I speak for myself, of course. And the people I know in my community.
Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately? Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
What evangelical church doesn’t believe in the second coming or the significance of the holy land?
Like your pastor, at your evangelical church, preaches that these things are not literal?
Edit: As someone that grew up evangelical, and has had evangelical friends my entire life, it is very strange to see someone casually say that the rejection of biblical inerrancy is an evangelical thing. It stands in stark contrast to the theology that’s fundamental to the faith.
It is literally as odd as seeing someone get mad when another person says that sainthood or the Eucharist are fundamental tenets to Catholicism. I would certainly want them to clarify what exactly their priest was saying to make them feel otherwise.
It is a real religion with a real theology! “Evangelical” isn’t a vibe, it’s a distinct system of worship! Biblical prophecy is very fundamental and a strongly-held belief and value that is taught in every evangelical church I have ever heard of!
There are evangelical movements within American mainline Protestant denominations that broadly hold to amillenialism and do not concern themselves with contemporary speculation regarding eschatology. They receive less attention nationally because they are politically irrelevant.
Amillennialism does not necessarily mean a wholesale rejection of the notion of biblical prophecy. If anything it is largely a disagreement about what the fulfillment of biblical prophecy will look like.
That aside, of course there are always small movements in every faith, but that isn’t usually super meaningful or helpful when talking about the larger group. I’m sure you can find some Catholics that don’t believe in transubstantiation but nobody is out here painting the church as being Eucharist-neutral.
I would not characterize entities like the United Methodist Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as small movements. Both are evangelical churches in the historical sense and neither has a specific position on contemporary political entities as they relate to Biblical prophecies.
The statement was “they changed their mind and want to postpone the Armageddon now?”
This is not the same as believing in the second coming. It specifically deals with the timing, suggesting all evangelicals think alike and want Armageddon immediately.
That kind of sounds like two pretty different complaints.
I can see the issue with the “changed their mind” comment. Of course armageddon accelerationist evangelicals aren’t going to change their minds, that position comes from deeply held convictions and values that are for many inextricable from their faith. To suggest that they would abandon their enthusiasm for the coming of the savior and the age of messianic peace that he brings with him is kind of dismissive of how seriously evangelicals take the topic of the second coming.
Conversely, the complaint about the enthusiasm about the timing of the return of Christ is kind of a head scratcher for me. You seem to assert that Jesus’ return is fundamental to your beliefs but you personally would prefer that he arrives later. Like it is important and central to your faith but it is also offensively presumptive to assert that anybody would actually want it to happen.
It is kind of like you are simultaneously complaining that he is taking the evangelical position on the second coming both too seriously and not seriously enough.
Are those ten million Evangelicals somehow not part of the mainstream? Like is it ten million outcasts that the majority of evangelicals do not claim? That seems unlikely due to the fact that the count of self-reported Christian Zionists is in the multiple tens of millions in the US.
What I think is going on here is you either do want to speak for all evangelicals, and want to convince people that they all believe what you believe, or you are somehow part of a community in which you haven’t heard of or spoken to nearly any of its members. These are the only two ways to make sense of the “who are you talking about?” question; you are either being willfully untruthful about tens of millions of evangelicals, or you simply, somehow, haven’t heard about tens of millions of evangelicals.
I think when a lot of people here say "evangelicals" they actually mean "dispensational premillennialists"–who are a significant chunk of "evangelicals", but not the whole
But to be fair to the dispensational premillennialists, even many of them would consider the idea that Israeli (or US) military action is somehow "accelerating the end-times" to be distasteful – whether or not they think that action is justified in itself.
You're reacting emotionally to handfuloflight's witty remark and now you're caught in this strait-laced and dignified bit to mask you being offended by the remark and caught making a very poor argument.
Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support Israel's genocide under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
Would it be fair for me to assume that handfuloflight's remark was solid but fell short in the generalizing way that jokes often lay, because of the possibility that there are Evangelicals who don't support Israel's genocide under the theological pretenses that other Evangelical's are known for because it's a terrible look and indicative of the contemporary fractures that capture the faith at large?
Both of ya'll need to be more forthright with your positions instead of performing this constipated do-si-do along the HN guidelines. Give me a good flame war, get flagged, ring up dang and the new dude, or just downvote each other.
My point is that evangelicals are not a monolith, and not all share the same beliefs.
The originating comment makes no hint that it is referring to anything less than 100%. It’s like saying “Black people think…” or “Women want….”, which invariably leads to some not funny generalization. Suggesting all evangelicals want the world to end immediately is in the same vein, IMHO.
I’m now making the point that generalizing evangelicals as a monolith that can ‘change their mind’ in unison is akin to generalizing people by race, gender, etc. I hope you are in agreement on that one.
Had your first statement been clear in referring to the subset of evangelicals ( instead of using a pronoun that refers back to the whole, evangelicals ), the statement would not have been properly called ignorant. As it stands, it reads as if all evangelicals wish for Armageddon without delay, which is an ignorant statement.
> Suggesting all evangelicals want the world to end immediately is in the same vein, IMHO.
But here's the thing. That wasn't the suggestion. The bunch of links that he gave you don't suggest that.
