Inspiring Philosophy responds to an attack on Christianity from Genetically Modified Skeptic (a prominent atheist YouTuber) where GMS reports that US Christian rights groups with some political ties have spent $280 million to in anti-LGBT efforts globally. He specifically references $20 million spent in Uganda, where they recently passed a death penalty for being LGBT.
Michael (Inspiring Philosophy) responds by citing papers where anti LGBT prejudice is actually lower among Christians, and higher among Islamists, Hinduists and Buddhists. GMS does acknowledge that Muslims are violently anti-LGBT, but he decries that ”Christians are doing violence too, through Dark Money groups, because they have a lot of money, and that gives them all the power they need to create the large scale violence they want to see”. I think this reaction is basically projection from a power focused atheist activist.
Last week I posited a theory of Power where Power = Influence + Money + Violence, and GMS clearly thinks in these terms. He practically illustrated the above formula in the quote I cited. And once again, I’ll repeat, Jesus himself was really only focused on Influence, and did not teach or encourage the cultivation of money or violence.
Christianity and Power
When people say that the US is a Christian nation, they are implying that the US is a Christian institution and it wields the elements of power. And I do know that there are several prominent Christians of wealth. In theory Elon Musk is a Christian, but others which seem a bit more authentic that you may not know include David Green (Hobby Lobby), Jins Sukchang (Forever 21), Truett Cathy (Chick-Fil-A).
It’s not unbiblical for a Christian to be wealthy, but Jesus has many things to say about the use and purposes of money. Jesus warns of the love of money, and accumulation of it for its own sake was mocked as foolish (Parable of the Rich Fool). But money can be converted to positive influence, and Jesus did condone that (Parable of the Shrewd Manager).
LGBT vs Christians Is Manufactured
Veering back to LGBT issues, it seems contradictory for Christian “Dark Money” to be used to create violence against the community of LGBT people. I view LGBT people as victims of our current corrupted world. The LGBT movement/ideology itself is inherently untruthful and immoral, and is manufactured to be a tool to gain power (by the elite) from an rhetorically vulnerable Christian people. So, via propaganda, LGBT people are set against Christians, but not Muslims/Hindus/Buddhists, because those groups do not have power in the US. And politically Right elites use propaganda to set Christians against LGBT people. It is imperative for Christians to avoid divisive mindsets, as this is the strategy of divide and conquer, and its intentions are to destroy not just Christians, but unsettle all of society.
Compassion as an Expression of Influence
In the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, we see a woman who supposedly was caught in a sexual sin, and the crowd wanted to administer justice, but Jesus’ reaction was one of compassion. He did not condone the sin, but rather used his influence to disperse the crowd, and ultimately he showed her life saving compassion. Compassion was one of the cornerstones of Jesus’ influence, whether it was through healings, feeding of thousands, the driving out of demons (loosely analogous to mental health care), Jesus met the needs that caused suffering and restored people to spiritual, mental and physical health, to the end of restoring our relationship with God.
Sorry for the Mess, Brain is Under Construction
These blog posts might be a bit redundant at times. I’m trying to synthesize various common themes and I’m iterating my mental models with each post. With the Charlie Kirk assassination, and the motivations of the shooter being in a relationship with a trans person, I think this clearly is an expression of how LGBT vs Christianity is a propaganda/power struggle that is resulting in harm to both communities, enacted by elite power brokers.
LGBT expression (my current working theory), is the result of trauma/harm combined with cultural indoctrination, inflicted on people at early stages of development. When confronted with an LGBT person, not every Christian may be equipped to deal with their specific needs or mitigate their damage. But we should maintain compassion and trust Jesus as the savior who can heal and forgive all. And not every person is always healed or made whole in this life, so, we shouldn’t carry the expectation that all LGBT people will become “straight”, we all will be incomplete in some way until we are reunited in heaven.
One caveat, the Christian must be wary, as compassion can be exploited. Even Jesus taught the disciples to “not throw pearls before swine”. I will interpret this here as to discerning if a person has genuine need and opportunity for relationship, or is an activist who is hardened and is actually looking to harm you.
Propaganda Summary
In summary: the LGBT movement is left propaganda. It’s goal is to counter the Conservative movement, which is right propaganda. Christians are nominally aligned in the Conservative movement, but Christians should actually align in their own movement, and avoid strict alliance with Left/Right/Moderate political movements. Also Christians should avoid adding left or right propaganda to the Christian message. Jesus was neither strongly pro or anti (gay, war, immigration, slavery, racism, environment, science, taxes, government). These movements are distractions.