It’s no secret that Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte hates Conservatives. It’s no secret Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte hates Christians, either. In a most recent post penned by the woman who claimed Trump ruined her Christmas, Marcotte states the obvious.

Only 47% of Americans polled in 2020 belong to a house of worship, which is the first time that number has fallen below half of the country since they started polling Americans on this question.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

This is according to a most recent Gallup poll released this past week.

Marcotte does not cite the Coronavirus lockdowns over the past year that had some churches close their doors. Nor does Marcotte blame the states for these horrific lockdowns. Who does she blame? Of course, the “religious right“.

The drop in religious affiliation starts right around the time George W. Bush was elected president, publicly and dramatically associating himself with the white evangelical movement. The early Aughts saw the rise of megachurches with flashily dressed ministers who appeared more interested in money and sermonizing about people’s sex lives than modeling values of charity and humility.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

And, of course, Christians are “stupid” and far inferior to the likes of the philosophical left, right, Amanda?

It is not, however, because of some great atheist revival across the land, with Americans suddenly burying themselves in the philosophical discourse about the unlikeliness of the existence of a higher power.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Because atheists are thinking people, apparently. They are more intelligent and superior to the minions who believe in God. Aaccording to Amanda Marcotte, right-leaning Christians are incapable of philosophical discourse. We are sheep who follow along with the wolves on stage dripping in riches. It’s too bad Ms. Marcotte does not venture outside of her own gentrified Brooklyn (and probably mostly white and liberal) “tribe” to even work to understand why some God-believing, Conservative Christians may not be involved in a church at the moment. Hell, you cannot even get the woman to venture into Texas! Marcotte goes on:

Not only were these religious figures and the institutions they led hyper-political, the outward mission seemed to be almost exclusively in service of oppressing others. The religious right isn’t nearly as interested in feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless as much as using religion as an all-purpose excuse to abuse women and LGBTQ people. In an age of growing wealth inequalities, with more and more Americans living hand-to-mouth, many visible religious authorities were using their power to support politicians and laws to take health care access from women and fight against marriage between same-sex couples. And then Donald Trump happened.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

We’ve read the stories about the luxury expenditures and the adultery. We’ve seen PreachersNSneakers. All of this has not fallen on deaf ears in the Christian community. Yes, some of us voted for Trump and would do so again and no, I would say a fair amount of us did not see him as the second coming of the Messiah (as liberals saw Obama) but as a flawed man who was doing his best with the mess he had and calling out hypocrisy as he saw it.

I have waxed philosophical on this concept for the better part of a few years now. As a Believer, I have raised many questions about the megachurch mentality. While I agree some churches that qualify to be in the “mega” category based on number of attending members do walk the walk when it comes to comforting the widow and feeding the orphan, there are many that give Conservative Christians a bad name. These are the ones Marcotte is capitalizing on in her piece and if I may, these are also the ones who don’t adhere to real Christian Conservative standards because, quite frankly, it’s unpopular.

I will speak from my experience and mine alone on the megachurch mindset. At the start of this lockdown, I began seeing some things that got me really thinking and a bit fired up. I have attended a church whose leaders-both young and older-fully embraced Black Out Tuesday but ignored abortion. They also got on the pulpit to boast about the about aid they received from the government in the form of PPP so they can keep their staff members (who mostly consist of their family members) employed. This, apparently, was “God’s Devine provision”.

I looked back at the time when the elderly Hispanic woman in my Bible study group was living out of her car. No monetary aid was available from said church, (they did not have a “benevolence team”), so we got together and got her a hotel room for a few weeks. The church? Well, they threw a couple of cans of food and some protein bars from the food pantry at the “problem”. It was embarrassing. Then there was the family friend who was widowed after losing her husband to cancer and she requested a phone call for prayer. She only wanted a voice to pray with her as she did not need any monetary support. Her phone never rang. When we were all attending and hosting our group’s monthly community meal night, leadership met in the back of the house and left out the back door on numerous occasions. All the while, it was like pulling teeth to get funding for these monthly dinners. So much so, our small group ended up providing the funding ourselves. I got tired of not seeing the financial transparency. I got tired of hearing about “great things God is doing in the life of our church” but not seeing them. When I questioned the concept of fiduciary responsibility I was told that “a lot happens behind closed doors that we are not able to share with the whole congregation.” Why wouldn’t they talk about it?! I was urged to be a “leader”-in other words, smile, be friendly to newcomers, shut up and don’t ask any more questions. Just sign more people up for the “growth” classes and get them involved to serve (and subsequently tithe) and heck, tackle them with that New Testament on the way out the door if I had to. I got tired of reading the Instagram posts of church leaders praying about newer, bigger buildings and for their family and friends while (still tithing) people in their church membership were losing their jobs or family members during the Covid lockdowns. And all the while, this church spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on production improvements for one of their sanctuaries and for big-time guest speakers-for this “mountaintop experience” they promoted heavily and charged a $60.00 admission fee. The privileged individuals who had $60 in pocket change got to attend this event. Those downtrodden and forced between feeding their family and going to such “mountaintop experience”? They could attend online for a mere $20 bucks. They packed the house with attendees. It was “fire”, they said. So powerful to watch a pastor of another megachurch who charged thousands to speak to this congregation pour blessings upon blessings upon a family member of the church (who is on the payroll and admitted to taking food from the aforementioned food pantry) who also happened to be sporting a $300 baseball cap for the cameras. God was IN THA’ HOUSE! Things are happening in the life of the church!

