Bretton

Okay, so now that we've seen Pastor Tim with some Karl Marx in his house, please, showrunners, don't suggest in any way that his worldview and/or congregation are in any way of the ilk of Evangelical/Christian conservatives. Because, if there's one thing no conservative Christian pastor would be caught dead with in the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, it'd be a book by the father of communism. I'm okay with Tim being a far-left Christian leader, just make sure you're consistent with that narrative and all subtle flags supporting it from here on out.

Did someone say they were?

The question around "which passages" is largely irrelevant. Being "conversant" with the Bible and seeing it as a be-all-end-all "answer book" for daily living are two very different things. If you're liberal, and conversant with the Bible, you see it as more of a historical text that outlines a trajectory for moral behavior. It's not seen as a once-and-for-all rule-book depicting ethical absolutes. No one is saying that ONLY conservative Christians open and read the Bible. But we ARE saying that how you view the text varies greatly depending on your idealogical presuppositions - regardless of which passages you're reading. And, as such, as a general rule, liberal Christian don't gather for weekly Bible studies, because the Bible itself doesn't hold the same absolute authority as it does for conservative Christians.

1.) Remember the twist when we learned the kid was the one that killed his (Russian agent) parents and sister? I'm left wondering what twist might be in store for us this time around. Could it be the Russians are staging the story about wheat to cover their own internal ineptitude at feeding the Soviet populace? 2.) Kinda strange to find a thread where the women are commenting sexually about one of the male characters rather than the other way around. You don't see that too often. So, to offer a little balance, E sure looked hot in the cowgirl routine. ;)

Right on, Sister Magpie. If someone's looking for an episode where Paige or Tim claims the earth is 10,000 years old, it won't be found. But the circumstantial flags are plentiful. The looking to the Bible for answers; the focus on personal prayer; Tim's comment to almost strangers that they do good things with a whole lot of Jesus thrown in - or something to that nature... all of these are flags for a conservative congregation. The casual observer or one with limited experiences in these kinds of Christian contexts might not pick up on these cues, but for others, those signs definitely stand out.

I never said the church was meant to represent a particular denomination. But as Sister Magpie pointed out, a show, if it wants to be taken seriously, has to base these things in 1980s American reality. For the record, I've been to non-denominational churches too. And almost always they tend to towards the conservative end of the spectrum - both socially and scripturally. You VERY rarely get some dude or dudette who's liberal, who decides to go start up his/her own church. I guess this bothers others less than me because not everyone has that degree of experience in actual American Christianity. But, for the record, once people move towards a more liberal leaning on scripture reading, and on salvific claims of particular deities, their spirituality evolves towards a more universal love vibe. And once that's happened, they rarely feel the need to go and start a church, per se - though they may very well decide to express their spirituality in other personal or organized ways. There do exist universalist churches, of course. Although they are in the extreme minority. And more importantly, to my original point, I never claimed liberal churches don't exist -- mainline churches are perfect examples of churches that evolved theologically while holding onto to themselves organizationally - to the point where a particular belief about Jesus or the Bible was no longer central or even important. HOWEVER --- the issue with Tim and his church is that he's a contradiction that doesn't exist - or almost never, anyways - in that the church is flagged as BOTH scripturally conservative AND socially progressive. And again, that almost never occurs - even less so in the 1980s. If more Tim-like non-denominational Evangelicals existed, for instance, you would have had a whole lot support for someone like Bernie Sanders than you did Donald Trump in the last election. And how did that work out?

Exactly! My point is not that Tim's church is NOT socially progressive. Clearly it is. But wherein lies the problem is the fact that Tim ALSO puts an emphasis on conservative Bible reading and the central importance of Jesus as providing potential salvation for otherwise lost souls. Those are two different kinds of churches. And I say this having spent my teens and twenties in a broad array of American churches - from conservative Baptist, to both conservative and liberal mainline, to Russian Orthodox and Catholic, to charismatic/Pentecostal. None of the churches I've ever experienced resembled Tim's pastoral perspective. Also, Paige has come across as a bit of a sexual prude - not surprising based on her church affiliation. So, at the very least, she should have been a little offended by her mother's off-hand comment about sex being no big deal. Elizabeth and Paige have had VASTLY different contextual teachings around sex. And, in a real-world scenario, that would cause a clash. ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that Paige, as a teenager, thinks she knows everything there is to know, and that all problems in the world stem from adults not living up to some abstract, black and white ideal.

As much as I love this show (and it really IS my favorite show in the history of television), I still find it's depiction of Paige's religious experience really unrealistic. Not long ago she was a die-hard Jesus-freak, and now she's dating a guy who's not only not part of her church, but who's showing no interest in God whatsoever? I just don't buy it. She would, at the very least, feel conflicted - VERY conflicted. And re: sex, she would have a whole different perspective on that having been indoctrinated in a Christian youth group the previous year. Now, if her religiosity was just a phase, that died out when Pastor Tim fell to earth in her eyes, then the showrunners should have made that much more abundantly clear. Religious devotion is not something that wears off overnight like a temporary tattoo. My frustration with the lack of reality behind the religious angle began with Tim and his totally unrealistic church. As I mentioned last season, churches in America tend (and almost always are) either scripturally conservative or socially progressive. They are very rarely both. Even Elizabeth said she liked how "left wing" the church was. The thing is, in real-world America in the 1980s, a church that really pushed the importance of Jesus and reading the Bible, as Tim did, would be very unlikely to be socially progressive. The worst line of the entire show -- and again, I LOVE this show -- was when Tim said, regarding what really matters: "... how we treat each other" I rolled my eyes into moon orbit. No - and I mean NO - pastor who went around preaching the importance of Jesus and the Bible (i.e. who was religiously conservative) would be caught dead saying something like that. In fact, conservative Christian pastors would have railed against such an idea - even going so far as to say "it doesn't matter AT ALL how we treat each other, unless you're saved and going to Heaven". Sorry, but on this point, the showrunners simply can't have their cake and eat it too. Not if they wish to maintain an air of believability. Okay, rant over. Carry on...