is Trumpism helping or harming the position of Christianity in America?

[LD0506]

Yeeeeaaah, trump, that's the problem.....<eyeroll>

 

 

 

https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-tells-telethon-that-viewers-can-speed-jesus-return-through-donations-1633172

 

[The Sisko]

On 8/12/2021 at 4:08 PM, China said:

What a shyster.  How long before he ends up in jail again?

 

 

There you all go again, persecuting poor, innocent God-fearing Christians.

 

[China]

Evangelicals Scrambling to Oust Belief in Trump as Congregations Are Torn Apart

 

In an extensive piece in the Atlantic, former George W. Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner explained that some evangelical leaders are picking through the wreckage of their congregations that were torn apart by the influence of former president Donald Trump.

 

Wehner, a highly vocal Christian, has been no friend of Trump and is worried that the Christian faith has been damaged by the embrace of the one-term president by high-profile evangelical leaders which, in turn, has left some congregations in tatters as Trump supporters drag his politics into the daily church dealings.

 

Case in point, he notes, is a battle at a Virginia church where congregants were influenced by Trump’s toxic rhetoric.

 

“The election of the elders of an evangelical church is usually an uncontroversial, even unifying event. But this summer, at an influential megachurch in Northern Virginia, something went badly wrong. A trio of elders didn’t receive 75 percent of the vote, the threshold necessary to be installed,” he reported before pointing out that “… church members had been misled, having been told, among other things, that the three individuals nominated to be elders would advocate selling the church building to Muslims, who would convert it into a mosque.”

 

According to Wehner, David Platt, the 43-year-old minister at McLean Bible Church had already been facing accusations ” … by a small but zealous group within his church of ‘wokeness’ and being ‘left of center,’ of pushing a ‘social justice’ agenda and promoting critical race theory, and of attempting to ‘purge conservative members.'”

 

As Wehner explains, what happened at McLean Bible Church is not an isolated event.

 

“What happened at McLean Bible Church is happening all over the evangelical world. Influential figures such as the theologian Russell Moore and the Bible teacher Beth Moore felt compelled to leave the Southern Baptist Convention; both were targeted by right-wing elements within the SBC,” he explained. “The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian faith.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PleaseBlitz]

Jesus was pretty woke for the first century.  

[tshile]

First they came for the Jews …

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Barry.Randolphe]

Evangelicals are so far gone down the rabbit hole

[China]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

Millennials lead shift away from organized religion as pandemic tests Americans’ faith

 

It’s not uncommon for people to seek God during times of hardship. However, the opposite appears to have happened in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

A Pew Research Center survey, released earlier this month, found 29% of U.S. adults said they had no religious affiliation, an increase of 6 percentage points from 2016, with millennials leading that shift. A growing number of Americans said they are also praying less often. About 32% of those polled by the Pew Research from May 29 to Aug. 25 said they seldom or never pray. That’s up from 18% of those polled by the group in 2007.

 

“The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing,” said Gregory Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center.

That trend is pushing an increasing number of faith leaders to try to engage with millennials on their own turf.

 

“I use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, stories, all sorts of things to go to where people are, and that’s where a lot of young people are,” said the Rev. James Martin.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PleaseBlitz]

7 hours ago, China said:

“I use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, stories, all sorts of things to go to where people are, and that’s where a lot of young people are,” said the Rev. James Martin.

 

I read the whole article and it is all over the place.  That said, the overarching point of the article seems to be that the retreat from religion stems from a failure to package the underlying message in a way that overcomes the obstacles laid down by the pandemic.  That is totally wrong as evidenced by the fact that people were leaving churches in huge numbers far before Covid.  People aren't retreating from religion because it isn't doing a good enough job of meeting them where they are, people are retreating from religion because the underlying message is extremely flawed, does not provide most people with anything they can't get somewhere else, and membership in a faith community is no longer a social requirement.  Religious groups can put their message on all the social media they want, but that's not going to solve the fundamental problem of trying to sell a ****ty (and expensive) product.