I, for one, saw the hypocrisy in taking money from the government but blasting the government mandates. Yes, the mandates in my state are ridiculous. My governor is a complete and total buffoon. I hate wearing masks, I wore one for work and I still got COVID. Closing down churches was a strategy of the left to get people out of community and away from their church families and dependent on the state. God help us. Yes, I will agree to that and for this, I blame the left. But, at the same time, I could not stand to listen to the pastor talk about how he took money from the state to basically keep his family afloat while telling people to keep coming to church because “he has a business model” and “all mask wearers are stupid, blind sheep not trusting God to take care of them”, basically. In translation? Come to church. Even if you have a compromised family member, we won’t be wearing masks and you’re a fool for doing so. And, BTWs, keep being faithful (tithing) even if you lost your job. Why? He and his kids need to keep going on their vacations. Doing the work of the Lord in their capacity is rough, man. And Hawai’i and Scottsdale were calling. Cha-Ching.

Back to Marcotte and her theories:

It’s rare that people abandon an ideology or faith that they’e (sic) had for a long time. Once an adult actively chooses to belong to a church, it’s hard to admit that you were wrong and now want to abandon the whole project. But young adults, even those who went to church with their parents, do have to make an active choice to join a church as adults. And many are going to look at hypocritical, power-hungry ministers praying over an obvious grifter like Trump and be too turned off to even consider getting involved.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Again, with Trump living rent-free inside of her head. Everyone is deserving of prayer. Even Trump. Even you, Amanda Marcotte. Even the deluded mega church pastor who started out living his life for Jesus but cares too much about his multi-million-dollar home and the next building plant. Young people leaving the church because of Bush and Trump? Huh?

As for my young man who served with me and my husband at these monthly meal nights and plays basketball and cards with homeless teenagers in shelters when we volunteer? He saw through the hypocrisy as well,because even a middle-class kid with a brain knows the difference between a kid going through some real stuff and the little rich kids and their money-grubbing parents who jump up and down for Instagram and claim to love Jesus and to be “entitled” to lead others to a life with Him. Does she ever stop to think that this is the mentality that drove people away from the church? That this is why churches are having a hard time recruiting young people? Young pastors should take note: My son’s decision to not attend youth group at a certain mega church had nothing to do with the “religious right” of George W. Bush or Donald Trump. It was because he didn’t want to be around a bunch of entitled rich kids who acted like spoiled little snob-tastic brats and hardcore thugs every other day of the week all while praising Jesus on Sunday nights and the entitlement mentality that they were to be blessed with provision upon provision just for being the “chosen ones”, that they’ve been told they were since the day they were born.

So, tell me again, who are the ignorant ones, Ms. Marcotte? I am willing to bet that there are a lot more Conservatives who feel the way I do-that church has become “Vegas” and the real “church” is in our communities. I feel, in some ways, some of our modern churches have fallen away to selfish socialism-enthralled with worshiping the person-or family, in some cases-at the pulpit instead of The King in Heaven. They have given up looking into the truth and being spoon-feed group thought from the guy on the stage because it’s easy and it’s entertaining. These churches and their pastors are willing to embrace the hot political issues while selectively ignoring others they should also be paying attention to. Black Out Tuesday was also tied with Black Lives Matter, which is tied to socialism, disbanding the family unit as well as disbanding Faith (because socialism is anti-religion). The brainwashing on a pulpit is similar to socialist thought spewed out by our educational systems-infecting communities and social media in an “with us or against us” fight. My hope is for a different kind of revival minus the stage lighting, fire dancers and fog machines. I have not abandoned my Faith at all. My Faith is that the ugliness of this world will be revealed in the few people who stand to help the widow and the orphan from both inside the church walls and out. My Faith is that we call out this hypocrisy and dysfunction of our politicians and some of our pastors and engage in intellectual conversations about all of this.

The growing skepticism of organized religion in the U.S. is a trend to celebrate. While more needs to be done to replace the sense of community that churches can often give people, it’s undeniable that this decline is tied up with objectively good trends: increasing liberalism, hostility to bigotry, and support for science in the U.S. Americans are becoming better people, however slowly, and the decline in organized religious affiliation appears to be a big part of that.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Oh, yippee. Don’t “celebrate” just yet but keep hating on the “religious right”, Marcotte, because it apparently pays your bills. And, as we should not celebrate those in the religious sector who make their millions off the backs of hard-working church members, we should also not “celebrate” the liberal policies of non-church-going activists and politicians. Note one thing, Ms. Marcotte: just because we’re not the majority and squawking does not mean we are oblivious. And we certainly are not stupid, bless your heart.

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