It's the Christmas Season, right? Right?

 


It's a messy Massie Christmas to you and yours. This year the Republican congressman from Kentucky sent friends and family this lovely Christmas photo.  Looks like the little one has an Uzi, mom has a vintage Thompson, the back row are packing ARs while dad, the congressman himself, is rocking what appears to be a fully automatic SAW or Squad Automatic Weapon.

Nothing says Christmas more than a family gathered together, ready to ventilate your damn pinko hide. But apparently this is a "thing" in the states.

At the heart of both the outrage and the delight inspired by these Yuletide pictures was not just a surprising display of firepower but a common aspect of American religion that is unsettling to outsiders. These photos represent a shift in attitudes among some evangelical Christians that may have broader implications, as the previously subtle influences of firearms on faith become impossible to ignore.

For more than a century, American Protestantism has been shaped by the movement known as Muscular Christianity, which arose to combat expressions of the faith that critics of the time claimed had become bookish, soft, sedentary and — as they judged it then — excessively feminine. Popular publications such as 1912’s “The Masculine Power of Christ; or, Christ Measured as a Man” argued that Jesus was “distinctly manly and virile,” and it was the task of the Christian to be so as well.

Don't like it? Blame the YMCA.

Muscular Christianity, born in England in the mid-19th century, had humble origins that seem far removed from the excesses of American gun culture. Its most notable expression early on was the Young Men’s Christian Association, more commonly known as the YMCA, which by the 1850s was a global youth movement combining social ministries with wholesome recreation.

What can be more wholesome than a belt fed fully automatic weapon? Praise Jesus!

As the scholar Kristin Du Mez chronicles in her recent book, “Jesus and John Wayne,” the overlap of places to worship and places to shoot is no accident. “Writers on evangelical masculinity have long celebrated the role guns play in forging Christian manhood,” Du Mez writes. “From toy guns in childhood to real firearms gifted in initiation ceremonies, guns are seen to cultivate authentic, God-given masculinity.”

Comments

  1. LorneDecember 20, 2021 at 10:22 AM

    I remember in the old days, the saying was, "The family that prays together, stays together."
    I like it better than the new one, "The family that slays together stays together."

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Disaffected LibDecember 20, 2021 at 10:40 AM

    Muscular Christianity. I must have slept through that sermon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TrailblazerDecember 20, 2021 at 5:01 PM

    I seem to remember a similar situation some years ago!
    We have to keep the creeping Jaysus crowd out of Canada , lets start with the gun suppliers and promoters, Cabelas.

    https://www.cabelas.ca/category/shooting/912

    TB


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibDecember 20, 2021 at 5:16 PM

      Great, TB. I wasted half an hour chasing that link, going through all the rifles I don't need but would be thrilled to have. Real hunting rifles, long rifles, bolt guns. The kind that can make a thousand yard shot.

      At my age I'm well past firearms acquisition. I am content with what I have although it's been nearly two years since I opened my gun safe. As far as I know they're still there.

      Once or twice a month I liked to go to the range just to keep my skills up. They closed for Covid, open only for RCMP shooters.

      I met a lot of shooters at the range but, to my knowledge, none were religious nutbars.

      Delete

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