Ok (see other users comments concerning Christian morality informing politics), but my question did not concern Christian fundamentalism per se, but any religious fundamentalism.
Iâm not convinced that the French separation is so rigorous as it is just different. Our tax dollars donât pay Catholic school teachers, for example.
(Precise that I donât use the French words to impose French, just because these terms are very loaded by multiple France-specific things, so that using the English word could be misleading)
The thing we need to know is that French modern/republican school was invented in a context where most of the country spoke dialects, and also in a context where the new republican elite wanted to fight against âsuperstitionsâ.
More importantly and generally, the idea was to use school to build this new French Republican identity and nation-state.
This is how French subconscious strong nationalism (read on Quora or Youtube comments that people think the French are arrogant) unfolds IMU: having the concepts ârepublicanismâ and ânationâ confused, so that people think they are quite neutral and objective (republicanism and its liberal values) while they are also stuck in a rather turning-inward framework (nationalism) â French Republicanism | Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office
I think from what Iâve seen, French public support of secularism is stronger than that of the U.S. public. I would love to see that here in the U.S.
Fighting for religious freedom in the U.S. has led to legal discrimination against segments of our society. A Christian pharmacist says, âI shouldnât have to dispense birth control.â A Christian baker says, âI shouldnât have to bake a cake for gay people.â A Christian politician says, âOur state does not allow abortion.â or âDrag queens cannot perform near schools.â
Many Christians are working hard to destroy our democracy. We call them Christian nationalists.
So how would you deal with that? The French solution (we described above with Morgane), or the Richard Dawkins solutions (via public debates, lectures, associations, ⊠what we could call âcivil educationâ, education by us civilians)
I ask that with reference to the pace at which Christian nationalism in the US seems to pervade society and politics recently
Personally, Iâm in favor of any reasonable plans to promote secularism. Given our current SCOTUS, I am very afraid.
Now, I have some very good friends who are Christian. I have seen two primary groups of Christians in the U.S. Many are from rural areas where they are taught to be like Jesus. They are kind, smart, and reasonable in most cases. They despise what the Christian right is doing to both religion and politics. Then, there are the Christian nationalists who actually believe that Trump was sent by god.
Essentially, it depends on the population. For example, Islamic fundamentalism might be fine in some societies. Christian fundamentalism is not fine in America politics, but the regular Christian morality that most everyone has practiced for 250 years is not a problem.
yeah, coffee, or whomever is reading this, when one says âChristian moralityâ, what does that mean? Itâs not like I never asked that question before. Iâve been directed to some very long treatises on the subject, none of them resolve to anything useful. Obama made a short speech in a church, while he was President, noting it would be a problem with much of the government if he tried to implement something as agreeable as the Sermon on the Mount.
Ten Commandments? Canât agree on what âkillâ means. Leviticus, no one ever followed those rules. Matthew 25, the good parts, also ignored.
If you compare post-colonial English immigration and post-colonial French immigration, you realize that in reality, notably Pakistanis in London, 40% in studies tell you that they want to apply Sharia law in England . Even our most pessimistic studies in France, even the last one which is a little questionable from a methodological point of view, in the greatest moments of pessimism, we arrive at perhaps 30% of French Muslims who consider that the laws of God are more important than human laws, without necessarily wanting to apply them in France.
If you add the criterion of mixed marriages, if you simply add community life⊠that does not mean that things are not deteriorating, we are in the process of joining the religious communitarianism which has hit the headlines so much in England, and which in my opinion also poses serious problems in the United States. But in reality we are rather the ones who are doing the best in terms of the model of mixing and the retreat from deep prejudices. (Google Translate)
Right. There is no set Christian morality. Abortion wasnât on the Christian agenda until the moral majority decided to use the topic to gain an emotional religious fight for the masses.
Today, the United Methodists are trying to accept LGBTQ+. The result is a quarter of their churches seceding to form the Global Methodist church who will not accept anything gay or trans. But hey, god is love, right?
I was thinking recently, amid our discussions about US Christianism on this forum, whether Protestantism in the US were getting more and more catholic (understand illiberal)âŠ
This question reflects your heavy use of labels. I think you are trying to understand U.S. society and I respect that. But please understand that labels create over generalizations.
For example, Protestantism is not a monolith. There is an evangelical group within Protestants. So some Protestants are very conservative and others are liberal.
And regarding Prager, your use of a label here is problematic. Prager is a Jew who identifies socially with the Christian right.