It's been rightly said that Christian fundamentalism is more a political movement anymore than a religious one. This began in the 1970s and gained steam in the 1980s with the Pat Robertson presidential campaign, the rise of Moral Majority, etc. Also, something many don't realize, it was during this period that the assertion that life begins at conception and abortion is evil, was invented pretty much out of whole cloth. Google "doctrine younger than a happy meal" for a classic essay on the topic. No less than Christanity Today, founded by Billy Graham, used to debate whether fetuses are persons yet or not. The whole rationale for anti-abortion, anti-choice, retrograde social policy did not exist two generations ago. It's a recent development, in terms of the sweep of history.

The fundamentalism I was raised in considered politics to be beneath its lofty concerns, as a pointless "worldly" pursuit that was best left to god, who had everything "under control". The real solutions to the world problems were personal and theological in nature. If more people were "saved" and had a "relationship" with Jesus, the world would automatically right itself. We focused on proselytizing for the faith. Political involvement was just another form of the dreaded "social gospel", the notion that fixing society in political and practical ways was somehow a substitute for the glorious Gospel of Truth.

Things have totally flipped now, especially since the Tea Party and Trumpism have been ascendant. Evangelicals are now the greatest apologists and enablers of these movements, and the fringes of fundamentalism are, as they always have covertly been, the primary enablers and apologists for white nationalism and xenophobia and racism. Indeed the forbears of modern fundamentalism provided cover for slavery when that was under debate and conflict in the Civil War era.

So we have the spectacle now of evangelicals supporting "grab 'em by the pussy" Trump, openly supporting Roy Moore for Alabama Senate a couple of years ago when he was credibly accused of child molestation, and generally excusing all manner of personal perfidy and bad character in the service of obtaining Supreme Court justice appointments. And why, pray-tell, is that a priority? Google "RJ Rushdoony", Dominionism, and "Christian Reconstructionism" to see what underlies that priority. And to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. The Handmaid's Tale is a prescient cautionary tale from the 1980s that could well come to realization in some form if they get their way and impose the Christian version of "Sharia Law" on us -- that being Old Testament law.

That's why the election in a few days may be our last chance to turn the tide sustainably away from this sort of ideology. IF we get a majority in the house and preferably the Senate and keep working like hell to hold onto it for a few more cycles and the GOP collapses into a smoldering, discredited ruin, we MIGHT forestall this from happening. If we don't ... well, I'm not optimistic anymore.

We saw the movie First Man the other day and it left me in tears remembering what it was like living in America, for all its problems, in the late 60s, and the alien thing America has turned into. The world used to see us as a beacon of hope, and however starry-eyed and misbegotten that was in ways, compared to what we are now, we actually were.

I think the worst early Christians might have been accused of was passive-aggression. But Christian behaviour changed with the Emperor Constantine and has been quite murderous in proportion to its political power. I think you're quite right about Jesus being crucified by these people.