[China]

 

[China]

Hipster Megachurch in Shambles Over Pastor’s Alleged Affair

 

When volunteers at Venue Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, arrived at their pastor’s house last November, they were hoping to raise his spirits with a surprise visit. Instead they got a shock: Pastor Tavner Smith was alone with a female church employee—she in a towel, he in his boxers.

 

The charismatic 41-year-old hurriedly explained that the two of them had been making chili and hot dogs and gotten food on their clothes, according to one volunteer who was present. But, as the volunteer put it, “I don’t think none of us was that dumb.”

 

“If she dropped chili on her clothes, why are you in your boxers?” she recalled thinking. “Was y’all like, throwing chili at each other?”

 

For the volunteer, the scene confirmed something she had long suspected—that Smith, then married with three children, was secretly carrying on an affair with the employee, who was married to another church staffer. Smith has denied any affair took place, but rumors about it have nonetheless led to something out of a daytime soap opera, involving two divorces, one secretly recorded video, and the departure of nearly all the church’s full-time staff.

 

And former staffers, members, and volunteers told The Daily Beast they are still struggling to come to terms with the maelstrom that left one of the country’s fastest-growing mega churches in shambles.

 

“Everyone used to say, ‘Venue is a cult, Venue is a cult,’ and I was like, ‘No, it’s not,’” the volunteer who witnessed the chili incident told The Daily Beast. “And now as I look back I’m like, ‘I don’t think I was in a Godly place.’”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The Seeds of Political Violence Are Being Sown in Church

 

On Thursday night in Castle Rock, Colorado, a group called “FEC United” (FEC stands for faith, education, and commerce) held a “town hall” meeting that featured a potpourri of GOP candidates and election conspiracy theorists. Most notably, the event included John Eastman, the Claremont scholar who authored the notorious legal memos that purported to justify the decertification and reversal of the 2020 election results.

 

During the meeting, a man named Shawn Smith accused Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold of election misconduct. “You know, if you're involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang,” he said. “Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.” 

 

“I was accused of endorsing violence,” he went on. “I’m not endorsing violence, I’m saying once you put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned.” As soon as he said, “you deserve to hang,” an audience member shouted “Yeah!” and applause filled the room. You can watch the moment here. 

 

The moment, almost entirely ignored by the national media, is worth noting on its own terms, but perhaps the most ominous aspect of the evening was its location—a church called The Rock. 

 

If you think it’s remotely unusual that a truly extremist event (which included more than one person who’d called for hanging his political opponents) was held at a church, then you’re not familiar with far-right road shows that are stoking extremism in church after church at event after event. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Christians argue First Amendment doesn’t protect Satanic Temple as they try to cancel it

 

The Satanic Temple held a convention over the weekend in Arizona, and Christian conservatives took a break from demanding religious exemptions to the law and arguing that refusing to spend money at businesses is “cancel culture” to protest the convention, call for a boycott of the hotel hosting it, and argue that the government should shut it down.

 

The Satanic Temple isn’t a religion in the sense of having a set of beliefs that it imposes on followers. Instead, it’s a group of people who organize as a religion and use humor to “highlight religious hypocrisy and encroachment on religious freedom.”

 

And Satancon, which 350 people attended in Scottsdale from February 11 to 13, did just that. Turning Point America founder and rightwing pundit Charlie Kirk argued that the First Amendment doesn’t protect Satanists. Since the convention was held on private property, he appeared to be calling for government intervention to shut it down.

 

“Satan Conferences should not be protected by the First Amendment,” Kirk wrote. “Satan Worship is not what the Founders had in mind when they referenced the ‘fruits of liberty.'”

 

Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves pointed out that Kirk usually considers himself an advocate of free speech. But it appears that his point of view changes as a function of what is being said.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[mistertim]

The idea that right wingers are for free speech and religious freedom is laughable. They are for making sure only their free speech is protected and their religion is protected. All other speech and religions can get ****ed and are actually viewed with hostility. 

