#Pandering to Evangelicals

[charliewrites99]

Watching the boys as a non-american is very much like I can't really tell how much is realistic satire and how much is exaggerated for the sake of making a point and comedy. Because I follow US politics, but not in a super detailed way.

[mercurymusing]

The competition is Jared Kushner's annexation plan, so:

Do fears about eroding civil rights and creeping fascism in the United States justify voting for Joe "Lesser of Two Evils" Biden next November despite his support of the wholesale massacre of Palestinians? Not only his personal support, but as commander of the US Military?

[the-incorrigible-chaia]

I recently saw a post about antisemitism that recommended people read Why the Jews? to learn more about antisemitism. I haven't read the book, so I can't objectively judge its quality, but I do want to note that it's written by Dennis Prager, noted shande who deliberately and regularly misrepresents Judaism for the sake of pandering to Evangelicals.

I don't know to what extent that impacts the book's usefulness as a resource, but if anyone has resources on antisemitism that weren't written by absolute schmucks, that'd be helpful, I think my favourite is April Rosenblum's pamphlet The Past Didn't Go Anywhere.

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

sometimes I can't help but feel that studios and networks set up plenty of diverse projects for failure nowadays, whether it's lack of promotion, low budgets and less protection towards creators and actors of color from racist harassment. Like no matter how hard people keep pushing for more diversity, studios and networks would still rather "pander" to those loud, racist fanbase

So at my job we have lots of diversity and inclusion training. I've only been there a year and I've been collecting the bibliographies of the trainings to try to disseminate here. One thing that I'm convinced that white people who are paper liberals (think democrats like Tswift) don't get is that just because they'll vote for the nonwhite politicians doesn't mean their white privilege isn't still a problem or their dislike of nonwhite characters aren't indicative of a deeper problem.

there's been studies where white people didn't have much opinion about nonwhites but then after more nonwhites had been introduced on public transportation their opinions of nonwhites soured, grew more negative. like seeing and being more exposed to nonwhites left white people with more negative stereotypes. and its like frustrating because this isn't just true of white people. I've encountered moc who don't like black female led shows like the acolyte or bpwf because Black women were front and center.

I feel like just how some women of color fall for terfy rhetoric there's also men of color who side with white male led media because their connection to their masculinity or their straightness is stronger than their connection to queer women of color. (if you'll notice both properties I've mentioned above had queer women of color a little more subtle in bpwf but still there).

There's so many religious people too that are against queerness in their media. that's another intersection that gets ignored alot too.

there's plenty of evangelical groups that are white supremacist in nature but others like mormons used to be white supremacist but now suddenly there's mormons of color? and like they're very much still cults that reject queerness you know?

there's A LOT of reasons companies like disney want to "seem" progressive by making diverse properties but then undercutting them by not giving them proper publicity budgets. these are just a few.

mod ali

[sordidamok]

Trump has no more ability to proclaim a holiday than any other unelected citizen, so this is just pandering to his base. If he had the power, it would be a violation of the First Amendment.

[silvermoon424]

It doesn't seem to register to the US politicians that the reason why a lot of younger generations (like my generation) don't want kids is because of the school shootings (that the gov't won't anything to prevent them anymore), everything is so expensive now, COVID, and we just don't have time for kids. And it's making the politicians mad. I say screw those politicians because the USA deserves it after how we were all treated by them.

I really do think that's why Republicans are so gung-ho about demonizing and outlawing abortion (aside from pandering to Evangelicals ofc). They fucking hate the common people so they're not going to make conditions better to the point where people want and are able to support kids; they'd rather outlaw abortion and contraception so that women are forced to pump out the next generation of victims.

[petervintonjr]

You're not on the side you think you are

There's a trailer aggressively making the rounds about a modern-day American civil war movie, due to bow in a few weeks. Just... way way too many people acting excited and thrilled for this, as if it's something they can't wait to happen in real life. Almost as if we're being inured, numbed, to the scenario. Something we're expected to start getting used to.

The advertisements pander to the basest macho insecurities, juicing up the "Don't Tread On Me" chest-thumpers and their perverse sense of "rugged individualism." (Likely with a generous dose of misogyny, racism, and evangelical nationalism thrown in.) The kind of people who think they're somehow going to be on the "winning" side were such a horrifying future to come true.

There are better and more meaningful ways to examine the consequences of such a thing, rather than a thrill-a-minute blockbuster summer action movie. Not going to spend money on this one and I would encourage you to thoughtfully consider saving your pennies, as well.

