He’s probably talking about the Gilead reference. This is the peril of reading fiction - you get some version of the author’s weird fantasies and dreams rattling around in your head. What you have is Atwood in your head. Indeed I originally just downvoted the beginning of this thread, because it seemed really inflammatory, but it seems like you’re posting in good faith.

In real life, approximately zero evangelicals want some kind of Gilead. If you talk to them, the most ideological want some sort of idealized, non-racist high-tech version of the 1950-80s. No doubt there are some cranks out there, but they’re about as common as Westboro Baptist Church members (one family) or the series of weird niche western US cults. The generalization is totally wrong and informed by propaganda.

I’ve thought a lot about how strange it is fiction can have such a powerful effect on people’s perceptions, and people often seem unaware of the propagandistic nature of it. Another example is Atlas Shrugged.

At any rate, being fascinated by the subject of dreams, I have talked to a lot of evangelicals about their dreams and have not noticed any deviation from the norm.

Thank you. [Edit: and thank you very much for the dreams! that's very reassuring, assuming you've also talked with representatives of the authoritarian subset]

Of the approximately 55m conservative evangelicals who don't want some kind of Gilead [edit: is there a proper evangelical term for lone cranks who do wish to immanentise the eschaton, so I can use less loaded vocabulary?], how many would you say:

* believe the US is a secular nation

* believe in maintenance of the separation of Church and State (yes, just like the Haskell weenies?)

If there are substantial numbers who don't (after all, someone is electing the representatives espousing the opposite — but maybe someone else?), what is the difference between their position and my head-canon for Gilead (to be clear: a theocratic state, eg Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, Saudi, the Vatican etc.)?

PS. Being partial to disco, and neither Argentinian nor El Salvadoran nor Pakistani, of that range I'd be happiest with an idealised non-racist high-tech late 1970s. As it appears that even Baptists dance in the twenty-first century, who are the evangelicals with whom I could find common ground on this project?

PPS. Upon reflection, if I were to roll back time, how about the 1990s but part of the idealisation is we actually get a Peace Dividend?

PPPS. ...and neither Canter&Siegel nor Eternal September nor the Yugoslav wars ever happened. maybe idealisation is not as easy as it appears...

P4S. was it at least clear that "authoritarian" was meant to constrain, ie pick out a subset, not generically describe, "evangelicals"?

The US currently implements (and I support) one of the most thorough versions of religious egalitarianism anywhere in the world, which dates to the work of James Madison (whose writing on the topic is instructive). The UK, on the other hand, has a state religion (Anglicanism), and many countries in Europe (including Germany and Sweden) retain a "church tax". Does that qualify as "Gilead"?

cf https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-016... , found thanks to https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel05.html#obj142 .

No.

> my head-canon for Gilead (to be clear: a theocratic state, eg Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, Saudi, the Vatican etc.)

> In real life, approximately zero evangelicals want some kind of Gilead. If you talk to them, the most ideological want some sort of idealized, non-racist high-tech version of the 1950-80s.

I talk to a lot of american evangelicals and this isn't true either. A fair portion of them do want the racism back in the form of segregation, they just know not to use either term to describe their ideal.

They also do want moderate-to-heavy restrictions on or punishment for abortion, birth control, homosexuality, miscegenation, divorce, women owning property. It's not quite gilead but it's a lot closer to that than to "the 80s without racism."

You'll probably rarely run into people who are actively and openly pursuing a government that would implement all of those policies. But framed individually and neutrally for example "should no-fault divorce be removed" these are mainstream positions.

I didn't get my opinion here from fiction or the internet. I've lived a lot of my life among american evangelicals and am a practicing christian even now. I have a lot of ties to this world still for complex reasons. Walking back and cracking down on a lot of the social freedoms gained in the last few generations are unfortunately popular ideas that you can't dismiss as "just some cranks."

Weird. Your circle and my circles must have zero overlap. Your description is entirely alien to me.

Yeah seems likely. I don't want to get too much into the details but I know a lot of "George W." type christians; converted under hardship, their core belief is likely sincere but they aren't necessarily invested in nuanced understanding of its role in a broader public life. They look to their church leadership for that, locally but also in the vast mainstream of evangelical bookstores, podcasts, radio stations.

