yeah exactly. there’s no standard we could use that’s any better than the religious infighting and attempting to apply one is probably just participating in that infighting.

I don’t disagree with your point more generally, but I do think there’s a fairly basic theological argument to be made here that if people are using worshipful language toward a human, in a religious context, they aren’t really in line with any major Christian practice backed by theological argument. Least not any that I’m aware of.

I might be remembering wrong and mixing up Catholicism with Christianity more generally, but I don’t think it tends to promote worshiping somebody on earth as like a god. Even prophets.

So like, whether it’s “true or fake” Christianity is maybe the wrong framing. It’s more like, is this something that has historical precedent and theological belief behind it? Or is it simply a personality cult with a Christian aesthetic?

It might be interesting to ask, at what point does organized religion cross over from being an institution that is trying to maintain a theological foundation, to being little more than a vessel of where culture and political winds are blowing. In that context, I’d say the current Catholic Church more fits the first one and US Protestantism more fits the second one. Not to say the Catholic Church isn’t influenced by surrounding political power in various ways (some of which are very bad influences), but just that it seems more interested in sticking to a strict, unified foundation than the dispersed sects of Protestantism. Which can be good or bad. Not being locked into a strict theological foundation can leave more room for positive adjustment of interpretation. Or it can leave more room for this kind of cult of personality stuff, or like the seed faith bullshit.

p.s; In The Roman-Catholic Church, the figure of the Pope acts as arbiter of the faith,which is also a reason for which Christianity has had such “structure” throughout it’s existence (the pope came into existence a bit before the “fall of the western roman empire”; 476 d.C)

i agree with the points you pronounce: The thing with the terms “Christian” or “Christianity” is that they are only a general identifier that affirms that one regards Christ as the Messiah, so a “true christian” can be a catholic, as it can also be a lutheran, as it can also be a calvinist. The argument of a denomination not being “truly christian” varies in base of the most popular interpretation of the faith within that specific culture/region. Mormons would be considered heretical since they deny the divinity of Christ. (for the majority of Christianity, which follow the Nicene Creeds) It’s also important to notice that the faiths of different peoples always have influenced other faiths, and so it is virtually impossible to discern an “original” or “true” religion in any and all case. idk if im yappin too much here but i really like talking about historical theology and philosophy lol

I really think that whether someone is a “true” or “fake” Christian does not really matter. When a U.S. soldier commits standard U.S. atrocities, there are those quick to call them “not a true American”. When the haute-bourgeois inevitably become crony, there are those quick to call them “not true Capitalists”. When a Christian follows charismatic leaders, or advocates for war in Iran, or gets rich off of televangelicalism, being a “true Christian” doesn’t really matter, because what drives them is their material conditions. I do not think of things simply existing quiescently, I think of them as living, moving objects like in Hegel’s philosophy.

For instance, in Vol 1., Ch.3, note 45 of Capital, Marx writes:

Henry III., most Christian king of France, robbed cloisters of their relics, and turned them into money. It is well known what part the despoiling of the Delphic Temple, by the Phocians, played in the history of Greece. Temples with the ancients served as the dwellings of the gods of commodities. They were “sacred banks.” With the Phoenicians, a trading people par excellence, money was the transmuted shape of everything. It was, therefore, quite in order that the virgins, who, at the feast of the Goddess of Love, gave themselves up to strangers, should offer to the goddess the piece of money they received.

A better way to think about people acting impiously is not simply to assume the Devil got hold of them, but understand that they acted in their class interest. Avowed atheists, Muslims, and other non-Christians will act more in line with the Bible than some self-proclaimed Christians, and vice versa, precisely because of secular reasons. This is why wars of religion are not caused by clashing religious beliefs, but by people with different material interests cloaking themselves in religious fervor to achieve their class ends.