At least my impression is that there are a considerable amount of Evangelicals that support whatever you think is going on in Israel under theological pretenses. Any notion of timing carried by his initial remark is likely attributed to this.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the sum of the links handfuloflight shared. Maybe he should have done us the courtesy of spelling it out for us instead, as in, when you asked him:
> Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately?
He should've answered the question straight up instead of (what I interpret as) responding to the emotional side of your comment:
> Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
With an indirect explanation of his point through a bunch of links.
I get it, that's the responsible thing to do when the discourse is trying to present itself as something other than a flamewar, or something like that, which it might as well just be so we can all be more direct and upfront with what we think and feel instead of doing this half-bunned Socratic dialogue.
On the other hand, if someone tries to insult your intelligence in a sophomoric way it makes sense to leave them to their own devices and if they're so smart themselves they can read between the lines on their own.
Anyway, these are non-rhetorical, please-say-yes-or-no questions:
* Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
* Would it be fair for me to assume that handfuloflight's remark was solid but fell short in the generalizing way that jokes often lay, because of the possibility that there are Evangelicals who don't support whatever you think is going on Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelical's are known for, because it has grave moral implications and indicative of the contemporary fractures that capture the faith at large?
If you're offended, then suck it up and be open about your vulnerabilities instead of goading the other party into an exchange that they're better suited than you at carrying on. Maybe they'll show you the empathy you desire, within reason.
No, your first assumption is not a fair one. Like many people, my religious views are not lock step with my political ones and the relationship is not straightforward.
I see handfuloflights remark as an attempted joke, alongside jokes that assume all Black people think alike, all women want the same thing, etc. Like those diverse groups, evangelicals are not a monolith, especially in political matters.
I’m not deeply offended, but I do want to signal that jokes generalizing people are generally not funny.
In a way, I understand why his initial remark was stupid to make.
Especially when you say,
> I’m now making the point that generalizing evangelicals as a monolith that can ‘change their mind’ in unison is akin to generalizing people by race, gender, etc. I hope you are in agreement on that one.
And this is exactly why I raised my initial assumptions to you and why your answer was helpful.
When I asked:
> Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
What I tried to communicate was that my assumption is that your religious views are not in lock step with your political views in the ways that the generalization in question would suggest.
So when you say:
> Like many people, my religious views are not lock step with my political ones and the relationship is not straightforward.
This makes we want to understand what your views and their greater relationship are.
Additionally, are you upset that he made a generalization and that's all this is about? Or are you upset that he made a generalization that doesn't apply to you and you're trying to explain to us why that isn't the case. =
> I’m not deeply offended, but I do want to signal that jokes generalizing people are generally not funny.
Right. But I don't want to meander toward a discussion on humor, dry wit, et cetera, because although I identified the remark in question as a joke, that's all it is on the surface and it's implications are a lot more serious than that. Which is exactly why I would assume it isn't funny to you. And what makes the remark all the wiser in some ways, although not to you.
What I really want to figure out is what about his remark specifically upset you post-generalization, If according to your own answer to my assumption, you are an Evangelical who supports whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for.
[Previously I described that as "genocide", but I modified it because I don't to make it sound like I'm trying to manipulate you into agreeing to a part of a premise that you don't agree with. I'm trying to dialogue in as best of faith as I can].
I love handfuloflight. He doesn't know this. But I do. And he does know now. And I think his wit backfired, for the reasons I've already explained.
And as much as your offense constrains you to this odd posture that I feel so compelled to unravel, I think that his wit constrained him to come up with a concept ("apocalyptic accelerationism") that constrains him to now having to argue his way outside of a an ad-hoc generalization.
At this point, the generalization that handfuloflight makes isn't about "accelerating the apocalypse" as much as the influence that Israel's geopolitics have on Evangelical beliefs concerning the apocalypse.
From your side, this is what I want to learn. If you don't want to keep beating this HN thread, my email is in my profile.
And if handfuloflight feels like I've wronged him in anyway, he should let me know however he feels is suitable.
Could I have had added more rigor to make it air tight that my remark was not a generalization? Yes.
Did I? No. Because I thought that was not necessary when the response was in context about a specific group of people already: evangelicals who support Israel. Those who would understand what my remark was referring to, would already know that these evangelicals are a specific set; hence I saw no need to qualify it.
When Rick asked me for clarification twice if I meant that as a generalization, I said in clear terms that I did not.
If someone knows about these tendencies among the evangelicals, they would have the requisite knowledge to know it is not held among all evangelicals.
So if what I said was meant to be a joke, then it was more of an "in joke." But I didn't mean it as a joke, as much as I meant it as, I admit, a reactionary opening to discussing about this specific group's influence on US politics. But now I see that possibility was derailed, because reactionary responses only birth the same.
A quick internet search says 80% of white male evangelicals voted for Trump in 2024. I assume they’re referring to that, since project 2025 is exactly what they accused the evangelicals of supporting.
Still 80 != 100, and not all evangelicals are white males. Alienating the reasonable evangelicals isn’t going to help fix stuff.
C'mon man, you know there are a lot of biblical literalists who are all in on that end times stuff even if you and your social circle don't subscribe to it.
That statement is ignorant.