President Biden told a Democratic lawmaker and members of his Cabinet after the State of the Union address that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they will need to have a ā€œcome-to-Jesus meeting.ā€

Bidenā€™s comments, captured on a hot mic as he spoke with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) on the floor of the House chamber, came after Bennet congratulated the commander in chief on his speech and pressed him to keep pressure on Netanyahu over increasing humanitarian issues in Gaza.

  • mkwt@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Itā€™s American specifically. ā€œCome-to-Jesusā€ evokes the tent revival culture that started in the second great awakening in the 1830s and continues to the present day.

    In the tent revival culture, an itinerant preacher will ride into a (typically small) town and pitch a tent for about a week or two (or more). They then attempt to ā€œreviveā€ the faith of the townspeople by preaching intensely for several hours at a time, sometimes for multiple times per day. In typical Christian fashion these services will include multiple invitations to literally ā€œcome to Jesusā€ by publicly confessing sins and professing faith before the whole group, thereby becoming born again. Regular church goers are expected to attend revival sessions every night when theyā€™re in town.

    Everything about the tent revivals evokes imagery of the early Christians in Acts and the epistles. Large crowds and mass conversions. That sort of thing.