This Is Why Evangelical Christians Love Israel (VICE on HBO, Full Segment) - General

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo77sTGpngQ

What I'm gathering from this is that Evangelicals are literally trying to jump-start the Apocalypse through money, which is actually preventing peace in the middle east by funding the conflict there. Guh. I can see why some people get anti-religious after looking into some of this. These guys are playing a dangerous game.

In summation: yes. It's kind of ridiculous especially when you consider that most American Jews oppose the Israeli government, the main sect of Judaism in the US is liberal or reform Judaism which is has mutual animosity with the conservative orthodox sect that dominates the Israeli government.

They're pretty much what people from outside America see when they look in. There only seems to be insane and malicious christians. It's ironic, because their behavior is very much in line with the biblical concept of Satanism.

Holy fuck, The American Christians are so sheltered and so stuck in their one-note world-view compared to everyone else in that video. These people belong in institutions. You can be religious and sane and wholesome and they're just none of it.

This is so weird. Even most of the crazy doomsday cults don't try to make the world end.

Also, it shouldn't surprise anyone who has done the research that they are so unsympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. Biblical literalism already requires them to stan for the yahweh-ordained genocide of the Canaan natives in the Old Testament - so of course they'd be unsympathetic to the plight of any modern people groups getting in the way of Israel's "god given right to their land."

So the Americans' biggest religious organization is a doomsday cult perpetrating a war in a bid to resurrect Jesus and start the end of the world at the cost of everyone except the Jews sharing their line of thinking. You deserve Armageddon.

This is a joke and an embarrassment to journalism everywhere. 1) The first guy they show, Irvin Baxter, isn't even a normal evangelical, if an evangelical at all. He's a Oneness Pentecostal, an offshoot of Christianity that doesn't recognize basic Christian doctrines like the trinity. The fact that they use him as the main describer of so called "evangelical" belief is hilariously misguided. 2) The rest of the people they show are televangelists and mega-church preachers who represent a small portion of evangelical Christians, and even with that said, they don't quote them as saying anything in support of what VICE is presenting as the "evangelical" point of view. Yes, evangelical Christianity is a huge base of support for Israel. No, the vast majority of them don't do so because of some idea of "armageddon." If you want to know what evangelicals believe, then go look up protestant theology, not trash like this.

phew, good thing they're no true evangelists

Ah the ol' "well they're not super-real-mega-actual Christians they're just arbitrarily-different-name-for-basically-the-same-thing." defense.

Oneness Pentecostalism breaks with two of the foundational beliefs of protestantism: the trinity and salvation by faith. You want to claim their just "arbitrarily" different, then justify that position because I've pointed out exactly why they aren't considered Christian by protestants. (They hold a lot of odd beliefs, these are just to two biggest differences.)

Even by normal protestant standards, Evangelicals only barely qualify. American christianity is SO FUCKING FAR from what it not only used to be, but still is in Europe. Not just catholicism, but protestantism. So it's very weird to see an American poster tell europeans to go read up on Protestant theology when almost nothing in modern Ameri-christian culture fits with anything but one or more of the seven deadly sins. Mostly greed and pride. There's hardly a more judgemental and condescending culture of people on earth than American protestants. Just fucking saying.

Cool bro? Sorry you feel that way.

It's not really an insult to journalism. It's an insult to your religion that these things are real, and are powerful in your nation in a way you don't think they are. Your brand and perspective of christianity is great and I'm not taking that away from you by acknowledging that swathes of people don't care about that, and instead focus on a huge other number of issues which like you say, may very well not be doctrine at all.

It's an insult to journalism because they made a lot of claims and backed them up by appealing to someone who wouldn't even be recognized as Christian by the so called "evangelicals" they're trying to describe.

"no true scotsman" dude. They think they're christian, they believe in a variety of professed christian beliefs, and they are defacto christians. They may be bad at it, they may be swindlers, they may not be who you want to be represented by, but they are. It's like you telling a group of liberals that a person they don't like on the left is their representative because they're genuinely a popular figure. They can't say it's not true, but they can feel misaligned by that. And hey, you can feel misaligned by this! That's okay! These people are christians, and I bet if you told them they weren't they wouldn't just bow to you on the topic.

Well more of Nontrinitarian type of near half Pentecostals you referring too. Yes, That why I even mentioned not all Evangelicals are not like this in comes of Evangelical politics, The video show clear examples of Right-wing Evangelicalism

"No True Scotsman" means you come up with some arbitrary criteria with which to exclude people from a group. That is definitely not what I'm doing. I'm taking the recognized foundational beliefs of Protestant Christianity and applying them to him fairly and evenly. Groups are allowed to define themselves, and Oneness Pentecostalism is clearly outside of Evangelical Protestantism, and has been considered as such since it's founding.

