As someone who grew immersed up in American Christian culture (and I do think “American Christianity” should be considered meaningfully distinct from global Christianity, but I digress) I can confirm that this is pretty much what it is from the inside.
I can only speak to the culture I was raised in, and it may not be representative of broader American Christianity, but I feel like it’s fairly representative of those who view “being a Christian” as a big part of their identity or sense of self. My experience involved religious private schooling from 4th-12th grade, so there was very little exposure to outside views. On one hand this makes my experience non-representative, on the other hand I feel like it let me see what the undiluted worldview looks like from the inside with very little noise to distort the signal.
The culture I was raised In indoctrinated the following ideas as facts, plain and simple, without nuance and largely unquestioned:
1. America has only flourished with God’s blessing because the majority of founding fathers and American culture historically has been predominantly Christian, despite separation of Church and State. IE, American can (and in their view, should) be “A Christian Nation” via most people being Christian, without it necessarily being a state religion
2. The devil hates this and is constantly trying to tear down the Christian culture that exists today. So I’m a real sense, they genuinely view any inroads or progress by any non-Christian faction as an actual attack, since they attribute ANY view or set of values that denies or ignores the moral norms of modern American Christianity as ENEMY ACTION by the literal devil and/or demons.
3. This leads to a mindset of American Christians being in a walled city, defending against a siege of attackers from all sides, both secular and non-Christian religious in origin.
There’s also a large degree of “purity test” mentality about what one believes and how fervently and deeply one believes it, and how much they are willing to passively/independently deviate from and/or resist wider cultural norms because of it. “Love your neighbor as yourself” gets distorted into “Convince your neighbor of the error of their ways so they can join you on the Christian lifeboat and not go to hell”.
npub1l7…epah7
2023-07-09 15:11:36
in reply to nevent1q…jcqm
Author Public Key
npub1l79kuy8hy0kmmzuffygf3rgqrcmh5kf77zgnnwmjqzeu8jqlwzpq4epah7Seen on
wss://relay.nostr.bandPublished at
2023-07-09 15:11:36Event JSON
{
"id": "5b16eeca8dca6d0e0fb1d0e576e0a0788c4604ffe9a8528af1a9db3f15bf82ab",
"pubkey": "ff8b6e10f723edbd8b894910988d001e377a593ef09139bb7200b3c3c81f7082",
"created_at": 1688915496,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"ff3a3cdc4b48cfa0db66d37c5da54aa674d1a6dd674f8fc48c3beab455706886"
],
[
"p",
"d7607464225c8ab610da99495bc70c8a3a45a03f8a22a95f06fcb5bc421e573a"
]
],
"content": "As someone who grew immersed up in American Christian culture (and I do think “American Christianity” should be considered meaningfully distinct from global Christianity, but I digress) I can confirm that this is pretty much what it is from the inside. \n\nI can only speak to the culture I was raised in, and it may not be representative of broader American Christianity, but I feel like it’s fairly representative of those who view “being a Christian” as a big part of their identity or sense of self. My experience involved religious private schooling from 4th-12th grade, so there was very little exposure to outside views. On one hand this makes my experience non-representative, on the other hand I feel like it let me see what the undiluted worldview looks like from the inside with very little noise to distort the signal.\n\nThe culture I was raised In indoctrinated the following ideas as facts, plain and simple, without nuance and largely unquestioned:\n1. America has only flourished with God’s blessing because the majority of founding fathers and American culture historically has been predominantly Christian, despite separation of Church and State. IE, American can (and in their view, should) be “A Christian Nation” via most people being Christian, without it necessarily being a state religion\n2. The devil hates this and is constantly trying to tear down the Christian culture that exists today. So I’m a real sense, they genuinely view any inroads or progress by any non-Christian faction as an actual attack, since they attribute ANY view or set of values that denies or ignores the moral norms of modern American Christianity as ENEMY ACTION by the literal devil and/or demons. \n3. This leads to a mindset of American Christians being in a walled city, defending against a siege of attackers from all sides, both secular and non-Christian religious in origin.\n\nThere’s also a large degree of “purity test” mentality about what one believes and how fervently and deeply one believes it, and how much they are willing to passively/independently deviate from and/or resist wider cultural norms because of it. “Love your neighbor as yourself” gets distorted into “Convince your neighbor of the error of their ways so they can join you on the Christian lifeboat and not go to hell”.",
"sig": "a86449b865c5ef012512cf573d9e7a73de69fce996f0dab3a60b6de6eacc1032f2febc5541ab29f06737a3b2899a3cb385dc63609e0fb4b3df5384e198b7a916"
}