[China]

Pastor Greg Locke says he’s being threatened with death, hexes and sex toys for exposing witches

 

Pastor Greg Locke, who exposed the presence of suspected witches at his church in recent weeks, says he’s being threatened with death, hexes, sex toys and glitter bombs for preaching about deliverance from evil.

 

Locke, the leader of the Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee, has been preaching about deliverance at his church for the last two months. On Sunday, he referred to his latest series as the most “dangerous message” he’s ever preached.

 

“The most dangerous message I’ve ever preached is the message of deliverance in the name of Jesus Christ. It’s caused more anger; it’s caused more pushback, it’s caused more threats, more evil, it stirred up more problems,” he said. “It’s done more to hurt people in our church — meaning that friends and family have forsaken them.”

 

Locke revealed one man recently "promised to come to the tent and slice my throat and to kill me," while others have sent sex toys and glitter bombs in the mail.

 

"Everybody is mad about the thing I said about calling out witches," he said. "They are real. They know they’re real. They’re not hiding the fact that they’re real. It’s just that the Church is too unbiblical and ignorant to recognize witchcraft, sorcery and spells and curses when they see them. We literally got a box the other day that said it was from my mom that was full of all kind of crystals and hexes and vexes and curses.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Die Hard]

10 minutes ago, China said:

 

"Everybody is mad about the thing I said about calling out witches," he said. "They are real. They know they’re real. They’re not hiding the fact that they’re real. It’s just that the Church is too unbiblical and ignorant to recognize witchcraft, sorcery and spells and curses when they see them. We literally got a box the other day that said it was from my mom that was full of all kind of crystals and hexes and vexes and curses.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

This is also the dude that was screaming hysterical hexes to rid the world of COVID right?

 

Ok, he doesn’t use crystals…. He uses a microphone. But I know a witch when I see/hear one.

[China]

WHY DARWIN-HATING CHRISTIANS ARE HUNTING FOR A “LIVING DINOSAUR” IN THE CONGO

 

DEEP IN THE CONGO BASIN, HAVING TRAVELED 100 KILOMETERS UPRIVER TO THE NKI NATIONAL PARK IN CAMEROON, WILLIAM GIBBONS HEARD A STRANGE SOUND: A GUTTURAL BELLOW CUTTING THROUGH THE SWAMP’S SILENCE.

 

Gibbons was convinced this was no ordinary creature’s call. And indeed, this was no ordinary zoological expedition. It was an expedition to find something barely anyone else in the world believes exists.

 

Gibbons is a cryptozoologist — a person who pursues beasts thought to be mythological by most, including the scientific community. The most famous cryptid is probably Big Foot, but cryptozoologists also seek out other legendary creatures like the Loch Ness Monster or chupacabras. Gibbons and a small number of other cryptozoologists share another belief that makes their searches even more remarkable: Young Earth Creationism.

 

Young Earth Creationists are Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible’s six-day creation story. They believe the world is around 6,000 years old and that humans and dinosaurs once occupied the Earth at the same time.

 

The quest to prove this reading of the Bible is right is no idle stroll in Jurrasic Park.

 

For Gibbons and other Young Earth Creationist cryptozoologists, finding a flesh-and-blood, living, breathing dinosaur would not only be a scientific triumph but, they hope, could bury Darwin’s theory of evolution and prove their beliefs right. (Gibbons did not return multiple requests for an interview but has written extensively about his expeditions — these texts help form the basis of this story.)

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LD0506]

^^ Not enough facepalmin wow in the emoji universe to react to that one

[Larry]

What's really the stupidest thing about this guy?  Is that he thinks if he finds this creature, it will prove that he's right. 
 

When the reality is, even if he finds it, all that happens is that he found a species we didn't know about. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

 

 

[Bang]

Who is locked down?
Is she calling for prison riots in the name of Jesus?

 

~Bang