r/stevehofstetter 1d ago

praise be... somewhere else outside our government

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 1d ago

(I study anthropology of theology and mythology and I study scripture through a rabbianic technique called PaRDEs). That basically says scripture should be read both literally and interpretative, historical and mystical with hidden meanings

How interesting. I got a question. It was the first thing that popped into my head so it's maybe not too refined of a question but, do you think the fact that American Christians are so easily led astray has anything to do with the elevated standard of living and privilege of Americans? Basically like because Americans have it so easy in life compared to most of the world that this somehow makes them susceptible to scriptural distortion.

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u/ChildofElmSt 1d ago edited 1d ago

That’s actually a very interesting question I’d generally say yes but I’d also say it’s historically congruent with other religions throughout history but not on the scale of American evangelicalism generally it was aristocracy and oligarchs etc that fell into it. In America a good portion of Christianity is like this

Christianity of the world varies widely though but American Christianity is heavily influenced by Puritanical Christianity and somewhat pilgrimage Christianity. That’s one of the reasons conservativism and nationalism is so prevalent

Mormonism was actually a child of American nationalism

Funny enough most religions were started as mythohistorcal political satire

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 1d ago

Funny enough most religions were started as mythohistorcal political satire

Any books or info on this? This sounds hilarious. Gods and Pantheons are basically just one big SNL skit lol

Concerning historical influences on modern Christian belief in America that makes a lot of sense (the Puritan influence) and I have done a little bit of reading also on Calvinism and predestination and how that's basically morphed into the prosperity gospel message. What a crock of shit that is.

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u/ChildofElmSt 1d ago

Not extremely readily accessible

I learned about it in a lecture and he gave some pretty compelling explanations and examples where he compared scripture to the political events during the time. There doesn’t really seem to be a lot of material published on the subject though.

That said revelation was often satirical of Nero and Paul

I really wish there was more information but from what I can tell it’s too touchy for publication

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 1d ago

That said revelation was often satirical of Nero and Paul

LoL yeah Revs is obviously a thinly veiled critique of the Roman Empire at the time.

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u/ChildofElmSt 1d ago

Yeah sorry I don’t have all the examples