Are these evangelists a product of the American Enlightenment or has this kind of zealotry always been a part of Christianity?
>>1193502
Those people are scam artists.
>>1193589
Only half true. The rest are actual zealots. It's a lot like socjus in that regard.
>>1193589
I don't see anything monetary in it for them though. From what I can tell, all they do is travel around making scenes in public forums.
>>1193601
They're related to Lawyers and want to make a giant fucking scene so one of them can get hurt by a person who had it and decks them.
>>1193502
>or has this kind of zealotry always been a part of Christianity
No, they used to be suppressed until Protestantism ruined everything.
>>1193502
Yes and no. Zealotry is always apart of any given belief system but in the United States these people came from the 1st and 2nd Great Awakenings.
Here is an example sermon from the 1st Great Awakening.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=etas
Pic Related
>>1194801
That's not actually true. The person you're referring to, St. Augustine, significantly changed the interpretation of the Bible. He did this under the influence of two people, namely the Persian prophet Mani, who believed that evil could not be defeated in this world, and Plato, who believed that the Ideal represented a higher reality, leading Augustine to the conclusion that the Bible is more of a representation of man's inner spiritual nature, which resulted in him viewing much of the Bible as a metaphor for change within the believer himself.
However, early Christianity had none of these beliefs. Early Christianity very prominently believed in a cosmic battle between good and evil, and that the final battle was upon us. Jesus' ministry very prominently promotes this eschatological vision of the world, which makes the current American evangelicals much closer to early Christianity than Augustine was
>>1195494
Early Christianity is in no way close to being American Evangelical. They followed Augustine's Platonic tendencies, have practices and beliefs that would be in contradiction to them and actively utilize allegory and typology in Scriptural intepretation. They also not into Sola Scriptura
>>1193502
This particular style you're depicting are a result of the "Radical Reformation", but there have always been fervent believers in any type of spiritual understanding.
>>1193601
The family that started that shit are all lawyers. They do these demonstrations to create a scene, hope somebody does something, then they proceed to press charges.
>>1195558
This is correct. While there is some amount of belief behind what they say, the real metagame is the lawsuits.
>>1193502
>Are these evangelists a product of the American Enlightenment or has this kind of zealotry always been a part of Christianity?
They're distinctly American. All of the Great Awakening sects are, whether they're from the first or the fifth.
t. American.
Bumpkins who desire some kind of frenzied paranoia to give their lives meaning.
>>1193502
This asshole always comes to my university in the fall.
