this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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I'm short on the time to rabbit-hole into this (although the time period fadcinates me), but I'm fairly sure the Romans, after executing Christ and persecuting all of His crazy not-useful-to-Caesar "love thy neighbor" pacifists wherever they could be found, realized it's hard to eradicate something like faith.
So they worked on a way to adopt a palatable State-friendly version of the faith that says "Hey, you can still follow your God as long as you pledge yourself to Caesar. Patriotism is Godly!"
...and following that playbook is how we got the Vatican, and much later the US co-opted a bunch of humble God-fearing pacifists into thinking work for its own sake is worship, some people are more human than others, Jesus wants you to support The Troops(TM), and it's ok to compete with your neighbor and obsessively chase great riches.
This State-friendly-free-market Jesus propaganda is SO effective it's unreal. It all sounds like it makes sense as long as nobody actually opens a Bible and churches are reduced to self-help seminars with prayer sessions.
The Bible warns against taking oaths, has commandments against idolatry and putting others before God, and other State-unfriendly passages....and yet the US has convinced everyone it's a "Christian nation" while it coerces its children to "pledge allegiance" to....a flag. That oath is expanded and further consequential to those who choose to become soldiers.
Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Obviously He's against murder and theft. He tells us to be truthful and not break our promises....but they're so ready to salute a country's fabric idol and promise to go kill whomever it points them toward.
This indeed creates quite a predicament for the soul.