I am obviously proof standing before you that not all evangelicals believe what you suggested.
So who were you referring to?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christians_United_for_Israel
Are those ten million Evangelicals somehow not part of the mainstream? Like is it ten million outcasts that the majority of evangelicals do not claim? That seems unlikely due to the fact that the count of self-reported Christian Zionists is in the multiple tens of millions in the US.
https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2021/10/26/video-the-christ...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-sizeable-us-demographic-many...
What I think is going on here is you either do want to speak for all evangelicals, and want to convince people that they all believe what you believe, or you are somehow part of a community in which you haven’t heard of or spoken to nearly any of its members. These are the only two ways to make sense of the “who are you talking about?” question; you are either being willfully untruthful about tens of millions of evangelicals, or you simply, somehow, haven’t heard about tens of millions of evangelicals.
But to be fair to the dispensational premillennialists, even many of them would consider the idea that Israeli (or US) military action is somehow "accelerating the end-times" to be distasteful – whether or not they think that action is justified in itself.
Yes, there is a subset of evangelicals that think along those lines. But not all of us.
Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support Israel's genocide under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
Would it be fair for me to assume that handfuloflight's remark was solid but fell short in the generalizing way that jokes often lay, because of the possibility that there are Evangelicals who don't support Israel's genocide under the theological pretenses that other Evangelical's are known for because it's a terrible look and indicative of the contemporary fractures that capture the faith at large?
Both of ya'll need to be more forthright with your positions instead of performing this constipated do-si-do along the HN guidelines. Give me a good flame war, get flagged, ring up dang and the new dude, or just downvote each other.
The originating comment makes no hint that it is referring to anything less than 100%. It’s like saying “Black people think…” or “Women want….”, which invariably leads to some not funny generalization. Suggesting all evangelicals want the world to end immediately is in the same vein, IMHO.
But here's the thing. That wasn't the suggestion. The bunch of links that he gave you don't suggest that.
At least my impression is that there are a considerable amount of Evangelicals that support whatever you think is going on in Israel under theological pretenses. Any notion of timing carried by his initial remark is likely attributed to this.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the sum of the links handfuloflight shared. Maybe he should have done us the courtesy of spelling it out for us instead, as in, when you asked him:
> Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately?
He should've answered the question straight up instead of (what I interpret as) responding to the emotional side of your comment:
> Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
With an indirect explanation of his point through a bunch of links.
I get it, that's the responsible thing to do when the discourse is trying to present itself as something other than a flamewar, or something like that, which it might as well just be so we can all be more direct and upfront with what we think and feel instead of doing this half-bunned Socratic dialogue.
On the other hand, if someone tries to insult your intelligence in a sophomoric way it makes sense to leave them to their own devices and if they're so smart themselves they can read between the lines on their own.
Anyway, these are non-rhetorical, please-say-yes-or-no questions:
* Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
* Would it be fair for me to assume that handfuloflight's remark was solid but fell short in the generalizing way that jokes often lay, because of the possibility that there are Evangelicals who don't support whatever you think is going on Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelical's are known for, because it has grave moral implications and indicative of the contemporary fractures that capture the faith at large?
If you're offended, then suck it up and be open about your vulnerabilities instead of goading the other party into an exchange that they're better suited than you at carrying on. Maybe they'll show you the empathy you desire, within reason.
Still 80 != 100, and not all evangelicals are white males. Alienating the reasonable evangelicals isn’t going to help fix stuff.
