Random links about religion

Years ago, evangelist Billy Graham established an Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability to oversee church finances and ensure everything was on the up and up. Now they’re adding a new standard, that boards are watching over church leaders’ integrity. Which seems like an excellent idea given church leaders perform plenty of sinning and boards often do nothing. And more sinning. And. And. Nevertheless, Billy Graham’s son Franklin has withdrawn the Graham ministry from the ECFA over the new rules. As Slacktivist says, “When somebody literally runs away from accountability, you’ve got to ask why.”

“To James, “the world” refers to the systems and structures and Powers That Be that deny the worth and humanity of those orphans and widows, the aliens and the poor. To be polluted by the world is to accept what “the world” tells us about them — that they don’t matter, that their distress is just how it is or, even worse, that their distress is what they deserve.”

“This is how we conquer the hatred and prejudice of the world: not with an eye for an eye, but with an inundation of love.“

Oklahoma state Senator Dusty Deevers, a self-righteous theocrat misogynist, who unsurprisingly thinks separating church and state violates his rights. I guarantee if a Christian America embraces some version of theocracy that doesn’t fit Deevers’ beliefs, he’ll be screaming about tyranny. The same for theocratic creep Joshua Haymes who claims “liberalism is a greater threat to the US than neo-Nazism, and that the Bible is “pro-Ice raids”. On X, he has also advocated for capital punishment for adultery and abortion, and appeared to call for the drowning of LGBTQ+ Pride marchers.” If your religion thinks liberals are worse than neo-Nazis …

Homophobic hatemonger Tony Perkins is optimistic the Necrotic Toddler he reveres will convince Americans dictatorship is good.

“Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) … Miller wrote on X that the man, Giani Surinder Singh, “should never have been allowed” to lead the prayer and called for Congress to uphold the “truth” that “America was founded as a Christian nation.” George Washington would like a word.

Is there a difference between Christian leaders and D&D dungeon masters?

“The Civil Rights Movement and the brief Second Reconstruction it produced were not about sex, drugs, and rock & roll.”

What Johnson, Deevers, Perkins and other believers in theocracy don’t admit or don’t grasp: “the establishment of one, official state religion might inhibit the freedom of those not belonging to the One True Official Sect, but they don’t perceive how such an establishment also fundamentally alters the relationship of members of that official sect to their own church — requiring lockstep assent to its official doctrines and practices as set forth thereafter by its official and legal enforcers.

The establishment of any sect casts suspicion on all members of that sect. Coerced belief is belief that cannot be trusted. Coerced belief, therefore, will never be trusted — it will be dis-trusted, inspected, codified, measured and forced to demonstrate its loyalty and legitimacy time and again.”