Tag Archives: religion

The title comes from a G. K. Chesterton quote: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it’s been found wanting and never tried.

It’s true in the sense that for most of Christianity’s history we’ve not even tried to live up to the standards set by our faith. However it also comes close to the “no true Scotsman” argument that the ugly behavior of so many Christians is not real Christianity.

I’ve become quite jaded about my faith over the past few years. Seeing the religious right are even more disgusting than I used to think. The long list of church officials engaged in sex crimes (and the churches that turned a blind eye). The conviction that contrary to Jesus if they gain the world but lose their soul, that’s a win. Their refusal to break with the Necrotic Toddler on any point —and then whining when they’re criticized over it. Even if they assume the Toddler is doing god’s work in some fashion (most obviously ending Roe) it doesn’t follow everything he does must be godly — King David was god’s anointed but the Uriah-Bathsheba business was not.

Their view of religious freedom is very much “freedom for us, not for others.” It’s perfectly fine for them to punish LGBTQ individuals based on their religious views but pro-immigrant Christians should remember we separated church from state — their views don’t count.

Then there’s Minneapolis, where the Toddler’s ICE storm troopers have imposed a state of siege. It’s bad, and people have suffered horribly, like a five-year-old ICE kidnapped from Minneapolis to Texas without telling his family And ICE claims that they are not bound by the Fourth Amendment. And now a second murder (more here) and Kristi “Nazi” Noem lying about it. I’d say more but I don’t think I have insights that haven’t already been said.

Despite which, Minnesotans are refusing to submit and give in, including a number of Christians. Here’s one example: “Ben, 17, and Sam, 16, donned warm hoodies, said goodbye to their parents and piled into a well-loved sedan. Cranking the engine, they skirted a wild turkey that stalks their yard and headed out to find U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”

On the other side, a pastor prays God will smite Minneapolis for defying ICE.

One pastor at Cities Church (which seems to be creepy right-wing patriarchal) turns out to be an ICE official. It seems a numbe rof people are fine with a Christian leader being in charge of such non-Christian behavior but they’re horrified people disrupted church services to protest. As noted at the link, it’s unlikely any well-behaved protest would have done better. JD Vance, for instance, complains that people should confine themselves to writing letters to the editor or talking about things on social media — not anything that would stir things up.

Switching to another topic, a Catholic racist discusses online how he only takes communion from white people, then brags that he goes to confession about it, therefore his shitty sins are forgiven (that is not, from what I’ve read, how confession works). Fred Clark suggests what the dude wants is absolution without repentance — someone to assure him he’s not one of the bad racists, even as he continues being racist. Hindu extremists are trying to turn the case into a tool for competing nationalism.

Clark again: “White evangelicalism has been captured by the Republican Party and vice versa, but neither variant of the merged product encourages or permits what Dad once believed about what it means to “look American,” or about who is and is not “precious” in the sight of Jesus.”

To wrap up, here’s a story from last year about how New Orleans’ football team helped the local Catholic Church’s reputation management after the abuse scandal became public.

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.”

The religious right have stated, and shown by their actions, that they’re giving the Felon a mulligan on everything he does wrong. Corruption? Rape? Collusion with Russia? Attempted coup? They ain’t sayin’ nothing, and as noted at the link, don’t think they should be judged for it. Of course they don’t — the one thing they can’t stand is being criticized by people they imagine are their moral inferiors (I’ve often thought part of the FOTUS’ appeal for them is that he whines about persecution as much as they do).

The rationale they’ve given is that even if the Felon is a bad man, God can work through bad men to achieve divine ends. Look at King David: a flawed man who sent Uriah off to die in battle so that he could bang his wife Bathsheba. Didn’t God use David to achieve greatness just the same? Cyrus the Great, the Persian emperor who restored the Jews to Israel also gets held up as the same sort of monarch.

