s a long comment for another time.