0.01% of church attending Christians(global population? The "church attending' part just muddies this needlessly further tbh) is being statistically out of focus here again but you are right that they are a minority, though you'd be off by a factor of about 8 in terms of relevant scale, even if we assume that all statistical Christians attend church. I actually need to correct my self earlier, I said 23% of the world population, the 2017 statistic is 31% world population for Christianity, my bad, but really this error only serves to help your point so that's okay. This means that of 2.2 billion, ~220,000 are televangelist. ~288,200,000 are Evangelist. ~0.08% of evangelists are televangelist by your statistic. Really looking at world population isn't even important here anyway, since this is about US evangelicalism. So, 26.3% of the US population is evangelical and I feel that claiming that televangelism probably resides 99% in the US isn't unfair. Pentecostalism is literally just a renewal movement within Protestantism that largely differs similarly to mormonism where they believe in a stronger personal experience (IE dialogues or personal revelations with god in the case of Mormonism) with their faith . They're still considered evangelical too so yeah, idk mate, sounds like you're still just really splitting hairs here to ague that these people aren't representative of evangelicalism at all when a majority of their beliefs are still shared with evangelicalism as a whole. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean they aren't "true Christians".

They presented one single person as evidence for those beliefs: the oneness pentecostal.

Okay, they're not christians and have nothing to do with your religion except the world doesn't see it like that and they're a big enough group to be seen in a representative way much like how you might use generalizations of liberals, the left, or socialists or whatever group, it is up to that group to disprove those generalizations. American christians like yourself have to work to disavow these groups because as much as you may disagree, they're powerful political lobbies and they leave a certain impression. I find it very strange how it's absolutely not okay for people like us to think the these groups are christian representatives(I know the material well enough to know they're not, but they believe it, you might as well go tell the Mormons they're swindlers too for all the arrogance you're displaying about religious faith) but it's the american public who seem to be signing up for this in increasing numbers, much to your dismay, or as much as you might disagree.

Then those people need to educate themselves? He's welcome to represent his own religion, that's fine, but I'm not going to pretend that he's a representative of an entire group that unanimously rejects him. It's not even a gray area. Here's the difference: Protestant Christianity has a few basic foundational beliefs that one must believe to be part of the group. These are laid out clearly and agreed upon by basically everyone. (Some groups might add more things, but they would still agree on the basics.) This makes it very easy to point to people who change these beliefs as not Christian anymore. The same doesn't exist for something like "liberal." It's a vague term that points to an extremely generalized group that hold a similar worldview. My issue isn't with them saying that some people who claim to be Christians believe this. That's undeniably true. The problem is when they say that this is the common belief among "evangelical Christianity."

So splitting hairs and not actually worrying about the real world effects of these people, you just don't want their religions name to be associated with your religions name It is and that's their fault It's not bad journalism.

I don't want people to make false generalisations based on setting up a non-representative person as an authoritative representative.

It seems like you use the term "Christian" or "Christianity" a lot when you should say "Protestant" or "Protestantism."

They may not represent you. They may have scripture wrong(according to certain sects, again, this is a thing of interpretation and changes and I find it so baffling how you have such steadfast belief there is no chance your version is wrong or complete enough) but they are professed christians. You want to take that away from them? Be. My. Guest.

You say that like it's going out on a limb. Anyone who holds to protestant theology would say he isn't a Christian. This isn't some gray area. I'm talking about 2 of the like 3 or 4 core Protestant beliefs. There are TONS of things I disagree about with other Christians, but there are a few that we agree must stand for Christianity to make any sense at all. Oneness Pentecostals throw out 2 of those (the trinity and salvation by faith alone). The interesting thing is that sects that separate on the core doctrines tend to also hold a lot of other weird beliefs, and Oneness Pentecostals definitely do (Like baptising people by only saying the name of "Jesus" instead of the Biblical "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," super strict grooming rules like not wearing makeup, etc.)

TBH the only time i see American evangelists helping people is when they want to virtue signal to their community. I grew up in this shit. I know it inside out. Except here, those same denominations are so far out of the norm that they're considered cults. American christianity is all show and tell and no action unless it can benifit their public image or bottom line. These same people keep going nuts about satanic youth and the religious importance of international support for Israels breaches on human rights and international treaties. All the while, they're acting out all the satanic stereotypes by proudly showing their vices and making it part of their core theology. Nothing better than living by the seven deadly sins. I say it again. American christianity is so far removed from the protestantism of everywhere else. Social standing means way too much to you people.

I'm not disputing your expertise on christianity. I'm sure these people lack many foundational tenants of the religion, I'm not disputing that. I honestly don't care about that here. These people call themselves christians. They profess beliefs they believe to be christian, and they identify as christian. Refer to my statement above, even if they're wrong, they think this way. They're a powerful political sect, and a religious sect. Much like Mormons, they are genuine in their beliefs, even if they're genuinely incorrect according to agreed upon scripture by a larger more authoratative group. I've argued with christians for a long time. You and I go back almost 7 years personally(I think it could be 8?), and you know what I've learned? Lots, but most importantly, that telling someone their faith is wrong, and based upon an incorrect understanding of their own faith is a invalid path in any discussion. Now, this is essentially what you're doing. And hey, you've got scriptural backing for why that is true, correct, and unarguably the case. So, good luck, be my guest. But for an outsider, like myself, Vice, or otherwise to say "By the way, just so we can preface this, these people aren't christians here's the christian doctrine as we understand it" that's not going to fly, just as when you attempt it, it's not really going to fly. These people profess to be christian. They call themselves christians. I can personally tell that they are not very good at it, but I can't tell them they're not christians. They're a larger group than you seem to want to give them credit for, that's problematic for you in the long run. I understand you to be a calm and collected person about your faith, so you don't want to be represented by these seemingly zealous and outrageous people. That's fair. But it's not a journalists job to preface the story with "These peoples beliefs are incorrect", is it?