The Death of an Anti-Jesus “Christian” Heretic
The Long Twilight Struggle is a newsletter focusing on the long twilight struggle against authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, and the influence of tech broligarchs. I also share links and commentary about sports, efforts to combat false accusations and wrongful convictions, and other stories I find interesting.
Here we go. I’m glad you’re here.
“It might be helpful for you to know that you are not alone. And that in the long, twilight struggle which lies ahead of us, there is the possibility of hope.” “The Long Twilight Struggle.” Babylon 5, created and written by J. Michael Straczynski, Season 2, Episode 20, 1995.
Leading Off
James Dobson—the anti-Jesus Christian heretic who championed child abuse, homophobia, transphobia, restricting the rights of women, and Ted Bundy—among other atrocities—has died at the age of 89.
I hope it won’t take that many years for our society to recover from his false Christian teachings.
Because, alas, Dobson was quite influential. He had access to presidents dating back to Jimmy Carter. But rather than using this influence to spread Jesus’ teachings, Dobson promoted various forms of hate. As John Fugelsang explains:
He was a simple man, with a simple theology: God loves you, unless you’re gay, trans, a woman with ambition, a feminist, a liberal, a scientist, a journalist, a Democrat, in love with someone of a different race, or a child who thinks maybe hitting isn’t love.
There have been many fawning obituaries of James Dobson, who was not - it should be noted - a reverend, or ordained in any way. There are also many hateful postings about the man, so I’ll try and keep this to the facts.
And the facts are that James Dobson dedicated himself to causes like promoting child abuse as discipline, reducing women to sex-barterers, blaming the El Paso mass shooting on gay people, blaming Sandy Hook on abortion rights, and signing the Nashville Statement to declare trans people unworthy of existence.
He didn’t advocate for a society that cared for the the sick, fed the poor, or welcomed the stranger. Not once in his decades-long career as a “Christian Leader” did he ever actually fight for anything Christ talked about.
And for decades far too many Christian leaders—and Republican politicians—celebrated him for his heresies.
As a result, millions of children were beaten by their parents to enforce discipline as Dobson demanded in his books Dare to Discipline and The Strong-Willed Child. In the latter book, Dobson described how he beat his family dog and used it as an example of what may be necessary to force compliance from a child.
Just like Jesus preached during his Sermon on the Mount. (Not.)
Dobson’s anti-Jesus religion helped to create the White Christian Nationalism that Trump used to gain the White House. The social wars Dobson started and fostered continue to harm people across the country. Dobson was a handmaiden of our current authoritarian crisis.
Although I am no longer a Christian, I haven’t forgotten what I learned in my Bible studies. I take the red words in the New Testament seriously because Christianity is such a powerful background influence in our society. This is one of the reasons I focus on the rise of White Christian Nationalism as one of MAGA’s pillars.
Dobson’s life is not one to celebrate. He harmed so many people, and reading the accounts of exvangelicals who survived the trauma created by his parenting advice has been a vital to witness since Dobson’s death.
I hope future generations will condemn how he used his influence not to spread Jesus’ teachings—but as a heretic promoting hate and violence against the least powerful people in our society.
Tabs I Closed Above
- James Dobson Meets His Maker. (It Is The Devil.) (Erik Loomis, Wonkette, Link to Article)
- James Dobson: Founding Father of Christ-Free Christianity (John Fugelsang, Link to Article)
- James Dobson, Godfather of Child Abuse, Finally Dies (Sam Thielman, Forever Wars, Link to Article)
- James Dobson Is Dead, Was A Monster (Albert Burneko, Defector, Link to Article)
- Let's Speak Ill of the Dead: Reflections on James Dobson (Chrissy Stroop, Bugbear Dispatch, Link to Article)
- James Dobson, an architect of evangelical Christian cruelty, is finally dead at 89 (Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, Link to Article)
Authoritarianism
- Enough of 'Just Asking Questions' (Jessica Valenti, Abortion Every Day, Link to Article)
Mainstream media outlets should stop platforming extremists. Why are we seeing debates about whether women should continue to have the right to vote? Just asking questions is not a justification for a discussion about whether women having rights is a mistake. No one has a right to ask their questions on large media platforms. Producers and editors need to stop this race to the bottom for clicks and engagement. - Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors (Erin Reed, Erin in the Morning, Link to Article)
Last week Secretary of Transportion Sean Duffy sent letters to all 50 states demanding the removal of rainbow sidewalks. Of course Florida Governor Ron DeSantis embraced this homophobic mandate immediately, including the removal of the memorial crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub where 49 LGBTQ+ people were killed in 2016. After sane people restored it, Florida officials removed the crosswalk again and now numerous police are guarding it. - I Called Everyone in Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Black Book (Leland Nally, Mother Jones, Link to Article)
The recent conversations about Donald Trump and the Epstein Files reminded me of this 2020 article reporting on Nally’s 2,000 phone calls to every number included in Epstein’s black book of contacts. It is quite a look at a cross section of the global elite. - Heritage Prez Tells Right-Wing State Legislators to De-charter, Take Over Blue Capital Cities (Peter Montgomery, Right Wing Watch, Link to Article)
Given President Donald Trump’s threats to occupy cities run by Democratic Mayors, we should take seriously this threat by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. In a recent speech to the American Legislative Exchange Council, Roberts said, “When we have cities like Austin, or Nashville, or other capital cities whose local government is not representative of the will of the people, de-charter them and establish them as state municipal districts in the name of common sense.” Of course, these cities are being run with the will of their residents, just not with policies Roberts and his Project 2025 MAGA cult find acceptable.
