There are still a fair number of church goers. But since the ’60s, we have witnessed a massive migration away from the traditional denominations. In some case, a splinter group left a main group — e.g., both Orthodox Presbyterian and Presbyterian Church in America broke off from the mainstream Presbyterian Church USA. To sum up their differences and without specifying, they simply thought the mainstream church had gotten too liberal to be serious about their theology.

(As an aside, as a member of a Presbyterian Church in America, our theology is now under attack by younger pastors in the denomination over, you guessed it, Critical Race Theory. We are all supposed to apologize abjectly for injustices like slavery that were abolished a hundred years before we were born, and practices we never took part in. By being crucified, Jesus was able to propitiate the sins of many, but our sins weren’t His, they belong to us. There is no biblical principle requiring me to atone for sins I didn’t commit. Liberalism, like rust, never sleeps.)

Others left the mainstream denominations for trendy, soft-rock churches. Some fled to churches with a harder theology, like Baptist or Seventh Day Adventists. And some arrived at the doors of churches that most denominations see as heretical. (What is heresy, you ask? Heretical churches deny the Trinity in some fashion. The Mormons are the most interesting of these, and their theology is indeed quite hard in places. But, simply, they deny the Trinity. They protest when we call them heretical, but the funny thing about that is they consider Trinitarian churches to be heretical. The distance between A and B is the same as the distance between B and A. They’re allowed to notice; we are not.)

The Left is out to destroy every institution, yes, even the Lord’s church. It always starts by softly, gently, robbing the scriptures of their inerrancy and authenticity.

But I don’t expect non-Christians to understand the importance of this. He told His disciples that He spoke in parables so that not everybody would understand. Paul said that the “Greeks” (philosophers) would see Christian belief as foolishness and the “Jews” (Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests) would see it as heresy.

All we would ask of the Left is to leave us alone to worship as we see fit. But the Left won’t leave anyone alone. The Left is a jealous god. You will be assimilated.

He wasn’t saying the Right reacted with rage, he’s saying when the Right gained a bit the *left* reacted with rage (as if governing were their right.)

I grew up in a family who held these beliefs. They still do.

They do not love our country. I do not think they realize this.

That was true 60 years ago. That’s no longer true today.

You do have confused people who vote Democratic for a variety of reasons who are also conventional Christians. These people are on the very periphery of the Democratic electorate and mind space.

A congregation will consist of some conventional Christians and a great many people who are formal heretics who subscribe to a mass of fuzzy notions. Other people do not subscribe to froth but have some serious problems with the orthodox conception which they keep to themselves. The degree and type of pathology will depend on the denomination.

Conventional Christians with some baseline of civic understanding do not vote Democratic for supralocal offices, because they recognize the Democratic Party is now an enemy of the moral teachings of the Christian congregations.

Note, the Church and the protestant congregations are deeply diseased in our time. AFAICT, the least troubled are the Eastern churches and the rigorist oldline bodies like LCMS. Most clergymen are clowns.

> There are plenty of people who subscribe to conventional religions and are also on the left, some of them even members of the clergy.

I am aware of that, certainly. But don’t think for a second that the Church survived the Left’s march through the institutions unscathed. It has been a long time since even seminaries and theologians began to question the inerrancy of scripture.

If you’re going to represent God here on Earth and you question the scriptures, what’s the point?

O’Sullivan’s Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.” I read an article in National Review about thirty years ago, plus or minus, in which the author was writing about having attended an Episcopal seminary. He was getting into a lot of arguments with the professors. Finally, one of the other students took him aside and told him, “I can tell you what the problem is. The problem is, you’re the only one here who believes the Bible.”

There are many churches that are explicitly left-wing, politically and theologically, but they treat the actual message of Jesus Christ as a worldly thing. It is not, or at least not just that.

Religion is upstream from philosophy, which is upstream from culture, which is upstream from politics. When the Church doubts its own mission, it takes a while, but eventually everyone else begins to doubt it, too.

Your point about not all Leftists are true believers but think it will benefit them, I have no quarrel with — that seems pretty rock solid to me. But that’s pretty much philosophically and theologically beside the point. Every movement has fellow travelers who are just in it for themselves.

There are plenty of people who subscribe to conventional religions and are also on the left, some of them even members of the clergy.

Also, there are plenty of people who vote for leftists but are not themselves true believers – some are merely pragmatic and believe it will benefit them.

Yes, for many people that’s part of being allied with the Good and is a potent motivator.