The first problem with this, as right-wing misogynist Matt Walsh once said (possibly the only time I will ever agree with him on anything), is that the prophets of Israel did not give David a mulligan. They called him out on his sins, demanded he repent and warned him there would be a price to pay. The religious right won’t call the Felon out on anything; I’m sure they’re aware they’d lose their access and influence the first time they bruised his snowflake fee-fees. Nor will they ask him to repent (he claims he has nothing to repent for). And he’d go ballistic if anyone, including God, suggested there would be consequences for anything he’d done.

Instead, the religious right tongue bathes and adores Trump for helping them punch down at LGBTQ people, women and POC. And I’m sure some of the billionaire megachurch preachers love the big tax cuts. They’re closer to the court prophets of Ahab (a baaad king) than servants of God. Plus some of them are outright frauds.

Second, Tony Perkins and the other court prophets are just restating an old, old principle of politics: it’s okay when our side does it. Scream like hell when the other party’s candidate is caught having an affair, get defensive when your side does it. It’s not a universal law — Democrats are more likely to crack down on sexual harassers in their party than Republicans are — but it’s not unique to the religious right.

The trouble is, they want it both ways: they should be given a pass on pragmatic politics because that’s how the game is played but they also demand everyone regard them as principled champions of moral principles. They used to call for having godly candidates in office, now they don’t care, but they still get pissy about being judged.

When I posted on Facebook about the first newspaper reports about the Southern Baptists turning a blind eye to predators in pulpits, a Catholic friend of mine exploded: how could this paper attack Christianity like that? Don’t they realize we are all sinners? I’ve seen other Christians play that card, but they never apply it to people on the opposite side of the political aisle. Nor do I fancy the Felon’s prophets would appreciate being told that as they’re no better than anyone else, they’re in no position to opine on morality.

The King David defense is not a good one. If the religious right wants to gain a kingdom of this world, they should expect to be judged accordingly.

“At least 10 individuals have made sexual abuse or sexual misconduct allegations against Rivera, who is now on trial in Kane County, Illinois, on charges of felony sexual assault and predatory abuse of a victim under 13 years of age. Rivera also faces charges for two felony counts of criminal sexual assault of a separate alleged adult victim. 

Ruch is on leave after admitting he made serious mistakes in handling the abuse allegations against Rivera, including failing to initially tell members of the Upper Midwest Diocese about those allegations.”

“This constant reminder that “you were foreigners in Egypt” is not only a bit of persuasion. It’s also a threat. You were foreigners in Egypt and you were mistreated, despised, and oppressed. You remember that. And you also remember what happened to Egypt because of it.” — Slacktivist on Christianity and immigration.

“From religious communities to therapeutic spaces, the importance of forgiving those who’ve wronged us is often enshrined as an unqualified good. But what about horrifying cases of abuse, predatory behavior, or systemic wrong? Too often, when predators or abusers are exposed, the chorus comes immediately: “What about forgiveness?” In these cases, forgiveness places the onus on victims, diminishes real hurt and anger, lets perpetrators off the hook, and prevents justice from being done.”

Also from Slacktivist, on the same subject: “And as for “Heaven Has a Gate [and] a Wall,” well, yes, the vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation does include a wall and a gate — twelve gates, actually. And here is what it says about that: On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.”

“The liberalism on which the United States was founded in the late 1700s came from the notion—radical at the time—that individuals have rights and that the government generally must not intrude on those rights. This idea was central to the thinking of the Founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence, who put into the form of a mathematical constant—“we hold these truths to be self-evident”—the idea that “all men are created equal” and that they have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as well as the right to live under a government of their own choosing. ” — Heather Cox Richardson (yes, her substack letter also discusses religious freedom)

“From the pulpit to a prison cell, 37-year-old Demiro Rick Johnson will be 71 years old when he is released from prison and required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his natural life, according to court documents obtained by The North Carolina Beat. On Friday, a judge sentenced Johnson, a now–convicted child sex predator for the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl, whom he referred to as his “spiritual daughter” and who had attended his church.” Yes, it’s true predators and rapists exist in secular environments, but when the right wing starts pretending Christianity will elevate our moral discourse … well, it doesn’t.