A domain that is becoming more narrow in its understanding of scripture and extreme about applying it. Look at someone like Beth Moore, a highly prominent figure in this world and by no means a liberal or progressive, viciously chased out for openly holding a view on marriage¹ that would have been easily accepted by evangelicals even a generation ago, and that many probably do privately hold still.

So yes it's entirely possible our evangelical acquaintances have little overlap. But still, these are mainstream views right now and growing more so. You can find dominionist books by prominent christian authors in the window displays of christian bookstores. It may not be the majority of evangelicals, but it is a significant portion and making it the majority is explicitly one of their goals. Dismissing this movement as fringe is irresponsible imo.

¹: The view is "egalitarianism" the idea that both genders have equal privileges and responsibilities within marriage. This is not "wokeism" my southern baptist grandparents believed this.

Between your footnote and https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bible-teacher-beth-moore... I am left speechless.

> viciously chased out

Now that you mention it, I recall the Dixie Chicks getting cancelled for openly suggesting that maybe the Iraq adventure wasn't such a good idea.

If you are from the commonwealth(?) yank religion might be strange. I don't know how your country does things; my adopted country requires preachers of whatever religion to have accredited degrees (DTh? I don't know how strict). But as mentioned elsewhere, there is (in light of this year's news, ought to be?) an arm's length relationship between church and state in the States, and so anyone is free to hang out their shingle as a Pastor, eg https://www.ulc.org/minister-store/doctor-of-divinity-degree

The problem with generalizations about “evangelical christians”, which often means unaffiliated baptists, is that you can’t generalize them… there’s no meaningful governance.

Most people of faith are just people who are trying to make sense of the world. But sometimes Pastor Bob is a controlling Nazi, and uses faith and religion as a way to spew his worldview and poison those around them.

Political operators and others exploit that faith too. The Giliad stuff gets pitched as faith adjacent, so parents or faith leaders who don’t know better get it in the hands of kids etc. It’s one of the reasons why keeping politics away from religion is important.

> The problem with generalizations about “evangelical christians”, which often means unaffiliated baptists, is that you can’t generalize them… there’s no meaningful governance.

Indeed. I grew up in a church that called itself "Evangelical Lutheran". Most of the stories I read about "evangelicals" online are completely alien to me. Like evangelicals supposedly taking the Book of Revelations seriously.. my pastor described it as ancient science fiction, allegorical at best but mostly incoherent nonsense. Any "mark of the beast" talk was considered raving lunacy in my evangelical church. That position on Revelations doesn't square with what the internet says evangelicals believe.

I've also never heard the word 'Gilead' before this thread. I'm not sure what it means.

I think 'Gilead' is the setting of the Handmaid's tale. Threw me for a loop also till I saw the Atwood reference in a reply.

Yes, sorry. Maybe I should have used a less literary term, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_nationalism#United_S...

> you can’t generalize them

An example I thought of this evening: compare and contrast Joel Osteen with Jimmy Carter. (or even just the house of the former with the houses of the latter)

Both evangelical, but living very different theologies.

I tried to reply but hn stopped me because 3 comments in 15min is too much so had to wait hours.

Consider the term "evangelical authoritarian" and the conclusion you cane up with about fear and paranoia in their dreams.

The propaganda interpretation is a reductive "basically white americans who support trump" but in reality if you took time to understand what that phrase means perhaps you will see how your conclusion or the phrase itself make no sense at all.

My intention was to nudge to the direction of critically examining your assumptions not to say you had bad intentions or that I was free from incorrect assumptions myself.

Why would the term "evangelical authoritarian" be nonsensical? There are some very hierarchical evangelical subcultures, that frown on criticizing higher ups have very strict rules and do nurture "us vs them" way of looking at the world.

The "evangelical authoritarian" does describe them well.

And I am saying that as someone who grew in evangelical church. Mine was significantly less authoritarian then it gets to be, but I still read enough texts produced by authoritarian ones and had enough contact to know it is not made up construct.

No worries, unfortunately I've passed the time limit when I can edit the original post to clarify.

    [e for e in evangelicals where authoritarian(e)]

Assuming ~100m US evangelicals, only ~55m are conservative, and presumably only some fraction of those are authoritarian, in the sense that they could willingly support the kind of authoritarianism under which dreams change. Trump support was, at 74m, substantially higher than the number of people I had been intending to discuss.

(Also feel free to directly point out my errors next time; I married into a culture which is far more direct than the anglophone and may have gone native in areas)

Cheers!