"Wait a minute, Peter you hypocrite," I hear someone call out at the back of the lecture hall. "Aren't you literally working on Volume III of a near-future graphic novel that's essentially about that very same subject?" Good heavens, yes. I didn't say the subject didn't need to be thoroughly explored. But the whole point of dystopic stories is their warning. 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Handmaid's Tale, the Hunger Games --the message behind such storytelling is to guard against such things. Such frightening futures are already way too plausible as it is --we're not supposed to be celebrating that or making it into some kind of exciting prospect; we're supposed to be doing everything in our power to prevent it.

The tagline of my series The Monitor's Guild is literally: "You're not on the side you think you are." I promise you, not a single character in my storyline is excitedly looking forward to suspended rights, interment camps or armed conflict in our home towns; the way some folks seem to be responding to this movie trailer.

[rainbowdaisy13]

I know it's a small pet peeve and I want to be on the right side of history is just a saying. However, it rubbed me the wrong way how she said that in the middle of 'crying'. So part of you being in distress is you wanting to be seen a certain way. It's not all about your actual convictions — With very small exceptions, wealthy people will always do what benefits them most — Getting into an end justifies the means mentality could be detrimental. It's very easy to get lost along the way and not reach the end anymore. Or reach it but destroying too much in the process —The obvious end for this performance art was the Suberbowl. A mockumentary then would've been audacious. It made sense timing wise to avoid looking like you're trying to manipulate people. It wouldn't look like you're flipping the script because of public pressure either — Now if she endorses Kamala, I'd be seen by many as her just not wanting to be cancelled. She made it so her Kamala endorsement would be rendered moot, except for the optics —She'll definitely post another superiority complex caption of my silent means restraint, I know when the right timing is for everything. How dare you peasants question me or my actions — As for me now, she could stand next to Kamala at the debate, it'll mean nothing. She'll never come out and say Travis and the Mahomes are terrible people, that she platformed a team owned by Evangelicals Trumpies and that was wrong. Anything short of that, it's to save face — She made it so you can't trust anything coming from her as genuine. And that is her legacy. If my team would've come up to me with this plan and my goal wasn't only money, I would've fired all of them, including my parents. You guys can go live out your retirement in peace. You're done here. She didn't because she's too comfortable playing out the fantasies of white conservatives. She pandered to them 99% of her life. Who knows who she actually is as a person. We certainly don't.

We really have no clue who she is!!!

That’s what’s so wild here—you constantly Runaway Bride your life & this is where you end up

[backtonormallife]

All this sh!t talking about leftists really does a disservice to those of us who are incredibly liberal AND support Israel. We have always had to choose between anti-semites and those who pander to evangelicals in the name of the resurrection of Christ. Israel needs to exist for Christ to rise again.

Am Yisrael Chai

[gaykarstaagforever]

YouTube Music (yes, still, shut up), does curated "themed" playlists, for holidays and seasons and, sigh, "vibes," and such. And I made the mistake of trying to listen to one.

I should have taken it as a clear warning that it's called "A Pumpkin Spice State of Mind". Because regardless of your personal lingering embarrassing 2010s-era feelings on that clove-rich flavor complex, I know exactly how YouTube's drones are using those words. This is music what their computers have tol' them that 33 year old white women from Maryland who can pull off leggings like. Like, like a whole buttload.

Which isn't a bad thing. It's just a plainly pandering thing, to a specific audience. That offers a "vibe" that has as much to do with any supposed autumnal aesthetic as rainbow packaging on Mac 'n' Cheese has to do with Pride Month.

Obviously, they expect anyone who is intrigued by a "Pumpkin Spice" music playlist in the first place to be of a certain type. And as I am a gay with expansive musical tastes, there was a good 40% chance this would work for me. But it does not.

...I don't even know who most of these artists are. This is mostly all distinctly "hiker pop," a brilliant term I devised to describe a certain type of vague, airy folk pop that is only not acoustic singer-songwriter music because it isn't that good. This is literally the music white people who upload videos about hiking put in those videos, because trees = guitar, I guess? It is what you get when rich kids who went to art college record music that is very intentionally them pretending they are untrained world-weary bards with stories to tell. I.e., lots of head-singing and mumbling. Like if Mumford & Sons did a bunch of tramadol.

...Like if Mumford & Sons did a bunch MORE tramadol.

I realize "fall-feeling" is subjective, and, apparently, highly gendered. At least amongst members of the white race. But that said...I don't know what we're doing, here. This is like youth pastor ukulele music, minus the Blonde Jesus invisibly massaging his back. It starts off with an Aly & AJ track that is good, that I like. But then it's Happie? Meg Smith? Hollow Coves? Overcoats? Is this a playlist or is this MAD LIBS, amirite?

