I read an essay by a christian a while ago that pointed out that the separation of church and state wasn’t about protecting the state from religion - it was about protecting religion from the state.
The gist of the argument was that religion should be concentrating on the eternal, and politics, by necessity, concentrates on the immediate. The author was concerned that welding religion and politics together would make religion itself political, meaning it would have to conform to the secular moment rather than looking to saving souls or whatever.
The mind meld of evangelical christianity and right wing politics happened in the mid to late 70s when the US was trying to racially integrate christian universities, which had been severely limiting or excluding black students. Since then, republicans and christians have been in bed together. The southern baptist convention, in fact, originally endorsed the Roe decision because it helped the cause of women. It was only after they decided to go all in on social conservatism that it became a sin.
Christians today are growing concerned about a falloff in attendance and membership. This article concentrates on how conservatism has become a call for people to publicly identify as evangelical while not actually being religious, because it’s an our team thing.
Evangelicals made an ironically Faustian bargain and are starting to realize it.
I think it helps with clarity in conversations to recognize explicitly that we’re not talking about Jesus-a-person-who-existed-and-did-things, but rather a Jesus-concept. Whether or not there was a historical Jesus (for whatever that means), what we normally discuss is the mythological Jesus. Some might believe that the mythological Jesus is literally true, but they still rely on interpreting a series of writings to create a cohesive narrative. There are multiple narratives currently co-existing, ranging from Jesus-as-hippie to the ever popular “If Jesus had an AR-15 he wouldn’t have been crucified.”
Personally, I’m agnostic as to the existence of a historical Jesus, in no small part because it’s so poorly defined as a concept. But we can say in all of the things written about what Jesus said or did (or in the case of Paul the things Jesus never said but would have if it had occurred to him), multiple narratives and interpretations exist, and all cite the same source material to prove their point.
“You will be condemned unless you love me, no matter how much objective good you’ve done” seems like a morally dicey proposition. It’s not even repentance, per se, that triggers forgiveness. Judges in courts can take remorse into account. That’s not what this Jesus-concept is offering. Instead, it’s a “worship me as a god or die” position, outside of the framework that considers anything Jesus says as automatically good by definition.
The biblical Jesus was just as much of an asshole as the people writing about him were.