Subject: Re: Trump in church
The subject was mostly obedience, devotion to god (above all things), and "we are in the final days" (which they've been saying for decades). Not so much about mercy or compassion, though they did make a point about not getting involved in violence.

Before that, when I was a kid, it was more "if you're a sinner, you'll sit for all eternity in a fiery pit...burning". Again, not much talk about compassion or mercy (in fact, not much mercy to be had...be "good" or burn).

Granted, small sample size. But I have read the bible, and it's full of wrath and intolerance and mayhem. The Sermon on the Mount is probably the nicest bit of the entire 66 books (depending on which version of bible you have).

The autobiography of someone whose experience of church has been of the fundamentalist-evangelical variety, though some streams of heretical Roman Catholicism bang those themes as well.

I get that. Even many “Christian” churches flee from the actual teachings of Jesus like vampires from sunlight.

The institutional church, after all, is run, from top to bottom by backbiting, fallible human beings like you and me.