Christian Nationalism
- The Bible According to the Department of Homeland Security (Brian Kaylor, A Public Witness, Link to Article)
The official social media accounts of the Department of Homeland Security shouldn’t be in the religion business. Worse, the messages pushed are more examples of Jesus-free “Christianity.” As Kaylor explains, “DHS isn’t merely taking verses out of context; they’re snatching verses that clearly don’t apply to their work as they try to frame arresting, detaining, and deporting people as the result of a divine call from God. So this issue of A Public Witness opens up DHS’s social media in one hand and an actual Bible in the other to consider the competing faiths.”
Tech Broligarchs
- What Is Up With These Tech Billionaires? This Astrophysicist Has Answers (Alex Morris, Rolling Stone, Link to Article)
I just finished reading Alex Becker’s More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, Becker uses his scientific background to raise realistic questions about the tech broligarch’s belief in AI, the singularity, longtermism, colonizing Mars, transhumanism, and how inequality impacts our society. As Becker writes, “The fact that our society allows the existence of billionaires is the fundamental problem at the core of this book. They’re the reason this is a polemic rather than a quirky tour of wacky ideas. Without billionaires, fringe philosophies like rationalism and effective accelerationism would stay on the fringe, rather than being pulled into the mainstream through the reality-warping power of concentrated wealth.” - Silicon Valley’s Scary New Cult Religion: TESCREAL, with Rev. Otis Moss III and Dr. Emile Torres (The Nerd Reich Podcast, Link to Youtube Episode)
Gil Duran hosts a conversation about the new techno-religion sweeping Silicon Valley: TESCREAL: a fusion of Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Long-termism in this episode of his Nerd Reich podcast. As Duran writes, “This episode exposes how these ideologies promise utopia but often mask colonial mindsets, moral blind spots, and a dangerous disregard for human dignity. From the quest for digital immortality to space colonization dreams, these techno-beliefs are shaping a future that may sacrifice the present, exclude the marginalized, and idolize technology over love and ethics.”
Other Things I Find Interesting
- The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine (Adam Bonica, On Data and Democracy, Link to Article)
The fact that Democratic Party leaders have allowed this firm to rip off small donors is another reason we need to replace all of them. More steps need to be taken to protect the people who want to donate to candidates and organizations fighting Donald Trump—and not filling the pockets of consultants gaming the system. - PragerU's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad History (Seth Cotlar, Rightlandia, Link to Article)
We need to be watching PragerU closely because it is clear they are trying to replace real historical analysis with lies designed to make MAGA happy. As Cotlar writes: “PragerU is hardly the first outfit to pump ideologically-slanted pseudo-history into the public sphere and they won’t be the last. But it is incumbent upon those of us who actually do care about getting the history right that we call out mendacious bullshit when we see it.” - Concentration Camp Duty, The Last SS Guard (Johannes Böhme, Die Zeit, Link to Article)
Gregor Formanke is likely the last SS guard who will be indicted by German courts for Nazi-era crimes. Formanke was indicted at the age of 99, accused of being a guard in Sachsenhausen and being an accessory to 3,322 murders.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“Indeed, there’s good reason to think that it’s effectively impossible to put a self-sustaining human civilization on Mars (at least, not without radically restructuring human biology, which may also turn out to be impossible). The radiation levels are too high, the gravity is too low, there’s no air, and the dirt is made of poison. There are many other problems with this idea, and it’s one of the simpler ones involved in these visions of the future." (Adam Becker, More Everything Forever)
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On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump instigated a violent insurrection against the United States government. Here’s a video from the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol that one can review if their memory fades.
People were hurt and police officers died protecting the Capitol. Vice President Pence and other elected officials just barely escaped danger. Our national streak of peaceful transfers of power ended.
It was not, as Trump claims, a “day of love.” And we must resist his efforts to rewrite the history of that dark day.
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