Christian Fundamentalism and Child Abuse
Other than the obvious – sexual and physical abuse by preachers, priests, religious parents and relatives or cult members – many of the fundamentalist ideas of Catholic, Mormon, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witness and evangelical Christianity are socially, sexually, psychologically and culturally abusive to children.
*Demons – Telling children there are demons in their closet or under their bed. Fear is good! We'll 'cast' them out of you!
*End Times – The world will be ending soon, so don't worry about the future.
*Persecution – All Christians should enjoy being persecuted as part of their role.
*Martyrdom – All Christians should aspire to die for their religion.
*Hell – The doozy. You stray from the church or the teachings, you will go to an eternal fire of damnation, pain, burning and ... Fear the Lord!
*Devil – This horrible guy will even get inside you. We have Exorcism and we have fear and we have the cure.
*Purity Culture – Sex and masturbation are terrible and women and girls are subservient. LBGT are the worst.
*Sin – There are many sins, large and small, and you are already a sinner.
*Guilt – Since you are sinful, you should always feel guilty.
*Evil – You, child, are evil by birth. Admit it! And those not in our group are even more evil.
*The Rapture – All those other kids are going to hell, but not you if you obey.
*Homeschooling – We want to socially isolate you and control every thought in your head with our 'educational' genius.
*Baptism – If you don't get water dribbled on your head or dunked in water, you're going to hell.
*Physical punishment – “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Necessary physical abuse of children is the real path to heaven. Some substitute verbal abuse.
*Creationism – We'll teach you pseudo-science so you'll understand the world. And remember, medical science is the devil's work.
*Bible Literalism – Yes, a book borrowing myths from the past, written by dozens of humans long after events, perhaps about a guy named Yeshua ben Yosef, translated from a number of ancient languages, vetted by the Council of Nicea and endorsed by a Roman Emperor IS the actual word of God.
*Violence – Violence against the enemies of Jesus and God is legit.
*Doomsday – The destruction of the world is coming. Armageddon is the entrance to the kingdom of God, so rejoice. You'll be saved if you cooperate, but 'they' won't, so don't make friends with them.
Theocracy – It's a good thing, except when practiced by other religions.
Trump – Our redeemed savior.
*The Book of Revelation (of St. John the Divine - “New” Testament) – The most blood-thirsty bed-time story ever told.
Some of this abuse extends to murder. This post is inspired by people breaking with fundamentalist religion and moving towards atheism – or for those deeply scarred by religion, who move to some kind of 'spirituality' or 'mainstream.' I never lived through this nonsense, nor was abused by it, as I was brought up by a sane, non-religious woman. Thank goodness, not god. The trauma for these ex-religious children, the Exvangelicals, extends into adulthood, where they try to make sense of their bizarre, intolerant and sometimes cruel upbringings. Youtube has their podcasts, Netflix has their documentaries and bookshelves have their words. According to The Guardian evangelicals have shrunk from 23% of the U.S. population in 2006 to 14% in 2020. It is probably lower now.
Hasta la vista, baby...
P.S. Even Bloomberg has now noticed that the bloc between Christian nationalism and Trump is 'emptying the pews.' Pew has a new question on their surveys revealing that 32% of religious people left religion because it was "bad for their mental health."
Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “Marx on Religion,” “Nonverts,” “Rise of the Nones,” “FGM,” “God is Not Great” (Hitchens); “Libertarian Atheism and Liberal Religionism,” “Annihilation of Caste” (Ambedkar); “Jude the Obscure” (Hardy); “Spiritual Snake Oil” "The Dark Side of Christian History," “The Great Evil” (Nunpa); “Godless – 150 Years of Unbelief” and “Astrology – (both by Bufe); American Theocracy” (Phillips);“The God Market,” “Religulous” (Maher); “Go Tell It On The Mountain” (Baldwin); “The Da Vinci Code” (Brown); “To Serve God and Walmart,” “Marx and Human Nature,” "The Jesus Comics."
May Day Books has many volumes on religion.
The Cultural Marxist / April 1, 2024
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