I literally do not know what any of this is. And I know why. Because this fizzy whatever is as mid as mid can get.

At some point Taylor Swift shows up, because this is a playlist for middle class white women so that was inevitable. Fortunately it is "invisible string," one of the good Taylor Swift songs. But then "Never Be Alone" by Shawn Mendes immediately shows up to remind me why I don't need to be here.

Look. I don't hate any of these people, or any of this music. They are all doing their thing, and everyone is entitled to do that, and people can like it. But this is the most dentists' office, Walmart recruitment video, megachurch foyer, Disney Adults playlist I have ever seen. And I simply can't get over how desperate it all is to pretend it is anything more than that. And, again, WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHANGING LEAF COLORS, OR A NOTABLE CHILL IN THE AIR?

This is all intensely personal. But when I think of Fall, I think this:

Anxious German bagpipe music, played in dank mossy groves, by people wearing horrifying costumes of burlap and hay, thanking the Wheat Goddess for a bountiful harvest by burning a bushel of apples, and maybe the militant virgin Evangelical the Government sent to infiltrate their cult.

You know. Autumn shit.

...That's probably just me. I look awful in leggings.

[fizzingwizard]

Funny little thought.

From the time I was six till I was about fifteen, my family was entrenched in evangelicalism. From age 10, I started going to the school at my church, which meant I was inundated with religion six out of seven days a week. Only Saturday was free of it. And some days I would get religious lessons at school, go home, then go back to church, which was the school, for evening youth group and stuff. Looking back it just feels like a lot, but.

Somehow I still wiggled out of that mindset and I think a lot of my peers did too, tbh. After all, church is where I learned what different sex acts were and about homosexuality. Not from people saying how evil they were - of course there were plenty of adults doing that, but the kids were all totally unconcerned and eager to shock other kids with what they knew hahaha.

Anyway, there's lots I could talk about, but what I was thinking about today was pretty innocent effect of being required to think of religion and only religion as a valuable pursuit for such a big chunk of childhood. It was about music. I was allowed to read and watch anything that was age appropriate, regardless of whether it was "Christian" enough. My parents would have objected if there had been sex or homosexuality (or rather if they'd known there was those things >_>;), but for the most part it wasn't hard to keep those things private.

Music was different because I played it in my room. On a stereo. Without headphones x'D I did have an mp3 player which I took with my on walks, but the things I liked to dance in my room. Not conducive to wearing headphones. So I would blast music pretty much constantly when I was home. And my options for acceptable music were pretty much: secular music my parents had grown up with and couldn't see anything unacceptable in it, or Christian Contemporary Music (CCM).

Well, I didn't hate my parents' favorite bands, but they weren't very now. So my favorite musicians were artists no one but my best friend had ever heard of. He and I would belt their songs whenever we felt like it, so just imagine two nerdy kids biking up and down the road screeching "JESUS IS THE WAY THE TRUTH THE LIGHT" off-key because we keep going in and out of each other's ear shot xP

These were some of my favorite artists:

Point of Grace

Third Day

Avalon

Rachael Lampa

Casting Crowns

MercyMe

Skillet

Steven Curtis Chapman

ZoeGirl

Rebecca St James

Mark Schultz

V*enna

And so many more that I've forgotten. And I loved them whole-heartedly. I just went through the wikis for some early 2000s WOW Music CDs and literally my heart clenched with nostalgia seeing some of the song titles and artist names that I haven't thought about in so long. It brought back an era of my life that I feel so out of touch with now. It's not that I miss it exactly, but I suppose I miss that naivete and security I had at that age, which was mostly due to being a kid with a pretty decent childhood. It's similar nostalgia that I feel when I think back on high school, or non-school memories before that.

Music gets so wrapped up with memory that no matter what, I can't dislike these CCM artists. Nor can I forget about them. I still listen to a few favorites, especially songs by Point of Grace, which seems like such a weird group to become the favorite of a 10 year old, but me and my best friend were obsessed, like obsessed with them at that age. Bought ever album and knew all the words.

When I listen to those CCM songs now, as an adult, a lot of them don't hold up. We used to get told that "Christian content usually falls short when it's literature or movies, but music is equal to secular stuff." I don't think that's 100% wrong, but it's certainly not as clear a success story as we were told it was. My main beef is with the female artists, many of whom just leaned in so much on purity and abstinence, even while some of them pandered a lot to secular audiences. But it's not just the themes but the lyrics and music itself. V*enna, which as far as I know had only one CD, is just some of the worst music. I liked their album as a kid, but when I listened to it a while back I was just cringing. Really amateurish, so no wonder it didn't go far.