See also: “A Triad pastor was charged with groping a man at Walmart, according to officials with the Mebane Police Department. On Monday, around 9 a.m., officers with the Mebane Police Department responded to the Walmart, located at 1318 Mebane Oaks Road. Jeffrey Smith, 67, was arrested and charged with one count of misdemeanor sexual battery. According to the arrest warrant, Smith was accused of approaching a man at Walmart and “touching the victim through his clothing.””

“These new leaders instead anticipate that the church will have to fight like (and against) hell to bring God’s kingdom to the earth, because Satan and his demonic minions will never cede the world without a fight. Victorious eschatology is optimistic about the future, but that optimism is premised on its adherents’ willingness to bring spiritual war to all non-Christian culture.”

Rep. Mike Johnson talks a lot about his Biblical worldview and his Christian morality. But he’s fine providing cover for alleged sex-trafficker Matt Gaetz.

In The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann argues that a true prophet sees the weakness of the established order and visualizes a new future, an unimaginable, better future. In the modern world, for example, Martin Luther King called out the rottenness and injustice of segregated, racist America and visualized the possibility of equality.

As Fred Clark says, JD Vance and the Republican Party can’t imagine anything but going back to the past: “As skeptics and critics of liberal democracy, what is it that they want to see liberal democracy replaced with? What’s their innovative big new idea? The short answer is they don’t have one. They want to see liberal democracy replaced with what came before it. That’s a problem because everybody hated what came before it. Everybody.”

Liberal democracy hasn’t made for a perfect world? Let’s get back to the era of national churches and religious power struggles that the First Amendment rejected.

No-fault divorce sometimes leads to bad outcomes? Get back to the days when battered wives were trapped in their marriages.

Do black families have problems? They’d all disappear if we went back to Jim Crow days.

Are their problems in schools? Get back to the days of imposing Christianity onto students. And if teachers don’t spout the “right” religious lessons, they’ll be punished. All to fight a non-existent state-sponsored atheism (pissed-off Christians have been equating freedom of religion (for other people) to atheism for decades).

Is the push for a more equal, more just society creating tension? Just stop trying and tell the Israelites to be content as slaves in Egypt.

It’s easy and comforting to imagine the past as a Garden of Eden. To suggest all we need to do is reverse course and head back there. It can’t be done — and the past Republicans want wasn’t Eden for anyone but WASP men. What we have to do is find a way forward to the New Jerusalem. It’s harder but the results will be better.

As I’m using so much religious language, let’s follow up with some religious links.

Conservative megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress says the fire that damaged his church was the work of Satan. Of course, if it had been a liberal church, he’d have been discussing how their pro-gay or pro-Harris positions brought down God’s wrath.

Case in point, John MacArthur (another megachurcher) thinks Biden’s administration is God’s judgment on America. While I would never suggest a prominent Christian preacher was a full of shit, MacArthur thinks Martin Luther King was not a Christian because racial equality isn’t Christian. So yeah, he is full of shit. Hateful shit.

Another case, Eric Metaxas complaining that ministers who don’t preach support for his politics will face divine judgment. Kandiss Taylor, flat-earther Georgia Republicans, wants executions.

“This is who James Dobson has always been. It is who all of the “religious right’s scary, judgmental old men” have always been. It should not be possible for anyone observing James Dobson in 2017 to be disappointed, because it should not be possible, in 2017, to have still retained any illusions about Dobson’s morality or honesty.”

“He’s a grifter with a bad case of the shut-eye — a snake-oil salesman who drinks a full case of his own bogus formula every day.” — Slacktivist Fred Clark on Roy Moore.

According to Trump court prophet Tony Perkins, “tolerance is not a Christian virtue.” Except tolerance for himself.

Here a Christian groomer, there a groomer, there another predator. And another. And another. As a Christian, I find this a useful reminder why putting the Ten Commandments or bringing back prayer in schools are not magic bullets that will make us all more moral.

“This is the guy who responded to Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” by saying that civil rights leaders needed to “put the brakes on a little bit.” — from a post about putting up a statue of Billy Graham.