But there's a lot of fun to be had with CCM too, like Audio Adrenaline's rock cover of Little Drummer Boy which still splits my ear drums while making me ask "Why?" And there's the nonsensical conundrum of groups like Skillet or Creed, which some fans who only knew their secular stuff are stunned to learn they were included in Christian music stores. Or Jump5, a tween bobby group which sang about God, made money by putting tracks in Disney movies, and overall existed to make money.

Speaking of money. When I was fourteen, our youth group decided to start a band and I was a vocalist. The band only had one performance. You know why? The pastor at my church LEAPT on the idea because he thought we would get famous and... make lots of money for the church...?? Honestly, we were VERY amateurish, the lead singer I think was decent but very much did not want to be in the band long term, the musicians were so-so, and I was definitely so-so. But the pastor got involved and pressed us to be amazing and to have an amazing band name which I can't remember anymore and well we just flopped. None of us were into the idea but him. If he hadn't gotten dollar signs in his eyes we might've had a bit of fun, which was the only intention. But this was a pastor who was bent on his plan to make the church a mega-church and becime famous for his Idk pastor skills or whatever.

Back to music. So I do still love those artists from my childhood, regardless of how good they are objectively. But I got to wondering, what kind of music would I have been a fan of at that age (early teens) if I hadn't felt like secular stuff was off limits? I did somehow become a fan of Avril Lavigne and I am not even sure how that happened. One year my dad bought me Hilary Duff's first CD, which told me that he had no idea what my music tastes were or that we didn't even pay for the channel her shows were on so I didn't know who she was :P (But I appreciated the effort at bonding lol) That's much cleaner than Avril, at least.

Aside from Avril, I think I probably would have been a My Chemical Romance girl. Honestly, I probably would've been annoying into them if I found them at the right age. But I never heard "Helena" until this year. Fall Out Boy maybe, Green Day? Snow Patrol, Pink, Bjork, Nightwish are some groups I became fans of later, once I was out of the church. Best friend introduced me to Vienna Teng and Tori Amos. I like rock and metal now, but as a teen I didn't much, and I'm trying to think what was popular when I was in high school. I would go to the movies and not recognize any of the songs in them haha.

I just had the funny thought that I could have been so different as a teenager if I'd listened to different music... I bet I'd have been more emo or something lol. Idk, the groups that pop into my mind seem emo.

super nostalgia now whoa

/conversation with teenage fizz haha

[aro-bird]

Hey, I should've probably made a post about this when the controversy first started but it's better late than never I guess. There's been some discourse on twitter about this, mostly from non-native Filipinos, so I have to say: Stop trying to say that the Filipino sapphic McDonald's commercial was just taking advantage of Filipinos.

Look, I understand that it's so easy to try to go "rAinBoW cAPiTaliSm!!!" on companies when you see them creating content for the queer community especially if the company doesn't really have a good track record. Hypocrisy is absolutely a thing you should point out especially when companies trying to capitalize on the groups they refuse to support. But FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TRYING TO SPEAK ABOUT SHIT YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT

If you're not aware, the Philippines has an awful homophobic and transphobic culture where, like a lot of Asian countries, they would tolerate you being gay but wouldn't accept you. It's not uncommon for people to get their identities erased by their families, their queerness forced into the closet, and family making suggestions to force you to be cishet. Not only that, but if you were public about being queer, you would either be mocked or harassed with some incidents possibly escalating to violence.

This culture of bigotry has created a push to make laws to prevent discrimination against people based on their sexuality or gender identity in the form of the SOGIE bill. The thing is, this law constantly gets push back from religious groups and even some members of the cishet majority since they don't understand what the law entails and think that the gays just want to hurt the "nuclear family".

You wanna know how bad it's been for the SOGIE bill? An anti-discrimination bill was first officially proposed in 2004 and none has had approval since. In February 2023, there was a news report that even uncovered a large disinformation campaign that was trying to spread lies about the current SOGIE bill so people would be against it passing into law. These were mostly spearheaded by Christian Evangelical groups that had had a stranglehold on queer rights in the country for decades.

There has also been a constant pushback against queer people and loud discrimination against them even on a societal level. Stories like that of Gretchen Custudio Diez who was a transwoman that had been arrested for trying to use the bathroom may have been given a transphobic spin by the larger anti-queer disinformation campaign, but there's still so many people that either mocked and ridiculed her before they heard anything else about the story besides "transwoman gets arrested for using the bathroom." I vividly remember my otherwise pretty supportive mother making jabs at it and even spouting some transphobic rhetoric before I had to correct her, and she's not really the type to be obsessed over Facebook or Twitter.

McDo creating this commercial is controversial and yes, could be considered pandering, but you need to get it into your head that the Philippines has different cultures and social issues from the fucking west. The Philippines may be listed as "one of the most gay friendly countries in the world" but that is such a gross understatement of the truth here. The Philippines is gay-tolerant, not gay-friendly, and anything that tries to normalize any gay relationship outside of queers being used as a punchline or some emotional sideplot gets criticized to hell and back.

The amount of sapphic Filipinos and other queer Filipinos that found joy, comfort, and hope because of this commercial could also not be understated. I've seen so many tweets and posts about how happy and represented they felt even with such a short ad and you shitting on that is just such a dick move, especially if you yourself aren't a Filipino who grew up and/or lives in the Philippines.

As much as I hate capitalism, corporations actually showing public support for the queer community is extremely necessary here since it normalizes queer people. In this day and age where not only do queer Filipinos barely even have rights but the global queerphobic right has definitely been influencing the Filipino internet which may even endanger any bit of progress queer activists had made for the past few decades, corporations being on the side of the community is super fucking important.

If you haven't seen the commercial yet, here's a link to the video. McDo has also made a more subtle mlm commercial before that you can watch here.

[the-incorrigible-chaia]

Every day, I become more and more shocked that Dennis Prager, a man who spent a decade chairing a Jewish university and co-authored several books about Judaism, seems to either a) have no idea what basic Jewish values like the yetzer hatov are, or b) have so little integrity that he's willing to lie about his own religion to pander to Evangelicals.

[automatismoateo]

Most zoological edutainment places in the US I've worked/been to coddle theists by omitting evolution and it's disgusting via /r/atheism

Most zoological edutainment places in the US I've worked/been to coddle theists by omitting evolution and it's disgusting I've worked at a few edutainment zoological places, some big some small and A LOT of them omitt talking about or saying evolution/adaptation outright. They've specifically been told to avoid saying these and talk more about suited to environment or less evolution evident language. The reason is obvious, they don't want to offend evangelical Christians and other theists so they stop spending there or leave bad reviews or something but it's Franky disgusting they pander to them so hard. Management always says it's from corporate and they all make disappointed faces as they say so. I can only imagine doing business as usual and theist just going on and on about how evolution isn't true or god or just overall being frustrating while you try to educate about animals and the environment but I hate that we live in a time where it's beneficial financially and for peace of mind to coddle theists who are indoctrinated agaisnt evilution. Submitted December 10, 2024 at 08:40PM by Daxivarga (From Reddit https://ift.tt/IjgiHea)

[christianity-crucible]

Not sure what to make of the new Center for the Study of Evangelicalism at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS). But it's choice of Tim Alberta as debuting speakers might give an indication:

The Center for the Study of Evangelicalism at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs began its work this fall and makes its public debut Wednesday with a talk by Tim Alberta, author of the bestselling book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. The event’s 742 tickets are nearly gone, but the center plans to post Alberta’s talk on YouTube by the end of the week and plans an April event with Sarah McCammon, national political correspondent for NPR and author of The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. The choice of Alberta was strategic. For one thing, he bears no grudges. He’s a pastor’s son and practicing Christian whose critique of the politicization of evangelicalism springs from love and heartbreak, not anger or hate. For another, he’s an award-winning journalist who can speak to both academic and general audiences.

He's definitely evangelical all the way, but isn't a fan of (at least the more hardcore manifestations of) Christian Nationalism, for what that's worth.

The Center seems like it'll basically be friendly to evangelicalism, though with luck it won't pander to its worst hardliners.

(Hopefully the Center won't be a nest of anti-LGBTQ or anti-feminist bigots.)

[just-jokes]

Once again, for those in the back: refusing to vote for Kamala this November will not help Palestine. Criticize the Democrats' neoliberalist centrism all you like, but it's Republicans actively cheerleading zionists. They're the ones Israel is pandering to as they bulldoze Palestinian homes to build biblical theme parks. Evangelical Christians (i.e. Trump's base) are the ones who literally want to instigate Armageddon by manually fulfilling the end-times "prophecies" in the Bible, most importantly the establishment of Israel as an ethnostate. As bad as things are in Palestine right now, Trump returning to the white house will make them worse.